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Comment by nickthemagicman | Hacker News Reader

So you're saying youre ok with employers discriminating based on your age because employers can do what they want?

Why would anyone be upset at a company shooting themselves in the foot? Discrimination is a luxury of the wealthy as it has a real market cost. If these older employees really are equal or more productive per dollar cost than their younger counterparts then surely someone will pick them up and get a market advantage.

There are a lot of biases that defy logic, age, gender, and ethnic biases being big ones. But let’s just take someone with a record, say a drug offense: even though it has little to do with coding, they are pretty much cut out of the high end labor market. Sure you might be able to get a job at a steel reduction in salary by someone who will exploit your situation, but that still sucks.

Same with age: markets aren’t always as efficient as we think they should be.

You're just expressing your own biases here. How would you prove that age based discrimination is economically irrational unless you let it happen? I tend to agree with you that IBM is hurting itself here. But I admit I could be wrong.

My only point is that markets are not completely rational, and they are often irrational in many respects.

Are you willing to even consider that what you're calling rational might not actually be rational?

It's one thing to say you want to subsidize $group with some sort of legislation because it's moral or better for the broader economy, etc. It's another thing entirely to claim to be forcing any individual company to be acting in its own best interest.

The problem is that some people take rational for optimal.

Real markets are neither clearly rational nor clearly optimal.

Rationalizing is the best way to put it.

To prove that age discrimination is rational you would have to show real reasons to prefer younger workers. Showing lower pay is not enough of there are costs. Have to show that the costs are outweighting the benefits. Remember the shape of modern developed nation agree structure.

I'm not making the claim that age discrimination is rational or optimal. I'm merely suggesting that you may not have enough information to claim that it isn't optimal. It's fairly easy to show that age discrimination exists, but far more difficult to show that it's not optimal, especially in an environment in which it's both illegal and socially taboo.

And secondly, even if keeping the older workers is both rational and optimal for the business it's not clear to me why we should force a company to do it. If the shareholders feel the company is not acting in their best interest there are mechanisms in place for them to deal with that.

"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." -- Schilling.

And when that irrationality is not just stupid, but also unjust, then we should not put the burden of such stupidity on the victims of the injustice.

But you're really just protecting the shareholders. It only takes a small fraction of the market to not be "incorrectly" prejudiced to scoop up all these underpriced assets and outcompete everyone else.

If you want to make legislation which subsidizes an older, generally wealthier group of people because you feel it's just, then just say so. If you are doing it because you think it's what's best for the shareholders then say that. Any argument that says it's better for companies to keep the experienced workers is just an argument to maximize the benefit of the shareholders. No legislation is needed there.

As far as I can see, the arguments about the legality of age-discrimination is precisely about what is just. And everyone has been saying that.

It may or may not be a nice side effect that companies end up doing better, but that is not the gist of most arguments around this, and even absent that effect, most proponents would still argue that the unjustness of such discrimination is the primary driver of such legislation.

If you want to say that we are protecting a class that doesn't deserve protection because they are (on average) more wealthy than others, feel free to make that argument on the merits.

This is the content of the GP to the post you're responding to:

>"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." -- Schilling.

>And when that irrationality is not just stupid, but also unjust, then we should not put the burden of such stupidity on the victims of the injustice.

In other words the poster believes that age based discrimination is both economically irrational and unjust.

I'm pointing out that it's unknown whether age discrimination is economically rational, but that proponents of age based discrimination laws must believe that it is. Whether it's rational matters, because if it's more economically efficient to put a young person in a worker slot there may be better ways to help the older worker than punishing the employer for not skirting equal employment opportunity regulations.

"But you're really just protecting the shareholders."

And the people who need to take care of their families. You keep forgetting that letting these people go has a very severe negative impact on that.

You're back to making the moral argument that we should subsidize older workers who are generally relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the labor force. There's good arguments to be made there. But you can't come in and make economic arguments about how it's better for the employer because you don't know that.

No, no one is saying anything about subsidies. You are making that up.

"But you can't come in and make economic arguments about how it's better for the employer because you don't know that."

