The Undercover Economist

and

run75441 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:46:24 GMT

degsme:

economic discrimination

not quite

degsme — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:45:29 GMT

Not quite.

If I had it my way, you would have a strong incentive to actively go out and look for minorities and women who are qualified, and/or to go out and pro-actively support via internships and/or scholarships - potential candidates.

Now I agree on a better education system being necessary, especially one that is structured to suppress racism and gender discrimination. But the reality is that our society isn't willing to pay for that.

Separate But Equal . . .

run75441 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:39:57 GMT

tundra:

was the concept that schools for black were separate; but yet, they were equal to those existing for whites (only). Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 established a rule to ascertain whether races were being discriminated against. As long as facility and services were equal, there was no discrimination. This was legal discrimination as set by the Fuller Supreme Court in 1896.

"By ensuring and enforcing legislation based on race, you are advantaging them... You say this is to overcome a basic disadvantage, but the fact is you are legislating a forced advantage... which ironically does more than anything else ever could to perpetuate a predjudice that assumes people of that race are not able to compete on their own merit... "

Today, many of the schools within the cities (Atlanta being one of the cities and Detroit another) are predominantly black, not equal in facilities or resources, and as a result unequal in the results they achieve for their students when compared to schools of mixed cultures and races or simply white.The cities lack the economic resource to bring the inner city schools to an equal state when compared to those in outlying districts. Furthermore, the states do not allocate the needed money to bring them up to standard. In a sense, we are now practicing economic discrimination against inner city schools and minorities as a result.

If you wish minorities to compete on an equal basis with no legislated and legal assistance to get into college, than provide them with equal facility and service for learning even if they are legally and economically deprived of facility and service due to no fault of their own. Many are stuck where they are in the cities, with those capable of leaving having left to the suburbs or outlying districts. In reality, this is the same as Plessy v. Ferguson except now we have an informal economic rule in place.

"I continue to advocate preferential acceptance to higher learning institutes for those that greatly exceed the average performance of their schooling, and letting the rest of affirmative action phase out."

I am happy that you do advocate for this. Now drop it down several levels and also advocate for equal economic service and facility for all students regardless of where the student lives. In which case, if this was truly the case today, your advocating for this to go to college would be realistic.

Math.

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:55:30 GMT

We make custom research equipment. There is not one job (other than janitor - and that's taken) in the building that doesn't need math... whether you're in design, machining, assembly, testing, shipping, or advertizing and sales.

In this company we discriminate based on math skills and science background. You didn't ask about our male/female ratio... it's horrible! Of course, that makes us sexists now, even though we've only had about 20 applicants in the history of the business that scored higher than 70% on the math test... But that's probably sexist too, rather than a serious commentary on the South Carolina education system...

If you had you're way, we would be forced to take people that couldn't do math and put them in jobs where they NEED to be able to do math, just to stop what you deem as "sexism"... All that would do is lead to actual sexism, because the people that had to rely on the math-deficient person would be constantly frustrated by them.

Better to simply advocate a better education system, and set a standard.

sales calls

degsme — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:48:25 GMT

Sales calls are not federally regulated, hiring practices are. There are fairly rigorous rules that interview practices have to follow.

And while "girls don't like sports" is no longer applicable, it is still documented fact that women are not as interested in spectator sports as men, and even less so in the statistics behind the sports. So if you had a question that talked about Baseball and ERA - unless you knew what that was, you would not be able to reason about it.

Arithmetic or math

degsme — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:42:03 GMT

Arithemetic or math? They are different.

How does being skilled in either help you with

visual design?
dispute mediation?
public speaking?
athletics?
driving a dump truck?

Look, I'm a mathy as well. I love it and love playing with it. But I recognize that it is not the be-all and end-all

discriminatory tests....

deduction — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:45:41 GMT

ok. just two little cents to put in. you can't state that a test is culturally biased, but you can't say that it is biased by sex or ethnicity unless you are trying to say that sex and/or ethnicity is indicative of your intelligence. Exposure to facts is the key, not your sex or race.

if you are good at math, then it doesn't matter if your percentages are ERA calcsor somehow related to cooking measurements. regardless of that, we are not living in 1950 when it was common to believe that "girls don't like sports".

if people would stop thinking in stereotypes the issue would be moot and the stereotypes would begin to disappear.

oh. and about the name calling thing? different companies have different approaches to calling, whether it be cold calling or calling clientele. many companies (especially telemarketers and bill collectors) like to use the first name in order to trick the everyday american (e.g. that is trying to dodge the collector) or to create a false sense of camaraderie (the easier to convince you to buy that insurance or time share you don't need). i had a job once where we had to cold call clients and while i'm usually good with pronunciations, every now and then i would have one that i didn't pronounce well. and it's amazing how many people will get angry and yell at you over the mispronounciation of their name- even though there is no phonetical sense to it. not being someone who likes to get yelled at, i started skipping names i didnt know and quit the job as soon as i was able. just saying....

It's very discriminatory...

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:25:36 GMT

If you have aren't skilled with mathematics you're screwed! If you're applying for an engineering job and you aren't pretty good at electrical engineering and physics you're kind of out of luck as well. :)

BTW, before you even start... What job, other than janitor, do you believe would not benefit from mathematics skills?

