Wow, thats a lot of assumptions about the motives of the poster you're responding to with very little evidence. Does it make you feel better about acting like a jerk if you just assume the motives of the other guy are bad? Forget checking your privilege, check your bias instead.

This falls into the category of "or take resources away from other things in order to seek out more minority candidates". Every resource Google spends developing special programs and policies etc is a resource not spent on something more directly related to their business.

Good information. Like the poster you replied to I'm skeptical but that doesn't mean I don't wish the developers well, I just don't think it's likely. In particular the "jobs" argument is poor economics. Jobs aren't, in and of themselves, a goal, they are a means to the end of producing the things we need. If this system doesn't ultimately produce more value (energy etc) than it costs then those jobs represent waste. If you think I'm wrong then you might want to suggest to the developers that they forgo the use of machinery and have the construction crews use hand tools only.

That's all true but there are a couple of problems. First of all, it's not obvious how much of the societal influence is of the type you described and how much is much closer to home. For example, Asians have a reputation for pushing their kids much harder academically than other groups and as a result they tend to be over represented in high tech. If it's also true that other minority groups tend to put less emphasis on education or perhaps on different fields of study then it may be that no amount of affirmative action of either of the types you mention will have a significant effect.

The more fundamental issue with your post is the underlying assumption that there is something objectively good about a racial/sexual mix in every field that perfectly reflects the underlying demographics. It isn't as if there is no cost to trying to artificially manipulate these things. Some individuals will have to be directly harmed and society as a whole will, in the short run at least, suffer the lower productivity and higher costs of any possible "solution".

Have you ever seen an upper level computer science class? The Google numbers aren't at all far off the potential employee pool and therefore it's unlikely that there is any bias on the part of Google.

This means that in order to "correct" the problem they MUST either hire lesser qualified workers or take resources away from other things in order to seek out more minority candidates.

Agreed, I was being sarcastic.

They obviously forgot to do the hedonic adjustment to account for the larger screens people are watching on.

The simplest explaination as to why consumers historically tended to prefer buying phones on contract vs putting those same phones on a credit card is that it's often better for both the consumer and the carrier. The carrier benefits by reducing churn (it costs more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one) while keeping modern phones in the hands of their customers. The customer benefits because they get access to all the latest infrustructure. In terms of pure cost, it would cost the author about $20/mo to put his Nokia 920 on a credit card and pay it off in 2 years and only $15/mo to buy it on a 2 year contract. He mentions that T-Mobile will let him pay it off at $11/mo but at that rate it would take him 3 years so what's it worth to you to forgo a new phone for an additional year?

So why is this starting to change? Because the improvements in phones are starting to flatten out a bit. The difference between my first smart phone (Moto Droid) and my second one (HTC Rezound) was like night and day but the difference between my Rezound and a HTC One or Samsung S4/5 is not nearly as significant so stretching out the life of the phone an extra year is not nearly as big a sacrifice as it was a few years ago.

BTW his contention that the phone industry is somehow unique is false. The average American has somewhere between $7k and $16k of credit card debt so it's clear that people really ARE borrowing money to buy all sorts of regular consumer products. The reason cellular service providers are willing to loan the money to consumers for a bit less than credit card companies is because the service providers benefit from having customers with the latest gear.

That would be the smartest thing to do. Unfortunately, the competative jerks are the ones with all the guns.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that you would exterminate all those who disagree with you is the reason those others have guns?

The good news, humanity is not long for this world, which will mean the world will soon be a better place (but alas, without us)

Better for whom?

That depends. Does your version of capitalism involve a third party threatening to put the participants in jail of they don't turn on each other?

If it isn't voluntary then it really isn't cooperation, it's force.

It doesn't even really make sense to talk about selfishness and cooperation as opposites. Cooperation is an activity while selfishness is a motivation. Most human interaction is cooperation motivated by selfishness.

Cooperation and selfishness go hand in hand. If you give the baker a dollar in exchange for a loaf of bread, each of you is being selfish in that each of you believes that he will be better off after the transaction (you're happier with the bread than your dollar and the baker is happier with your dollar than with his bread). If the baker makes thousands of dollars selling bread it is a direct result of him making thousands of people happier than they would have been without his efforts. It is that selfishness of each of the parties that drives them to cooperate. Even many activities considered "altruistic" are really based on selfishness in that helping your fellow man makes one feel good or raises one's standing in the community or helps you get into heaven. Without those selfish motivations there would be a lot less charity.

That's pretty amazing, where is this (if you're comfortable saying)?

No, but the monthly fees are ON TOP of all of the tax money that has been put into this thing. Consider that if this organiztion wants/needs to raise fees in the future the town will have to give in no matter what may be in their contract because otherwise they'll never get their $6 million back.