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Comment by vertex-four | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that the people suggesting the better ways are usually... promoting rather unpalatable ideas. Often either that there is no discrimination in the workplace ever and so we should stop talking about it, or that discrimination in the workplace is in fact normal and healthy.

I'd love to see a way of creating healthy, non-discriminatory workplaces, especially in industries that are usually pretty terrible.

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>or that discrimination in the workplace is in fact normal and healthy

One thing that bothers me is that discrimination is seen as a four letter word, when it is something we do all the time and celebrate. Only specific forms are considered bad and we need to be more explicit on what and why.

For example, racial discrimination is bad. Discrimination based on what degree one holds is not. Or, given that not everyone has the same level of access to earn a degree, should we be so open in accepting such discrimination?

What about discriminating based on punctuality? It seems an easy one to justify, but there is a significant cultural impact on punctuality.

What about discrimination on factors that people can't control and that have no relation to work, but which are currently legally allowed. For example look at the correlation between height and pay. Should that be allowed and what efforts are we doing to stop it. And does it become more of a concern when we account for average height differences between genders and the gendered outcome that can result as a secondary result (paying short people less, given that women are on average shorter than men, results in paying women less).

These sort of conversations never seem to happen when it comes to discrimination in the work place, making me think the name of the issue doesn't accurately reflect what the acted upon concern is.

Enforcing culture is highly discriminatory. You have to talk, dress, and act a certain way within cultural boundaries, otherwise you're discriminated against.

Imagine you're in a job interview. You describe the position to a candidate, and the candidate says "Wow, that sounds cool."

You describe the position to a different candidate. That person says "Shxt, that's tight dog."

Does one sound more professional to you? Why? Are you going to make any inferences about that persons capability to be a good employee based on how they speak? Of course you are. Is that right? Probably not.

All norms reflect a certain kinds of power.

We seem to be in a period where norms are assumed to be malicious or harmful, where the majority has a moral obligation to minimize the advantages of following norms.

At bottom, though, that's just an attack on all norms.

A more honest framing is that the issue is disagreement over what discrimination means, not that it can't exist or is good. Probably the most contentious issue is representation itself. Can a group of people be overrepresented or underrepresented in an organization without the organization being discriminatory? James Damore made the case that it's probable. And what happened to him shows that it isn't about "unpalatable ideas", it's about avoiding even having the discussion.

Is it unpalatable to ask questions about how much discrimination exists and against whom it is directed? The only “evidence” I’m aware of are implicit association tests and Goldin’s study of blind auditions, neither of which demonstrate discrimination. And asking this question often just gets me downvoted. If we are so certain that there is discrimination and tons of it, why is the real evidence treated as a closely guarded secret while we proudly circulate the debunked evidence? Please note that this is the opposite of “we should not talk about it”.

I think you are getting downvoted because the argument is exasperating. It's argument by ignorance: "I don't know therefore it isn't true." It is very easy to find ample evidence of discrimination documented in published peer-reviewed studies. E.g https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html "The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity."

The other exasperating thing is at presenting evidence almost never work. The step after someone has presented evidence of discrimination is for the person who doesn't "believe in discrimination" to challenge the result. Either the result doesn't actually prove discrimination or the study is flawed in some way so you can't draw any conclusions.

> I think you are getting downvoted because the argument is exasperating. It's argument by ignorance: "I don't know therefore it isn't true."

That would be unfortunate, because I'm very clearly not saying any such thing. Specifically, asking about the magnitude of discrimination is not asserting that it doesn't exist at all. For what it's worth (hopefully very little), I'm a True Believer in discrimination--it exists, I've experienced it. I'm skeptical about specific truth claims about discrimination (notably claims that it explains a significant part of any gap in the US). I'm also skeptical about social science's ability to accurately study discrimination due to its political homogeneity and track record (more on this below).

> It is very easy to find ample evidence of discrimination documented in published peer-reviewed studies.

Undoubtedly. It's easy to find peer-reviewed studies that support almost any popular conclusion; however, I'm not looking to confirm my own biases (nor anyone else's) but rather to understand what's really going on. Notably, neither the IAT study and Goldin's orchestra study should have passed peer review and yet they did and were held up as exemplary for decades. Between issues like these and the social science replication crisis, I don't put much stock in individual studies.

> The other exasperating thing is at presenting evidence almost never work. The step after someone has presented evidence of discrimination is for the person who doesn't "believe in discrimination" to challenge the result. Either the result doesn't actually prove discrimination or the study is flawed in some way so you can't draw any conclusions.

Discrimination is indeed difficult to prove; the reasonable response isn't to be frustrated that others remain skeptical after being shown problematic evidence, but rather to question why you are compelled by said problematic evidence. Skepticism is the reasonable position here. Note again that skepticism about various discrimination claims isn't the same thing as asserting the opposite of those claims. Note also that skepticism about various discrimination claims doesn't mean that we need to stop investigating discrimination; it merely means we don't have conclusive evidence (and consequently, we probably shouldn't be drafting policy that could hurt people or otherwise propagating myths about the conclusiveness of said evidence).

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