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YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

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Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#301

Post by edanm »

manigandham wrote: post #298
edanm wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm talking totally theoretically, just to show that it's possible to discriminate in order to achieve a better end result for the business. But theoretically, if a large employer were to collect the statistics to calculate the correlation between GPA and job performance, and then were to discover that an equivalent GPA between, say, men and women lead to higher job performance in women, then faced with two cand…

That doesn't make sense. Reviewing by motivation + results already delivers you the best people, which is the best for the business. Why use some random group dimension? It is absolutely vague because that is only relevant when talking about averages of the whole group, but the point of fairness and equal opportunity is to treat people like individuals and judge them accordingly. Instead of using some strange GPA pro…

Look, I don't think we really disagree on anything fundamental here. Of course you should judge people as individuals. Of course looking at past performance is probably better, and fairer, than anything else. I'm completely with you on that. The only thing I'm saying is, there are logically plausible situations, in which you might want to use generic group attributes. Especially in cases where you have no prior knowledge - e.g. everything you say is great, but how do I look at past history when judging college grads with no work experience?

I mean, let's take an extreme case and see if we can at least agree on that. One of the things that some economists often claim about capitalism is that it helps with diversity, since if for example everyone is refusing to hire black people because of racial discrimination (think 1930s), then an employer will come along and offer to hire black people for cheaper, and will therefore outcompete other companies, who will have to also hire black people at slightly higher wages, etc.

If we were in such a (1930s-like) world where every employer refuses to hire black people, and we were deciding who to hire, and our normal practice would be only to hire people with 2 years' worth of job experience. We would never hire a black person, because none of them would fit our requirements. In such a world, wouldn't it make sense, from a purely self-interested economic perspective, to change the requirements for black people to compensate for the screwed-up biased world we find ourselves in?

If not, then is the classic economic argument wrong?

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#302

Post by Mithaldu »

viridian wrote: post #299
Mithaldu wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an ideal to strive for, but if society as a whole seems hellbent to keep punishing people who have neither themselves nor had their grandparents do anything wrong, then shifting it to people whose grandparents did can be a better solution than doing nothing.

Original sin is a heinous concept, and so are blood feuds, and this sounds like both. If your father was a violent degenerate and arsonist, would you comfortable paying society back for a portion of his crimes? It seems like that is what you are asking of people as 'better than nothing'. I'm not being hyperbolic either, your logic, applied to criminal law would condemn me to suffer due to the actions of a person I ha…

You seem to be happy to ignore that the larger context is this:

Non-white people are discriminated against because society as a whole accuses their parents as a whole of being degenerates.

> If your father was a violent degenerate and arsonist, would you comfortable paying society back for a portion of his crimes?

I'm a german. Ask me about the amount of paying back my entire life has consisted of.

--

You're also veering very off-topic from the fact that op made the claim "more discrimination is being proposed as the solution" to which i replied by disagreeing that it is more, and claim it is the same amount of discrimination, just moved around.

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#303

Post by Caveman_Coder »

Mithaldu wrote: post #302
viridian wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Original sin is a heinous concept, and so are blood feuds, and this sounds like both. If your father was a violent degenerate and arsonist, would you comfortable paying society back for a portion of his crimes? It seems like that is what you are asking of people as 'better than nothing'. I'm not being hyperbolic either, your logic, applied to criminal law would condemn me to suffer due to the actions of a person I ha…

You seem to be happy to ignore that the larger context is this: Non-white people are discriminated against because society as a whole accuses their parents as a whole of being degenerates. > If your father was a violent degenerate and arsonist, would you comfortable paying society back for a portion of his crimes? I'm a german. Ask me about the amount of paying back my entire life has consisted of. -- You're also vee…

> "...i replied by disagreeing that it is more, and claim it is the same amount of discrimination, just moved around."

How is this an acceptable solution??

So its more like "discrimination is bad, but only against some groups, if we discriminate against this other group though, its okay"...I still don't how this is "fair" or "just" in any sense

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#304

Post by Mithaldu »

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #303
Mithaldu wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be happy to ignore that the larger context is this: Non-white people are discriminated against because society as a whole accuses their parents as a whole of being degenerates. > If your father was a violent degenerate and arsonist, would you comfortable paying society back for a portion of his crimes? I'm a german. Ask me about the amount of paying back my entire life has consisted of. -- You're also vee…

> "...i replied by disagreeing that it is more, and claim it is the same amount of discrimination, just moved around." How is this an acceptable solution?? So its more like "discrimination is bad, but only against some groups, if we discriminate against this other group though, its okay"...I still don't how this is "fair" or "just" in any sense

It is not acceptable in the sense of "ok, we can stop now."

