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SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

reuters.com

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Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#71

Post by TaylorAlexander »

Thorentis wrote: post #12
somedude123 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. Systematic racism is very much real in the United States, putting minorities at a disadvantage exactly because of the color of their skin - socioeconomic background and upbringing aside. Affirmative action, and presumably this effort by SoftBank, is intended to address that.

As far as I can see, this doesn't exist in the tech world (any more). Most Fortune 500 companies go out of their way to hire minorities, even if they are less qualified. Colleges do the same. Minorities are not disadvantaged purely for their skin color in the tech world. They are disadvantaged because of their worse financial/education situation. And my point is that these traits that effect people in tech are not li…

You say that you do not see racism in the tech world. If it isn't happening to you, it can be very hard to see. Just as I did not see the sexism in the tech world until the James Damore essay blew up at google and we finally prioritized listening to women's stories. And then (after a lot of personal work I did with the help from my caring female friends) it became clear.

So perhaps you do not see racism because you've assumed its not happening, and because it's not happening to you? From what I know about racism (as a white person), it must be impossible that the tech world is simply free of racism. It's just hard to see when you are not the victim. The answer I've found is to listen to people of color when they say they experience racism. Don't challenge each assertion, take it to be true and then look further for corroborating stories. You will find them.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#72

Post by nostromo »

baddox wrote: post #59
nostromo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what if someone is giving special opportunities to someone based on their skin color, or their gender? Because it’s racist.

No. Racism in its broadest, widely-accepted usage, refers to the treatment of people based on the belief that one race is superior to another. This program, as far as I can tell, makes no claims about any race being superior to another race.

Here’s a thought experiment:

A black man and an Asian man rob a bank together. They are caught, charged, and found guilty of the same crime.

The black man is set free because his race is over-represented at the local jail, but the Asian man serves 8 years in prison.

Because nobody is saying someone is superior to another person here, the above example is not racist and totally fine, in your definition of racism. Even though it is obviously deeply unethical and unfair.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#73

Post by donw »

apendleton wrote: post #16
Thorentis wrote: post #2

Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds. I'm sick of the hypocrisy o…

> Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies…

I have a question, just because I don't know if there is data on this.

I've seen a bunch of studies on things like "stereotypically-african-american-name" vs "stereotypically-white-name", which are good evidence as to why a good hiring process should remove personally-identifying details from resumes.

Not just the name of the applicant, either -- school names and locations can also introduce unfair biases. Company names are unavoidable, I think: there are only so many companies that fit the description of "Social Network, Global, >10k employees, uses lots of Javascript" or "Privatized Intelligence Service, Global, >100k employees, uses lots of Go".

Buuuuuuut... is there research on what happens when you expand the number of dimensions?

E.g., add in a mix of broad cultural backgrounds (Pan-European, Latin, Arab, Chinese, African, etc.), test different raraties ("Smith" is common, "Chaucer" is rare, both are Anglo)

Does "Victoria Henderson" garner a statistically different response to "Vitalija Herrera" (Anglo vs Lithuanian)? What about "Nyala Aregawi" vs "Nadya Ahane" (Mixed Russian-Japanese)?

What happens when we mix in popular fictional names?

Solid bet there are boys out there named "Thor" and "Bilbo" by parents that are fans of Star Wars.

No idea what actual outcomes might be, the data could yield interesting results on hiring biases.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#74

Post by joewadcan »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds. I'm sick of the hypocrisy o…

> I'm sick of the hypocrisy of people saying "Black people aren't more likely/less likely to x, it's their education/family/etc. that affects them" ... and then immediately turning around and giving help to people based on their skin color, rather than these other traits.

In your imaginary world we should stop considering race all together. Logically that'd be "fair" right? But what about the million of POC who have been denied jobs, education, houses, etc who exist NOW today and have been set back from centuries of disenfranchisement. Is it fair to them? We don't get to turn back time, so initiatives like this at least attempt to help a group of people who've sorely been needed from the evolution of startups. This is a GOOD thing. More diverse folks means change. If you feel like it's "taking away" from your opportunity, maybe you should examine that a bit.

