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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

How would this person who hasn’t touched a computer for years, end up in the candidate pool for computer-using engineers?

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Who says they haven't touched a computer for years? There's no requirement for your beliefs to be consistent. Otherwise there wouldn't be a single religious person left in the world. You can interview on a computer and reveal your religious preferences on the first day of the job.

> There's no requirement for your beliefs to be consistent

I would bet money a judge would argue that inconsistent/arbitrary beliefs are in fact not "sincerely held" beliefs as defined under Title VII.

Also, SCOTUS made a ruling in 2023 that a business is allowed to take "undue hardship" into consideration for the company as a whole, meaning they can still fire (or not hire) you if your beliefs would be detrimental to the success of the business.

The fact that all this stuff is easily accessible online and yet some people think they can just out-logic the law is mind-boggling to me. Oh, you never studied law in your life but you're criticizing a 60-year old law that has been hashed out over and over again? Dunning-Kruger strikes again.

Agreed... I feel like this is many people in general though (and esp. online forums/social media where people like to act smart); always with the armchair experts confidently stating uneducated guesses as dogma.

And the Dunning-Kruger effect also applies to "smart" people. You don't stop when you're estimating your ability correctly; as you learn more, you gain more awareness of your ignorance and continue being conservative with your self-estimates.

Yeah but you realize that religious exemptions aren’t just automatically rubber stamped? That employers can deny them on the basis of lack of sincerity? How realistic is it that someone can have a career with computers, and then on the first day of the job, prove that they’ve gone all-in on an anti-computer religion?

There are a lot of weird ways interviews are done. I wouldn't be surprised if someone's interview process didn't screen for is someone even an engineer.

Though nothing about the Amish prohibits being a computer using engineer. Their rejection of technology is a lot more nuanced.

Because he was hired when the company still used typewriters.

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