It is however an improvement, unless you think it is fair to discriminate one group massively and one not at all.

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#305

Post by cpncrunch »

GhostVII wrote: post #297
DanBC wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When multiple degree educated people who use language as a tool of their job continue to misunderstand what damore said maybe the problem is with his piss-poor communication, and not their understanding. When very many people who read his document come to the same conclusion maybe, just maybe, that's what he actually said.

I'm not a particularly well educated person and I could still clearly see that Damore was talking about preferences not abilities (he explicitly said it in the memo if I remember correctly). Seems more like the degree educated people aren't reading the memo very carefully.

He was talking about preferences and abilities.

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#306

Post by themaninthedark »

spicymaki wrote: post #185
alphabettsy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By which minorities and to achieve what?

The comment is divisive and conspiratorial. The strategy is to create more division among groups and reduce trust.

Right, because splitting people up into arbitrary groups based on melanin levels and ancestral migration does a world of good in promoting trust and good will.

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#307

Post by notacoward »

staunch wrote: post #14

I suspect Google, YouTube, YC, and many other Silicon Valley companies have followed a similar pattern: Step #1 Discriminate against the lower classes through a biased hiring process that favors upper class people over more qualified members of the 99%. A system of "culture" tests, nepotism, and simple favoritism. The "elite" investors fund the "elite" founders which hire "elite" friends. Step #2 Realize your policy…

"Merit" as defined by whom, and measured how? I doubt that many companies disregard the idea of hiring based on merit. They all try to do that, they were trying to do that all along, but that only got them to your step 2. So what do you when even your best effort to create a purely merit-based system has empirically failed to overcome unconscious or structural bias? What's your magic prescription?

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#308

Post by Caveman_Coder »

Mithaldu wrote: post #304
Caveman_Coder wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...i replied by disagreeing that it is more, and claim it is the same amount of discrimination, just moved around." How is this an acceptable solution?? So its more like "discrimination is bad, but only against some groups, if we discriminate against this other group though, its okay"...I still don't how this is "fair" or "just" in any sense

It is not acceptable in the sense of "ok, we can stop now." It is however an improvement, unless you think it is fair to discriminate one group massively and one not at all.

I don't think it is fair to discriminate against anyone at all and certainly don't think that this "shifting discrimination around" game is going to work well at all in the long run...

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#309

Post by Mithaldu »

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #308
Mithaldu wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not acceptable in the sense of "ok, we can stop now." It is however an improvement, unless you think it is fair to discriminate one group massively and one not at all.

I don't think it is fair to discriminate against anyone at all and certainly don't think that this "shifting discrimination around" game is going to work well at all in the long run...

I just wrote:

> It is not acceptable in the sense of "ok, we can stop now."

That means: It is not supposed to work well in the long run.

Re: YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Males, Lawsuit Says

#310

Post by manigandham »

edanm wrote: post #301
manigandham wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense. Reviewing by motivation + results already delivers you the best people, which is the best for the business. Why use some random group dimension? It is absolutely vague because that is only relevant when talking about averages of the whole group, but the point of fairness and equal opportunity is to treat people like individuals and judge them accordingly. Instead of using some strange GPA pro…

Look, I don't think we really disagree on anything fundamental here. Of course you should judge people as individuals. Of course looking at past performance is probably better, and fairer, than anything else. I'm completely with you on that. The only thing I'm saying is, there are logically plausible situations, in which you might want to use generic group attributes. Especially in cases where you have no prior knowl…

> there are logically plausible situations, in which you might want to use generic group attributes.

I do not see what the logical situation is, because it is overruled completely by the individual's data which you already have right in front of you. It just sounds like applying biases by guessing with group membership instead of looking at the person. Anytime the group membership overrules the individuals' attributes, it's going the wrong way.

Also while I understand the context, some things just don't matter because life is fundamentally unfair and full of chaos. Yes everyone works differently at the same task even with similar results. Maybe they're smarter, or maybe they had a bad year, or got sick, or something else... how can you possibly account for any or all of that in a reasonable sense?

> but how do I look at past history when judging college grads with no work experience?

Judge their school experience. Give them responsibility commensurate with their skills and measure continuously to establish the history, then promote or fire.

> One of the things that some economists often claim about capitalism is that it helps with diversity

Yes, it does. However capitalism isn't perfect and is still up to legal, political, and generally irrational whims of the people. If you're talking about 1930's then there were actual laws segregating people. If you move forward to WWII, then it was the political climate where it was accepted to not work with others regardless of the money. If anything, I think a common love for profit actually does a lot to remove these barriers once people realize they're all better off generating and spending wealth instead of hating each other over looks and other useless attributes.

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