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Comment by RealityNow | Hacker News Reader

I can't speak to Google's hiring policy, but affirmative action indeed gives preference to underrepresented minorities at the expense of more qualified people on the basis of gender/race. If you want quantitative data, just look at test scores of underrepresented minorities vs white/Asian men at competitive high schools and universities.

You can sugar coat it all you want, but it's still discrimination on the basis of gender/race.

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Sure, specifically race-related Affirmative Action programs may often (but not always) provide entrance to a minority who would on paper test lower than a non-minority. And this is intentional AND desirable. Consider it a long-term investment, or a direct attempt to break out of a feedback-loop. The historical shadow of racism is long, and even though the individual actors today (you, me) may not be explicitly racist, the trends are still there, hiding in our institutional practices, in our disparity of opportunity for the poor, and in our subconscious assessments of things that are different from us. Programs like Affirmative Action are conscious-level programs to battle subsconscious problems in our society. It's like making a chrome extension to block HN and Reddit during work hours because our subconscious habit of wanting to browse hurts our overall productivity. So we make a conscious-level decision to implement a practice that causes pain (deprivation of pleasure) in pursuit of a long-term goal (not being addicted to instant-internet-gratification and higher productivity). Affirmative Action will deprive some well qualified white students of positions at a single institution, (but not EVERY institution) and that may cause pain for an individual, but is beneficial for the society as a whole.

Diversity hiring practices may sometimes have a similar outcome, but I suspect the reality at most major employers is more often "these candidates are equivalent, give preference to the minority so our team can benefit from greater diversity." Because teams CAN have real tangible productivity/quality benefits from being diverse. It's not just black and white pure individual performance. By having a team with a broader set of backgrounds and experiences it may produce more thoughtful products/services for the diverse population of users who will ultimately consume them.

I won't ever argue that explicit programs like Affirmative Action and diversity hiring don't ever disadvantage any single individual - clearly, candidates get rejected. But I'm not going to join anyone's pity party over it either: there is real benefit for companies and society; in all cases, the party that gets rejected due to these policies is explicitly the party that statistically has the most opportunity in the ecosystem at large.

> in all cases, the party that gets rejected due to these policies is explicitly the party that statistically has the most opportunity in the ecosystem at large.

You are possibly discriminating people unfairly. The evidence on causes of the representation gap is not conclusive - i.e. we don't know beyond reasonable doubt it's nothing but white male privilege. Difference in interests - be it due to nature or nurture - seem to exist and could at least partially explain the gap.

I'm opposed to all discrimination - and as long as you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt that the enacted discrimination only counters privilege and nothing more you don't have a leg to stand on if your overall position is equality.

> But I'm not going to join anyone's pity party over it either

You dismiss a group speaking up against discrimination as whiners even though the evidence that would allow you to do so is inconclusive. This seems like an unreasonable position to take.

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