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Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

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Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't see how you've rebutted the study at all You're correct, I haven't rebutted the study. Again, I explained that it doesn't make the point he wants it to make. See first 2 paragraphs here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214917 >using voice changers on interview calls (come on) What I describe has already been done for gender: https://interviewing.io/blog/voice-modulation-gender-technic... And if resear…

Interviewing.io ran an experiment with voice changes, in part for the publicity value (that's not a criticism). Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? There's a bunch of other problems with what you're saying here (for instance, the idea that you can correct for ethnicity with a voice changer), but they're not interesting compared to this question.

>Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews?

No, I cannot. It seems that despite the big conversation about diversity in tech, people aren't very interested in practical solutions to reducing discrimination.

It comes down to the point I made about helping people vs ideological purification. Many people prefer the latter. This is the sort of left-wing extremism I referred to earlier.

To be honest, I think the main reason companies don't use voice changers is if they do, the ideological purifier types will go after them. Just in this thread you can see how upset you and DrewADesign got, after I suggested the idea.

>the idea that you can correct for ethnicity with a voice changer

If it can work for gender, why can't it work for race?

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviewing.io ran an experiment with voice changes, in part for the publicity value (that's not a criticism). Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? There's a bunch of other problems with what you're saying here (for instance, the idea that you can correct for ethnicity with a voice changer), but they're not interesting compared to this question.

>Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? No, I cannot. It seems that despite the big conversation about diversity in tech, people aren't very interested in practical solutions to reducing discrimination. It comes down to the point I made about helping people vs ideological purification. Many people prefer the latter. This is the sort of left-wing extremism I ref…

> If it can work for gender, why can't it work for race?

Because pitch/tone is different than ethnolect, and voice changers can obscure differences of the first but not the second.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviewing.io ran an experiment with voice changes, in part for the publicity value (that's not a criticism). Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? There's a bunch of other problems with what you're saying here (for instance, the idea that you can correct for ethnicity with a voice changer), but they're not interesting compared to this question.

>Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? No, I cannot. It seems that despite the big conversation about diversity in tech, people aren't very interested in practical solutions to reducing discrimination. It comes down to the point I made about helping people vs ideological purification. Many people prefer the latter. This is the sort of left-wing extremism I ref…

How "upset" I got?

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? No, I cannot. It seems that despite the big conversation about diversity in tech, people aren't very interested in practical solutions to reducing discrimination. It comes down to the point I made about helping people vs ideological purification. Many people prefer the latter. This is the sort of left-wing extremism I ref…

> If it can work for gender, why can't it work for race? Because pitch/tone is different than ethnolect, and voice changers can obscure differences of the first but not the second.

Women and men also use language differently. I doubt this is a big issue in practice -- you could mask the ethnolect using AI.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you've rebutted the study at all; you've argued that it would be possible to offset the racism in job applications by scrubbing names from resumes and using voice changers on interview calls (come on). But both of those interventions just mitigate the racism, they don't directly reduce it. Mewanwhile, you've just cited a totally unrelated (and widely dunked-upon) NYT op-ed as evidence for your positio…

>I don't see how you've rebutted the study at all You're correct, I haven't rebutted the study. Again, I explained that it doesn't make the point he wants it to make. See first 2 paragraphs here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34214917 >using voice changers on interview calls (come on) What I describe has already been done for gender: https://interviewing.io/blog/voice-modulation-gender-technic... And if resear…

The best way to put out a fire is to ensure that it doesn't start in the first place.

Racism stems from racist beliefs, and your approach to putting out spot fires ignores the raging wildfire that's spitting them out. Confronting the source of racist behavior, racist beliefs, is confronting the root cause of discrimination.

In the 90s and 00s, much of the anti-racism education consisted of the same things you'd cry "woke" about, but were instead called "politically correct". The education confronted racist beliefs, and engaged the how and why those beliefs were wrong, and gave students and intuition about why those beliefs were wrong when they encounter them in their lives.

CRT, for example, is nothing new. Anti-racism education in the 90s and 00s was direct implementations of the CRT school of thought that existed in the decades prior. At the time, the right-wing was losing their minds over how "PC" it was to say "African American", or to teach that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and not the fig leaf of "states' rights", or that they shouldn't say the n-word but black people can.

