“There is, unfortunately, no such thing as a truly neutral stance on inclusion”(lobste.rs)
lobste.rs
“There is, unfortunately, no such thing as a truly neutral stance on inclusion”
https://lobste.rs/s/nf3xgg/i_am_leaving_llvm#c_ubyrb0
131 comments
> If you break them, you contribute nothing to resolving any social issue—all it does is rile up the other side and fan flames—but you do contribute to destroying this community. That's bad for all of us.
You allow flamebait political and ideological posts which riles up one side, which you then censor for being mean, but leave the flamebait post or comment up.
If you wanted HN to be civil, all you would need to do is to move the political stuff into it's own section.
You allow flamebait political and ideological posts which riles up one side, which you then censor for being mean, but leave the flamebait post or comment up.
If you wanted HN to be civil, all you would need to do is to move the political stuff into it's own section.
Reading this has made me find words i've been looking for for months now, and maybe you will at least see these, hopefully even think about them:
As an idealistic goal your policies are great. In practice however i find they sorely underestimate the differential in effort required between:
- someone who has to censor their earnest thoughts preemptively to not be censured by you
and
- a troll gleefully dressing up words they know will hurt in dressing nice enough to fly under your radar
You're asking the former to spend a lot more time and work, than it takes the latter, for whom it's a form of playing, a game they enjoy. I don't have a solution, but i think it's true that your policies have a chilling influences on earnest voices and are creating a community where trolls are very loud.
As an idealistic goal your policies are great. In practice however i find they sorely underestimate the differential in effort required between:
- someone who has to censor their earnest thoughts preemptively to not be censured by you
and
- a troll gleefully dressing up words they know will hurt in dressing nice enough to fly under your radar
You're asking the former to spend a lot more time and work, than it takes the latter, for whom it's a form of playing, a game they enjoy. I don't have a solution, but i think it's true that your policies have a chilling influences on earnest voices and are creating a community where trolls are very loud.
Consider the possibility that what you perceive as "a troll saying intentionally awful things dressed up as polite language" may be a person who sincerely disagrees with you, and is also being polite about it. That seems to be the highest form of ideas interacting, no?
That consideration is baked into my post. They fall under category 1 as well.
I was a bit unfocused, but I meant my comment to suggest that what you perceive as this community having a number of "loud trolls" may be overblown. I have been on HN for many years and the number of times I've seen a comment I considered intentionally hurtful (dressed up or otherwise) is vanishingly small.
To put it another way: you say that people who are merely politely disagreeing are in your category 1, but you also believe there is a problem on HN with "loud trolls" dressing up their comments to appear civil. That's counter to my experience here. YMMV etc of course.
To put it another way: you say that people who are merely politely disagreeing are in your category 1, but you also believe there is a problem on HN with "loud trolls" dressing up their comments to appear civil. That's counter to my experience here. YMMV etc of course.
I have considered this before even making the post. (I also have considerable experience with these biases because i have for years run a community with thousands of users visiting each day.) I could point out examples, but i don't think that would be productive.
Right now i'm thinking that your bias in perception is that you tend to look mostly at technical topics where there is no opportunity for this kind of rift without going obviously off-topic. (What your perception of HN is is highly determined by which comment threads you look at.)
Right now i'm thinking that your bias in perception is that you tend to look mostly at technical topics where there is no opportunity for this kind of rift without going obviously off-topic. (What your perception of HN is is highly determined by which comment threads you look at.)
This is a very good point. I saw almost zero troll comments over a few years but realized afyer your comment that I look only at technical or non controversial topics
It's impossible to reply to that in the abstract. I'd need to see links to comments that you think are gleefully trolling while evading moderation.
If i felt comfortable discussing that in public i'd already have done so.
My point is that the state of things here is silencing voices who simply stop bothering to post, while you let toxic people and their posts remain after a slap on the wrist.
My point is that the state of things here is silencing voices who simply stop bothering to post, while you let toxic people and their posts remain after a slap on the wrist.
That is a risk we care about. But most people who make such claims turn out, when you look at the specific examples they come up with, mostly to want HN to be moderated to support their own side and penalize the other. Not intentionally, of course, but when you unpack what most people call fair vs. biased, that's what it amounts to. There are exceptions, but disappointingly few.
Most people have a tendency to see commenters we disagree with as disingenuous, the more so the more we disagree. This distorts perceptions. In my experience moderating HN, disingenuous trolls exist, but are less common than users misclassifying each other as such.
So while we're quite willing to moderate and ban accounts that abuse HN in the way you describe—and indeed have done so—we need specific links to evaluate. Otherwise the null hypothesis has to win.
Most people have a tendency to see commenters we disagree with as disingenuous, the more so the more we disagree. This distorts perceptions. In my experience moderating HN, disingenuous trolls exist, but are less common than users misclassifying each other as such.
So while we're quite willing to moderate and ban accounts that abuse HN in the way you describe—and indeed have done so—we need specific links to evaluate. Otherwise the null hypothesis has to win.
You don't want to discuss it in public? Fine. Email them to dang. (His address is in his profile.)
And dang only lets toxic people and their posts remain for a little while. At some point, he kills their account. (His threshold may be higher than you'd like, but he does do it.)
And dang only lets toxic people and their posts remain for a little while. At some point, he kills their account. (His threshold may be higher than you'd like, but he does do it.)
Actually, you know what. Just ban me. This evening on this site has been another wasteful drain and i've barely even posted. I'm changing my email and password to random noise now.
Good response by aphyr. If I’m reading right, the original poster left because LLVM partnered with an organization designed to create internship opportunities for groups traditionally underrepresented in tech. In particular, LLVM agreed to take on one intern from that organization.
Everyone is entitled to their own reasons for leaving. But I do find it frustrating that the left gets saddled with names like “snowflake” when such small & reasonable actions routinely ruffle feathers on the right.
Everyone is entitled to their own reasons for leaving. But I do find it frustrating that the left gets saddled with names like “snowflake” when such small & reasonable actions routinely ruffle feathers on the right.
I think that classifying Rafael as a member of the right would be a gross simplification. Rafael is actually a member of the BC Green Party (https://www.bcgreens.ca/), which I'd say is firmly on the left.
Whether you're left or right is not classified by what you claim yourself to be, but how you act. And wanting to be nice to animals doesn't eradicate your stance on wanting to suppress diversity.
I also recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
I also recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
> such small & reasonable actions routinely ruffle feathers on the right.
I'm not sure why you'd assume the person who left was on the right just because they disagreed with the direction LLVM was taking. When I read the message, it seemed like he had grave concerns that technical merit was now taking a back seat to a political agenda. That seems like a legitimate concern for an open source project.
I'm not sure why you'd assume the person who left was on the right just because they disagreed with the direction LLVM was taking. When I read the message, it seemed like he had grave concerns that technical merit was now taking a back seat to a political agenda. That seems like a legitimate concern for an open source project.
> technical merit was now taking a back seat to a political agenda
I think we read different posts.
AFAICT, the project is going to get the help of an intern at no or little cost, but he got emotional because he opposes attempts to get underrepresented groups involved. His post was purely political, with no concern for what is best for the project.
I think we read different posts.
AFAICT, the project is going to get the help of an intern at no or little cost, but he got emotional because he opposes attempts to get underrepresented groups involved. His post was purely political, with no concern for what is best for the project.
You can only read it that way if you ignore the fact that this same agenda is being pushed everywhere else. See my other post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16994302
I have to judge the words I read at the link I click.
Well if you're free to ignore all context, then you can cast anyone resisting the status quo as a bad actor.
Is that really the case though or are the people "resisting the status quo" actually feigning offense over "discrimination" because they resent the fact that their position is widely accepted as immoral? (Racism or sexism.) They refuse to argue their actual point... minorities should not receive benefits because they do not deserve benefits for one reason or another...because those reasons are also considered unnacceptable to express by most people.
Well if you're free to ignore the principle of charity, then you can ascribe any sort of unethical motives to your opponents. I could just as easily argue that such anti-discrimination efforts are really driven by white-people hate, and accuse them of refusing to address this point. And how you feel right now at that over the top statement is exactly how your opponents feel when you make the contrary claim.
Absent some expressed inconsistency, you take people at their word. As I've explained elsewhere in this thread, there's nothing inconsistent with what the LLVM dev has said, and it's fully justifiable from ethical principles. Maybe he is being disingenuous, but that doesn't make the argument itself wrong.
