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Comment by hw | Hacker News Reader

Let's take gender, race, food preference out of the equation. Say a person with qualities A and another person with qualities B both interview at a company. Turns out that at the company (and in the industry in general, type Bs are a minority), and there's a movement to hire more of type Bs.

If type A did better in an interview than type B, but the company ended up hiring a type B because of the whole diversity thing, is that considered a bad thing? Wouldn't that be considered preferential treatment? Why are there company initiatives or programs for B but not for A.

As someone who is of type B, I feel offended that there are 'initiatives' that help me get jobs at companies. I dont need my hand held or the job given to me just because i'm the only B applicant in a pool of 10 applicants

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It doesn't make any sense in the context of an arbitrary type A and B free of historical baggage. The idea is that we type As have, on balance, experienced more "luck" and preferential treatment in our favor than type Bs because we are type As, so some artifically injected disfavor pushes the overall system closer to balance. It's fighting unfairness with unfairness in the opposite direction.

I was born to well-employed, college-educated parents in a stable marriage, moved to my childhood home specifically for its excellent school district, had plenty of quiet space and encouragement to do homework, funded through a top-5 university, etc. I've capitalized on those advantages and done quite well, but I didn't earn them. I don't mind when some of the competitive power I merely inherited is transferred to someone who inherited none. Probably they worked even harder, they just started lower.

Except historical baggage is exactly that; historical. It doesn't mean everyone in that group has experienced it the same way or at all.

This is the fundamental problem with policies based on group identity rather than individuals.

The white kids with single mothers in the trailer park who have fought for a chance to apply for these jobs might like a word with you.

Yes and luckily for them, they don't have to additionally suffer from systemic racial discrimination, which the equivalent member of a minority group frequently would have.

Nowhere does it proclaim "If your X your life is hard, if you're Y your life is easy." What is said (roughly) is that for two people otherwise equivalent, if one is X and the other is Y, that in general, in current society life is additionally harder for Xs - and this is due to for historical reasons.

I'm not sure your observation of of "white trash", "redneck", and "trailer rats" not suffering from systemic racial discrimination is an accurate one. I for one can assure you that people know how to suss out the difference and it starts at a young age.

It's not clear to me what you're saying. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, "redneck" isn't a racial group.

No-one is arguing that class-based discrimination doesn't exist, as it certainly does.

> that in general, in current society life is additionally harder for Xs - and this is due to for historical reasons.

In general, yes it is. But you aren't hiring people in general, you are hiring individuals. If you are trying to combat *ism than applying generalizations to individuals is exactly what you should be avoiding.

I hear this argument frequently and it's flawed.

Negative effects are applied in generalities across most aspects of society. Academic research has consistently shown this. Countering effects are also applied in generalities across society.

It is impractical (and not quantifiable) for every instance to be brought forward via an individual lawsuit. While note a perfect analogy, it has similarities to a class-action lawsuit.

We all know it isn't a perfect solution, but it's still better than doing nothing.

In an ideal world, negative effects wouldn't be applied in generalities across segments of society. But that is only very slowly changing.

Yes, one problem with affirmative action is that accepts some collateral damage in the form of individually unjust outcomes, even if it makes the world as a whole more just.

I think another reason we want to hire B is because if we have only As we are more susceptible to group think. It is good to have people of many different types to prevent that.

Is that really true though? Where I've worked, almost everyone was from an upper class or upper middle class background, grew up in a handful of superzip suburbs like Atherton/Scarsdale or high COL cities like NY, stable family life, attended a top tier university, had similar cultural interests or hobbies, read the same news sources, even had similar vices. They looked like a Benetton ad, but all acted exactly the same.

Is hiring Bs who are exactly like your As, except in superficial characteristics like appearance, really bringing in diverse points of view?

My last team was pretty diverse as far as country of origin (India, China, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, UK, many parts of the US), culture, ages, etc. I know some came from rural and some for lack of a better word 'white trash' upbringing. I will say we were mostly men though. It was a great team and I miss them.

Many people who speak about diversity in tech don't actually have experiences in engineering so they don't understand that race and gender are not that important in engineering. Engineering is very multi-cultural and people care more about nationality than race/gender. There is a huge diversity of nationality and cultures.

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