I'm sure the people who found themselves unable to provide for their families will rest easier knowing the "economics" of it are sound.

>No, no one is saying anything about subsidies.

If you are worth less in the market but employers are forced to keep you and pay you the same, that is a subsidy.

>I'm sure the people who found themselves unable to provide for their families will rest easier knowing the "economics" of it are sound.

I'm sure the family of the worker who was denied the job they'd be better at than you is not resting easy either.

The argument does not work. Small corner of the market can only absorb a small number of workers profitably.

Their relative success will demonstrate to everyone else the types of behaviors to replicate.

"Why would anyone be upset at a company shooting themselves in the foot?"

Because the company is never the one that suffers. Meanwhile, the person they laid off is struggling to feed and house their family.

>Because the company is never the one that suffers.

This is interesting, because you're the first responder to acknowledge that age discrimination is either irrelevant to the success of a business or potentially even beneficial.

I'm not heartless, I'm willing to entertain the idea that we should subsidize a segment of the population that can't compete. I'm not convinced that older workers can't compete though.

When you focus solely on the "economics" of it, then yes, you are showing yourself to be heartless. There is far, far, far more to this situation than just the economics, and your robotic like desire to focus solely on that does not reflect well on you.

Or not allowed to compete.

Forcing a company to hire someone against their will, or forcing them to keep an already hired employee against their will is not the same as "allowing them to compete."

They are two sides of the same coin.

We understand that discrimination by race, gender, etc is wrong, as well as age, arguing anything else makes you (ironically) an old-fashioned pariah, haha.

No, I don't think you do understand that discrimination by race, gender, etc. is wrong. Because you are doing exhibiting a behavior called the soft bigotry of lowered expectations. If older workers are just as viable as their younger counterparts then it will only take a small fraction of unbiased employers in the market to alleviate all bias pretty quickly. If you can give some small sampling of companies a 5%+ discount on labor costs (achieved by them not biasing), they're going to destroy everyone. Labor costs are a huge part of business costs.

Must be nice living in a fantasy world where markets are perfectly rational, enjoy.

Companies that are not under direct threat, i.e. most can do just fine working sub-optimally. There are hundreds of variables regarding why a company is successful or not. Many work way less efficiently than 5%, and will continue to happily screw folks unless we work together to keep a reasonably level playing field.

You've not been discriminated against yet I gather. I hadn't until recently either, so it's become less than theoretical. Your time will come as well, put out to pasture at the top of your game right when you're trying to put children through college or similar.

Markets are not perfectly rational but you seem to be unwilling to consider the idea that favoring younger workers might actually be rational. I doubt age discrimination is economically efficient, but I'm willing to let that play out.

Secondly, if older workers need to be subsidized in some way because they're unable to compete there's probably a better way to do so than to punish employers who are unable to skirt labor laws.

> Why would anyone be upset at a company shooting themselves in the foot?

You've stabbed at the hilariously backwards logic behind the "employer discrimination" crowd. If a company choses to discriminate against able-bodied people because of factors irrelevant to their performance, that just means more pickings for their competitors.

Except the competitors are trying to mimic other successful companies hiring practices, i.e. why we have such a horrible interview situation right now, because everyone is copying the interview processes from everyone else (not literally everyone, but enough that it's an issue).

There's not enough companies out there taking a Moneyball approach out there, and it'll take some major visibility of a booming company that is pretty much preaching how much of a good deal and competitive advantage they have from hiring these people before we might seeing a shift back to it, but the brainwashing of 'younger thinks outside of the box and saves us money!' is strong.

You're completely discounting the possibility that the 'brainwashed' crowd is correct. Are you willing to entertain the idea that you're wrong? What evidence would it take and are you willing to allow a world to exist such that the evidence could be attained? In other words, are you willing to live in a world in which a company might openly state that part of the reason for their success is age discrimination? And could they even acknowledge this publicly without it negatively impacting their success?

