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Comment by EvanZ | Hacker News Reader

Why not just hire based on merit, and let gender and race percentages fall where they may?

Because practices implicitly assumes that merit === talent, and that natural talent cannot be hidden by extenuating circumstances such as social pressure away from a given trade or poor access to learning resources.

So? Expecting industry to solve such a huge societal problem is ridiculous. The only thing tech businesses can be expected to do is not discriminate. Restructuring society to address systemic injustice that start well before kids even go to school is not something industry can achieve.

I'm arguing that a truly effective meritocratic system should be able to recognize merit that might be hidden by the kinds of social circumstances that affirmative action attempts to compensate for. Even if you don't think industry should address these issues, there's a chance that the game theoretically optimal option is to make special consideration for underrepresented groups.

But affirmative action doesn't recognize merit, it rewards luck (at being the minority given the job) and is designed to even out ethnic/sex ratios without regard for productivity.

Also, a meritocratic system only requires the "winners" are chosen on the merit of their work. It will never be possible to eliminate all disadvantages which might prevent somebody from achieving some abstract concept of potential.

How do you define merit then? It may never be possible to eliminate all the disadvantages, but moving towards equality in outcome is still worthwhile.

Like a blind person can't be made to see, but screen reading software and braille text is still better then not having those things.

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