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Comment by lil-lugger | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who thinks we should just live in a “pure meritocracy” is a little bit delusional. Maybe they’ve played too many RPG’s where players have stats and you can sort by attribute and pick the best. If that was the case in the real world there would no job interview, just sharing statistics and picking the candidates with the highest numbers. Employers have to evaluate people on how they will perform BEFORE they perform, on subjective grounds. So for any number of reasons, probably subconsciously, people who are more unattractive, short, or possibly of a different race than the hirer can be perceived to be qualified but ‘not a good fit’. There are always ways around excluding people without it seeming discriminatory. That’s not to say there should be quotas, but to think there’s no issue because we should just pick the best candidate never stop to ask “how? How do you know they are the best?”.

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I agree that we need to take seriously the history of racism in the US and try to mitigate its impacts. From what I have seen, the consideration of race in admissions and hiring doesn't remove bias, but adds a bias in an opposite direction. I have talked to people who have been involved in hiring processes, and many can cite examples where candidates from URM groups have been given a great deal more credit than non-URM candidates were given for a similar or higher level of achievement/qualification. It's hardly a secret that in job markets with a high emphasis on racial diversity, the highly underrepresented minority is often a hot commodity who is judged by a different standard.

I think it's valid to argue that this bias is worth it. But we should not pretend that we are simply remedying bias or pushing people towards a more fair evaluation of each candidate for their individual qualities. What we're doing is adding an opposite bias in an attempt to approach closer to proportional racial representation.

There's also reasonable room to question if we should essentially equate diversity to population-proportional racial representation, as we do today. This is also a bias which may take away from seeking diversity along other lines, such as class/upbringing, age, and being outside traditional recruiting networks for the job.

> This is also a bias which may take away from seeking diversity along other lines, such as class/upbringing, age, and being outside traditional recruiting networks for the job.

I'm glad you mentioned age. Age discrimination and lack of age diversity is a big problem in tech.

Whenever there's a discussion about underrepresented groups in tech, isn't it funny how older people are rarely considered?

> Whenever there's a discussion about underrepresented groups in tech, isn't it funny how older people are rarely considered?

IMHO, it's because organizations don't really value diversity in the ordinary sense of the term. They value proportional representation of all demographic groups that have legal standing to sue them for civil rights violations, and who have organized interest groups who stand ready to do so. DEI exists to align the organization towards this objective.

> IMHO, it's because organizations don't really value diversity in the ordinary sense of the term.

It's not just about organizations though. Whenever I hear ordinary tech workers, non-managers, just talking informally about underrepresented groups, they rarely mention older people. It's a forgotten group (kind of like GenX in general LOL).

I should say, I don't want to pit underrepresented groups against each other. As far as I've seen, various forms of discrimination go hand-in-hand. I once heard a prominent businesswomen say that the most sexist workplaces she's seen were also the most ageist.

> “how? How do you know they are the best?”.

The answer is you don't. But just because the system isn't perfect doesn't mean we should just throw it in the blender. By that logic we should get rid of "free" health care / safety nets in Western European countries. It mostly works but it also gets exploited. How can you know people aren't exploiting the system? You can't know for sure, but we can do our best to find out.

But nobody is saying that. Having hiring quotas is far from throwing entire system out the window.

But it would still be better without hiring quotas because they cannot constructively improve the situation. You will habe to leave that up to hiring.

Your comparison is inane. What’s the connection between dei and getting rid of safety nets? Not to mention that dei is not inherently unmeritocratic to begin with

> What’s the connection between dei and getting rid of safety nets

There is none, nowhere in my comment did I say that.

> Not to mention that dei is not inherently unmeritocratic to begin with

It literally is. Meritocracy, people are hired by their merit. DEI, people are hired by representation. Equality versus Equity, polar opposites.

You misunderstand what DEI is. It means diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s not incompatible with meritocracy. For example you have similar candidates, take the one who’s least represented in your org.

Or you have a “pure” meritocracy, but you spend more energy and money sending your recruiters to areas and schools whose students are more likely to not be represented at your company.

If you can’t understand that you shouldn’t be commenting on DEI stuff.

> For example you have similar candidates, take the one who’s least represented in your org.

This would be the only edge case in which it would "work". And even then you're still systematically rejecting someone based on who they are rather than what they can do. I'd rather lose to a coin flip.

> Or you have a “pure” meritocracy, but you spend more energy and money sending your recruiters to areas and schools whose students are more likely to not be represented at your company.

Then it's not pure, because you're actively avoiding people.

> If you can’t understand that you shouldn’t be commenting on DEI stuff.

Regardless if your statement is true or not, you believe we should exclude people from discussions because they might not have enough knowledge on the subject? (Ironic for a topic on inclusion)

Your other two points are trivially handled by the history of race and hiring practices in the United States. I recommend beginning your education with the “New Jim Crow”.

Truly fascinating there are some who believe the hiring process is meritocratic to begin with. It’s not. This notion you have that hiring is solely about what you can do is just so naive. It never has been and never will be. Working is a collaborative effort and inherently will include nebulous traits, I.e. “who you are”.

> Regardless if your statement is true or not, you believe we should exclude people from discussions because they might not have enough knowledge on the subject? (Ironic for a topic on inclusion)

If you do not support dei, which you appear not to, then yes. Ironic indeed. Perhaps now you will understand the need for diversity (in opinions such as yours) and inclusion (in conversations such as these).

Ive seen lesser qualified people get hired because of this. Ie multiple people get inverviewed, but even the the "least represented" is far less qualified they got hired entirely because of DEI. This was clearly stated as the reason why too. Happens more often than you'd think.

That’s not a DEI issue inherently. Not any more than a startup founder hiring incompetent friends any more a “meritocracy” issue.

how do do know it was dei specifically anyway? Was it explicitly said they were hired because of their gender or nationality?

The difference is that employers at least *try* to pick the best candidate by ignoring characteristics such as attractiveness and height. For race and gender, it's the opposite: employers actively give preference to certain races and to women.

This “pure meritocracy” argument simply boils down to the fact that it’s not possible to build a system that perfectly measures how prospective candidates will perform in the future. Really, all businesses and institutions should be free to innovate their own methodologies for doing that, and live with whatever consequences they produce, with the governments role being to regulate the limits of permissible discrimination. Race has been a class legally protected from discrimination for quite some time now, and it’s honestly pretty sad that it’s taken this long to get a ruling on this open and unapologetic racial discrimination.

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