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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16082 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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If the employer has whittled down the list of applicants to a group of people with similar qualifications, and more detailed information that might help the decision is impossible or infeasible to attain, then the choice of whom to hire will be arbitrary. In this case, I don't see how hiring Brinton because of his unusual presentation is any worse than rolling a die or flipping a coin to make the final choice.

It's worse in the very trivial way that it leaves a whole lot of the population fighting dice that are incapable of rolling in their favor. Yes, it actually feels quite bad to know that you automatically lose any tiebreaker no matter what for something you have no control over to fight a disparity you had no hand in.

edit: and of course there is the other factor which is that I have literally zero faith that the people making these choices are actually not rounding everything down as to what counts for qualifications for people with my phenotype and rounding everything up for qualifications that count for people like Brinton before they declare that several candidates are of equal qualifications. I have seen the faces of this kind of person when they see an unrepresented minority in a prestigious position.

In practice, true underrepresentation-as-tiebreaker practices are just not that big a deal for over- or proportionally represented candidates. The reason certain groups are underrepresented in certain positions is that they're underrepresented among qualified applicants, often dramatically. There just aren't that many to compete with, relative to the slots to be filled.

I guess one exception might be US Asians competing against whites, because we outnumber them so much. Tech companies aren't using race as a tiebreaker between Asians and whites, but universities probably are.

The bigger issue, as you say, is the bailey, where "tie" is defined loosely enough for a half-sigma difference to count as a tie.

It's worse in the very trivial way that it leaves a whole lot of the population fighting dice that are incapable of rolling in their favor. Yes, it actually feels quite bad to know that you automatically lose any tiebreaker no matter what for something you have no control over to fight a disparity you had no hand in.

I thought of this, but given that these situations are very rare, I don't think it really matters that much.

Besides, if the "marginalized" groups really do face a disadvantage, then they themselves may "feel quite bad" about their their own chances. If members of both the overrepresented and underrepresented groups adjust their beliefs rationally, the total amount of "feeling quite bad" should remain the same (that is, of course, an enormous if). It really is just levelling the playing field, unlike quotas or double standards.

and of course there is the other factor which is that I have literally zero faith that the people making these choices are actually not rounding everything down as to what counts for qualifications for people with my phenotype and rounding everything up for qualifications that count for people like Brinton before they declare that several candidates are of equal qualifications. I have seen the faces of this kind of person when they see an unrepresented minority in a prestigious position.

The current ideology does support affirmative action beyond what I consider justified, but they are pretty explicit about this. They're not pretending to only use identity as a tiebreaker and then secretly adjusting twice. If (another tremendous if) the belief that affirmative action is only justified in the narrow circumstances outlined above became widespread, I would expect people to implement it fairly.

I will admit that, given the magnitude of the ifs, this is mostly an intellectual exercise. Maybe I would be better off just supporting total identity-blindness, lest narrow affirmative action slip down the slope into wokeism. Not that it matters much, given that the world is already well past that point.

I thought of this, but given that these situations are very rare, I don't think it really matters that much.

Are they really? I've seen the thumb on the scale even in my relatively low stakes white collar office when I was told we were either getting a white/asian/male senior engineer or junior URM/woman with the same budget. Unsurprisingly we got a woman, who is absolutely fine and I don't blame at all but it's an unsettling thing to see a process that would have rejected you for no reason in the wild. If it doesn't matter much, how about we just don't do it? Save everyone the controversy, bring on the dice, hell record it's rolling publicly, hash the candidate names for privacy.

Besides, if the "marginalized" groups really do face a disadvantage

This is just shifting the power to whomever gets to decide which disadvantages count as you mention elsewhere. I put forward that by the time you get to applying for this position all the other legs up given to underrepresented minorities means white candidates have a disadvantage, please propose a way to determine who is correct.

If members of both the overrepresented and underrepresented groups adjust their beliefs rationally, the total amount of "feeling quite bad" should remain the same (that is, of course, an enormous if).

