Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You keep using that word "meritocracy"

garann.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 100 posts

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#91

Post by 001sky »

anthonyb wrote: post #88
001sky wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note [2] This depends on (or implies) a certain elemental/relative triviality of the task. I think you missed that note [2] above. I'm not necessarily supporting or defending the position. The point was it was not as simple an argument to dismiss as was suggested in the Parent. Couple of points to consider, more generally: (1) Its not clear that the condition of footnote 2 holds, per-se ; That being said (2) its also…

> I think you missed that note [2] above. I think you need to edit your posts more carefully. Clarity matters, particularly when you're discussing things in written form.

I'll take this comment at face value as a legitimate critique of my writing. In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 =D. That being said, I just want to point out one thing to the general reader, which is that the allusion to the footnote was not meant to be pedantic or a put-down.

The above poster responded to a weakness in the OP's argument, and leveled a valid counter argument. My footnote was there to highlight this same weakness in the argument. But my footnote wasn't really there as a point of exposition (either), and in hinting at the weakness it also articulated the weakness in a way which illustrated a more valid (central) line of attack. That's why I highlighted it again.

But I could probably have chosen better words in my response.

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#92

Post by mc32 »

jaggederest wrote: post #83
adwf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but unless my personal definition of meritocracy is quite off (definitely possible), the general perception of a meritocracy - now - in the IT/CS terms that are being considered, is that we are talking about raw practically verifiable ability rather than academic qualifications. Or even certifications - which are a somewhat distinct category that IMO, are a bit more subject to corruption. Pay enough and you…

I think that people who might consider IT to be a meritocracy are blind to the fact that the things we measure are determined by the people with power, and thus it's a self-perpetuating sort of hierarchy.

Doesn't this suggest that way back when Informatics/IT was boring and unattractive to the great majority but a few 'engineering types' that people set up in advance a system that would filter out undesirables? I think that's giving these theoretical gatekeepers more credit than they deserve. People don't typically plan that far in advance for a day when their profession might be 'displaced by the other'. (for example Y2K)

I think it's more of a case of engineers filtering out using the tools which have worked in the past and perhaps not revising them, if they need revising, but not from some kind of nefarious conspiracy.

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#93

Post by aidenn0 »

Crake wrote: post #81
aidenn0 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn't if the dropout rate of minorities is higher, the question is, do more minorities graduate than if there wasn't AA? If so, then AA is having some positive effect. I'm all for fixing problems at the local level, but the problems are huge. On a micro level, within school districts there are issues of gerrymandering and even absent gerrymandering there is a terrible positive feedback loop where propert…

The question isn't if the dropout rate of minorities is higher, the question is, do more minorities graduate than if there wasn't AA? If so, then AA is having some positive effect. Actually, this is something that can be studied in the form of California's college system, which banned race based discrimination a while ago. Minority enrollment at selective colleges decreased, but overall enrollment and graduation rate…

It's not just a matter of funding; in the town where I live there are, for example, around 10 public elementary schools, all funded from the same pool.

There is a $150k premium on houses in the best vs. worst school district; this means that any time the lines are adjusted, there are huge incentives to draw them "creatively"

Furthermore, there is de-facto segregation. Schools are either 80%+ latino or 80%+ white/asian. I grew up in Virginia, and if schools were that racially split there, then there would be forced cross-town busing.

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#94

Post by aidenn0 »

kalleboo wrote: post #78
aidenn0 wrote: post #13

You can have a meritocracy, and still have an unfair demographic skew. Given a black box in which the inputs are infants and the outputs are people applying for software jobs, if the black-box is unfair, then even if you have a perfect evaluation function in your interviewing process, you will be skewed to the input of the black box. All that being said, of course we have an imperfect evaluation function. And it is a…

> If you shift the black box back a bit and you have inputs being babies and outputs being high-school graduates, you will see a huge skew still, and this is part of the reason for affirmative action at the HS level. I don't know how it is in the US, but in Sweden the skew in education is the other way - recently girls do better in school than boys. It hasn't changed the men/women ratio in computer science though (it…

I was primarily talking about race and socio-economic status. Girls do outperform boys in all subjects up to about age 12, and in many(most?) subjects afterwards. There has been a huge increase in just about all technical subjects at the college level, with Computer Science showing a decline (peak was around the class of 1985)

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#95

Post by anthonyb »

001sky wrote: post #91
anthonyb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you missed that note [2] above. I think you need to edit your posts more carefully. Clarity matters, particularly when you're discussing things in written form.

I'll take this comment at face value as a legitimate critique of my writing. In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 =D. That being said, I just want to point out one thing to the general reader, which is that the allusion to the footnote was not meant to be pedantic or a put-down. The above poster responded to a weakness in the OP's argument, and leveled a valid counter argument. My footnote was there to…

It was intended as a general critique.

> In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2

One of those would be a good start ;)

Those three actually go hand in hand. I reread your initial post - I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. You and the post you reference seem to be saying the same thing.

Footnotes are supposed to be extra bits, not central to your argument, and you seem to ramble, and have complicated sentence structures, rather than cutting to the chase.