Absent some expressed inconsistency, you take people at their word. As I've explained elsewhere in this thread, there's nothing inconsistent with what the LLVM dev has said, and it's fully justifiable from ethical principles. Maybe he is being disingenuous, but that doesn't make the argument itself wrong.
[flagged]
Can you please not up the ante like this in terms of ideological vitriol? Regardless of how wrong someone else is, all this does is erode the container and make it less possible to engage with each other. The HN guidelines try to guard against this type of swerve, and if you read them you'll see that there are several that your comment violated.
(Other comments are doing a poor job of following the guidelines, too, but this was a degree worse, and you did it again downthread.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Other comments are doing a poor job of following the guidelines, too, but this was a degree worse, and you did it again downthread.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I see you stand strong against people who say the right things with impolite words. Fine, your choice. But honestly, the more i watch these things the more i notice that you NEVER stand as strong against people who say vile hateful things in nice words.
Given this, it shouldn't be a surprise to you that people feel more and more that it's not worth to try and make an effort to stay nice if that's how "the top" behaves.
Given this, it shouldn't be a surprise to you that people feel more and more that it's not worth to try and make an effort to stay nice if that's how "the top" behaves.
To the mods credit they did make @yummyfajitas go away. Took them years of, as you say, unevenly nice language, but finally they did.
I have to admit i'm unaware of that case. Got a place that explains it?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14116601
The user left of his own accord after that warning from dang.
By the way, if you're going to make claims like "you NEVER stand as strong against people who say vile hateful things in nice words", you really need to provide evidence.
It should be easy to prove with examples, and it would signal that you're acting in a good-faith effort to improve the site rather than just trying to attack dang personally.
The user left of his own accord after that warning from dang.
By the way, if you're going to make claims like "you NEVER stand as strong against people who say vile hateful things in nice words", you really need to provide evidence.
It should be easy to prove with examples, and it would signal that you're acting in a good-faith effort to improve the site rather than just trying to attack dang personally.
> The logic here is so transparently hypocritical, self-serving and stupid that I suspect it will really crystallize the "sides" involved here [...] So I say, go for it. Protest against every attempt to include minorities.
See, this isn't being charitable to those who disagree with you, and your attitude is a big problem with why these issues just get more inflammatory. Consider the fact that people who oppose such efforts aren't your enemy, they simply disagree with your allegedly infallible logic.
Few people are actually against "minorities". In the end, the smallest minority is the individual. This is why discrimination any basis is wrong, because the individual's experience, advantages and disadvantages are not dictated by whatever group they belong to. Privilege is a statistical metric, but individual experience is not causally dictated by such metrics.
Group-specific efforts wouldn't be so controversial if they weren't pushing a narrative that denies this basic fact. This should be obvious from the outcry you'd get from trying to organize, say, a male-only tech event, or an Asian-only tech event. Might seem silly given the demographics in these industries, but you'd get serious blowback just from the effort.
See, this isn't being charitable to those who disagree with you, and your attitude is a big problem with why these issues just get more inflammatory. Consider the fact that people who oppose such efforts aren't your enemy, they simply disagree with your allegedly infallible logic.
Few people are actually against "minorities". In the end, the smallest minority is the individual. This is why discrimination any basis is wrong, because the individual's experience, advantages and disadvantages are not dictated by whatever group they belong to. Privilege is a statistical metric, but individual experience is not causally dictated by such metrics.
Group-specific efforts wouldn't be so controversial if they weren't pushing a narrative that denies this basic fact. This should be obvious from the outcry you'd get from trying to organize, say, a male-only tech event, or an Asian-only tech event. Might seem silly given the demographics in these industries, but you'd get serious blowback just from the effort.
> In the end, the smallest minority is the individual.
Stop reading Rand. Start reading Hegel.
Stop reading Rand. Start reading Hegel.
Are you actually going to address the points I raised, or are you just here to make unjustified inferences about my philosophical background?
My mistake; I assumed a Randian background as the whole "individual as smallest minority" thing is nearly a direct Rand quote. That said, if you approach it critically, I think you'll find it addresses the point you made. The reductionist philosophy that posits collective benefits as somehow exclusive of individuals is directly addressed by Hegel's political theory.
I don't think I ever claimed collective benefits were necessarily exclusive of individuals. But sometimes they clearly are.
If there is a historical defcit of resources that have been denied to a group is it ok to help that group recoup some of that deficit?
Probably to some extent, but even assuming it's true, I think you'll agree that some means of doing so are more just and more effective than others.
> This is why discrimination any basis is wrong, because the individual's experience, advantages and disadvantages are not dictated by whatever group they belong to. Privilege is a statistical metric, but individual experience is not causally dictated by such metrics.
But this is nonsense. How can any reasonable person believe that one's "group" has absolutely no impact on one's life experiences? You're literally saying "one individual's experience as a member of X group has no impact on one's individual experience." Does that really parse in your head?
Look, there's no there there and you can devise silly rationalizations all day. The only thing that matters are the ends. The end goal is to keep those people away, right? The end goal is to make sure absolutely nothing changes, right? People should just be honest about their aims and end goals and we can skip the endless rationalizations.
I find it all a bit too theatrical. Like internships for Pacific Islanders are absolutely harmless. They literally cause zero harm. There are few things in this world absolutely harmless but this is one of them. But here they are being protested as discrimination! It turns out any attempt to be inclusive is decried as some betrayal of "individual experience," whatever that actually means and we get flamboyant resignations in response.
It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off.
But this is nonsense. How can any reasonable person believe that one's "group" has absolutely no impact on one's life experiences? You're literally saying "one individual's experience as a member of X group has no impact on one's individual experience." Does that really parse in your head?
Look, there's no there there and you can devise silly rationalizations all day. The only thing that matters are the ends. The end goal is to keep those people away, right? The end goal is to make sure absolutely nothing changes, right? People should just be honest about their aims and end goals and we can skip the endless rationalizations.
I find it all a bit too theatrical. Like internships for Pacific Islanders are absolutely harmless. They literally cause zero harm. There are few things in this world absolutely harmless but this is one of them. But here they are being protested as discrimination! It turns out any attempt to be inclusive is decried as some betrayal of "individual experience," whatever that actually means and we get flamboyant resignations in response.
It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off.
[deleted]
>The end goal is to keep those people away, right? The end goal is to make sure absolutely nothing changes, right?
This is not a charitable way to interpret the actions of others. Because of the unfortunate treatment of certain people in the past, it doesn't justify poor treatment of others now. The ends do not justify the means. To quote Gandhi:
"They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end...”
This is not a charitable way to interpret the actions of others. Because of the unfortunate treatment of certain people in the past, it doesn't justify poor treatment of others now. The ends do not justify the means. To quote Gandhi:
"They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end...”
> The end goal is to keep those people away, right? The end goal is to make sure absolutely nothing changes, right?
Don't think anyone said that. Quite the opposite. You read what you wanted to read, and arrived at that conclusion all by yourself.
> I find it all a bit too theatrical.
Yes, and you're on stage.
Don't think anyone said that. Quite the opposite. You read what you wanted to read, and arrived at that conclusion all by yourself.
> I find it all a bit too theatrical.
Yes, and you're on stage.
> I'm not sure why you'd assume the person who left was on the right just because they disagreed with the direction LLVM was taking.
Bayesian priors.
Bayesian priors.
Bayesian priors would also suggest that certain minorities are more likely to be criminals. Should we therefore treat people from such minorities as criminals? Bayesian priors don't guide all of our ethics.
My Bayesian priors suggest that the OP wanted an easy way to dismiss the person's concerns without addressing them.
My Bayesian priors suggest that the OP wanted an easy way to dismiss the person's concerns without addressing them.
I think having an expectation about someone's further political beliefs based on information about some of their political beliefs is a little less unethical than presuming criminality, my friend.
But you're right tho, I think it's easier to cut out the middle man and dismiss his concerns because I think his concerns are shit, regardless of his other politics.
But you're right tho, I think it's easier to cut out the middle man and dismiss his concerns because I think his concerns are shit, regardless of his other politics.
>Bayesian priors.
