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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

Yes and no. I do genuinely think that there are some things that should be taken into account when hiring - not in terms of quotas, but in terms of allowances made.

For instance consider two students:

Student A: Lived in a comfortable middle-class home in which parents worked in professional jobs and went to the best schools

Student B: Grew up in a deprived area to single parent who worked menial jobs. Had to work at weekends as well as study.

If both students apply to a job or college, should their final academic grades be treated equally? If both students got the same grade, who would you think was "smarter"?

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> Grew up in a deprived area to single parent who worked menial jobs

This has nothing to do with (and is antithetical to) DEI initiatives.

Socio-economic diversity is a thing now, even if it's not (yet?) a protected characteristic.

> If both students apply to a job or college, should their final academic grades be treated equally?

Yes. Grades reflect what the student did, which is a distinct question from why they were able to do it.

The wealthy are simply more meritorious by virtue of being born into wealth.

Some people are "lucky" enough to be born into nicer circumstances than others, which make them more suited for certain pursuits. How is that even worth mentioning, when it's the universal condition of humanity everywhere, and at all times?

I'm just making the implicit explicit. I'm not sure why you put quotes around luck.

> when it's the universal condition of humanity everywhere, and at all times?

Doesn't it make sense to question or try to change these assumptions? Or are things fine the way they are?

The quotes, because luck implies counterfactual outcomes. You're lucky if you miss a car accident by a minute, but it's not clear that you could have been born as someone else, because then you wouldn't be you, and that's nonsensical.

> Doesn't it make sense to question or try to change these assumptions? Or are things fine the way they are?

Pretty much every new government since the US or French revolutions have tried, and the outcomes have been less than ideal. Inequality is a constant feature of human society that cannot be engineered away.

Fair enough regarding the luck, but it is events beyond your control that, through no effort of your own, have massively influenced your ability to turn out well. I'm unsure how we can reconcile that with the idea that people find their positions solely through their own merit, unless we assume, like I did originally, that being born wealth makes you more meritorious.

> Pretty much every new government since the US or French revolutions have tried, and the outcomes have been less than ideal.

Are you saying that people in the United States were less free? Or just the same as they were before?

The American revolution was a succession, and not a revolution in the sense that it wasn't an attempt to overthrow the British crown. It turned out remarkably well compared to most others though, although I'm being noisily reminded of its shortcomings on a dreary, daily basis.

In general, meet the new boss -- same as the old boss, and for the most part, upheavals swap one ruling class for another. The children of the revolutionaries become the new privileged ruling elite. This is as inevitable as bureaucracy, regardless of whatever glowing utopian rhetoric the activists had used to mobilize the masses for the revolution.

"In the UK, a low ability child from a high income family is 35% more likely to be a high earner than a high ability child from a low income family."

You cool with that too?

Isn't that one of the chief goals of accumulating wealth? Being able to offer their children more opportunity?

Depends what it is. If it's "more opportunity because you inherited my house when I died" - fair enough. If it's "more opportunity because I got my mate Dave to hire you over other more qualified candidates" then that's shit.

But we're discussing people being additionally qualified by accident of birth, having afforded them opportunities, and not because Dave met someone in a pub last year.

Is it "shit" that Liza Minelli had a great head-start in her entertainment career by being Judy Garland's daughter?

>>Is it "shit" that Liza Minelli had a great head-start in her entertainment career by being Judy Garland's daughter?

Of course it is. Same goes for all the other nepo babies.

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