101–110 of 487 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? It’s definitely more profitable that way, but maybe so is the targeting in the article.
> Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? Because car insurance isn't employment, is separately regulated, and does not exclude gender from permissible inputs into actuarial calculations.
Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…
I know the example you're offering is a step removed from that ("I want to tune my ads to maximize ROI, but if a woman sends me a resume and is a good fit, I won't discriminate") but the problem with disparities is no individual actor is incentivized to buck the trend, which assists in perpetuating it. That's at least the logic why the government steps in and changes the incentives and why such intervention is warranted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For your examples of intent vs actual net targeting, it is not unreasonable to expect that an employer check the actual results of their targeting selections and ensure that they produce sound results. "what is the underlying criteria that supposedly separates job listings from product listings?" It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law. If you want to employ someone, you MUST give equal opportunity, and cannot…
> “It is called Equal Opportunity Employment Law.” Sorry I was not clear about this. I meant what are the sociological / philosophical reasons. Legal reasons get created at the whim of lobbying or party politics and don’t usually have much to do with protecting the welfare of people (even though they can selectively serve that purpose after the fact).
Are you asking why it's bad to discriminate against women, foreigners, and older people in hiring?
it's called ad targeting. If the govt. wants to pay for those low converting clicks/impressions, then i'm sure they, these employers, will be glad to serve ads to everyone.
Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…
If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. I think your logic is flawed. What you are not taking into account is that when you advertise, you ask…
Let's say a lot of people in software agree with you. I think they're wrong, but that doesn't matter. Here's the thing: When we analyze hiring, we often act like it's some kind of two-person game:
You place ads, interview people, select the best person, make them an offer, and boom, you're done.
But it isn't a two-person game. It's a market, and you're actually competing with all the other hiring companies, just as the candidate is competing with all the other people you interview.
Under the circumstances, I suggest you crack open a copy of "Moneyball." The worst ROI is when you overpay for people who aren't actually great performers, but everyone is pattern-matching, and these people have the superficial attributes of a great hire.
Those people get more offers than good performers that don't have the right gender or didn't go to the right school or whatever. And it's expensive and hard to hire them.
Meanwhile, there's this woman over here, and that trans person over there, and that self-taught person over there, and so on, and so forth, and they are all cheap to hire because you have less competition for them.
Not only that, but if everyone is using hacks to save money by not advertising to them, it's easer to reach them. It costs less to advertise to them, and the qualified ones are more likely to click on your ads.
If you buy my Moneyball analogy, the highest ROI goes to those who can ferret out signals of hireability that are contrary to what the "market" uses.
You might still not want to use FB to reach qualified women, maybe it sucks for that, but you ought to ask, "How can I find those qualified women, everyone else's discrimination is my opportunity."
In which case, if you don't like the ROI on using FB to reach women, instead of thinking that advertising to women sucks, you should be brainstorming how to effectively advertise to women.
If you figure it out while everyone else ignores women, you win.
If there were different ads for different groups but everyone still had the opportunity to see, apply and acquire the position then it's fair game.
Perhaps Facebook could improve job ads to allow for more specific targeting but always have a fallback ad in that campaign for any non-targeted users. This would help employers without excluding anyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “It’s not cost efficient” isn’t a valid reason to discriminate against people, if you ask me. It's literally the perfect reason to do discrimination. It is just like discriminating for having work experience, education, demonstrably market skills, etc.
We have decided as nations and societies that some forms of economic discrimination are too damaging to permit. The details vary, but typically the things we can't easily change: race, nationality, age etc. Such discrimination is generally outlawed. Someone lacking relevant market skills or education etc can go out and fix that.
Not really, if they lack economic resources, have dependents, have low IQ, low grit, or lots of other reasons.
Ultimately it comes down to what parts of a person you think they are 'responsible for' and what parts they aren't. You're saying that someone being a certain skin color isn't something they should lose opportunities for, but it's okay if they do so for being too dumb to complete and advanced education, even if they were born that way.
My point isn't that you're right or wrong about either of these, but that if you really dig into this you'll find that any such narrative supporting an egalitarian notion that 'people ought to be equal' collapses with a few simple questions about genetics, free will, parenting, intelligence, and other such topics. Nobody gets an equal shot at anything.
Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the user did ask why it's legal, I think it's clear that the question is "why is it /ethical/ to discriminate in this case and not that?". Saying that Law X exists answers the literal question, but not the implied actual question.
But no one said it is was ethical in the case where it is legal, so if that was the intended question, not only is it phrased wrong but it starts from an unsupported premise, to wit, that people in the discussion believe that one is ethical and the other not.
The simple question is: Does everyone have an equal opportunity to this position or not? If you can't even see the ads then the answer is no, and so it's a violation. If there were different ads for different groups but everyone still had the opportunity to see, apply and acquire the position then it's fair game. Perhaps Facebook could improve job ads to allow for more specific targeting but always have a fallback ad…
Do these cases involve advertising positions that are not listed elsewhere? Because obviously no company can afford to reach everyone who might be interested in a position. I would agree that selective advertising would be much more of a problem if the positions are not listed on employers' websites.