"Woke" is the new "PC", and the CRT that gets derided as "woke" is the same CRT that was derided as "PC" in the past, and it is the same CRT that influenced anti-racism education during your halcyon days of the 90s and 00s. That same anti-racism education addressed those very same racist beliefs you're desperate to assuage and protect.

Dancing around the problem and pretending racism and racist beliefs don't exist, because pointing that out makes some people uncomfortable, is something we've tried for decades, and it doesn't work, as MLK has pointed out:

> First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Right-wing resistance to the results of liberal democracy is as old as time, and not anything new that suddenly appeared in 2015 like you seem to beleive. All of the rhetoric you hear now is the same rhetoric espoused by the right in the decades prior. The right has spent decades getting triggered over direct action and society acknowledging racism, and "woke" is just what they're calling it instead of "PC".

These beliefs existed before 2015, but they were mostly only expressed in "good company" between like-minded individuals, because blatant racism became a social faux pas. They were allowed to fester and go unaddressed because addressing them made people uncomfortable. But then Trump comes in and welcomes the far right renaissance that was happening around the world, a world-wide renaissance that had nothing to do with the NY Times posting articles that upset you, to the US. Trump showed them that no, they don't have to speak about those beliefs in hushed tones, you can wear bigotry on your sleeve and millions of people will celebrate it. Since you seem to take their rhetoric seriously, you can find plenty of far right leaders and ideologues saying just that, that Trump is "their guy" and that he opened the door to mainstream their far right ideas and rhetoric.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#856

Narcissism. My grandmother was a terrible narcissist. I loved her dearly and she had a lot of wonderful qualities, but The quality that stood out the most, sadly, was narcissism. My mother was also a narcissist to a somewhat lesser degree. It didn't occur to me that I too was a narcissist until I was about 35 years old. It took waking up in the corner of the living room in my friends one bedroom apartment Early one m…

Hey! Glad to hear you're on a better path. Thank you for sharing. Please continue to contribute here on HN, I really appreciated your comment and experience.

Thank you for your kind reply :)

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you cite a tech company with more than 20 employees that uses voice changers in interviews? No, I cannot. It seems that despite the big conversation about diversity in tech, people aren't very interested in practical solutions to reducing discrimination. It comes down to the point I made about helping people vs ideological purification. Many people prefer the latter. This is the sort of left-wing extremism I ref…

How "upset" I got?

Here's a user telling me I'm "desperate to assuage and protect racist beliefs" because (a) I said we should avoid methods that backfire, and (b) I suggested a practical idea for reduction of racial discrimination in hiring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226817

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How "upset" I got?

Here's a user telling me I'm "desperate to assuage and protect racist beliefs" because (a) I said we should avoid methods that backfire, and (b) I suggested a practical idea for reduction of racial discrimination in hiring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226817

What does that have to do with the question I just asked you? Can you just answer it directly?

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it can work for gender, why can't it work for race? Because pitch/tone is different than ethnolect, and voice changers can obscure differences of the first but not the second.

Women and men also use language differently. I doubt this is a big issue in practice -- you could mask the ethnolect using AI.

> Women and men also use language differently

Not as significantly.

> I doubt this is a big issue in practice

It absolutely is.

> you could mask the ethnolect using AI.

That’s not just a “voice changer”, and if you are going beyond pronunciation to alter grammar and vocabulary that is ethnically identifying, with even modern AI, you have a non-negligible chance of occasionally whiffing and radically altering semantics.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women and men also use language differently. I doubt this is a big issue in practice -- you could mask the ethnolect using AI.

> Women and men also use language differently Not as significantly. > I doubt this is a big issue in practice It absolutely is. > you could mask the ethnolect using AI. That’s not just a “voice changer”, and if you are going beyond pronunciation to alter grammar and vocabulary that is ethnically identifying, with even modern AI, you have a non-negligible chance of occasionally whiffing and radically altering semantic…

Also worth pointing out that this ethno-masking AI is a service that, so far as I know, does not currently exist. Which makes citing it a particularly weak response to the studies that show candidates with identifiably Black ethnicity do poorly compared to white-coded candidates with identical backgrounds.
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