Against Tulip Subsidies

that 'bullshit' isn't just a hassel, its a drag on your professional productivity and growth as well

Because there is often a CAUSAL link between the degree and the set of qualifications relevant and related to the job at hand. The link between skill and gender is not CAUSAL.

You're pretending like there's no causal link between education and capability. You are wrong. Period. Hiring someone based upon degree is absolutely no different from hiring someone based upon whether they have prior work experience.

Need someone to work on a team? Deliver some production-quality CRUD? You could test these directly for every single candidate in an interview. Or you could hire someone with prior web dev experience and a letter from the previous employer or a portfolio that directly and immediately witnesses the requisite knowledge and skills. Everyone does the latter (or uses some other signal to weed out who they interview) because the former is a stupid waste of resources.

Need someone who can model a system using some ODEs (this afternoon, not in 6 weeks after wasting you money taking a MOOC on company time)? Making tweaks to a library for processing large matrices? You could give every single candidate a pop quiz on ODEs or Linear Algebra. Or you could hire someone with a degree and high grades in those courses that directly and immediately witnesses for requisite knowledge.

Another way of saying this: Degrees are direct witnesses of relevant skills, not merely signals or correlated values.

Of course there are other direct witnesses. But there is never anything remotely morally questionable about taking into account the presence or absence of any direct witness of capability during hiring. Including degrees.

I'm not sure it is relevant to the discussion. The question was asked in the context of your concern about the overhead of interviewing people. You are using a degree as a simple filter, and gender is equally applicable in that regard. Statistically, for our aforementioned example, a suitable candidate will be found in the male population of applicants due to the reasons we already discussed.

So, why bother wasting your time and associated costs also interviewing women when you can be reasonably confident that the male candidates will provide someone suitable? It is very possible that a great employee lies in that group of women, and it is very possible that a great employee lies in those without degrees, but you have made it clear that you don't have time to evaluate them all.

> You're pretending like there's no causal link between education and capability. You are wrong. Period.

I'm getting a distinct impression that you haven't fully understood my comments. That may very well be my failing, but this becomes a completely pointless discussion if that persists.

> Hiring someone based upon degree is absolutely no different from hiring someone based upon whether they have prior work experience.

Absolutely not true. What you are essentially saying is that even among those who have prior experience, you will only hire those whose experience came from Google or Microsoft. There are a number of practical reasons why a perfectly suitable candidate is unable to work at either of those companies before working for you, even though they do come with relevant experience from somewhere else.

I understand from your point of view why hiring from only past Google and Microsoft employees is desirable, but what about the people who were unable to work at those places? You really don't see the problem with that?

I don't see a moral or ethical problem with it, no.

And the democratic consensus in most western countries agrees.

Choosing one applicant over another because of prior work history or education is just making informed decisions. Choosing on applicant over another because of their gender is illegal discrimination.

I understand you feel like people who don't have degrees deserve equal footing in the job market. But they don't, and business don't have any moral, ethical, or legal obligation to forego their own best interest and take bets on higher risk hires.

Here is the argument that I have been expressing in various forms and you don't seem to understand or provide cogent counter-points to:

PRAGMATIC CLAIM: Employers are allowed to "discriminate"/select based upon non-intrinsic signals of characteristics relevant to the job at hand.

WARRANT: This is necessary for society/businesses to function because otherwise, it would be prohibitively expensive to hire people using anything other than coin-flips.

MORAL STANDARD I: In order to use a signal as the basis for a hiring decision it should be both a) non-intrinsic, and b) signal something relevant to the task at hand.

EDUCATION MEETS THIS MORAL STANDARD:

a) CLAIM: Education is non-intrinsic

WARRANT: It is something you seek out and work to earn, not something you are born with. (The issue of ensuring universal access is entirely separable (and something I support, btw).)

b) CLAIM: Education signals something relevant to the task at hand

WARRANT 1: Technical background is assured through testing in relevant coursework -- testing that you would have to (at great and impractical expense to the business) reproduce in order to make informed hiring decisions.

WARRANT 2: Education can also serve as a signal of necessary problem solving ability, communication skills, etc.

MORAL STANDARD II: Any moral constraints placed on the set of available signals should not make it prohibitively expensive for business to function.

EDUCATION MEETS MORAL STANDARD II: Because it's a cheap signal to use as an initial filter.

BANNING THE USE OF EDUCATION WOULD FAIL TO MEET MORAL STANDARD II: It would require companies to essentially require a comprehensive examination that is well-proctored etc, which is a pretty huge burden for the company and -- besides -- basically would amount to credentialing anyways because any reasonable firm would outsource this.

Other relevant claims:

CONSISTENCY CLAIM: There exist signals that meet both standards.

WARRANT: Education can be used to select a small number of applicants, and the cost for choosing among those should be marginal wrt the value-added by the employee.

CLAIM: These moral standards preclude the use of race/sex/age discrimination.

WARRANT: these are all intrinsic features that are explicitly forbidden