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#96

Post by [deleted] »

anthonyb wrote: post #95
001sky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this comment at face value as a legitimate critique of my writing. In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 =D. That being said, I just want to point out one thing to the general reader, which is that the allusion to the footnote was not meant to be pedantic or a put-down. The above poster responded to a weakness in the OP's argument, and leveled a valid counter argument. My footnote was there to…

It was intended as a general critique. > In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 One of those would be a good start ;) Those three actually go hand in hand. I reread your initial post - I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. You and the post you reference seem to be saying the same thing. Footnotes are supposed to be extra bits, not central to your argument, and you seem to ramble, and have complic…

[deleted]

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#97

Post by [deleted] »

anthonyb wrote: post #95
001sky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this comment at face value as a legitimate critique of my writing. In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 =D. That being said, I just want to point out one thing to the general reader, which is that the allusion to the footnote was not meant to be pedantic or a put-down. The above poster responded to a weakness in the OP's argument, and leveled a valid counter argument. My footnote was there to…

It was intended as a general critique. > In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 One of those would be a good start ;) Those three actually go hand in hand. I reread your initial post - I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. You and the post you reference seem to be saying the same thing. Footnotes are supposed to be extra bits, not central to your argument, and you seem to ramble, and have complic…

[deleted]

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#98

Post by 001sky »

anthonyb wrote: post #95
001sky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this comment at face value as a legitimate critique of my writing. In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 =D. That being said, I just want to point out one thing to the general reader, which is that the allusion to the footnote was not meant to be pedantic or a put-down. The above poster responded to a weakness in the OP's argument, and leveled a valid counter argument. My footnote was there to…

It was intended as a general critique. > In general its Clarity, Brevity, Precision = Pick 2 One of those would be a good start ;) Those three actually go hand in hand. I reread your initial post - I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. You and the post you reference seem to be saying the same thing. Footnotes are supposed to be extra bits, not central to your argument, and you seem to ramble, and have complic…

You and the post you reference seem to be saying the same thing

-- Ha ha yes, That is the chase. I was re-phrasing the OP/article argument, which was mis-understood by the parent comment.

The footnote articulated something else altogether, namely a weakness in the argument. It was an more-deeply implied (or imlicit) assumption (so I didn't spell it out), i kept it seperate.

The post you are referring to picked up on this same weakness, but attributed it to me. Which wasn't the end of the world, but his counter-argument was lacking to actually critique the original Post/article.

Hope this helps clarify, the general direction.

Its a tough call on when to clarify a weak or potentially flawed argument, and when to actually argue against it. Here, I thought it added something interesting (namely, recursive logic), which is worth noting and considering.

Without throwing the whole insight out.

If I was smarter, I could probably do that faster, better, stonger. As Arnie says, I'll be Baak. =D

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#99

Post by guylhem »

roguecoder wrote: post #80
guylhem wrote: post #23

The article seems full of hatred against "white men". A group of people, for some reason, has found it worth its time to do some activity. This group then trains more, invest more time, and compounding interests makes them better. Other groups see their success and feel like they don't belong. It's human - nothing mean in it. Why is Christophe Lemaitre one of the only decent white sprinters? Because. Why are boys dro…

"Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that." All of those social dynamics are explainable. Why are sprinters seldom White? Because fast people in Western cultures participate in the more-lucrative and high-status team sports instead. Why are boys dropping out? Well, African-American boys are punished more harshly for the same behavior, more likely to be diagnosed as learning-disabl…

The social angle for the IT industry is interesting. There is a dynamic of power happening- but it's not the whole picture.

The racism based explanation doesn't seems to work - just like for fast people, where you gave a great example: they self select more lucrative and higher status alternatives.

Under performing pupils also self select, for failure, but the reason is different : it's based on their own prejudice and a cultural norm saying XX people should do YY.

Anyway, in the end people self select in or out - and that's a self perpetrating tendency based on an initial trend for whatever reason.

"racist" enforcement and society couldn't do that much damage by themselves. However, cultural norms most certainly could - especially when people believe them.

IMHO, the simplest explain is the better.

Re: You keep using that word "meritocracy"

#100

Post by jessedhillon »

Lazare wrote: post #87
jessedhillon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... trust most people saw the logical flaw - the author is assuming that the ability to program is currently evenly distributed. I don't see anything from the author which can be construed as the statement, "ability, is at present , evenly distributed." If you withdraw that stipulation, what you have is: 4. Ergo, opportunities to become a computer programmer [e.g. education] are not distributed according to merit [e.…

The "at present" stipulation doesn't really change anything. The author is claiming that the ability to program is evenly distributed, but the plain truth of the matter is that more white English-speaking males in their 20s can program than can . Which is because of, yes, racism, sexism, inequality, and a host of other societal ills, but it dosn't change the fact that Joe's House of Discount Programming in Des Moines…

Um, you don't think that calling the given situation meritorious would be racist/sexist?

1. Construct a system to deliver engineering educations. For whatever reason, white males are overrepresented in this system.

2. Place those engineers at top engineering firms and startups, where they succeed.

3. Conclude that the system rewards effort and ability fairly, and therefore the current beneficiaries are the best and most deserving.

Step #3 is ignorant and stupid.

To cast this another way, this would be like going back to a pre-Jackie Robinson period of baseball history, or the pre-integration period in basketball history, and concluding that the best baseball players in the world are white.

Yes, in a very literal sense that is true, if you define basketball players as only those people who can right now play basketball professionally, in a system which is accessible only to a small subset of the population. Even if there were people playing amateur or street ball, who had great raw potential, without being able to enter programs where they could hone and refine their skill they would be inferior in many ways to the pros. And a person who would hew to that literal rendering would be considered myopic, shallow and intellectually dishonest.

Similarly, to say that the current crop of engineering talent represents the most deserving talent in the world is a backhand to all the people who are excluded from participating in the system to begin with.

So yes, you can't say "programming is a racist institution because it doesn't hire people who don't exist." You can, however, say that programming is a racist institution because it benefits from a lopsided system of selection, and then arrogantly declares that the selection system is fair, that those selected received no undue benefit in their selection, and therefore those selected are the best.

Post reply on HN