Is your point anything more than saying "political stereotyping" using verbiage that suggests you agree with the assessment? Even my attempt to find lay-person verbiage for your idea ("stereotyping") found words that carry a negative connotation.
Is your point anything more than saying "political stereotyping" using verbiage that suggests you agree with the assessment? Even my attempt to find lay-person verbiage for your idea ("stereotyping") found words that carry a negative connotation.
I cannot parse your verbiage.
I'm implying your showy language classed up an idea that that people would be more likley to dismiss on it's face if described plainly.
I've attempted an edit for clarity.
I've attempted an edit for clarity.
Well, my choice of words was tongue in cheek, haha only serious, but also knowing my crowd. Bayesian inference is a popular almost-meme on HN which I thought made my terse flippancy more amusing.
In a vacuum, absolutely, but the reasons stated in the post don't really seem very ruffling. One intern with no indications that technical ability is unimportant, and a code of conduct that seems very inoffensive, is hardly worthy of "grave concerns that technical merit was now taking a back seat to a political agenda".
It's possible that he's primarily talking about backroom conversations of which we are not privy to, but he doesn't mention this, and it does make the post look fairly unreasonable.
IMO, it sounds _very_ much like the guy is just tired of working on the project on technical grounds, and is making the unfounded claim that those technical grounds are being caused by political actions he doesn't agree with.
It's possible that he's primarily talking about backroom conversations of which we are not privy to, but he doesn't mention this, and it does make the post look fairly unreasonable.
IMO, it sounds _very_ much like the guy is just tired of working on the project on technical grounds, and is making the unfounded claim that those technical grounds are being caused by political actions he doesn't agree with.
> It's possible that he's primarily talking about backroom conversations of which we are not privy to, but he doesn't mention this, and it does make the post look fairly unreasonable.
Strange, I thought the opposite: his decision wasn't made in a vacuum. His argument may look unreasonable only if you had no idea of the wider efforts to push similar political agendas throughout the industry and open source communities, and how meritocratic concerns are pushed aside as a result.
Discrimination of any kind is a fallacious argument, that someone doesn't need assistance simply because they belong to a particular group. It's just as fallacious as treating someone like a criminal simply because they belong to a particular group.
I admit, I go back and forth myself on the ethics of group-specific programs, rather than a more inclusive approach helping underprivileged individuals without regard to any particular group to which they may belong. I too might have no problem with Outreachy if it weren't couched in such exclusive language, and if the wider movement in the industry hadn't already been so divisive.
> IMO, it sounds _very_ much like the guy is just tired of working on the project on technical grounds, and is making the unfounded claim that those technical grounds are being caused by political actions he doesn't agree with.
Open source contribution is entirely voluntary. He could walk away for literally any reason at any time. What possible reason could he have to raise a political shitstorm that would only hinder his chance at future career opportunities if he didn't believe what he wrote?
It just sounds like you're looking for a narrative with ulterior motivations so you can easily dismiss his concerns.
Strange, I thought the opposite: his decision wasn't made in a vacuum. His argument may look unreasonable only if you had no idea of the wider efforts to push similar political agendas throughout the industry and open source communities, and how meritocratic concerns are pushed aside as a result.
Discrimination of any kind is a fallacious argument, that someone doesn't need assistance simply because they belong to a particular group. It's just as fallacious as treating someone like a criminal simply because they belong to a particular group.
I admit, I go back and forth myself on the ethics of group-specific programs, rather than a more inclusive approach helping underprivileged individuals without regard to any particular group to which they may belong. I too might have no problem with Outreachy if it weren't couched in such exclusive language, and if the wider movement in the industry hadn't already been so divisive.
> IMO, it sounds _very_ much like the guy is just tired of working on the project on technical grounds, and is making the unfounded claim that those technical grounds are being caused by political actions he doesn't agree with.
Open source contribution is entirely voluntary. He could walk away for literally any reason at any time. What possible reason could he have to raise a political shitstorm that would only hinder his chance at future career opportunities if he didn't believe what he wrote?
It just sounds like you're looking for a narrative with ulterior motivations so you can easily dismiss his concerns.
>It just sounds like you're looking for a narrative with ulterior motivations so you can easily dismiss his concerns.
I don't think I am, though it's entirely possible. I like to feel like I'm disagreeing with those concerns on their own terms, not using tricks to get out of "legitimately" disagreeing with them.
>Discrimination of any kind is a fallacious argument, that someone doesn't need assistance simply because they belong to a particular group. It's just as fallacious as treating someone like a criminal simply because they belong to a particular group.
Similarly, I disagree with this point on its own terms, I think. The position we are in right now is trying to claw our way out of a situation where we have a lot of marginalised groups who've been harmed not by saturday morning cartoon bigots, but by systemic issues. The problem with claiming to be a purely meritocratic approach is that then the bias is simply in how "merit" is determined. There is no metric which has no bias, and because of this history of systemic oppression where, say, perfectly intelligent members of some minority may be less likely to go to university for a hundred tiny factors, it's very difficult to build a metric which minimises bias and maximises results.
So a very, very rough transitionary solution is to _accept_ that your hiring practices have biases, and introduce targeted fixes for those biases. This looks like discrimination, but is actually _countering_ existing discrimination.
It's easy to look at it and go "this person is unqualified, which is why they needed a "special" path", but there's little evidence that this is actually true, and most suggestions that minorities are simply worse overall than white men at a given task are usually pretty empty.
I don't think I am, though it's entirely possible. I like to feel like I'm disagreeing with those concerns on their own terms, not using tricks to get out of "legitimately" disagreeing with them.
>Discrimination of any kind is a fallacious argument, that someone doesn't need assistance simply because they belong to a particular group. It's just as fallacious as treating someone like a criminal simply because they belong to a particular group.
Similarly, I disagree with this point on its own terms, I think. The position we are in right now is trying to claw our way out of a situation where we have a lot of marginalised groups who've been harmed not by saturday morning cartoon bigots, but by systemic issues. The problem with claiming to be a purely meritocratic approach is that then the bias is simply in how "merit" is determined. There is no metric which has no bias, and because of this history of systemic oppression where, say, perfectly intelligent members of some minority may be less likely to go to university for a hundred tiny factors, it's very difficult to build a metric which minimises bias and maximises results.
So a very, very rough transitionary solution is to _accept_ that your hiring practices have biases, and introduce targeted fixes for those biases. This looks like discrimination, but is actually _countering_ existing discrimination.
It's easy to look at it and go "this person is unqualified, which is why they needed a "special" path", but there's little evidence that this is actually true, and most suggestions that minorities are simply worse overall than white men at a given task are usually pretty empty.
> So a very, very rough transitionary solution is to _accept_ that your hiring practices have biases, and introduce targeted fixes for those biases. This looks like discrimination, but is actually _countering_ existing discrimination.
I mostly agree with you until this paragraph. I can quibble about specific points, but this is the core dispute. Multiple attempts at double-blind hiring practices have more or less reproduced the status quo. So you're arguing that our best known scientific techniques for eliminating bias can't completely eliminate this specific bias. That's a big claim, but possible.
In principle, I think one's beliefs should be falsifiable, so from your side, what empirical data would convince you that this systemic bias either doesn't exist in STEM, or isn't a significant factor in hiring outcomes? I don't know if such data exists, nor will I necessarily look for it, but I think it's a question we should always ask of ourselves so I want to know if you're acting in good faith.
For myself, a double-blind trial demonstrating differences in hiring outcomes would have been pretty convincing. That said, I can still see a few possible sources of bias in such trials since I've done a lot of hiring myself. For instance, a hiring process might highly value open source contributions or publicly available projects/source code to evaluate skills. Since minorities are more economically disadvantaged on average than Caucasians or Asians, they might have to work more to pay for school and so have less time to do that kind of work. As such, they might be less appealing on paper.
But would you really call a hiring quota a "targeted fix" for this bias? What sort of unbiased or less biased metric could replace this sort of evaluation? We all know coding tests are terrible.
Finally, "transitionary solution" seems like a polite way of acknowledging that this is an unethical practice intended to move us towards a more equitable society more quickly than an ethical approach, like studying the problem to find actual targeted fixes. But:
a) It then seems disingenuous to be offended when people question the ethics of compromising one's ethics, even if it's (allegedly) a shortcut to a greater good. Not everyone is a utilitarian, and calling these people evil/racist/sexist for disagreeing with compromising one's ethics is dishonest at best.
b) This is then subject to an empirical evaluation as whether this shortcut actually works. There's considerable debate about whether past attempts at affirmative action were actually successful, so there's some reason to be skeptical.