This is why I keep trying to point out that moral arguments are fine. You feel age discrimination is unjust. You feel we should legislatively subsidize a demographic which is usually more wealthy, fine. But if you're going to make an economic argument, that it's better for the employer, then you've lost me. Because I don't believe you know that. And even if you did know that it's unclear why we should legislate it.

> are you willing to live in a world in which a company might openly state that part of the reason for their success is age discrimination?

Actually, yes. I'd rather they admit it than achieve pretty much the same effect through loophole means.

> And could they even acknowledge this publicly without it negatively impacting their success?

I'm not sure in which way you mean this. Are you presupposing that they would be successful by discriminating by age, or do you mean that the public shouldn't be free to condemn or boycott them for stating what they did (without taking action against them), or do you just mean without being punished by the government for it? I'm okay with the latter.

I suspect you'll find a correlation between age bias and economic success for businesses. That may be a positive or negative correlation. And that may vary across cultures, industries, etc. Maybe old Mexican women are statistically just as good at nursing as young white women, but maybe old American white men are not.

I'm not presupposing age discrimination would be successful, I'm suggesting that no corporation, economist, or politician would likely be willing to publicly acknowledge that age discrimination is good for business.

The question is, if it could be proven that hospitals who hire more old white American male nurses make less money than hospitals who hire old Mexican female nurses, what differential outcomes would you be willing to accept? Would a company policy discouraging hiring old white men be okay?

As a professional, hopefully he's been planning for retirement for some number of years. And not all employers discriminate. So just find one who doesn't, finish off your retirement checklist, and leave the world of work to the kids.

There are worse worlds to live in than one in which everyone can do what they want.

> So just find one who doesn't

IBM didn't, until they did.

I really don't understand the mentality here sometimes. HNers want ultimate choice for themselves, but the choices of the companies they work for are to be constrained such that the only choices they make are choices that benefit them. They want both ultimate security and benefit of market forces on their salaries.

Libertarianism only when it suits them.

It's almost as if we care more about workers who are people, than big, faceless corporations.

Oh? Just find a new employer? And if they get sick while unemployed, should they "just" cure cancer?

> Just find a new employer?

Umm, yeah? You do have a network of professional contacts whose bosses are constantly hitting up for personal references, don't you? There is still a shortage of qualified tech workers, isn't there? The world didn't just change overnight because IBM is laying some people off.

Okay, you tell me. What social contract do you think should be on offer here? Because it sounds a lot to me like, "Give me everything and hold me accountable for nothing."

No, despite all the rhetoric about shortages, I'm seeing most companies sit on job reqs for a year waiting on a unicorn rather than taking a chance on a non-perfect fit. Largely due to the meme that started a decade+ ago that one bad hire can destroy a company, and everyone is secretly a non-learning moron.

Heaven forbid they might have to allow you to train for two weeks for a two year job. Nope, must "hit the ground running."

I wonder where it's going to go. Will the field fully stratify by tech stack? Kinda hard to imagine with how new stacks still pop up every 5 years or so.

I'm already kinda leery of taking jobs outside of my specialty. I'm not at the point yet where I won't switch stacks, but I can see it getting there.

Indeed, it might be even worse. You generally aren't allowed to take a job outside your specialty these days unless you've got a friend on the inside, or very early in your career.

Or you can answer with 100% certainty a selection of twenty random questions on the new stack. Because there will always be one other candidate who dedicated their life to it. What you know right this second takes precedence over anything you might learn, even if you could look it up in thirty seconds.

There is a book about "mindsets" I read recently. The growth mindset (teachable) and the fixed (born smart/dumb) mindset. Tech interviews are firmly in the later category, to our detriment.

Your last sentence shows that you are not interested in a discussion; you are only interested in bragging how much better you are than the people who had the rug pulled out from underneath them.

Ah yes, the "let them eat cake" strategy.

Oh these poor professional IBMers, making IBM salaries for all these years.

These aren't the poor and downtrodden we're talking about here. Is it really too much to ask someone with a professional livelihood to build a professional safety net with it if they want safety?

I rather like labor market liquidity, thank you very much. I wish there were more of it.

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