Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech • Hacker News Board

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#101

Post by xwolfi » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

paperwasp42 wrote: post #97

A good friend of mine works a logistical analysis job that involves dealing with a lot of warehouses and warehouse workers. There is a saying in the offices of his company that goes: "Get your head out of the warehouse!" This is a play on the popular "Get your head out of the gutter" and is jokingly used in the offices when people say something considered lewd/offensive. This company brags about its major focus on "d…

I think you and your friend first should start work at the warehouse. Then, possibly we should make everyone rotate timeshares in factories, warehouses and fields, and then maybe we'll have our utopia when everyone understand each other and lost all humour.

It worked in China, clearly, so why not in the US ?

Joke aside, fixing people joking about each other is a lost battle. Listen to them speak about diversity behind closed door (I'm a minority in the country I work in, I hate these things so much making me feel different when I try to integration and assimilate), it won't be utopian paradise-style speech either.

Let the warehouse worker mock the headquarter, let the headquarter mock the warehouse, it's not the problem and will happen within the border of whichever gradient. Parisians mock Normandy, Europeans mock Americans, Aliens mock the Earth, your friend's office mock the field workers...

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#102

Post by Retric » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #93

beaner wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the point taken from the study is really designed to stoke tension when it is not really reflective of anything meaningful when it comes to job applicant filtering. It reminds me of a learning from one of Thomas Sowell's books. There were communities that thought that background checks for employees in certain industries were racially discriminating by their very nature. They moved to ban them. Race disparities…

Ironically, HN frequently touts the benefits of "just talk to someone about their work" over the impartial whiteboard interview. I far prefer the Software Engineering industry's focus on design and coding interviews. Impartial. Unrealistic. But fair.

Software coding interviews can be extremely subjective. I have seen someone rate similar responses vary differently based on their overall assessment of the candidate. It’s also extremely difficult to be equivalently helpful when answering questions.

Even deciding what’s a fair assessment is difficult. Should you give someone more slack if they haven’t used a language in 2 years, but remember most things well enough?

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#103

Post by xwolfi » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #3

I think US-bias is more so class bias than race bias and this comes with a 99% correlation to racial discrimination due to the half millenium of directly ensuring certain races could not access the economy or capital or literacy. Racial discrimination also occurs. A lot of support for racial equality is lost because it is too reductive and invalidates the experience of potential allies in the majority power who exper…

Racial equality is a moot point since there are no races. Everyone can even make their children a different color/race by simply "marrying" someone of the desired color/"race".

Removing the idea people are segregated in races, a fight long won in Europe, should maybe be the first priority in America. I still can't believe pollers are allowed to split vote intention by random color groups (I'd be ok with segregating by "descendant of slaves, recent immigrant from africa, recent immigrant from Canada, things like that - but "black" means literally nothing at all).

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#104

Post by paradox242 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

I do the same thing when I hear people speak. Certain American dialects will make me rate a person's ability, intelligence, or trustworthiness more or less highly. I am aware of it and do what I can to mitigate the effects, yet it does not stop these biases from triggering consciously and I'm sure unconsciously.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#105

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #69

anigbrowl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. You're less likely to be pulled over in most of the US than a black person driving the same car and wearing the same clothes.

I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.

The rapidly evolving complexity of your arguments above and below suggests to me your appearance of cluelessness was no more than a rhetorical posture. I have more respect for people who make their strongest arguments up front.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#106

Post by rossdavidh » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

fishtoaster wrote: post #35

Key bit here: > Devoid of any information about the candidates’ actual qualifications, the hiring managers judged the candidates from higher social classes as more likely to be competent for the job, and a better fit for it than the applicants from lower social classes. Moreover, they assigned the applicants from higher social classes more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses than the candidates with lower social s…

Wow I was about to make this more or less exact comment before I read yours. Including, by the way, that last sentence.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#107

Post by rossdavidh » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

paradox242 wrote: post #104

I do the same thing when I hear people speak. Certain American dialects will make me rate a person's ability, intelligence, or trustworthiness more or less highly. I am aware of it and do what I can to mitigate the effects, yet it does not stop these biases from triggering consciously and I'm sure unconsciously.