When everyone in the world is a racist but you... you're more likely a problem than everyone. Just stating a fact. :)

Not at all

degsme — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:17:15 GMT

It proves nothing of the sort. You have no normalizing sample against which to compare the success of your chosen employees. This is the classic mistake that most companies make with their hiring decisions - that THEIR process somehow guarantees them uniquely qualified individuals as opposed to individuals who reflect the prejudices of the interviewers and senior management.

Clearly all hiring is a process of discrimination. The key question is whether or not that discirmination process truly reflects the job tasks required. Usually when there are technical tests given for a job, they over-estimate the technical knowledge required to execute the daily tasks.

As for bias in a test relevant for a job - those exist all the time. For example, if you are testing the ability to calculate percentages, and your examples on the test ask about Earned Run Averages etc. You are inherently prejudicing the question against women who do not pay attention to sports as frequently. T(his is a similar example as your yacht race questions). But since the underlying skill required to do ERA calculations is fairly trivial, many female candidates would still do at least as good a job as the male that overall scored higher in that test.

Your company's test may be non-discriminatory, but I doubt it.

I'm pulling for Huckabee in the GOP as well...

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:13:14 GMT

Almost certainly for the same reasons. :)

It seems we agree on some things after all, even if you do resort to name-calling to try to make a case for something I think has no case.

I grew up poor, real poor. My educational opportunities were the exact same as a disadvantaged black kid for the first part of my life, and my parents fled to the suburbs when they could afford it.

I believe that poverty and educational opportunity deserves consideration for entrance to the secondary education... but beyond that I believe that people that don't compete fairly never develop. Bush is a perfect example of this.

It would be hard, but life is hard. Obama is stating flat out that his children and those of other wealthy black families should compete without assistance. Why can't you understand that they have infinately more advantages than a poor white kid... and that said, how can you support a system that doesn't look past the color of a person's skin before determining who needs help?

BTW, while Obama is more conservative than Hillary on most economic matters (certainly fiscal matters), he's less of a warmongering bully. That matters a great deal to me. Though it's not the reason I chose him, it's something for you to consider.

Sorry, missed this post earlier.

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:04:13 GMT

Most people do just say "Mrs So-in-so", and the person typically states "Um... she's not here right now."

We had several million names and a limited number of volunteer hours. I simply had them skip the calls. *Shrug* I stand by that.

BTW, I would fully expect that if I filled out a resumé and used the name "Tundrayeti", I would not be called back. If I was called back and the embarrassed interviewer asked for a "Tundrayeti Doty", I'd probably laugh at them.

Re: There are a great number of arguments against racism...

Sandydee — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:03:23 GMT

Oh PLEASE!

However, I guess if someone can not pronounce "Jamal" or "LaTonya" they SHOULD be embarrassed! Any educated 10-year-old can sound out words and names.

Nope

degsme — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:55:54 GMT

Nope - your backlash is against losing privileges that allow you to compete only when YOU have special considerations. The policy I support does not speak of "lack of ability". Instead it seeks to level a playing field that grants white males and whites in general, special considerations in hiring, lending, education and a host of other things on a daily basis.

Between Obama and HRC I am completely undecided - the first election in my adult life that this has been true. Obama is the more charismatic leader - and the POTUS is very much about the bully pulpit. At the same time, execution competency is very important to me as well - as is the ability to gut-fight the GOP's attack ads, neither of which Obama has shown much ability to do. Plus Obama is too conservative for my tastes (he's to the right of HRC in so many ways).

So I'm instead going to caucus with the GOP this weekend and push Huckabee.

This proves that a company CAN

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:53:09 GMT

on its own choose the most qualified candidate based exclusively on objective grounds. If it does so, it will NATURALLY have a respectively diverse employment (in our case far beyond any artifically imposed quotas)... but the absolute certainty is that it will most assuredly have a qualified workforce.

As for whether or not a test is biased along race lines... that is only possible if the information tested is not relevent to the job. If a test is relevent to the job, then the people who don't know the information aren't going to be good at the job. Period. (A good example of a race-based question was a question in an old IQ test that used a Yacht race as one of the words in an analogy... That would clearly advantage wealthy people - which were mostly white... however, if a company that was not in the yachting industry used such a question then the test would clearly have no relevence to the job.)

"Folks like me"

Tundrayeti — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:36:48 GMT

I'm backlashing against telling people that they are inherently unable to compete without us forcing others to give them special considerations... I believe that to be a form of racism.

As for my own life, I have a few black friends... not nearly demographically representative, but far beyond the demographics of my respective sub-culture (sci-fi, fantasy), and hobby interests (naturalism, fiction/literature, environmental/energy/political wonking, philosophy, and fitness, with a budding interest in big-band jazz).

Again, you have the right to call me racist if you choose... but I have the right to call you racist as well. I don't choose to, but I believe you support a policy that has a racist undertone of "lack of ability"... in the same way that chivalry is inherently sexist. Simply calling people names if they don't agree with you is not a very good persuasion technique.

BTW, just out of curiosity (and to validate/refute my suspicion), who do you support for president? Obama or Hillary. I'm guessing it's Hillary.

For full disclosure: I've donated money to and supported Obama for about 8 months now.