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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

#101

Post by lawnchair_larry »

karpierz wrote: post #92
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point I was making is that your argument seems to be inconsistently applied. It would seem that it’s equally wrong to adjust anyone’s time just because one person felt cheated for forgetting to remove a 20lbs weight from their own neck.

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

#102

Post by tuna-piano »

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.

I think there's a certain part of the population (generally on the left from what I've seen) that is so deep in an ideological bubble that they cannot believe that reasonable and legitimate alternate perspectives exist. When countered with fair and legitimate points, they unfortunately wish to exit conversations.

This is just a fun little an online message board and I do not wish to criticize the poster who accused me of being in bad faith (whatever that means). However, I don't believe I said anything improper, even if it was jarring to their world view.

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

#103

Post by amluto »

TheGrim999 wrote: post #19
amluto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by being as racist as it's possible to be. Even if someone were to hire someone else solely because of the color of their skin, this would be nowhere near as racist as it’s possible to be. Hint: people are being killed because of the color of their skin right now. People in the US used to buy people in large numbers because of the color of their skin.

I know this will be hard to accept, but no matter how many people tell me that minorities are being killed because of the color of their skin, I've noticed that not a single one of these people ever include any facts or data to back up that claim. Sure, black people are killed by police. So are white people. So are people of every race. All the actual data I've seen is that black people are killed less frequently, in…

I’ve noticed that, in defending your previous claim that affirmative action is as racist as it’s possible to be, you’ve chosen to dispute that police killings of black people are racist, but you’ve chosen to ignore legalized slavery. genocide, lynchings, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, WW2 interment, etc.

Affirmative action absolutely could be construed as racist, and one can reasonably debate whether it’s ethical or effective, but regardless, it’s nowhere near as racist as it’s possible to be.

(I left the Holocaust out of the list above because I bet you’d reply either that there is insufficient evidence that it happened or that it wasn’t racist per se.)

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

#104

Post by karpierz »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #101
karpierz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point I was making is that your argument seems to be inconsistently applied. It would seem that it’s equally wrong to adjust anyone’s time just because one person felt cheated for forgetting to remove a 20lbs weight from their own neck.

Yes, if racism were something people could choose opt out of, my argument would be inconsistent. But I'm not sure how that's relevant?

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

#105

Post by jeffdavis »

rukittenme wrote: post #85
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…

I think the GP would use your source to prove his point as well. An absolute disparity of 2.8x but it does not consider the level of violent crime a particular racial category commits. Your source also suggests unarmed white people are nearly twice as likely to be shot than unarmed Hispanics. Doesn't that contradict the narrative of racist motive by white police? I have to wonder how many people were killed by police…

If you go to the WaPo database:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...

And select 2018, you'll see a total of 991 people killed by police. If you also filter by race, you'll see that 229 were black and 454 were white. I'm using 2018 because it's the most recent year with good FBI stats to compare to.

According to the FBI, were 14123 murders in 2018:

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

For blacks and whites, it looks like most murder victims are killed by a member of their own race:

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

That table is excluding a lot of cases where there is missing information (that's why the numbers don't add up to 14123). It shows 2600 blacks were murdered by blacks out of 6570 murders with enough information to be included in the table. If you were to extrapolate to 14123 total murders, then you would estimate 5589 blacks were murdered by blacks in 2018; and 5754 whites were murdered by other whites in 2018.

That means blacks in 2018 were over 20 times as likely to be murdered by another black as to be killed (justifiably or not) by a police officer (black or white). Whites are about 13 times as likely to be murdered by another white as killed by a police officer. Note that "white" include latino in these numbers, but it doesn't look like the number of latino murders is high enough to have a major impact on the overall analysis (though feel free to dig in to that as well).

I'm not passing any value judgement here, but the data do seem to paint a different picture than the simplistic view of a racist police system. I conjecture (and am open to evidence that supports or refutes this claim) that the vast majority of problems blacks face in the U.S. happen long before risky police encounters, so police reform is unlikely to be very impactful by itself. In fact, there is a major risk that it will be counterproductive, if reform causes police departments to be less effective at their jobs and allow criminals to do far more damage.

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

#106

Post by lawnchair_larry »

WesternStar wrote: post #100
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was…

Have fun in your stubborn ideological bubble. I hope one day you are more open to other perspectives.

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

#107

Post by jeffdavis »

perl4ever wrote: post #97
Avicebron wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 sid…

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

How would you explain people who empathize strongly with the images that we've all seen on TV... but then look at the numbers a week later and realize that the narrative of police violence against blacks is highly misleading.

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

#108

Post by jayd16 »

whatshisface wrote: post #2

What's the end goal here, to have people hired "because they are black?" I guarantee that will happen if there is money to be made by doing it.

I could probably respond in several ways but I think I'm the most curious about the economic angle here.

What if there is no money to be made or lost but a certain group is simply worse off? What if fairness lowers GDP? Does that mean it should be abandoned? Without even getting into what the realities are, I'm trying to understand what you're saying here.

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

#109

Post by perl4ever »

jeffdavis wrote: post #107
perl4ever wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sid…

"But they are withholding that same empathy from the people who are on the other side of police interactions." How would you explain people who empathize strongly with the images that we've all seen on TV... but then look at the numbers a week later and realize that the narrative of police violence against blacks is highly misleading.

I haven't been watching TV for ages, but I've had interactions with the police over the years that demonstrate the difficulties that come with a lack of trust on both sides.

There doesn't have to be a specific amount of violence in order to prevent dialogue and trust in a community. It's much more significant where and how it's applied. When people are punished for trusting in the authorities, then it's a huge multiplier of the criminal activity that the authorities then blame on the community.

I recently learned something interesting about corruption in my state, not directly related to the police, but about how corrosive it is when people are punished for trusting the system. In NYC, rent is regulated in various ways. One thing is that, if a landlord wants to raise rent, they can justify it with a certain dollar amount of renovations, but they may fraudulently inflate that amount. If you are a victim of that and about to be evicted because your rent was doubled, then you can sue in housing court. However, whether or not you have a good case and win, it will be on record that you sued and the authorities subsequently sell access to the data to interested parties, which means, essentially, that if you exercise your rights you will be put on a blacklist and it will be difficult going on impossible to rent anywhere. Now, this sounds like some activist's tendentious characterization, but this idea that the government effectively runs a blacklist came from court documents. The courts are cognizant this is how the system works, and to some extent they try to compensate for it, by for instance granting injunctions to stop eviction early on.

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

#110

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

Avicebron wrote: post #69
Natsu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird that people act like this is the only solution to correct past injustice, too, when there's a much simpler racially-neutral method. You just help all disadvantaged persons equally. Inasmuch as any particular identifiable group is thereby disadvantaged, they're disproportionately helped by this neutral method. If only people of race X were poor, then helping all poor people would be isomorphic to helping al…

Yeah it's a weird contortion of the mind that a vast majority of people are willing to make. Like the issue is poverty and opportunity, for every race, but no, suddenly there is this disproportionate rush to be "anti-racist" by being racist, it's so obviously orwellian 2+2 = 5 i'm surprised it hasn't been made the headline of every major media

Most people aren't smart enough to think these types of things through, instead of just following the crowd. So cheaters get to put in policies that high income people from non-white races can game while continuing to oppress poor people from all races in the name of "social justice".
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