There is a reason this originally unironic comic is referred to as "bike cuck". It's even worse to expect other people to unwilling make their peace with their discrimination. It is hard to quantify exactly what effect this kind of resentment will have but Trump is not as bad as things can get when people move past wanting to show the establishment a middle finger to other displays of disapproval. Scott put it best here but replace "liberalism" with "identity blindness"

People talk about “liberalism” as if it’s just another word for capitalism, or libertarianism, or vague center-left-Democratic Clintonism. Liberalism is none of these things. Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war. It was forged in the fires of Hell – the horrors of the endless seventeenth century religious wars. For a hundred years, Europe tore itself apart in some of the most brutal ways imaginable – until finally, from the burning wreckage, we drew forth this amazing piece of alien machinery. A machine that, when tuned just right, let people live together peacefully without doing the “kill people for being Protestant” thing. Popular historical strategies for dealing with differences have included: brutally enforced conformity, brutally efficient genocide, and making sure to keep the alien machine tuned really really carefully.

I think people on your side of this debate do not understand just how much rage bubbles under the surface when people see things like this going on and it's a pressure cooker that discussing and venting about this is a career endingly dangerous thing to do with your name attached. Some people tried to overthrow an election on behalf of the frankly embarrassing figure that is Trump, the democrats seem hellbent on forging the weapons of tyrants such as speech control and normalizing broad executive overreach. Someone is going to come along and show us all how to wield them. I do not like this path, I do not want to go where it leads. What you think we're getting out of this, it's not worth it.

I think people on your side of this debate do not understand just how much rage bubbles under the surface when people see things like this going on and it's a pressure cooker that discussing and venting about this is a career endingly dangerous thing to do with your name attached.

I can attest to that. I have been dealing with being discriminated against in my career for over a decade now, nearing two. That is rather dismaying. But the rage-inducing thing is that I get gaslighted every single week, via department emails, university events, comments by colleagues or bosses, that, actually, it is people who look like me who are being advantaged and only a misogynist fascist would complain about the treatment I have been getting (which doesn't exist anyway, you're paranoid).

I have turned rather bitter as a consequence and developed quite a bit of resentment against the type of person who would profit from, or engage in, this gaslighting. The only thing keeping me from kiplingposting(1) is my commitment to liberalism, which so far seems to be a non-depletable resource. But I doubt it is the same for others.

(1) It was not suddently bred. It will not swiftly abate and all that.

The strongest affirmative action seems confined, for the moment, to places like universities, where whites are probably more liberal(in the technical sense of the word) than average.

If this was a major issue the red tribe elite was dealing with, the picture would be rather different.

The strongest affirmative action seems confined, for the moment, to places like universities, where whites are probably more liberal(in the technical sense of the word) than average.

Explicit AA maybe. Implicit AA (because someone has to report how his dep. is doing on diversity metrics or because he wants to boast about diversity hires at his next job interview - or because he's a true believer) is much more widespread.

If this was a major issue the red tribe elite was dealing with, the picture would be rather different.

As soon as men are in positions of power, they are not affected by diversity hiring as much anymore. And they don't give a rat's ass about the men coming up behind them. To the contrary, they're their competition. I've recently been to a consortium meeting where the tenured professors clutched pearls about how there are too many men among them. No worries though, we'll just have preferential hiring for the post-docs and doctoral students! This is what feminists don't get (or don't want to get) about the "patriarchy". There is no male solidarity.

And they don't give a rat's ass about the men coming up behind them. To the contrary, they're their competition.

Have you considered that this is an effect of your bubble? Red tribers do not think or behave like this. If AA blatantly affects them and theirs, they will get upset about it. It very rarely does, however, because the blue tribe mostly implements it in places where there are few red tribers to begin with.

That is very possible. On the other hand, I have never seen a republican politician do anything against anti-male discrimination.

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