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Comment by sumeno | Hacker News Reader

If I help an elderly person across the street am I discriminating against the young?

Are VA hospitals discriminating against non-veterans?

If my neighbor's house is on fire is the fire department discriminating against me when they don't spray my house with water?

We make accomodations for people in society all the time, it doesn't mean we are discriminating against people who aren't part of that group.

Hiring practices in our industry have historically, and still do, overwhelmingly benefit white men. Making accomodations for other people to reduce that disparity is not discrimination. You STILL have the overwhelming advantage in the hiring process and are crying discrimination. It's absurd

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There is a big difference (I think you know this) between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

Regardless of who benefits more currently (and may benefit in the future), creating new victims of discrimination is not a good solution, unless the problem is "how do we add more discrimination to the world?".

Equating the fact that some groups have benefits over others does little to help the individuals being discriminated against.

> Making accomodations for other people to reduce that disparity is not discrimination.

Giving people different accommodations based on race or sex is discrimination no matter how many times you claim it is not.

> Hiring practices in our industry have historically, and still do, overwhelmingly benefit white men. […] You STILL have the overwhelming advantage in the hiring process and are crying discrimination. It's absurd

“Equity” as it is currently practiced is inherently unfair because it reduces everything down to race, sex, and other group identities and assumes that all white men are privileged while all women and non-white people are oppressed.

Under the current equity framework a black person who was born into a wealthy family with loving parents, attended expensive private schools, and never wanted for anything is “oppressed” and deserves to be given special accommodations, while a white person born into extreme poverty with drug-addicted, absent parents is assumed to be a privileged oppressor. That is absurd.

The vast vast majority of interviewers and hiring managers in our industry are going to be white men. They will consciously or unconsciously tend to favor people like them, other white men, regardless of other factors due to human nature. Efforts to account for that are not discriminating against the white men, the discrimination is already happening to the people who aren't white men, accounting for that existing systematic discrimination is not reverse discrimination.

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