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Racism and Meritocracy

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Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#101

Post by eaurouge »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #22
philwelch wrote: post #7

One of the problems with racism in particular is that it has effects on people from birth. Past racism may have hurt their parents' socioeconomic prospects, forcing them to be born in an economically depressed ghetto with poor schools and gang violence. Even if there's no racism past that point, if their parents were prevented from ascending to the middle class, they won't pass on middle-class virtues emphasizing the…

Exactly! Maybe this is a small minority being extra loud. Thank you for saving me a lot of typing. Diversity for the sake of diversity hurts us all. You really do need to fix the underlying problems. I believe that there really are few qualified minority candidates for these jobs out there and there would be a lot more if we could fix some of the poverty and segregation that exists out there. Black people in this cou…

"Black people in this country live in a separate America. They have their own culture..."

It's as if your knowledge of black people comes solely from watching rap videos and the NBA.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#102

Post by leot »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #54
thaumaturgy wrote: post #51

I am racist. And sexist. I subconsciously attribute certain qualities to men and women, and to various ethnicities. Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at math", etc. -- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are admitting their biases, too. When I get on the phone with technical support and hear a thick East Asian accent, the first thing that happens is I grit my teeth.…

Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at math", etc. -- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are admitting their biases, too. That's not a bias, it's simple fact. Asians have SAT math scores 72 points higher than average, TIMSS scores 74 points higher than average, and are disproportionately represented in professions requiring significant mathematical background. http://…

So? What are you going to do with that information?

What's a better way of figuring out if someone is good at math: give them a math test? Or look up their ancestry?

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#103

Post by eaurouge »

pg wrote: post #3

http://www.google.com/search?q=railsconf+audience&hl=en&...

I think you're making the point that the group of attendees to a Rails conference is representative of the population of Rails developers. That's not necessarily true.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#104

Post by eaurouge »

pg wrote: post #48
thaumaturgy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they can, and in fact the article touched on this: > Remember, part of the defense against the racism theory is that the applicants are already skewed before any selection is done. > I once spent time with a promising entrepreneur who was not a white man. Because their startup sold a product that a lot of tech entrepreneurs buy, many of their customers were graduates of Y Combinator. So I asked if they were…

I used images of a conference audience because it's the best way I could think of to get a sample of what the hacker community looks like. If you can think of a better one, let me know. (The point of that link, for anyone who didn't get it, is that the lack of diversity Eric Ries perceives in the output of our filter is also present in the input, which implies it's not caused by bias in the filter.)

Another point worth mentioning. If you feel you know what the hacker community looks like, you may fail to correctly recognize hackers that look or act different.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#105

Post by edouard1234567 »

Great article! Racism Disrupted by Eric! Coming from Europe, more specifically France, I find the law in the US to be very protective against discrimination. For example, compare the typical resume in France to the one in the US. In the french version you often find the following information : color picture, age (not the date of birth, the actual age...), nationality, marital status, number of kids and gender. I never saw any of this in resumes here. An example I got by googling "exemple de cv en Francais" (ironically CV stands for resume in french :) ) http://tinyurl.com/6t7p3o2 In my opinion the United States is one the of the most innovative countries when it comes to fighting discrimination. Having people like Eric Ries getting involved can only augment this tradition.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#106

Post by yummyfajitas »

leot wrote: post #102
yummyfajitas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at math", etc. -- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are admitting their biases, too. That's not a bias, it's simple fact. Asians have SAT math scores 72 points higher than average, TIMSS scores 74 points higher than average, and are disproportionately represented in professions requiring significant mathematical background. http://…

So? What are you going to do with that information? What's a better way of figuring out if someone is good at math: give them a math test? Or look up their ancestry?

I didn't claim an immediate and obvious use for this info, I merely claimed that it was a true statement rather than a bias.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#107

Post by DaniFong »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #92
DaniFong wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematical achievement doesn't fit a gaussian, and neither do the gendered groups of your conception. And if mathematical ability were distributed as a Gaussian, and genetic, women couldn't be ascending so rapidly. See for example Lisa Sauermann, the all time best performer in the international math olympiad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Sauermann As I wrote four years ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…

"And if mathematical ability were distributed as a Gaussian, and genetic , women couldn't be ascending so rapidly." This is false. It could be that mathematical ability is genetic and normally distributed, but some component of women's underrepresentation is caused by factors other than this (e.g., discrimination, personal preferences). "It's just no good at drawing conclusions on the extremes of ability. A better gu…

It could be that mathematical ability is genetic and normally distributed, but some component of women's underrepresentation is caused by factors other than this (e.g., discrimination, personal preferences).

