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Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

As a society we got ourselves into a situation where ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past. And doing ANYTHING proactive now is racism not.

The question is just — what type of injustice do you prefer?

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The answer is really simple: discrimination not on race, but on inequalities. Don’t discriminate because someone is black or white, but give due consideration to factors like family situation/income/legacy/etc

This seems like the most reasonable solution. If you believe that systemic racism exists in the background, then this corrects for its real effects. If you don’t, I’m sure you at least accept that all else equal, a smart poor person will have accomplished less than a smart rich person due to lack of resources, so if you can correct for that in admissions you better identify smart people.

Need-oriented discrimination, with no accounting for race, is the answer

You should apply some second order thinking on this argument.

In the welfare days, those that were in more need were women with children where the man ditched the family. So more effort and money was applied there which seems totally reasonable.

But it also incentivized men to leave their families to qualify, and they did in high numbers.

These type of things made to correct something in the past also have a tendency to incentivize something bad in the future.

This is part of why these things are so difficult in practice.

Or we could acknowledge that society functions best when the most qualified people are chosen and decide to only discriminate on merit.

These selection criteria are meant to match students with schools filled with students of the same ability level. Of course there will always be factors in life that make it harder or easier for people to succeed.

Having had exceptionally difficult life circumstances doesn't somehow change the fact that you need to have already mastered Algebra to succeed at MIT for example.

We should focus more on mitigating the extent that difficult circumstances hinders learning not just manipulating selection criteria after it already has.

> We should focus more on mitigating the extent that difficult circumstances hinders learning not just manipulating selection criteria after it already has.

This is harder, but I agree the right place to focus our energies. The problem is that the people that want to solve the problem are those in higher education. The people at the root of the problem are probably the same ones that don't want to solve it. A bit of a catch-22.

To be clear, this is about university admissions where their goal is to identify the most capable people for the school, and a smart but poor person might very well be the most capable (even if it’s not clear on paper given their previous lack of resources). This IS merit-based, but it’s an attempt to find the diamonds in the rough.

Someone with an IQ of 140 but poor might not have accomplished as much as a rich person with an IQ of 100, so on paper the rich person looks better, but correcting for circumstances the poor (smart) person is wayyy better. This is meritocratic.

And I’m certainly not suggesting you take the objectively worst person, especially in a job market. Universities are given public money to provide societal benefits. If they aren’t properly able to give people opportunities, they don’t deserve my tax dollars.

> Or we could acknowledge that society functions best when the most qualified people are chosen and decide to only discriminate on merit.

The problem is that we have never actually done that. "Legacy admissions" is a fine example of that failure. Large donations influence admissions decisions. Biases (unconscious or conscious) can take two people of equal merit and cause an admissions officer to prefer one over the other.

There have already been studies showing that simply changing a person's name (either to present a different gender or race/national origin) on a resume can result in a different hiring decision.

A purpose of all of these equity initiatives is to compensate for the reasons why we already suck at giving people opportunities based on merit. Some of them are ill-advised and end up not working, but that doesn't mean we should just throw our hands up and accept the status quo.

And I certainly don't expect us to wave a magic wand and turn ourselves into perfectly rational, unbiased robots who actually do select purely on merit. Which wouldn't even fix the problem, anyway. But I feel like people like you who tout this "merit" thing are also pushing something impossible to accomplish.

> ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past

Does it?

I think the argument goes something like: if racial groups and socioeconomic outcomes are correlated due to previous inequalities, and social mobility is limited, then doing nothing further entrenches the inequalities.

Then discriminate on the socioeconomic inequalities. A poor white person and a poor black person should get aid. Obama’s daughter (black, but rich and powerful) doesn’t need any aid or discrimination in her favor.

Discriminating on the basis of race for these programs is so stupid. Ask why and people say “because socioeconomic status”, but then why don’t you discriminate on that? I think people know this but it’s a political move (black people vote for democrats for the vast majority, so making it means tested instead wouldn’t be popular with them).

Sure, just do _anything_ that's a directional improvement.

I think a lot of bad faith prevarication prevents any improvement (such as the question I was replying to).

You are accusing me of a bad faith question?

Elaborate, and make it good.

This is a much longer discussion and one that tends to devolve. And there is a camp that believes that black peoples have it better than whites people today. I find it hard to believe, but they exist.

You made a statement that clearly begged the question, and now I see that you’ve made this comment twice to try and stop further discussion and examination of your claims, and yet I see a perfectly fine and interesting discussion has continued below and hasn’t devolved at all.

Might be time to check more than one of your assumptions, but more importantly, stop trying to police what I and others here say. I’m an adult, if you don’t wish to engage further that’s up to you but I and the others on these boards can make our own decisions, and there are moderators for when things get out of hand. Thanks.

I never said not to have the discussion. I said it would devolve, and look at what we’re already discussing.

I pointed out that it hasn't devolved. If you think people calmly and rationally discussing and disagreeing with your assumptions and claims is devolution then you have a further claim to back up.

Go read what you wrote about policing and other stuff. It was demeaning and clearly not my intent. Apparently you’re an adult, so yes, have whatever discussion you like. I’m just saying I won’t be apart of it, unless you plan to force me.

No one is demeaning you by pointing out that you are the one trying to shut down discussion, you are demeaning yourself by partaking in that.

“unless you plan to force me.” Jesus wept.

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