Handicapping like in chess, golf or sports betting is to give a inferior player or team a somewhat equal chance against a superior player or team. Those are charged words (inferior/superior) that lead to the idea of the unqualified being placed over the qualified but jobs, promotions and educational opportunities are not a game. AA/DEI/P…
Handicapping like in chess, golf or sports betting is to give a inferior player or team a somewhat equal chance against a superior player or team. Those are charged words (inferior/superior) that lead to the idea of the unqualified being placed over the qualified but jobs, promotions and educational opportunities are not a game. AA/DEI/PD are seen as handicapping at best or loaded dice at worst. Affirmative action was needed years ago, is it still?
It is hard to argue against the idea that using equity of results as a measure of equality of opportunity has an element of injustice for whomever is getting discriminated against. [Edited]
The core problem here is the pursuit of equity. Black people spent centuries being excluded from public life. And the discrimination that resulted from that was never going to be overcome by *just* saying "okay guys, you can't discriminate anymore." Some "affirmative action" was necessary to give black people a chance to enter society.
I'd argue that those efforts have mostly been failures and have even been counterproductive at times. And yes, conflating equity with equality (where most people think of opportunity) is the source of a lot of that counterprodctivity.
Dave, could you rephrase your last sentence to have somewhat fewer negatives?
As I try to unravel it, I suspect that there may be an extra and unintended negation. I think you may intend to say there there likely IS an element of injustice, but the plain structure of the sentence appears to say that there is no element of perceived injustice.
I want to note that I was NOT exploring perceived unfairness among the disfavored, I was exploring societal dysfunction which can affect all. At one end of the spectrum could be a doctor or pilot or civil engineer whose political elevation beyond their ability could cause harm to many - but there can also be widespread decrease in competence in a hundred thousand smaller ways. For example, many of the "computer errors" which afflict us in interacting with systems are really data entry errors among humans feeding the software its inputs.
It's clear that "thumb on the scale" PD based employment offers, admissions or contracts is far from the only sources of incompetence affecting society, but to the degree that it's widespread, it could potentially add significantly to the overall toll.
Note that nowhere am I in any way suggesting that people of any population group are innately more or less incompetent purely on the basis of group membership. My critique, if this is a real trend, would be of the system which yet further reduces the signal to noise ratio of merit, not on the individuals upon which such a system bestows its favors.
As an example, Claudine Gay appears to have been a mediocre scholar who would have been very unlikely to become president of a premier educational institution on her own merits - even without the unsurprising degree of plagiarism that was easy for others to find once the filters were off. In this case, the meritocratic distortion did not appear to come from nepotism, random chance, or quid pro quo with a major donor - but from a significant PD "thumb on the scale" in the selection process based on her intersectional demographic. In any case, I would find the fault not in Gay for going through the doors opened for her, but on the system causing those doors to be selectively opened for the sake of a particular vision of social justice, a vision which I believe in the end will set back rather than advance the better society. Good intentions need not lead to good outcomes.
I DO NOT know how widespread such a factor really is in society overall. I am just reporting on the assertions, and the effects if true - in regard to the hypothesis of positive discrimination potentially reducing the degree to which merit is justly assessed and used in assigning positions of authority.
When typing on a cellphone it is easy to miss something when going back to rephrase something.
As for the virtue of brevity, when relating an incident (story telling) it is easy to become long winded, but when directly trying to express an idea, less can be more.
When taking a multiple-choice test with answer choices that are a bit verbose, the shortest answer is often correct for example.
Handicapping like in chess, golf or sports betting is to give a inferior player or team a somewhat equal chance against a superior player or team. Those are charged words (inferior/superior) that lead to the idea of the unqualified being placed over the qualified but jobs, promotions and educational opportunities are not a game. AA/DEI/PD are seen as handicapping at best or loaded dice at worst. Affirmative action was needed years ago, is it still?
It is hard to argue against the idea that using equity of results as a measure of equality of opportunity has an element of injustice for whomever is getting discriminated against. [Edited]
The core problem here is the pursuit of equity. Black people spent centuries being excluded from public life. And the discrimination that resulted from that was never going to be overcome by *just* saying "okay guys, you can't discriminate anymore." Some "affirmative action" was necessary to give black people a chance to enter society.
I'd argue that those efforts have mostly been failures and have even been counterproductive at times. And yes, conflating equity with equality (where most people think of opportunity) is the source of a lot of that counterprodctivity.
Dave, could you rephrase your last sentence to have somewhat fewer negatives?
As I try to unravel it, I suspect that there may be an extra and unintended negation. I think you may intend to say there there likely IS an element of injustice, but the plain structure of the sentence appears to say that there is no element of perceived injustice.
I want to note that I was NOT exploring perceived unfairness among the disfavored, I was exploring societal dysfunction which can affect all. At one end of the spectrum could be a doctor or pilot or civil engineer whose political elevation beyond their ability could cause harm to many - but there can also be widespread decrease in competence in a hundred thousand smaller ways. For example, many of the "computer errors" which afflict us in interacting with systems are really data entry errors among humans feeding the software its inputs.
It's clear that "thumb on the scale" PD based employment offers, admissions or contracts is far from the only sources of incompetence affecting society, but to the degree that it's widespread, it could potentially add significantly to the overall toll.
Note that nowhere am I in any way suggesting that people of any population group are innately more or less incompetent purely on the basis of group membership. My critique, if this is a real trend, would be of the system which yet further reduces the signal to noise ratio of merit, not on the individuals upon which such a system bestows its favors.
As an example, Claudine Gay appears to have been a mediocre scholar who would have been very unlikely to become president of a premier educational institution on her own merits - even without the unsurprising degree of plagiarism that was easy for others to find once the filters were off. In this case, the meritocratic distortion did not appear to come from nepotism, random chance, or quid pro quo with a major donor - but from a significant PD "thumb on the scale" in the selection process based on her intersectional demographic. In any case, I would find the fault not in Gay for going through the doors opened for her, but on the system causing those doors to be selectively opened for the sake of a particular vision of social justice, a vision which I believe in the end will set back rather than advance the better society. Good intentions need not lead to good outcomes.
I DO NOT know how widespread such a factor really is in society overall. I am just reporting on the assertions, and the effects if true - in regard to the hypothesis of positive discrimination potentially reducing the degree to which merit is justly assessed and used in assigning positions of authority.
“ Dave, could you rephrase your last sentence to have somewhat fewer negatives?”
The council failed to overturn the ban.
For that, I need to draw a diagram. Dave’s sentence would hard to reduce.
When typing on a cellphone it is easy to miss something when going back to rephrase something.
As for the virtue of brevity, when relating an incident (story telling) it is easy to become long winded, but when directly trying to express an idea, less can be more.
When taking a multiple-choice test with answer choices that are a bit verbose, the shortest answer is often correct for example.
“Created equal” is sloppy wording. It means “ possess identical rights under law” but phrases it as an obvious falsehood.
How much dispute we could have avoided with a few minutes reflection on the wording.