For myself, I'm no expert on all discrimination issues, but I've read quite a bit on the gender disparities in STEM, the stats, papers and so on. I'm quite confident that hiring quotas won't fix gender disparities one bit. I don't want to get into that debate, but I've received quite a bit of pushback for arguing that politics should be subordinate to such evidence, and not vice versa.
> It's easy to look at it and go "this person is unqualified, which is why they needed a "special" path", but there's little evidence that this is actually true, and most suggestions that minorities are simply worse overall than white men at a given task are usually pretty empty.
I agree, there's probably very little average difference in ability between all human populations for STEM-like work, given sufficiently similar experience. But what can we use to objectively evaluate experience/claims of qualifications?
I mostly agree with you until this paragraph. I can quibble about specific points, but this is the core dispute. Multiple attempts at double-blind hiring practices have more or less reproduced the status quo. So you're arguing that our best known scientific techniques for eliminating bias can't completely eliminate this specific bias. That's a big claim, but possible.
In principle, I think one's beliefs should be falsifiable, so from your side, what empirical data would convince you that this systemic bias either doesn't exist in STEM, or isn't a significant factor in hiring outcomes? I don't know if such data exists, nor will I necessarily look for it, but I think it's a question we should always ask of ourselves so I want to know if you're acting in good faith.
For myself, a double-blind trial demonstrating differences in hiring outcomes would have been pretty convincing. That said, I can still see a few possible sources of bias in such trials since I've done a lot of hiring myself. For instance, a hiring process might highly value open source contributions or publicly available projects/source code to evaluate skills. Since minorities are more economically disadvantaged on average than Caucasians or Asians, they might have to work more to pay for school and so have less time to do that kind of work. As such, they might be less appealing on paper.
But would you really call a hiring quota a "targeted fix" for this bias? What sort of unbiased or less biased metric could replace this sort of evaluation? We all know coding tests are terrible.
Finally, "transitionary solution" seems like a polite way of acknowledging that this is an unethical practice intended to move us towards a more equitable society more quickly than an ethical approach, like studying the problem to find actual targeted fixes. But:
a) It then seems disingenuous to be offended when people question the ethics of compromising one's ethics, even if it's (allegedly) a shortcut to a greater good. Not everyone is a utilitarian, and calling these people evil/racist/sexist for disagreeing with compromising one's ethics is dishonest at best.
b) This is then subject to an empirical evaluation as whether this shortcut actually works. There's considerable debate about whether past attempts at affirmative action were actually successful, so there's some reason to be skeptical.
For myself, I'm no expert on all discrimination issues, but I've read quite a bit on the gender disparities in STEM, the stats, papers and so on. I'm quite confident that hiring quotas won't fix gender disparities one bit. I don't want to get into that debate, but I've received quite a bit of pushback for arguing that politics should be subordinate to such evidence, and not vice versa.
> It's easy to look at it and go "this person is unqualified, which is why they needed a "special" path", but there's little evidence that this is actually true, and most suggestions that minorities are simply worse overall than white men at a given task are usually pretty empty.
I agree, there's probably very little average difference in ability between all human populations for STEM-like work, given sufficiently similar experience. But what can we use to objectively evaluate experience/claims of qualifications?
"...a more inclusive approach helping underprivileged individuals without regard to any particular group to which they may belong."
What does that look like? Do you know of anyone doing something like this today?
My only thought is the symphony auditions where the judges cannot see the applicant (hidden by a screen).
(Speaking as the temporarily self-appointed spokesmodel for the entire left: We'd love an alternative to affirmation action style mitigation steps. No one likes quotas, set asides. But right now it's the lesser evil.)
What does that look like? Do you know of anyone doing something like this today?
My only thought is the symphony auditions where the judges cannot see the applicant (hidden by a screen).
(Speaking as the temporarily self-appointed spokesmodel for the entire left: We'd love an alternative to affirmation action style mitigation steps. No one likes quotas, set asides. But right now it's the lesser evil.)
Texas public universities started a program to admit all high school students that ended up in the top 10% of their class. This covers white kids from the wealthy suburbs of Dallas as well as latino kids from the valley and black kids from inner Houston.
The educational system of Texas is in no way a good example of fixing privilege issues. It assumes that all students come to school on equal footing. The 10% that get automatically accepted to a state uni are going to be biased on class. Also, the idea that they can be admitted doesn't mean that they can attend uni.
It's not a simple as what you describe.
It's not a simple as what you describe.
> What does that look like? Do you know of anyone doing something like this today?
Just speculating here, but it might be like applying for a scholarship: you have to justify why you need it more than anyone else. Some set of individuals clearly have the most need, and they should get the assistance. A double blind review process should eliminate implicit bias against gender, race, or other categories.
I bet 99% of those approved would be exactly the minorities all of these targeted groups are trying to support, but there's still that 1% that might just be a "cis white male" with no support and a truly heart breaking story. Such a person has little help available at the moment. I can think of a few logistical issues with this approach, but we're just speculating here.
> My only thought is the symphony auditions where the judges cannot see the applicant (hidden by a screen).
Yes, that's a great example. The point is to remove possible sources of implicit bias and focus on merit.
They've actually tried this at some companies, with double-blind interviews and such, but they ended up with largely the same outcomes as the status quo.
One possibility is that the bias in our industry isn't as significant as is typically portrayed. Another is that the biases happen earlier and lead to minorities either being less qualified or appearing less qualified, on average. But then efforts should be focused on helping individuals in those earlier stages, like training programs or financial support to improve their qualifications.
> No one likes quotas, set asides. But right now it's the lesser evil.
They might be justifiable if they were actually effective, but it's literally impossible for them all to be effective. Taking gender hiring quotas as an example, only about 20% of CS grads are women, and this ratio is about the standard for CS employment across the industry. But every tech company now wants a 50/50 gender ratio. That's quite literally impossible with the current labour pool, and pushing this agenda leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
I'm not sure denying facts and scientific evidence is the lesser evil, because denying evidence simply won't fix anything. Evidence-driven efforts are great, but most I've read about don't fall in this category. Perhaps I only hear about the failures though, so that could be confirmation bias at work. Still, I would think denouncing any efforts that deny evidence would be uncontroversial, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Just speculating here, but it might be like applying for a scholarship: you have to justify why you need it more than anyone else. Some set of individuals clearly have the most need, and they should get the assistance. A double blind review process should eliminate implicit bias against gender, race, or other categories.
I bet 99% of those approved would be exactly the minorities all of these targeted groups are trying to support, but there's still that 1% that might just be a "cis white male" with no support and a truly heart breaking story. Such a person has little help available at the moment. I can think of a few logistical issues with this approach, but we're just speculating here.
> My only thought is the symphony auditions where the judges cannot see the applicant (hidden by a screen).
Yes, that's a great example. The point is to remove possible sources of implicit bias and focus on merit.
They've actually tried this at some companies, with double-blind interviews and such, but they ended up with largely the same outcomes as the status quo.
One possibility is that the bias in our industry isn't as significant as is typically portrayed. Another is that the biases happen earlier and lead to minorities either being less qualified or appearing less qualified, on average. But then efforts should be focused on helping individuals in those earlier stages, like training programs or financial support to improve their qualifications.
> No one likes quotas, set asides. But right now it's the lesser evil.
They might be justifiable if they were actually effective, but it's literally impossible for them all to be effective. Taking gender hiring quotas as an example, only about 20% of CS grads are women, and this ratio is about the standard for CS employment across the industry. But every tech company now wants a 50/50 gender ratio. That's quite literally impossible with the current labour pool, and pushing this agenda leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
I'm not sure denying facts and scientific evidence is the lesser evil, because denying evidence simply won't fix anything. Evidence-driven efforts are great, but most I've read about don't fall in this category. Perhaps I only hear about the failures though, so that could be confirmation bias at work. Still, I would think denouncing any efforts that deny evidence would be uncontroversial, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
"you have to justify why you need it more than anyone else."
Except it's the organization that has the need in this sense, not the applicant. The organization has an open position, and a disparity they are trying to correct.
