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Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

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Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#91

Post by perl4ever »

Avicebron wrote: post #74
perl4ever wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in proportion to the violent crime they commit" This comes across as tone deaf when people are talking about victims who were not committing violent crimes. For example, allegedly passing a counterfeit $20. Furthermore, the violent crime statistics exist in the context of people not being able to trust the police, and to the extent they do, the police not doing anything in response to shootings. So it's easy to see…

This is ridiculous trying to pin the prevalence of violent crime in some communities as the fault of the police. What evidence supports this? Maybe you can say that violent crime is an offshoot of poverty, but a lot of poor communities don't have the same violent crime as others..so that's tenuous at best. The big experiment would be to reduce the poverty of all groups and see what happens to violent crime, maybe the…

Well, I wrote a comment and then I decided to delete it and start over, rereading what you wrote and studying it.

First you say it's ridiculous to blame the police.

Then you suggest poverty might be to blame, but you doubt it.

Then you propose the experiment of reducing poverty.

But you don't believe that's the cause! And I don't either. So it seems to me like you're not providing an alternative hypothesis to blaming the police.

I think in order to select evidence, two alternative hypotheses are a pre-requisite. And if you think the one is "ridiculous", then it implies you have another one. You just haven't stated it so I am aware.

Also, your last two sentences really bother me, despite being far from an expert in statistics. Do you think it's reasonable to say that correlation is symmetric, while causality is not? And how in general, do you think you resolve a chicken-and-egg problem where people dispute responsibility? It doesn't seem to me like the answer is simple or purely a matter of statistics.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#92

Post by karpierz »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #86
karpierz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that we shouldn't adapt our processes because people feel cheated. Just because you feel like someone didn't earn something doesn't mean much.

So you agree with the parent then, affirmative action and quotas should have never existed in the first place?

No?

If someone has to complete a marathon with a 20 lbs weight around their neck, I'm willing to adjust their time downwards to reflect that. I'm not going to avoid doing it because unencumbered runners feel cheated by it.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#93

Post by ikeyany »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #89
ikeyany wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that black people in America do not have the luxury of forgetting about race.

Consider that this is a lie being peddled both to black people and to white people.

Do you have a lot of life experience speaking with black Americans about this subject?

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#94

Post by jeffdavis »

john_moscow wrote: post #63
bmcfeeley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've brought exactly as many sources to bear in this conversation as the parent you've replied to, which is to say, none. When admonishing others for their lack of sources and making a counterclaim, you may want to consider providing the source yourself. As for sources of evidence suggesting disproportionate use of force against black persons, here's one to consider: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC608…

>Victims of fatal shootings by police were majority white, but disproportionately black. That depends on what you take as a baseline. I would assume that police shootings mostly happen in response to violent behavior. I couldn't find any data on the violent behavior, however there is an open FBI dataset on homicide offenders by race [0]. If you assume a correlation between the number of homicide offenders and the gen…

The table you linked is a little confusing because it's focused on the murders, but the offenders are more relevant to your point. It also excludes a lot of murders where information about the offender is missing, so the overall numbers seem too low.

The following table is more relevant:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

And here's the one from 2018:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

So your point stands: when you talk about "disproportionate", you need a baseline. If you choose the proportion of the general population as a baseline ratio, it looks like police violence disproportionately hurts blacks. But if you choose the proportion of known murderers as the baseline ratio, it looks like police violence disproportionately hurts whites.

Note that there is a subtlety here: the baseline ratio is simply a ratio to use as a comparison point. I am in no way implying that all people killed by police are known murderers. Nor am I saying the ratio of known murderers necessarily extrapolate to the number of justifiable-use-of-force incidents.

EDIT: I am really just saying the baseline expectation matters, and that the general population is not the only meaningful baseline. I am not saying which baseline is the "right" one. That depends on which specific policy you are considering.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#95

Post by Avicebron »

perl4ever wrote: post #91
Avicebron wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous trying to pin the prevalence of violent crime in some communities as the fault of the police. What evidence supports this? Maybe you can say that violent crime is an offshoot of poverty, but a lot of poor communities don't have the same violent crime as others..so that's tenuous at best. The big experiment would be to reduce the poverty of all groups and see what happens to violent crime, maybe the…

Well, I wrote a comment and then I decided to delete it and start over, rereading what you wrote and studying it. First you say it's ridiculous to blame the police. Then you suggest poverty might be to blame, but you doubt it. Then you propose the experiment of reducing poverty. But you don't believe that's the cause! And I don't either. So it seems to me like you're not providing an alternative hypothesis to blaming…

>And how in general, do you think you resolve a chicken-and-egg problem where people dispute responsibility

Not sure exactly what you mean here.

>Then you suggest poverty might be to blame, but you doubt it.

I don't necessarily doubt it, but I find it curious that there is not a universal poverty == violence.

I think reducing poverty is more of a solution than blaming the police, I apologize if I wasn't as clear with my statement on poverty.

My hypothesis is something like this: I doubt police cause violence in communities (except perhaps violence against police). There seems to be a correlation with poverty and violence, it's not universal. Picking a group based on skin color and saying "we reduce this poverty and not other kinds" is fairly immoral, therefore the experiment is to flatten the problem of poverty and control to see if there are spikes of violence across this flat plane and to see in which communities it occurs. That would help to isolate a potential root cause of violence. Other experiments could be done.

