Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Orange Wizard]

I'd prefer my doctor be selected for his skill in the field, not randomly, or by race.

[wobbly]

Chances are unless you're seeing the family doctor or going to the same doctor you always go to you are selecting your doctor fairly randomly.

[Harry Baldman]

I'd prefer my doctor be selected for his skill in the field, not randomly, or by race.

You would, but really unless you have very specific medical conditions and/or a lot of money to burn you have to settle for whichever one's on hand and usually take it on their word and from their diploma on the wall that they know what they're talking about.

It usually works quite well, with some notable exceptions.

[Orange Wizard]

Chances are unless you're seeing the family doctor or going to the same doctor you always go to you are selecting your doctor fairly randomly.

You would, but really unless you have very specific medical conditions and/or a lot of money to burn you have to settle for whichever one's on hand and usually take it on their word and from their diploma on the wall that they know what they're talking about.

I mean what doctors are selected by the health board (and thus available to me). It makes no sense to have demographic quotas when it's literally not relevant to doctoring at all. Ergo, I would prefer doctors (and literally everyone, but doctors seemed like a more impactful example) be hired based on skillset rather than what minority group we're pandering to this week.

Great way to misrepresent what I said.

I mean, hell, you try and come up with 20 candidates out of an equally-qualified group of 200 that doesn't discriminate along some grounds without resorting to a random number generator.

Wow I parsed that really badly. Though to be fair, when are you going to encounter 200 equally-qualified candidates? They're all going to have different experience and so on. If, absurdly, you come out with... any number of candidates who have the same experience, and are all comparably good with relevant skills, then sure, random numbers would be fine.

My point is basically that race shouldn't be part of the equation. If it comes up that Employer X is refusing to hire South-Sudanese Jewish Muslims, then he can be taken to court and tried individually. It makes no sense to counter racist hiring practises with racist hiring practises, even in aggregate, unless your goal is simply to make the company look fair and equal.

[Shadowlord]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/02/politics/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-japan/index.html

Does he really expect this to work? He said it on frelling tv, multiple times, including on Fox News.

Anderson Cooper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEsBoRVlWXU
Chris Wallace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HImRvHAjrnE&feature=youtu.be&t=10m28s

Chris Wallace changed the topic relatively quickly, perhaps because his interview came shortly after the town hall with Anderson Cooper and Trump wasn't repudiating what he had said or denying it or anything.

Orange Wizard: They're probably all equally qualified because nobody has the experience in the job that they need in order to get the job in order to get the experience that they need in order to get the job.

[Orange Wizard]

Get enough folks with enough varied backgrounds involved with your hiring process, and those discriminatory factors vanish.

Yeah, you mentioned that approach earlier. I think it's pretty solid.

Which leaves the issue of small businesses who can't afford big HR departments, but I'm not sure if that's really as big a problem as people make out. The way to fix it isn't going to be quotas and AA, at least. IMO the best approach is prosecute racists when they do start causing trouble, and wait for public opinion to shift on its own.
Using more aggressive tactics like AA isn't going to help, I don't think. Unless your goal is a society that keeps up appearances of equality in aggregate, which is a stupid goal as far as I'm concerned.

Does he really expect this to work? He said it on frelling tv, multiple times, including on Fox News.

That's cute, he thinks NK is a threat.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We don't have to give Japan nukes. Japan is one of the "nuclear-ready" countries, they could build an arsenal in a month or two. Just bombs in days, if necessary.

[Amperzand]

They also have an official stance very much against nukes in general, for whatever that's worth. They wouldn't necessarily be terribly pleased about getting missiles based in their territory either.

[Orange Wizard]

Wait, why would anyone (sane) want to start threatening China with nuclear war? That'd be bad for everyone.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I believe Trump's statements on the matter are to the effect of "China can be an excellent business partner to the US instead of a rising threat, I have extensive experience with making deals with the Chinese and know that we really just need to smack them around a little and they'll fall in line".

[Orange Wizard]

Pretty sure that's how the Opium War started.

[Reelya]

... which were a jolly good smashing success, may I add.

[Sheb]

Get enough folks with enough varied backgrounds involved with your hiring process, and those discriminatory factors vanish.

Yeah, you mentioned that approach earlier. I think it's pretty solid.

Which leaves the issue of small businesses who can't afford big HR departments, but I'm not sure if that's really as big a problem as people make out. The way to fix it isn't going to be quotas and AA, at least. IMO the best approach is prosecute racists when they do start causing trouble, and wait for public opinion to shift on its own.
Using more aggressive tactics like AA isn't going to help, I don't think. Unless your goal is a society that keeps up appearances of equality in aggregate, which is a stupid goal as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, yeah, right, why didn't we think of it before. Let's just outlaw racism and then everything will be fine! /sarcasm

More seriously, it's nigh-on impossible to proove someone is turning you down because you're black or asian or anything. Such a law would be unenforcable.

Affirmative action isn't perfect, but it is easier to enforce and can work to change mind (I've got that great paper by Duflot I pop out every time the subject pop up if you're interested).

[Orange Wizard]

Affirmative action isn't perfect, but it is easier to enforce and can work to change mind (I've got that great paper by Duflot I pop out every time the subject pop up if you're interested).

Okay, I'll take a look at the paper.

More seriously, it's nigh-on impossible to proove someone is turning you down because you're black or asian or anything. Such a law would be unenforcable.

Except anti-discrimination laws do exist and are enforced. It might be hard to get a conviction but that's vastly preferable to presuming guilt.

I am really having trouble wrapping my head around how affirmative action is anything other than hypocritical and amoral. I can understand quotas to a degree where diverse representation is important (NZ has Maori seats in parliament, for instance, although that's mostly a traditional thing now; there's lots of Maori in general seats as well).

[Morrigi]

Agreed. Affirmative action is a form of institutional racial discrimination. That is wrong, for any reason. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and affirmative action is a step down it.