I mean this to be evidence against a genetic explanation of under representation.

Come on. I know you know better than to draw statistical conclusions from a single event with a sample size of 11. So why do it?

Performances like this are more the norm now than ever, but the main reason is that the counterexample is such an extreme outlier that it blows a hole in the gaussian theory of distribution explanation for female under-representation.

They are also strongly correlated with various life outcomes in a manner which more or less corresponds to our intuitive intuition about the idea of "intelligence".

The Terman study of the gifted missed both future Nobel Prize winners in their sample.

The methods used to 'validate' IQ tests are not at all sufficient for equating their results with intelligence, or for arguing that it represents an immutable, genetic, predisposition of groups.

As Cosma Shalazi writes:

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/494.html

Q: Would you put on your right-thinking left-liberal educated-in-Berkeley-and-Madison hat for a moment?

A: I'd find nothing easier. (You left out the dirty hippyprogressive Montessori school where they taught me Pirandello and Diderot.)

Q: Very good. (It didn't fit the rhythm, and anyway they get the picture.) How would you react to the idea that a psychological trait, one intimately linked to the higher mental functions, is highly heritable?

A: With suspicion and unease, naturally.

Q: It's strongly correlated with educational achievement, class and race.

A: Worse and worse.

Q: Basically nothing that happens after early adolescence makes an impact on it; before that it's also correlated with diet.

A: Do you work at the Heritage Foundation? Such things cannot be.

Q: What if I told you the trait was accent?

A: I'm sorry?

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#108

Post by _pius »

olalonde wrote: post #96
_pius wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by the way, "graduating from MIT" means nothing to me. I went to a university, you did too, the university you went to does not mean much (to me). Good for you. When you say you've "never heard of" black people learning how to use computers, it behooves me to refute you with the fact that not only are there are plenty of black people who know how to use computers, but there are plenty of black people graduating f…

So do you disagree that African Americans are underrepresented in tech？

African Americans are underrepresented in tech, but far more underrepresented in accelerators and VC portfolios.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#109

Post by kyebosh »

Good piece, this discussion is needed. It's about disability too. May I briefly weigh in with an anecdote - please take it only for what it's worth:

I am a quadriplegic due to a diving accident when I was 13. I know my limitations better than any recruiter or HR department ever could, & while I have some personal concerns with meritocracies in general (especially as social policy), I only ever apply for positions in which I can be sure I meet the inherent requirements of the job. Again, I am a good worker with good skills, but I will not apply for positions in which I can't bring proper, uninhibited value.

So no problem, right? I should be awarded consideration in line with my meritocratic value. That's how the world works... Rubbish.

Regardless of council regulations mandating otherwise, I cannot access most (yes, most) workplaces due to physical barriers (poor parking, doorways, stairs etc). I'm sure some places in the world are better, but here I am. In fact I've been knocked back for not being able to access an interview room upstairs (in a semi-govt. owned office, mind you) - the actual workplace for the job was on ground level. That's not even to mention the stereotype I'm perceived as by a frightening majority of interviewees.

No, I don't have a chip on my shoulder, far from it. I'm just saying it's hard to ignore the greetings of (half-speed) "HELLO BUDDY! ARE YOU GOOD TODAY?" from people who have administered & approved your intellectual aptitude tests. Unfortunately I'm not exaggerating.

Meritocracies are not dependent on a passive HR stance. Get active about it. Educate your staff, ensure equality of access, or at least have the guts to be honest about what attributes you're looking for.

Re: Racism and Meritocracy

#110

Post by guard-of-terra »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #51

I am racist. And sexist. I subconsciously attribute certain qualities to men and women, and to various ethnicities. Underneath all of the various common jokes -- "Asians are good at math", etc. -- there is an undercurrent of discussion where other people are admitting their biases, too. When I get on the phone with technical support and hear a thick East Asian accent, the first thing that happens is I grit my teeth.…

"all the various women friends that need help "fixing their computers"," I don't see how is it relevant to hiring a developer, and I also don't see how you could possibly have no male relatives and friends asking for computer help (especially considering older demographics of those). Those are usually equally represented.
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