Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired' • Hacker News Board

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#41

Post by ck425 » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

mhoad wrote: post #21

ck425 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's saying that discrimination in many forms is often - but not always - a side effect of evolutionary tribal tendencies and that if we don't take that into account when trying to reduce discrimination our efforts won't be successful. To me that sounds like realistic, if also extremely depressing, point. I'm optimistic though. We've been successfully living in larger and larger cultures throughout history an…

I want to be clear, I wasn't debating there was some truth to the idea that racism is that thing that you can tie to an evolutionary biological level around a fear of outsiders. But I guess it is the second part that you touched on here as well. When you say take that into account.. how specifically? Like when someone performs a racist act, how should we respond in a modern society?

It's a tough question and I don't know the answer. I think the current trend of aggressively calling out micro-agressions is counter productive. In cases where there was no negative intent, it's easy to alienate the person who made the faux pas by implying or outright telling them they are racist. That makes them less likely to change behaviour in future. We need to take intent into account and response with education over policing when possible.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#42

Post by staticautomatic » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

joshribakoff wrote: post #26

rootusrootus wrote: post #12

This seems like such a hard problem to really solve, since so much of what we consider racism, or at least borderline racism, has a significant basis in fundamental human thinking. I really feel for the guy, but it's hard to know where to start. I try really hard to ignore color, but I'm not immune to at least noticing . Then I try hard not to double-take. It's completely expected to meet Indians at the workplace, bu…

> I try really hard to ignore color One thing I was taught in anti-bias trainings at big tech companies was that trying to "ignore" color helps perpetuate biases. It is important that if an under represented co-worker speaks up, you pay extra attention, explicitly ensure their idea is credited to them, be vocal when you agree even if you otherwise would not, help others to understand their contributions, etc. Biases…

So, it’s important to treat them...the way you should treat everyone. True statement. I think you’ll need to elaborate further on what the philosophical and semantic difference is between ignoring and noticing, because the outcome is the same in your example.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#43

Post by snthd » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

France might be a bad example.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/t...

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#44

Post by etewiah » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

Here's my relevant anecdote:

I was working in a large telecoms company in Amsterdam when we had a problem with some hardware that needed fixed. Someone came over to fix it the next morning and after a few hours it still wasn't resolved. I then asked my colleague who had been with the technician if it was likely to get fixed soon. He said something about how terrible the technician was and that got me confused as my colleague wasn't a hardware guy and I didn't quite know how he had assessed the technician. I pressed him a bit more and he said something like "you haven't seen him have you"? Which made me wonder - so is there something about this technician which will make it obvious on seeing him that he is bad? No prizes for guessing the first thing I noticed about the man when I went down to the server room.....

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#45

Post by networkimprov » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #12

This seems like such a hard problem to really solve, since so much of what we consider racism, or at least borderline racism, has a significant basis in fundamental human thinking. I really feel for the guy, but it's hard to know where to start. I try really hard to ignore color, but I'm not immune to at least noticing . Then I try hard not to double-take. It's completely expected to meet Indians at the workplace, bu…

Re "borderline racism", I think xenophobia is the term you're looking for.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#46

Post by catalogia » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

Tronno wrote: post #31

catalogia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anger is a choice, at least to a limited extent. Managing ones emotions is a skill that can be honed with practice, if you're willing to make the effort. I don't say this to nitpick your point. I just think it's worth saying since some people may not realize they have a choice.

Managing one's emotions is a choice, experiencing them in the first place is not.

Managed vs unmanaged anger can be the difference between a rationality clouding typhoon vs the faint smell of rain on the horizon. The deleterious effects of anger are avoidable, usually anyway, with some effort.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#47

Post by davidgay » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

andreygrehov wrote: post #22

cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

Here is an interesting observation. If we take a look at how different nations are distributed across big cities, we can see that many neighborhoods are race specific. A lot of cities have chinese, jewish, russian, mexican, etc. neighborhoods, meaning that people _naturally_ want to live with _similar_ people. What's more important, it happens organically. It's not like some organization or government forces people t…

> _naturally_ want to live with _similar_ people

You are forgetting that those kinds of neighborhoods have developed in part because other people have taken mild-to-extreme steps to prevent "those" people from living with them.

Known steps in the US include at the very least: - rules preventing "those" people from living in some places - mild-to-extreme actions against "those" people when they move in - people leaving when too many of "those" people move in

I.e., "People are free to live anywhere they want" is completely wrong, even in living memory.

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#48

Post by 082349872349872 » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

cowboysauce wrote: post #30

cal5k wrote: post #3

This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…

In the United States, there were periods of time where Irish and Italian people were discriminated against. Yet today, the idea that an Irish people is part of the out-group and wouldn't fit in a workplace is completely out-dated. The Rwandan genocide was Hutus killing Tutsis, yet the distinction between the two was very arbitrary and in a lot of cases boiled down to "the Belgians liked your ancestors more so declare…

Emacs or vi?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilliput_and_Blefuscu

> The novel further describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs. Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the Present Emperor's great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to "six rebellions ... wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown".

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#49

Post by LudwigNagasena » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

> I am a Guinean citizen, who went to French school in Saudi Arabia, and now lives in California.

So he is not even African-American. I can’t understand why it is important to him how much people share skin color with him, he should feel as good as any other immigrant. Do even middle class Americans segregate themselves by race at work?

Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

#50

Post by ed25519FUUU » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

doopy-loopy2 wrote: post #36

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #27

The author hits on something really important. Many people who entered the field 10+ years ago are people who had computers as children. If you’re 30+ right now, that means your family had some means, because computers were very expensive up until pretty recently. Hopefully we’ll see the pipe really getting wide now, and many more people from many different backgrounds entering this excellent field.

Nope. My parents were refugees and arrived in this country with just the clothes on their backs. They worked factory jobs their entire life and never made much more than minimum wage. I scraped and saved to buy my first computer and teach myself about the internet. We were never given anything from anyone.

You sound exceptional in more than a few ways.