The only thing unusual about you in this regard, is that you are aware of it (which is good).

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#108

Post by rednerrus » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

throawy-poor wrote: post #63

flavius29663 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a white that grew up very very poor, I can't possibly understand why so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege, when most of them had many more resources growing up.

you will get some replies with the depth of "it would be worse if you were not white." I think there is only the smallest amount of truth there. Here are things that have happened to me, a poor white kid from california (and this is just off the top of my head): I could never join a sports team in school or other extra curricular, that shit's expensive. I had to steal food to get enough to eat. I've been pulled over…

As someone who grew up poor and white, this was similar to my experience.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#109

Post by common_crow » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

xwolfi wrote: post #101

paperwasp42 wrote: post #97

A good friend of mine works a logistical analysis job that involves dealing with a lot of warehouses and warehouse workers. There is a saying in the offices of his company that goes: "Get your head out of the warehouse!" This is a play on the popular "Get your head out of the gutter" and is jokingly used in the offices when people say something considered lewd/offensive. This company brags about its major focus on "d…

I think you and your friend first should start work at the warehouse. Then, possibly we should make everyone rotate timeshares in factories, warehouses and fields, and then maybe we'll have our utopia when everyone understand each other and lost all humour. It worked in China, clearly, so why not in the US ? Joke aside, fixing people joking about each other is a lost battle. Listen to them speak about diversity behin…

I think the issue is that companies like this pump millions of dollars into "diversity programs" and strictly police any language that could be considered racist. But they often seem completely blind to the fact that many minorities identify strongly with their lower-class communities, and that office culture that mocks and denigrates those communities actively drives away minorities (and all lower-class individuals) from applying for those jobs. Which kind of defeats the purpose of pledging millions toward "diversity".

A lot of American leftists seem to have labeled any political rhetoric about "the elites" as alt-right talking points. But as someone who works frequently with lower class individuals across the political spectrum, this is a deep-seated frustration I hear from people of all races and political parties.

Regardless of race, no one wants to work at a workplace where you know the majority of people think less of you. This is something that I think corporate America needs to understand better, if they genuinely want better diversity numbers.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#110

Post by slothtrop » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #48

vmception wrote: post #3

I think US-bias is more so class bias than race bias and this comes with a 99% correlation to racial discrimination due to the half millenium of directly ensuring certain races could not access the economy or capital or literacy. Racial discrimination also occurs. A lot of support for racial equality is lost because it is too reductive and invalidates the experience of potential allies in the majority power who exper…

as a white that grew up very very poor, I can't possibly understand why so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege, when most of them had many more resources growing up.

> so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege

The articles beating this drum are actually overwhelmingly written by white people.

I think the term was popularized precisely because it is needlessly incendiary, as controversy means better click-bait. If you ignore the blanket term entirely and focus simply on meaning, people mostly agree with one another.

For instance, it's uncontroversial to suggest that most white people will not face racial discrimination on the level that black people do in America. It's uncontroversial to suggest that there is a disprivilege by virtue of discrimination. But the term "white privilege" is employed to convey that all white people get "special treatment". That is literally what privilege means, after all. And of course people don't respond so well to that.

If you ask a proponent of the term whether they would tell a homeless white man they have "white privilege", they will hem and haw, finally suggesting that it would be "impolite" but that they do indeed have it. *Why the hesitation* if it's innocuous? Cognitive dissonance is why. When they have to explain it to people, white privilege is typically defined in terms of black dis-privilege, but the literal meaning is that every white person gets special treatment. Of course that will be met with resentment.

All of which to say, if use of language isn't well designed to create an understanding, it's not designed to further social causes. It's designed to create friction.