I'm pretty sure the causality is baked into most people not being an expert in statistic, hence "simple" statistics. If the police are running a really basic pattern matching algo, the line between correlation and causation may not be perpendicular. What I mean is that if the situation on the ground "community A has % higher violence" then in situations interacting with A implies higher chance of % violence. The causality is reached because of the simple understanding. At least that's my take.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#96

Post by tuna-piano »

WesternStar wrote: post #55
tuna-piano wrote: post #23

For those who don't read the article, here's a quote: "Unless you're only selling to white people, if I was at a firm I would want every point of view represented in the investment process" Is this how people view the world these days? Where skin color is important? I feel like I'm totally lost and saddened by this new race-focused world. Can someone please tell me when I can go back to caring about the quality of ai…

How fortunate you are to merely be "exhausted" emotionally. This isn't really a conversation about skin color its a conversation on how we treat each other and we happen to treat people with certain skin colors in ways that make their lives worse and in some cases more dangerous. Talking about it like its about skin is foolish. It's about behavior.

Who is this "we" that you speak of? What institution anywhere in the US treats people of certain skin colors worse than others? I know of many (including those referenced in the linked article), but yet all of them discriminate against whites and asians, not blacks and hispanics.

Why do you believe that racism is so widespread? If there is evidence of widespread racism among people and institutions, please share (the only evidence I've seen is some name-on-resume-callback studies that appear more to do with class than with race).

I'm guessing you believe that there is widespread racism because of disparate outcomes. But disparate outcomes between groups doesn't mean discrimination.

For example, Iraqi-Americans avg income $32k, Iranian $78k income. How many Americans even know the difference between those two peoples even if they wanted to discriminate?[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#97

Post by perl4ever »

Avicebron wrote: post #95
perl4ever wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I wrote a comment and then I decided to delete it and start over, rereading what you wrote and studying it. First you say it's ridiculous to blame the police. Then you suggest poverty might be to blame, but you doubt it. Then you propose the experiment of reducing poverty. But you don't believe that's the cause! And I don't either. So it seems to me like you're not providing an alternative hypothesis to blaming…

>And how in general, do you think you resolve a chicken-and-egg problem where people dispute responsibility Not sure exactly what you mean here. >Then you suggest poverty might be to blame, but you doubt it. I don't necessarily doubt it, but I find it curious that there is not a universal poverty == violence. I think reducing poverty is more of a solution than blaming the police, I apologize if I wasn't as clear with…

Logic and experience lead me to have an appreciation for how harmful and painful catch-22 or double-bind situations are.

When people are vocally backing the police at times like these, then I think it's obvious they are empathizing viscerally with the police who are subject to no-win situations, so they have that capacity for empathy.

But they are withholding that same empathy from the people who are on the other side of police interactions.

Have you ever been, in some sense, punished by someone with power or leverage over you, because you were less than trusting, and that made them distrustful or fearful of you? I tend to think this is common, whether or not it's exactly a conscious preoccupation for most.

There are things you can't explain, you have to demonstrate and/or experience.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#98

Post by WesternStar »

tuna-piano wrote: post #96
WesternStar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How fortunate you are to merely be "exhausted" emotionally. This isn't really a conversation about skin color its a conversation on how we treat each other and we happen to treat people with certain skin colors in ways that make their lives worse and in some cases more dangerous. Talking about it like its about skin is foolish. It's about behavior.

Who is this "we" that you speak of? What institution anywhere in the US treats people of certain skin colors worse than others? I know of many (including those referenced in the linked article), but yet all of them discriminate against whites and asians, not blacks and hispanics. Why do you believe that racism is so widespread? If there is evidence of widespread racism among people and institutions, please share (the…

I'm not going to pretend that you are arguing in good faith. Have a nice day.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#99

Post by lawnchair_larry »

WesternStar wrote: post #98
tuna-piano wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is this "we" that you speak of? What institution anywhere in the US treats people of certain skin colors worse than others? I know of many (including those referenced in the linked article), but yet all of them discriminate against whites and asians, not blacks and hispanics. Why do you believe that racism is so widespread? If there is evidence of widespread racism among people and institutions, please share (the…

I'm not going to pretend that you are arguing in good faith. Have a nice day.

You don’t have to pretend. It is quite obvious that parent is being sincere, whether you happen to agree or not.

Re: Want to Solve Venture Capital's Diversity Problem? Start with Pension Funds

#100

Post by WesternStar »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #99
WesternStar wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to pretend that you are arguing in good faith. Have a nice day.

You don’t have to pretend. It is quite obvious that parent is being sincere, whether you happen to agree or not.

Neither you nor he are operating in good faith. This is HN everyone knows how to use google. He is asking me to prove institutional racism exists. As though if he were to google "Institutional Racism America" nothing would come up. Ben and Jerry's has a page on it for crying out loud. His claim that institutional racism in America is hard to find beggars belief. Neither of you is acting in good faith. I refuse to waste my time.
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