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Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'

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

#81

Post by catalogia »

numpad0 wrote: post #75
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.

Calling out normal people for terrible choices they make is just bragging your own ethics seen from your own standpoint

It was not my intention to call out anybody (I don't think the person I responded to was angry, so there was no call-out here.) Anger is something I used to have a lot of trouble with. At one point, somebody took me aside and explained that anger is something I can control, if I have the will to do so. That's a favor I try to pay forward.

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

#82

Post by alexashka »

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?

> Like when someone performs a racist act, how should we respond in a modern society?

You'd first have to define what a racist act is and who gets to decide that it is so.

We have a working system for these matters - legislative and judicial branches of government.

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

#83

Post by cal5k »

komali2 wrote: post #78
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we were doing fairly well moving towards a single 'human tribe' for the first part of my life, and that 'Racist' was such a powerful label because it was tantamount to putting the human tribe secondary to some sub-group. I'm not sure how or why, but it feels as though a large swathe of the intellectual class betrayed the project by changing the definition of racism from something an individual did, and co…

> to something one could be guilty of merely by benefiting from when someone else betrayed the human tribe. You may not be aware but this is a common alt-right strawman argument opposed to Black Lives Matter. The idea that all white people are vulnerable of being accused of racism simply because of their privilege. It's incorrect, and a strawman of the actual position, which is that silence aids the status quo. "Ther…

> You may not be aware but this is a common alt-right strawman argument opposed to Black Lives Matter.

Just argue the point. This kind of insidious smear-by-association is what I despise so much about the current state of public discourse.

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

#84

Post by foogazi »

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…

> People are free to live anywhere they want, but they still create those communities and prefer to live among their own kind

I disagree

In some some cities in California, a former mexican territory, there were property deeds that explicitly forbade selling to mexicans

Where do you think mexicans ended up living?

Then someone can come along and point and say look every race prefers to live among their own kind

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

#85

Post by toochini »

octaveguin wrote: post #33
joshribakoff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Isn't that horribly patronizing? I'd feel offended if someone treated me with kid gloves based on my skin color.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gFP4dJHJXoI

Couldn’t find the whole thing, but I agree it seems constantly talking about race leads to more racism and not less. Seems so opposed to the civil right movement stance against segregation.

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

#86

Post by foogazi »

Edmond wrote: post #57
jcims wrote: post #24

>Black people make up 13% of the US population, we are naturally in the minority. But in the tech workforce, we are missing. Among the top eight largest tech companies in the land, black people account for only 3.1% of the workforce Just raw extrapolation, this would indicate that (13-3.1)/13 or 76% of black folks in technology are either unemployed or not working in tech. Is that the case? If it is, then laying this…

Not sure where the author got his numbers from but if you read the full article, the author notes that the numbers/percentages themselves can be misleading, because that 3.1% could include the security guard who swipes your badge or some other peripheral role at a technology company. It is also true that Blacks do in fact quit the industry at high rates due to bias treatment; based on the number of computer science a…

> for instance you'll find much higher black representation in the public sector, specifically in the federal government

Do you know why that is? Maybe government work is more inclusive, like the military

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

#87

Post by mhoad »

alexashka wrote: post #82
mhoad wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Like when someone performs a racist act, how should we respond in a modern society? You'd first have to define what a racist act is and who gets to decide that it is so. We have a working system for these matters - legislative and judicial branches of government.

I feel like you're trying to look at this from a very abstract place where it is impossible to come to some all encompassing grand unifying theory and it feels like without that we shouldn't act until we have an answer to that question.

I'm asking a question that says in spite of not having a perfect answer when you are in a situation and you watch a friend do a racist act, what response if any do you think is appropriate? What if it's not a single act that might be considered racist but a whole string of them?

Do you think there is any kind of moral or social obligation to do anything or is ignoring it ok?

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

#88

Post by wrycoder »

komali2 wrote: post #78
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we were doing fairly well moving towards a single 'human tribe' for the first part of my life, and that 'Racist' was such a powerful label because it was tantamount to putting the human tribe secondary to some sub-group. I'm not sure how or why, but it feels as though a large swathe of the intellectual class betrayed the project by changing the definition of racism from something an individual did, and co…

> to something one could be guilty of merely by benefiting from when someone else betrayed the human tribe. You may not be aware but this is a common alt-right strawman argument opposed to Black Lives Matter. The idea that all white people are vulnerable of being accused of racism simply because of their privilege. It's incorrect, and a strawman of the actual position, which is that silence aids the status quo. "Ther…

Disengagement is a right, just as is engagement. Silence does not necessarily imply disagreement, but can serve to damp overshooting reactions.

Order is not orthogonal to justice.

Disagreement with methods should be fine, so long as a useful alternate path to the goal is offered.

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

#89

Post by konaraddi »

Edmond wrote: post #57
jcims wrote: post #24

>Black people make up 13% of the US population, we are naturally in the minority. But in the tech workforce, we are missing. Among the top eight largest tech companies in the land, black people account for only 3.1% of the workforce Just raw extrapolation, this would indicate that (13-3.1)/13 or 76% of black folks in technology are either unemployed or not working in tech. Is that the case? If it is, then laying this…

Not sure where the author got his numbers from but if you read the full article, the author notes that the numbers/percentages themselves can be misleading, because that 3.1% could include the security guard who swipes your badge or some other peripheral role at a technology company. It is also true that Blacks do in fact quit the industry at high rates due to bias treatment; based on the number of computer science a…

> specifically in the federal government...unfortunately that is not likely to be the source of the next great tech innovator

The federal government helps build and fund innovative research projects and private businesses. Notable examples include the Manhattan project, GPS, SpaceX, and the Internet. I’d bet the US government will continue to be a source, and assist other sources, of innovation.

Edit: The following happens to be on the front page at the time of this edit - “Why does DARPA work?” https://benjaminreinhardt.com/wddw

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

#90

Post by numpad0 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #63
networkimprov wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intending to overcompensate is an effective method to actually treat them the way you should treat everyone.

Eh, that only works if you have trouble treating people equally otherwise which is quite the character trait. That advice goes back to this idea that white people are born with the original sin of racism. I find it incredibly patronizing to actively pursue "okay, black guy is talking, let me me play everything up a little bit!" Yikes. Reminds me of kneeling to talk to a child in a baby voice when they're crying that…

I can’t stop thinking that ideas like GP is explaining is just a modernized racial segregation
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