Except it's the organization that has the need in this sense, not the applicant. The organization has an open position, and a disparity they are trying to correct.
I think you're missing some context. We're talking about what it might look like to provide financial or other aid to people who need it (like Outreachy does), but without discriminating based on group membership.
There's no assumption that the applicants are necessarily in need of financial aid, so scholarships seem like an incorrect comparison to make.
And yet, the ones who don't need it don't get it, which is the whole point.
On,
>That's quite literally impossible with the current labour pool, and pushing this agenda leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
It is only impossible _globally_. If you're a company that people have heard of paying the kind of wages companies people have heard of pay, you could absolutely achieve 50/50 gender balance without compromising on quality. That kind of company is _already_ only considering the top 0.5% of on-paper candidates.
Globally, you're right, large companies doing this will starve companies less able to find and buy that talent of equal hiring practices, and _that_ sucks, but capitalism doesn't reward companies for doing things which benefit their competitors in the short term.
>That's quite literally impossible with the current labour pool, and pushing this agenda leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
It is only impossible _globally_. If you're a company that people have heard of paying the kind of wages companies people have heard of pay, you could absolutely achieve 50/50 gender balance without compromising on quality. That kind of company is _already_ only considering the top 0.5% of on-paper candidates.
Globally, you're right, large companies doing this will starve companies less able to find and buy that talent of equal hiring practices, and _that_ sucks, but capitalism doesn't reward companies for doing things which benefit their competitors in the short term.
> If you're a company that people have heard of paying the kind of wages companies people have heard of pay, you could absolutely achieve 50/50 gender balance without compromising on quality.
I already acknowledged this possibility, but pointed out that it leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
You'd have to start hiring candidates for reasons other than qualifications, or offering pay significantly above market rate for only that gender. This strategy would also make poaching women attractive, thus driving fast turnover and further wage inflation. This demand/wage inflation would then attract plenty of far less qualified women, thus diluting the talent pool, but the skewed incentives simply can't filter out these candidates. I don't see how this would be sustainable if gender parity were viewed as desirable in and of itself, without regard for the overall economics of the business.
Practically, do you really think achieving gender parity would yield such a huge competitive advantage that these factors can be completely ignored? I think we'd have seen something like that by now, but women's pay is still roughly on par with men's in STEM, so clearly gender parity isn't economically viewed as the huge advantage you portray it to be.
I already acknowledged this possibility, but pointed out that it leads to skewed incentives, fast turnover and unqualified hires.
You'd have to start hiring candidates for reasons other than qualifications, or offering pay significantly above market rate for only that gender. This strategy would also make poaching women attractive, thus driving fast turnover and further wage inflation. This demand/wage inflation would then attract plenty of far less qualified women, thus diluting the talent pool, but the skewed incentives simply can't filter out these candidates. I don't see how this would be sustainable if gender parity were viewed as desirable in and of itself, without regard for the overall economics of the business.
Practically, do you really think achieving gender parity would yield such a huge competitive advantage that these factors can be completely ignored? I think we'd have seen something like that by now, but women's pay is still roughly on par with men's in STEM, so clearly gender parity isn't economically viewed as the huge advantage you portray it to be.
>a code of conduct that seems very inoffensive
The creation of a code of conduct in and of itself is offensive. If your community is bad enough that you need to remind people to not be assholes then your community already has a problem and it isn't going to be fixed by adding a CoC. It doesn't help that codes of conduct are often selectively enforced whenever it's a convenient way to expel people the "in group" doesn't like. I can't think of a time where I've seen a code of conduct actually do what it is meant to: create a better community, providing victims by providing them an escalation chain of authority to seek help from, and expelling actual assholes and people causing internal drama and a negative workplace/community. They're extremely good at creating a divisive community, driving away talented people who happen to be outside the "in group", and being used as a strictly political tool instead of a tool meant to foster a healthy community.
The inclusion of a code of conduct, to me, tells me there are political busybodies that want to seek political control of a group by citing good intentions. Because what kind of asshole would be against something telling people to not act like assholes, right? You can pass anything by painting anyone against it in a bad light. Many overreaching bills pass because no politician in their right mind would be against an act like "Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" (FOSTA) or even a less polarizing title like "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" (PATRIOT).
The creation of a code of conduct in and of itself is offensive. If your community is bad enough that you need to remind people to not be assholes then your community already has a problem and it isn't going to be fixed by adding a CoC. It doesn't help that codes of conduct are often selectively enforced whenever it's a convenient way to expel people the "in group" doesn't like. I can't think of a time where I've seen a code of conduct actually do what it is meant to: create a better community, providing victims by providing them an escalation chain of authority to seek help from, and expelling actual assholes and people causing internal drama and a negative workplace/community. They're extremely good at creating a divisive community, driving away talented people who happen to be outside the "in group", and being used as a strictly political tool instead of a tool meant to foster a healthy community.
The inclusion of a code of conduct, to me, tells me there are political busybodies that want to seek political control of a group by citing good intentions. Because what kind of asshole would be against something telling people to not act like assholes, right? You can pass anything by painting anyone against it in a bad light. Many overreaching bills pass because no politician in their right mind would be against an act like "Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" (FOSTA) or even a less polarizing title like "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" (PATRIOT).
???
I don't think I've taken part in any community without a set of rules in all my years. Even 4chan has a "code of conduct". The creation of a code of conduct has not been considered offensive right up until a few years ago, where suddenly certain groups of people started objecting to communities having rules even as simple as "don't be an asshole".
I don't think I've taken part in any community without a set of rules in all my years. Even 4chan has a "code of conduct". The creation of a code of conduct has not been considered offensive right up until a few years ago, where suddenly certain groups of people started objecting to communities having rules even as simple as "don't be an asshole".
Although the distinction is minimal - there is some nuance between "Rules" and a "Code of Conduct". Not only in the kinds of things they address but also in the directions they are enforced. As one example of the difference in nuance, there is no such thing as "backseat moderation" of a Code of Conduct. In fact, "backseat moderation" is almost the point of a CoC! A CoC is meant to not only apply bidirectionally but also allow Users to moderate other Users and provide them a means to do so. Rules, on the other hand, are usually enforced against Users by Moderators in one direction and Users trying to moderate other Users "per the rules" is often frowned upon as "backseat moderation".
>The creation of a code of conduct has not been considered offensive right up until a few years ago
I respectfully disagree. The number of occurrences where a code of conduct is implemented only to swiftly be abused for political reasons has certainly increased in the last few years, which may have something to do with the increase of people sharing my viewpoint. But I've held this viewpoint for at least the past 15 years, so it certainly isn't a new position to hold.
>The creation of a code of conduct has not been considered offensive right up until a few years ago
I respectfully disagree. The number of occurrences where a code of conduct is implemented only to swiftly be abused for political reasons has certainly increased in the last few years, which may have something to do with the increase of people sharing my viewpoint. But I've held this viewpoint for at least the past 15 years, so it certainly isn't a new position to hold.
It is not a small or reasonable action to declare that judgements of suitability to work with an organization will be made based on sex, race, and other non-functional dimensions. The fact that large nations, corporations, and universities routinely engage in this kind of behavior does not mean that an as ethical individual one must acquiesce when others do so, especially when that person feels it may be within their reach to potentially make a difference.
It's frustrating that these sexist and racist policies have spread like a cancer across our industry.
It's frustrating that these sexist and racist policies have spread like a cancer across our industry.
> It's frustrating that these sexist and racist policies have spread like a cancer across our industry.
It's dismaying that you've gone straight into name-calling with a throwaway account. Please have more respect for the community than to do that, and follow the site guidelines instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
It's dismaying that you've gone straight into name-calling with a throwaway account. Please have more respect for the community than to do that, and follow the site guidelines instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
First, please accept my thanks for the excellent and difficult job you do in moderating this board.
I didn't believe I was engaged in name-calling directed toward any individual, however, calling policies that are discriminatory based on sex and race as sexist and racist merely seemed to me to be a straight-forward use of the English language. Either that or the analogy to cancer? I don't know.
I assume the relevant section of the guidelines is
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Therefore, please accept in spirit my amendment, that my comment should have read:
> It's frustrating that these policies that discriminate based on sex and race have multiplied out-of-control across our industry.
Best regards,
GarbageToss.
