Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

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> No, that's not what Federal anti-discrimination law says.

I wasn't referring to Fed Discrimination Laws. I was referring to the California law. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

> The people who are attracted to government jobs where they get to tell other people what to do aren't benevolent helpers; they're people who like power. All history shows that such people are precisely the people you don't want telling other people what to do.

Why do you think that's not already the world we live in? Police officers are the epitome of this. I'm just not convinced things get much worse with this.

> The second problem is that dictating that people of certain races must belong to corporate boards is just as wrong as dictating that people of certain races can't belong to corporate boards.

I disagree with this. They are vastly different. One is completely excluding a group from the table. The other is ensuring that a group has a spot at the table. And boards, in particular, are the type of position where there are many qualified people. If we did a controlled study I'd be shocked if there was a negative difference in performance of companies with Black board members.

> The only real way to fix corporate governance is for people who would do better jobs than the board members of current corporations to form their own corporations and out-compete the current corporations.

In order to do that you have to fix a bunch of other stuff in society as well. Companies don't live in a meritocratic bubble.

Honestly there is not right angle to race. Saying "black people cant be at the board of companies" is just as wrong as saying "some black people have to belong to it". That being said, when only white people are at the board of companies without that being a calculated strategy, there is also a problem. If only white people come out on top where - allegedly - the smartest people belong, wouldn’t it be the place of the state to ensure that a fair chance is given to everyone from birth up to professional life, instead of trying to force an artificial standard upon companies?

> is just as wrong as saying "some black people have to belong to it".

Umm you can have an all white board with the new law.

The problem is that the only real solution is a lot more extreme. I think once women are pregnant they go into managed care and babies are immediately taken at birth into academies (with no knowledge of parents) until adulthood. But that will never happen. Unfortunately short of that we’re likely to never have real equality.

That’s some pretty extreme all-or-nothing thinking. Why do you believe this is the only solution?

How else do you remedy the compounding advantage throughout various parts of the society?

You don't. "Compounding advantage" is a fact of life. Historically, the societies that have dealt with this unpleasant fact of life the best have been those that had some concept of "noblesse oblige"--if you are one of the fortunate ones with "compounding advantage" on your side, you have an obligation to use those gifts to help others less fortunate than you. But trying to erase the advantage doesn't work; every time it has been tried, it has just ended up causing even more misery (and in many cases lots of deaths).

> I think once women are pregnant they go into managed care and babies are immediately taken at birth into academies (with no knowledge of parents) until adulthood.

In other words, you've just reinvented Plato's Republic. Historically, the closest things to this have been societies like the Puritans or Geneva under John Calvin, or in the 20th century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. How well did those experiments in "managed care" work out?

The closest thing to it in today's world is probably China or North Korea. If you think that's a good idea, you're welcome to go live in one of those countries.

> Unfortunately short of that we’re likely to never have real equality.

We won't have "real equality" even with such a draconian plan, because the inconvenient truth is that every human being is a unique individual. There is no such thing as "real equality" because human beings are all different. You can't pigeonhole human beings into boxes. You can't "manage" their care so they fit into whatever preconceived utopian fantasy you happen to have. Human beings are free individuals and we all have to figure out for ourselves how best to use whatever we have been given. And since we all get given different things, we are going to end up wanting different things, needing different things, and making different choices. No central planner can possibly comprehend all that. And every time it has been tried, it has ended up costing a lot of lives and a lot of misery even for those who managed not to be killed outright.

I’m not advocating such a plan. Just pointing out that pretty much anything we do short of that plan created a society that will favor whites people. When laws like those in a California get passed whites get up in arms about fairness. Blacks look around and think ”this is what gets you upset about fairness?”

Wow. That escalated quickly!

I hope you’ll never be in any position of power to realize this “solution”.

> I wasn't referring to Fed Discrimination Laws. I was referring to the California law. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

It wasn't since you explicitly said "Federal government" in your previous post. I agree that state laws can say different things.

> Why do you think that's not already the world we live in?

I didn't say it wasn't. If you already agree that what I said is the case, then you should be all the more opposed to more of the same.

> I'm just not convinced things get much worse with this.

Any extension of government power makes things worse. If the increment of "worse" seems small with some particular change, well, the phrase "frog-boiling" wasn't coined for nothing.

> One is completely excluding a group from the table. The other is ensuring that a group has a spot at the table.

You are misunderstanding my point. The current state, where many corporate boards are all of one race and one gender, is not a product of government fiat; it's a product of private decisions. But there have been cases in the past where similar states were products of government fiat. Those past government fiats are now pretty much universally agreed to have been very bad things. My point is simply that this is the same kind of thing, and should be considered bad for the same reasons. The issue is not "spots at the table". The issue is government fiat.

> In order to do that you have to fix a bunch of other stuff in society as well.

Like what? If you mean, like certain corporations having huge advantages because they have privileged access to things like loans with government printed money, lobbyists with the ear of government officials, and so on, yes, I agree all those things need to be fixed--and they're all just more examples of government power being misused. As the saying goes, the root problem is not that politicians can be bought but that they have something valuable to sell. That is what needs to be fixed.

> Companies don't live in a meritocratic bubble.

In a free market, where the government did not play favorites at all, they would--they would either have to make and sell something people want to buy, or go out of business. That's the only kind of "merit" that matters to us as consumers. But we can't exercise that ultimate control if the government keeps getting in the way.

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