> While not a majority, many POC work for FAANG companies. Are they eligible for this money purely because of their skin color, but disadvantaged people of any color are not?

oh no, you found an edge case - better throw in the towel. If it can't be simplified into a single test then the whole thing shouldn't exist right? /s

Consider how hard you have to work to justify your line of thinking. Maybe the simplest answer is that you're wrong.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#76

Post by baddox »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds. I'm sick of the hypocrisy o…

There should be programs that endeavor to compensate for the inequities between socioeconomic background, family situations, etc. And indeed there are such programs. That’s not mutually exclusive with the need for programs like this one. They should all exist.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#77

Post by baddox »

donw wrote: post #73
apendleton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies…

I have a question, just because I don't know if there is data on this. I've seen a bunch of studies on things like "stereotypically-african-american-name" vs "stereotypically-white-name", which are good evidence as to why a good hiring process should remove personally-identifying details from resumes. Not just the name of the applicant, either -- school names and locations can also introduce unfair biases. Company na…

I don’t know if there is such evidence, and while it could be interesting to know just out of curiosity, it doesn’t strike me as particularly valuable to test the impact of adding additional irrelevant information to job applications.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#78

Post by _hardwaregeek »

Thorentis wrote: post #2

Limiting initiatives like this based on skin color, implies that the reason for them needing help is their skin color. What about white people that come from low-socioeconomic backgrounds? Broken families? Didn't finish high-school? Abused as a child/teenager? Single parent family? Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? People of all colors come from these backgrounds. I'm sick of the hypocrisy o…

People in all countries get measles. Should we help every country equally? If, gasp, there's a rich kid in Pakistan who may get a free measles vaccine, is that evidence to stop fighting measles in Pakistan?

White families have ten times the average wealth versus black families. Putting aside the significant mountain of evidence racial bias in hiring, in tech, in basically every facet of life, that single statistic should be evidence enough that more funding is necessary for minorities.

And what hypocrisy? You can say that black people are not inherently different but face different circumstances due to societal problems. That's not hypocrisy. That's simply acknowledging that race plays a factor in nurture but maybe not nature.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#79

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

blackoil wrote: post #44
neximo64 wrote: post #29

I hope the venture fails. It's just racism under another name.

A person snatched stick of a blind man and threw it, another helped him cross the street. Both treated him differently because he was blind. Only one of them was asshole.

Try this argument the next time someone calls you racist for assuming all Asians are good at Math.

Maybe the blind guy did not want to be patronizingly helped with crossing the road. Maybe he would have asked for help if needed it and could have done without a sighted knight.

If these arguments sound perverse just swap out some other 'issue' and they will start sounding familiar.

Re: SoftBank launches $100m minorities startup fund

#80

Post by baddox »

luckylion wrote: post #60
apendleton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't these the real reasons why people are disadvantaged? No, or at least, not exclusively. There's tons of social science research in which, for example, two identical fabricated resumes were submitted for a battery of jobs, differing only by, say, a headshot of a black vs. white person, or a stereotypically-African-American name vs. a stereotypically white (or not-obviously-race-signaling) one. In these studies…

> No, or at least, not exclusively. But primarily, right? Bias plays a role, so everything else being equal, a black applicant will receive fewer callbacks than a white or asian one, but (and that's a big but) the primary issue is that usually not all other things are equal. The average black person comes from a different socioeconomic background than the average white or asian person, so they'll usually not have the…

> Yeah, sure, a black guy from a rich family that attended MIT will have a harder time finding funding than his white or asian friends from the same background ... but he'll have a much easier time than some white kid from a broken home.

Even if your claims are supported by evidence, why is it a bad thing to want to correct that disparity? The fact that there also exist other disparities in the world doesn’t seem like a good reason to oppose correcting one particular disparity.

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