PS: Having been "burned" by social approbation due to incorrect sentiment in the past, I am very thankful for the opportunity to use a throwaway account so that issues can be discussed honestly, without the chilling effect of the fear of blowback. That is the main reason why I am responding, to let you know that I have read the guidelines, and my intent was to post within those guidelines. Again, sincere thanks for your efforts, without which we all would surely suffer from an inferior space where we can discuss these issues.
I didn't believe I was engaged in name-calling directed toward any individual, however, calling policies that are discriminatory based on sex and race as sexist and racist merely seemed to me to be a straight-forward use of the English language. Either that or the analogy to cancer? I don't know.
I assume the relevant section of the guidelines is
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Therefore, please accept in spirit my amendment, that my comment should have read:
> It's frustrating that these policies that discriminate based on sex and race have multiplied out-of-control across our industry.
Best regards,
GarbageToss.
PS: Having been "burned" by social approbation due to incorrect sentiment in the past, I am very thankful for the opportunity to use a throwaway account so that issues can be discussed honestly, without the chilling effect of the fear of blowback. That is the main reason why I am responding, to let you know that I have read the guidelines, and my intent was to post within those guidelines. Again, sincere thanks for your efforts, without which we all would surely suffer from an inferior space where we can discuss these issues.
[deleted]
You are making a key mistake here in your understanding of racism and sexism.
It's not racist or sexist simply to accept there are differences in the circumstances of different races and genders. And, of course, where there is a difference there is a basis for deciding how to act. That can be for good or for bad.
A key aspect of racism and sexism is to put one race or gender above or below another race or gender.
Policies are sexist or racist have to do more than differentiate between races and genders. They have to work to the benefit of one group at the expense of another.
In this case, it appears the internship program is trying to correct an imbalance in the makeup of the tech workforce. It's true the program excludes hetero white males (among others), which is an imbalance in itself. But the idea is that by weighting things in a small way here, a larger imbalance can be corrected.
The idea seems pretty well founded to me. An internship program works in two ways: first, an underrepresented person may get an opportunity to break into tech they otherwise wouldn't get. Then that person serves as a role model, which will lead to more members of the underrepresented group to aspire to tech jobs.
And why do we care if groups are underrepresented in tech? Because tech jobs are generally good jobs. Underrepresentation means there is an underlying economic disparity. Such disparities create tensions that harm out entire society (and everyone living in it).
I'll put it this way: if you see a system that is imposing a meaningful disparity between different races and genders and you insist on maintaining that system by rejecting efforts to resolve it, then you are the one with a racist and sexist policy.
Also, it only makes sense to make decisions on a purely functional basis if you only have purely functional goals. Functional goals are often a high priority, but not the only priority, so it's perfectly reasonable to not make all decisions on a purely functional basis.
It's not racist or sexist simply to accept there are differences in the circumstances of different races and genders. And, of course, where there is a difference there is a basis for deciding how to act. That can be for good or for bad.
A key aspect of racism and sexism is to put one race or gender above or below another race or gender.
Policies are sexist or racist have to do more than differentiate between races and genders. They have to work to the benefit of one group at the expense of another.
In this case, it appears the internship program is trying to correct an imbalance in the makeup of the tech workforce. It's true the program excludes hetero white males (among others), which is an imbalance in itself. But the idea is that by weighting things in a small way here, a larger imbalance can be corrected.
The idea seems pretty well founded to me. An internship program works in two ways: first, an underrepresented person may get an opportunity to break into tech they otherwise wouldn't get. Then that person serves as a role model, which will lead to more members of the underrepresented group to aspire to tech jobs.
And why do we care if groups are underrepresented in tech? Because tech jobs are generally good jobs. Underrepresentation means there is an underlying economic disparity. Such disparities create tensions that harm out entire society (and everyone living in it).
I'll put it this way: if you see a system that is imposing a meaningful disparity between different races and genders and you insist on maintaining that system by rejecting efforts to resolve it, then you are the one with a racist and sexist policy.
Also, it only makes sense to make decisions on a purely functional basis if you only have purely functional goals. Functional goals are often a high priority, but not the only priority, so it's perfectly reasonable to not make all decisions on a purely functional basis.
When we know we have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race, gender and orientation and ourselves is it really unreasonable to take action to try to counteract this? Especially for internships where there isn't even a professional history to compare.
Yes, it is unreasonable. I am a visible minority, and am very offended when that factors in to hiring practices. It matters to me that my acceptance is legitimate and based on merit, and it tarnishes my reputation every day that others who do not meet the same standard are accepted (i.e. meet the threshold) merely due to their skin color.
Aside from that, whoever this "we" is that you're discussing, it does not include myself. You may have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race, etc., that's on you, and people on average may have such inclinations. However, you have cited no references indicating the universality of this phenomenon, nor do you possess any pertinent data on me. It would be more fair and correct to use "I" or "in general, people...".
The fact that you're a racist person is not in dispute here, we both agree. The question is whether you want to apply your prejudices in an affirmative or negative sense. My contention is that I prefer and believe it is ethically superior for hiring and acceptance practices to consciously remove, as much as possible, the influence of prejudice for each candidate.
Aside from that, whoever this "we" is that you're discussing, it does not include myself. You may have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race, etc., that's on you, and people on average may have such inclinations. However, you have cited no references indicating the universality of this phenomenon, nor do you possess any pertinent data on me. It would be more fair and correct to use "I" or "in general, people...".
The fact that you're a racist person is not in dispute here, we both agree. The question is whether you want to apply your prejudices in an affirmative or negative sense. My contention is that I prefer and believe it is ethically superior for hiring and acceptance practices to consciously remove, as much as possible, the influence of prejudice for each candidate.
> My contention is that I prefer and believe it is ethically superior for hiring and acceptance practices to consciously remove, as much as possible, the influence of prejudice for each candidate.
It is! But many people in charge of hiring have no interest in doing so, although they’ll claim they have. And when the numbers don’t back them up, they’ll always have a convenient excuse.
It is! But many people in charge of hiring have no interest in doing so, although they’ll claim they have. And when the numbers don’t back them up, they’ll always have a convenient excuse.
> we know we have unconscious biases to people who are of the same race
If that would be true, this wouldn't happen:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
> Especially for internships where there isn't even a professional history to compare.
You give them a technical test and whoever scores the most wins, if they score equally, you can pick at random.
If that would be true, this wouldn't happen:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
> Especially for internships where there isn't even a professional history to compare.
You give them a technical test and whoever scores the most wins, if they score equally, you can pick at random.
And if it wasn't true, this wouldn't happen:
https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/...
You can't conclude too much from an isolated example.
https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/...
You can't conclude too much from an isolated example.
> You can't conclude too much from an isolated example.
You can conclude that the effects of implicit bias are not well understood and maybe we should study it a little bit more before we treat it as absolute truth and factor it into decision making.
You can conclude that the effects of implicit bias are not well understood and maybe we should study it a little bit more before we treat it as absolute truth and factor it into decision making.
I don't see how I could conclude anything about how well understood implicit bias is from one or two examples of it materializing or failing to materialize.
People thought they understood it, they started applying policies around it and then their assumptions turned out to be false, hence me saying it's not well understood.
From the article:
>"We should hit pause and be very cautious about introducing this as a way of improving diversity, as it can have the opposite effect," Professor Hiscox said.
To me, this quote succinctly expresses the whole problem behind the push for "diversity" (a term which I have never seen rigorously defined by its exponents) in technology fields. By trying to fix the results with artificial means, they place the cart before the horse. They attempt to fix a painting they perceive to be damaged by doodling over top of it. There appears to be no self-reflection when unintended consequences occur.
They did a study where they attempt to remove all bias, but they got results they didn't like, and so we should "hit pause"? Why should we ever hit pause on removing bias and discrimination from our society?
>"We should hit pause and be very cautious about introducing this as a way of improving diversity, as it can have the opposite effect," Professor Hiscox said.
To me, this quote succinctly expresses the whole problem behind the push for "diversity" (a term which I have never seen rigorously defined by its exponents) in technology fields. By trying to fix the results with artificial means, they place the cart before the horse. They attempt to fix a painting they perceive to be damaged by doodling over top of it. There appears to be no self-reflection when unintended consequences occur.
They did a study where they attempt to remove all bias, but they got results they didn't like, and so we should "hit pause"? Why should we ever hit pause on removing bias and discrimination from our society?
