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Comment by triplewipeass | Hacker News Reader

In a capitalist society, I will see in a negative light any statement or action that negatively impacts my livelihood. I don’t care if the most vocal activists think that it’s “right” in an absolute sense to enact a policy of reverse discrimination. Anything that detracts from my ability to provide for my family is bullshit.

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Just to clarify, you're saying that being on a team that isn't diverse and consequently makes provably worse decisions means you're likely to earn less than the amount you'd earn on a diverse team making better decisions, so you're absolutely in favor of maximizing your earnings by enforcing diversity through positive discrimination, right?

The studied that found diverse teams are more effective often some fishy methodology. In particular, one of the more widely circulated studies reaches their conclusion by making diverse and non-diverse teams plan a wedding using dances, rituals, and food from two or more culturs. A lot of these studies start with a conclusion determined a priori and the design an experiment to support it.

>In a capitalist society

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Whether it's social security recipients or public school teachers, people whose income is determined by the government are as defensive of their livelihoods as people whose pay is set by market forces, perhaps even more so.

Capitalism has everything to do with it: a commercial entity fires people on a whim, whereas public school teachers basically cannot be fired. The NYC public school system is full of underperforming teachers who shouldn't be employed to begin with. Their pay and conditions of employment are determined via collective bargaining, so they're protected from any conceivable equivalent of a PIP or other "adverse action" by the employer.

Likewise, hiring practices in the private sector change like the weather.

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