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Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

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Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#61

Post by butmuh »

nnvvhh wrote: post #49

The argument you point out, about treating well-off groups equally as bad as those less well-off, is a bad argument and not what you should be thinking about. The practices you point out have nothing to do treating everyone equally bad. You are focusing on the unfortunate consequence of attempting to make right past injustices, rather than the effort to right past injustices. The goal is not to discriminate against y…

As soon as you bias based on any trait YOU are the one discriminating.

You think you're helping correct society by helping one group over a perceived disadvantage, but all you are doing is enforcing a another kind of discrimination

You can't correct discrimination by discriminating back or tipping the scale one way or another, the only way to defeat discrimination is to throw away the scales.

Utopian societies are the motivation for all kinds of genocides.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#62

Post by sumthinprofound »

melff wrote: post #60
sumthinprofound wrote: post #58

As a white male team leader with hiring authority I select the best person for the job who will enhance the team and bring with them the talent to accomplish our goals. Having said that, I believe diversity is a strength and that women and people of color are underrepresented in tech, and use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness. It has not been a problem. I…

> and [I] use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness. So racism/sexism is okay as long as it doesn't hurt operational readiness? Or do you not consider this racism/sexism, if so how are hiring decisions based on race/sex not racist/sexist?

how are you equating hiring a diverse team (all skills being roughly equal) with racism/sexism? I think we might be working under different assumptions on the definition of those terms.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#63

Post by throwaway120398 »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #29

This submission is flagged, but it shouldn't IMO. Everyone goes through hiring processes, everyone has been in a team onboarding people, and this of course isn't alien to tech companies. This submission, from my POV is clearly on-topic.

Does anyone have any idea where to actually have this discussion?

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#64

Post by melff »

sumthinprofound wrote: post #62
melff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and [I] use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness. So racism/sexism is okay as long as it doesn't hurt operational readiness? Or do you not consider this racism/sexism, if so how are hiring decisions based on race/sex not racist/sexist?

how are you equating hiring a diverse team (all skills being roughly equal) with racism/sexism? I think we might be working under different assumptions on the definition of those terms.

To correct for under-/overrepresented groups you need to change your hiring decision based on the groups of the applicants. And preferring hiring based on these groups (sex, race, etc) is sexism and racism in my books.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#65

Post by krapp »

zkldi wrote: post #31
krapp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and they're usually immediately brigaded by commenters claiming that there is no real discrimination against women and POC, only discrimination against white men by woke progressives and feminists and POC blaming them for everything. Outrage is what tends to keep those articles on the front page, not sympathy.

Out of genuine interest, what is your opinion on the OP?

I've never found the argument that acknowledging, much less attempting to correct for, systemic biases in hiring is always equally as discriminatory as the biases themselves to be compelling, as the only possible conclusion to reach from that rationale is to maintain the status quo and its biases at all times. If one accepts that unjust bias exists in the system, it is impossible to correct that bias without discriminating to some degree against those whom the bias favors.

There also seems to be an unspoken assumption in OP's post that diversity hires are never as qualified as white male hires. It's entirely possible for women, POC or other groups to be hired as qualified candidates.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#66

Post by ValentineC »

mcny wrote: post #18
missedthecue wrote: post #4

In India the concept is literally called "positive discrimination".

Please correct me if you think I am wrong (disclaimer, never been to India) but my understanding of the situation in India is "vote banking". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votebank » Votebank (also spelled vote-bank or vote bank), in the political discourse of India, is a term referring to a loyal bloc of voters from a single community, who consistently back a certain candidate or political formation in democratic el…

Not Indian. It's more likely this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#67

Post by throwaway120398 »

krapp wrote: post #65
zkldi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of genuine interest, what is your opinion on the OP?

I've never found the argument that acknowledging, much less attempting to correct for, systemic biases in hiring is always equally as discriminatory as the biases themselves to be compelling, as the only possible conclusion to reach from that rationale is to maintain the status quo and its biases at all times. If one accepts that unjust bias exists in the system, it is impossible to correct that bias without discrimi…

> There also seems to be an unspoken assumption in OP's post that diversity hires are never as qualified as white male hires.

I don't think this way, and I'd be really interested to know where you felt you identified this unspoken assumption in what I wrote.

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#68

Post by sumthinprofound »

sumthinprofound wrote: post #62
melff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and [I] use my influence to help correct that as much as possible without sacrificing operational readiness. So racism/sexism is okay as long as it doesn't hurt operational readiness? Or do you not consider this racism/sexism, if so how are hiring decisions based on race/sex not racist/sexist?

how are you equating hiring a diverse team (all skills being roughly equal) with racism/sexism? I think we might be working under different assumptions on the definition of those terms.

I would counter that by pointing out that the actual racist/sexist hiring practices are what led to the imbalance in diversity in the tech field, and I'm not excluding anyone due to their race/sex (no quotas, no "I won't hire white guys" etc) but for every job post if there are 200 applicants, 10 worth interviewing and 3 that I am seriously considering, it becomes a judgement call who I want on my team but I I do not use race or sex as the deciding factor

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#69

Post by nnvvhh »

throwaway120398 wrote: post #59
nnvvhh wrote: post #49

The argument you point out, about treating well-off groups equally as bad as those less well-off, is a bad argument and not what you should be thinking about. The practices you point out have nothing to do treating everyone equally bad. You are focusing on the unfortunate consequence of attempting to make right past injustices, rather than the effort to right past injustices. The goal is not to discriminate against y…

I'm afraid that, to my mind, it doesn't matter whether the goal is to discriminate or not. The discrimination itself is a problem, and we'd be better agreeing that this is a place we will not go to, no matter the end.

The problem with this view, to me, is that it takes a really narrow view of discrimination. Why are you only concerned with the hiring process of software engineers? To me, bad-faith alarm bells go off when concern about discrimination only rears its head when the speaker's corner of the world is impacted. There are much more pernicious problems that need addressing than the quality of engineers at your job. How is the need for meritocratic software hiring more urgent and pressing than rectifying major societal problems? Are you OK with permanently setting in place the underclass, subjugated status of entire minority communities so your page loads are quicker?

Re: Ask HN: Is discrimination to promote diversity okay?

#70

Post by throwaway120398 »

nnvvhh wrote: post #69
throwaway120398 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid that, to my mind, it doesn't matter whether the goal is to discriminate or not. The discrimination itself is a problem, and we'd be better agreeing that this is a place we will not go to, no matter the end.

The problem with this view, to me, is that it takes a really narrow view of discrimination. Why are you only concerned with the hiring process of software engineers? To me, bad-faith alarm bells go off when concern about discrimination only rears its head when the speaker's corner of the world is impacted. There are much more pernicious problems that need addressing than the quality of engineers at your job. How is t…

Somehow many people in this thread are jumping to rebut the idea of meritocratic hiring. I'm with you on that. I think meritocracy is a naive idea and it's actively damaging when hiring teams think they can boil the talent of candidates, and their effectiveness to do a job, down to some objective and comparable score of merit.

I also don't give a shit about making my page loads quicker. That's rarely what the world, or the business for that matter, needs.

What I'm talking about is the specific phenomenon of discriminating against a candidate based on their gender or race, and whether people think this is okay.

I'm concerned with the process of hiring software engineers because it's something I have to do daily, and have done for a very long time. I'm coming here to talk about it (rather than other social issues) because I think others here have experience in the same area.

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