> You give them a technical test and whoever scores the most wins, if they score equally, you can pick at random.
The thing is that people don't have equal opportunity to prepare for the technical test. Thus the people who do best might not be the best for the job. Especially as a lot of value can be obtained from hiring someone with a different perspective on life, which the hiring manager might not appreciate (as the other perspective doesn't align with theirs).
The thing is that people don't have equal opportunity to prepare for the technical test. Thus the people who do best might not be the best for the job. Especially as a lot of value can be obtained from hiring someone with a different perspective on life, which the hiring manager might not appreciate (as the other perspective doesn't align with theirs).
>It is not a small or reasonable action to declare that judgements of suitability to work with an organization will be made based on sex, race, and other non-functional dimensions.
Correct, yet this is implicitly the case in every workplace. There are structural, systemic biases towards the majority population in every country. The reason why attempts to counter this are spreading "like a cancer" is because they show positive results quickly, in strict monetary terms, typically because the extra consideration given to minorities actually shows up very skilled people who were otherwise overlooked.
I appreciate that from the outside it can look very much like "reverse discrimination", and in essence it _is_, but it's a crude attempt to balance out the _existing_ discrimination which happens on a systemic, not personal, level. Nobody really thinks that there's serious problems with HR people all going "ew, no _black people_ here!" - the biases are extremely subtle and large scale, while the attempted solutions are hacky and small scale, because it's a lot easier to effect a small change than a large one.
Correct, yet this is implicitly the case in every workplace. There are structural, systemic biases towards the majority population in every country. The reason why attempts to counter this are spreading "like a cancer" is because they show positive results quickly, in strict monetary terms, typically because the extra consideration given to minorities actually shows up very skilled people who were otherwise overlooked.
I appreciate that from the outside it can look very much like "reverse discrimination", and in essence it _is_, but it's a crude attempt to balance out the _existing_ discrimination which happens on a systemic, not personal, level. Nobody really thinks that there's serious problems with HR people all going "ew, no _black people_ here!" - the biases are extremely subtle and large scale, while the attempted solutions are hacky and small scale, because it's a lot easier to effect a small change than a large one.
> The reason why attempts to counter this are spreading "like a cancer" is because they show positive results quickly, in strict monetary terms
This is a pretty bold claim. Do you have a citation?
The only argument for this I've heard is that a culturally diverse workforce has marked differences in vacation time, holidays, etc. which lends larger organizations more operational flexibility. This doesn't benefit small organizations since they don't have sufficient operational slack to take advantage of it, and I've never seen this difference quantified. You seem convinced that this advantage is large and has been measured, so I'd like to see that data if you have it.
This is a pretty bold claim. Do you have a citation?
The only argument for this I've heard is that a culturally diverse workforce has marked differences in vacation time, holidays, etc. which lends larger organizations more operational flexibility. This doesn't benefit small organizations since they don't have sufficient operational slack to take advantage of it, and I've never seen this difference quantified. You seem convinced that this advantage is large and has been measured, so I'd like to see that data if you have it.
This is all feelings: there is a huge cultural divide on the internet between America(s) and what feels the rest of the world. In America racist programs like these are accepted and celebrated. Where I am from it would be illegal and when you voice your opinion, that this is the wrong approach and you don't fight fire with fire, suddenly your feathers are ruffled and you're "on the right". Just like you wrote.
In my eyes the bottom line is: the attitude and arrogance from americans will only have negative consequences because it pushes people in your 2 narrow minded boxes and hardens the discourse. Identity politics are cancer and stand in the way of any and all progress
In my eyes the bottom line is: the attitude and arrogance from americans will only have negative consequences because it pushes people in your 2 narrow minded boxes and hardens the discourse. Identity politics are cancer and stand in the way of any and all progress
he isn't on the right =)
> the left gets saddled with names like “snowflake” when such small & reasonable actions routinely ruffle feathers on the right.
The "left" wants to police speech because they can't even handle a bad joke or unwanted attention(see the new CoC). This is why they are called snowflakes.
> small & reasonable actions
Changing the CoC is not small. A tech project taking a side in politics is not reasonable in my opinion.
Do you think politics needs to be an integral part of tech?
The "left" wants to police speech because they can't even handle a bad joke or unwanted attention(see the new CoC). This is why they are called snowflakes.
> small & reasonable actions
Changing the CoC is not small. A tech project taking a side in politics is not reasonable in my opinion.
Do you think politics needs to be an integral part of tech?
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>The "left" wants to police speech
I am the left, and I don't want to do that.
I am the left, and I don't want to do that.
So they sound just about as sensitive on the right. The name seems to fit both. Get it?
I'm a friend of Rafael and talked to him just before he announced that he was leaving LLVM.
I actually disagree with many of Rafael's political views but I think that some of the comments in this discussion are unfair. For example, one poster assumed that Rafael is a member of the right - he is actually a member of the BC Green Party, which is firmly on the left.
The LLVM code of conduct requires that people be welcoming to others of any religion. I don't want to share too much about Rafael's personal life but he has reasons why that requirement is problematic. Consider that some religious beliefs make women chattel that can be abused at the discretion of their "owners".
I actually disagree with many of Rafael's political views but I think that some of the comments in this discussion are unfair. For example, one poster assumed that Rafael is a member of the right - he is actually a member of the BC Green Party, which is firmly on the left.
The LLVM code of conduct requires that people be welcoming to others of any religion. I don't want to share too much about Rafael's personal life but he has reasons why that requirement is problematic. Consider that some religious beliefs make women chattel that can be abused at the discretion of their "owners".
I find it interesting how you make a jump from 'religion' to 'religious beliefs'. I think the distinction is a very important one, and it bothers me a ton that precisely the people who argue 'against' particular beliefs seem to use the two as if they are synonyms.
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No, nothing is truly apolitical.
But in practice it's pretty easy to see that there is a subset of political topics inherently tied to the subject at hand, and a subset of political topics that would be ginormous scope creep. (e.g. a window manager caring about colorblindness vs. a window manager endorsing a political candidate)
It's pretty obvious that the colloquial statements around "no politics" or some form of "keeping politics out" is simply a way to express how much appetite someone has for the gray zone between the two extremes described above.
It frustrates me that the inability to completely disentangle something from the political is used as a thin edge of a wedge that ends in (paraphrasing) "...therefore your project should spend effort on all my pet political issues." At worst it's a dishonest tactic, at best it shows someone's hubris regarding their hobbyhorse.
But in practice it's pretty easy to see that there is a subset of political topics inherently tied to the subject at hand, and a subset of political topics that would be ginormous scope creep. (e.g. a window manager caring about colorblindness vs. a window manager endorsing a political candidate)
It's pretty obvious that the colloquial statements around "no politics" or some form of "keeping politics out" is simply a way to express how much appetite someone has for the gray zone between the two extremes described above.
It frustrates me that the inability to completely disentangle something from the political is used as a thin edge of a wedge that ends in (paraphrasing) "...therefore your project should spend effort on all my pet political issues." At worst it's a dishonest tactic, at best it shows someone's hubris regarding their hobbyhorse.
It's a thought-provoking comment for sure, but it makes a number of invalid inferences.
> This is not to say that your particular choices are wrong. It’s just you are already engaged in “non-technical”, political work
A non-technical choice does not entail a political choice. In particular, such choices aren't always about managing "power", which is what politics is about.
> With limited time and resources, you will have to make tradeoffs in your code, documentation, and community about which people your software is supportive and hostile towards. [...] At the community development level, your intentional and forced choices around language, schedule, pronouns, and even technical terminology can make contributors from varying backgrounds feel welcome or unwelcome
I don't think this argument is sound. "Not supportive of" does not entail "hostile". Choices surrounding language, schedule and technical jargon does not entail how welcoming a community is.
This is an overly simplistic viewpoint that's typically indicative of a conflict theory mentality, but is not how good open source projects typically function. If you're ready and willing to be helpful:
1. if you don't know the jargon, people often help you learn it
2. if you don't fit the schedule, people will often help accommodate your efforts
3. if you don't speak the language, people who do will often assist, but if no such person exists, then that's just an insurmountable problem given limited resources
> Consider: you wish to take only the best developers, and yet your post has already discouraged good engineers from working on your project. Doubtless it has encouraged other engineers (who may be quite skilled!) with a similar political view to your own; those who believe, for instance, that current minority representation in tech is justified
This conclusion just doesn't follow. You can oppose some inclusion efforts in tech and yet not accept that current minority representation is somehow justified. The above argument blatantly begs the question that inclusion efforts a priori ethically justified, except the ethics of such efforts is precisely the dispute.
