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Comment by tw600040 | Hacker News Reader

//How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?

I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?

How is growing up with extreme discrimination not relevant?

Depends. So who should win the 100 m olympics? someone who is fastest or someone who was discriminated against? Which team should win the football match? the team that scores the most points or should the background of the players be a criteria?

Education isn’t a zero sum game.

University admission is for those on the margin, since the positions are limited

Admissions counselors aren't arbitrating a match, they're predicting success and shaping an environment.

Who's going to be more successful: someone tutored, mentored, and cajoled to a 1500 SAT or someone who never had sh*t and got a 1450 cold?

//Who's going to be more successful: someone tutored, mentored, and cajoled to a 1500 SAT or someone who never had sht and got a 1450 cold?

Yeah, so who should be given gold in olympics? someone who was trained and mentored and finished first or someone who never had sht and ran slower?

College admissions isn't the finish line of "who is best". It's a starting point for developing potential, and thereafter college still isn't a competition to see who is best.

Your analogy doesn't follow GP's logic. It's more like: do you want to watch olympics where rich kids with sports coaches do mediocre to well, or do you want to watch an Olympics where a state-sponsored scholarship program gives you the best of the best amongst poor/middle-class/rich people because talent is not distributed only amongst the rich.

Insufficient information to determine an answer.

That's a false analogy. Genetics can beat training but discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention. I'm a strong believer in equality of opportunities, but I feel that's constantly misunderstood.

If your family can pay you a tutor, you're given more opportunities. If you don't have to work after school, you're given more opportunities. If your family is educated and can give you guidance, you're given more opportunities. If your parents can pay for electricity, yes, you're given more opportunities.

We can keep going, but the privileged trend to think everything they got is due to their effort. Somebody that has a lower score than you might deserve access to a better university that you.

I was "privileged" growing up. We always had food in our plates; we couldn't dine out but my parents loved me and I could study at night. I had to work while studying but it was not the worst that I have seen. I was the first of my family going to a university but at least my parents understood that education was important and reinforced that in me.

>discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention

There have been many people in history who have overcome discrimination without intervention, so this can't be true. Just because it's harder doesn't mean it's impossible.

Did you mean to say something more specific?

I think its quite clear what he/she meant. You are trying to draw him into a debate that I cannot accept to be clean in good faith.

That there are a few can pull it off is not relevant when the scale we are talking about is India's population.

Why not the state bankrupt you of all possessions. Its not impossible to rise up from such a situation. It has been done before.

There is actually a related system in place at the Olympics which few people talk about. Only 3 people of each country are allowed to compete in a given event. This has led to many athletes in the top 10 worldwide to not be able to participate because they are from a dominating country. For example Kenyans in 3000 steeple.

Good point.

Lol, also things like Eric "The Eel" Moussambani at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Admissions aren't about winning the race, they're about institutions deciding who has the most potential to win. In that way they are comparable to sporting drafts where people are absolutely chosen over better players because the team believes they have greater potential.

>> How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?

> I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?

I interpreted the situation the GP described as a policy meant to enable bigoted discrimination. The bad part is the bigotry, not the discrimination.

Discrimination meant to relieve the effects of past bigotry on disadvantaged people is not a bad kind of discrimination. Meritocracy isn't a fair competition if some families already got a head start before it was decided the rules should be made fair and were allowed to keep it.

The merit(score) of a student is dependent on factors other than the student's aptitude such as the financial status of the family, guidance received at young age etc.

The students from lower-caste communities usually are also from low-income families and lack proper guidance (partly because the parents are not educated) compared to students from upper-class communities.

The reservation in academia is relevant to uplift people who are from disadvantaged communities. The society as a whole whould benefit from it.

IMO, there are valid criticism of implementation details of reservation for lower-caste in India, such as:

* should a person who belongs to lower-caste get eligibility for reserved quota if that person's parents also benefited from reserved quota?

* should caste based reservation be allowed in instances that require highly specialized skills? As opposed to equal treatment based on only merit. (Example: admissions to MD, Govt. jobs that requires highly specialized skills)

You can criticise implementation details of the reservation-system used as a tool by the Government to correct historical imbalance in society but not the idea as a whole because the system in place is showing positive results. We have made a lot progress in last few decades but still a long way to go in good direction. This is my opinion as an Indian techie from an upper-caste family.

Edit: typos / grammar

This is pretty wrong. Caste reservation are not about economic inequality, but social representation. They are kinda like reparations. If they were just about economic inequality, you would just have free jee coaching, not caste based reservation.

My point was that 'social representation' and 'economic inequality' are related.

They don't have enough social representation in social institutions because of economic inequality caused by Caste system over long period of time.

That's a false equivalence

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