> This is not to say that your particular choices are wrong. It’s just you are already engaged in “non-technical”, political work
A non-technical choice does not entail a political choice. In particular, such choices aren't always about managing "power", which is what politics is about.
> With limited time and resources, you will have to make tradeoffs in your code, documentation, and community about which people your software is supportive and hostile towards. [...] At the community development level, your intentional and forced choices around language, schedule, pronouns, and even technical terminology can make contributors from varying backgrounds feel welcome or unwelcome
I don't think this argument is sound. "Not supportive of" does not entail "hostile". Choices surrounding language, schedule and technical jargon does not entail how welcoming a community is.
This is an overly simplistic viewpoint that's typically indicative of a conflict theory mentality, but is not how good open source projects typically function. If you're ready and willing to be helpful:
1. if you don't know the jargon, people often help you learn it
2. if you don't fit the schedule, people will often help accommodate your efforts
3. if you don't speak the language, people who do will often assist, but if no such person exists, then that's just an insurmountable problem given limited resources
> Consider: you wish to take only the best developers, and yet your post has already discouraged good engineers from working on your project. Doubtless it has encouraged other engineers (who may be quite skilled!) with a similar political view to your own; those who believe, for instance, that current minority representation in tech is justified
This conclusion just doesn't follow. You can oppose some inclusion efforts in tech and yet not accept that current minority representation is somehow justified. The above argument blatantly begs the question that inclusion efforts a priori ethically justified, except the ethics of such efforts is precisely the dispute.
aphyr on point as usual.
One small point: could we get the title changed? This is a link to a response to the original article, not the original article.
One small point: could we get the title changed? This is a link to a response to the original article, not the original article.
This reminds me of certain developers being mad at Linus for his rants. Seems unlikely anyone is going to care much and it's a lot of fuss for nothing.
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One thing that is completely omitted in the discussion here is that Outreachy is doing something based on your residency (if in US, different rules apply). This is well within their rights, but I wonder how that part affects the "diversity" stance - I would expect a black person from Africa to have generally a much harder time in tech than an African American.
"I would expect a black person from Africa to have generally a much harder time in tech than an African American."
Possibly the reverse, if bias against African Americans is partly due to preconceptions and stereotypes of African American culture. Black applicants from outside the US might benefit from being perceived differently because they don't fit into the existing stereotype.
Possibly the reverse, if bias against African Americans is partly due to preconceptions and stereotypes of African American culture. Black applicants from outside the US might benefit from being perceived differently because they don't fit into the existing stereotype.
There were some great comments on lobster.rs. The one about groups A, A', and B was one of the best things I've read about this kind of thing in a while.
Sexist and racist codes of conduct do understandably make people uncomfortable.
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, especially not on divisive topics. That's flamebait, and it's the last thing we need.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Could you explain what part of their code of conduct ( https://github.com/llvm-mirror/llvm/blob/master/docs/CodeOfC... ) is racist or sexist?
I highly recommend also reading the "stick" part of the CoC - the reporting guide.
A person who broke the CoC by snickering at the repeated use of the word dongle; unless a permanent ban is the result, the accused can not appeal any remedial actions taken against them. They are not even guaranteed to offer their side of the story in the investigation.
This CoC, like most, puts the power entirely in the hands of the accuser; it is very much the open source equivalent of a "binding arbitration" clause.
A person who broke the CoC by snickering at the repeated use of the word dongle; unless a permanent ban is the result, the accused can not appeal any remedial actions taken against them. They are not even guaranteed to offer their side of the story in the investigation.
This CoC, like most, puts the power entirely in the hands of the accuser; it is very much the open source equivalent of a "binding arbitration" clause.
I don't follow your comment. The reporting guide doesn't say anything about people snickering at 'dongle', and neither does the post we're commenting on. I also don't see anything in the CoC that suggests that snickering at 'dongle' would constitute a violation.
There is a well documented precedent for this exact behavior being considered to be sexual harassment and having negative effects on the accused' professional life.
> reporting guide doesn't say anything
That's part of the problem: explicit behaviors are not called out, only the effect they have on the accuser matters.
> reporting guide doesn't say anything
That's part of the problem: explicit behaviors are not called out, only the effect they have on the accuser matters.
>There is a well documented precedent for this exact behavior being considered to be sexual harassment
By which you mean there's exactly one instance of it having happened in a completely different community (a Python conference) with a different CoC?
By which you mean there's exactly one instance of it having happened in a completely different community (a Python conference) with a different CoC?
It's not the code of conduct here, but partnering with an organization that denies the members of a protected group a benefit due to their race and gender.
There is nothing about their CoC that is racist or sexist. It's this weird sad attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick where the right says "you are being intolerant of people like me who hate tolerance".
What the tee total f...
The discussion on lobste.rs was actually really good.
What the tee total f...
The discussion on lobste.rs was actually really good.
What happened to the free exchange of ideas?
It's not the code of conduct, but the partnership with 'Outreachy', who limits internships based on race and gender/sex: <https://www.outreachy.org/apply/eligibility/>
it's a 404 now?
No, it's just that HN's comment parser interpreted the > as a part of the URL. Here's a working link: https://www.outreachy.org/apply/eligibility/
I'm guessing this is the part that divides some:
> [To be eligible] you are a person of any gender who is Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander
That is racist, by definition. Not very consequential and they can provide support to whoever they want IMO, but technically racist.
> [To be eligible] you are a person of any gender who is Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander
That is racist, by definition. Not very consequential and they can provide support to whoever they want IMO, but technically racist.
Lobsters sysop here - we're having trouble keeping up with YC News's level of traffic. We're not going to crash, but the unicorn worker pool is small enough that lots of users are getting 500s. I'm adding some caching.
How much is the traffic? Yc traffic is not really that high
SQL isn't a good match for the recursive structure of comments (and our version of mariadb from LTS Ubuntu doesn't support recursive common table expressions), so the app pulls all comments in ActiveRecord objects and threads/sorts them there. It's expensive and uncached. Codebase is here if you're curious: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters
Traffic counting has to wait until I have spare attention, which is also a shallow resource pool. :)
Traffic counting has to wait until I have spare attention, which is also a shallow resource pool. :)
Great answer, thank you.
Actually more interested in how you're handling this than the PC fight that's breaking out around the thread.
I'm not sure what you're asking for. If it helps, https://lobste.rs/about has some notes on the community and https://lobste.rs/moderations has the log of moderator actions.
Pretty sure this meant the technical details of dealing with the increased traffic of the HN hug-of-death, rather than moderating policies.
The "PC" made me think he was talking about political discussion, but I added some caching in https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/commit/e99c0783aa386740... and I'm thinking https://github.com/rails/actionpack-page_caching would be good for logged-out users.
Why do we allow first person titles? They are uninformative (who is I?), and click-baity
I have to agree. "I am leaving LLVM" doesn't tell me much. It only made much sense to me because I had already seen news article about this on another site, which had a much more informative title.
It would be better to have the title be something like, "<name>: "I am leaving LLVM" " (note the quotes around the first-person statement). It might also be helpful to have it look like, "<name> (LLVM maintainer): "I am leaving LLVM" "
It would be better to have the title be something like, "<name>: "I am leaving LLVM" " (note the quotes around the first-person statement). It might also be helpful to have it look like, "<name> (LLVM maintainer): "I am leaving LLVM" "
HN's rules exist for deep reasons based on many years of working with community dynamics. If you break them, you contribute nothing to resolving any social issue—all it does is rile up the other side and fan flames—but you do contribute to destroying this community. That's bad for all of us.
If you're feeling like venting about how wrong or bad someone is, don't post right away; pause until the needle goes out of the red. Then review your post and edit out any bits that still break the guidelines. That's what I do, and it's the only way I know to make this place work ok.
Hacker News is large enough that it lives in a precarious state: the forces that tear an online community apart grow with size and win by default. If HN's health points go to zero, it dies as a place for thoughtful discussion, so please take care with the health points.