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[Steelmagic]

I am unsure if it has been posted before, but https://imgur.com/a/skffp The State of Georgia vs Denver Allen Fenton. Everything about it. It is also kind of offensive at times, so be aware of that. There's also a video with Judge Morty and Defendant Rick, using this transcript, somewhere on Youtube.

[pisskop]

-Im holidng you in contempt of court.  twenty days for everything you say.
-Go fuck yourself
-twenty days
-Fuck you
-fourty
-I dont care
-sixty
-fuck yourelf
-a year
-You mom
-Ten years
-Suck me


:O

[Flying Dice]

The issue with meritocracy is that merits are fundamentally against the concept of equality and human dignity. In an ideal world everybody should be perfect.

This is the problem with using "equality" when one means "fairness". The facet of equality encompassing rights, opportunities, &c. -- YES! That is good and right, we need that. The facet of equality encompassing the idea of "people should be given positions and tasks even if others are available and better able to perform them" is not. That's the issue. All people should be treated fairly, with the aegis of fairness including equal treatment under the law, equal access to public goods, &c.

Because people are not equal. People do not all do things exactly as well or poorly as each other. They do not all have the exact same physical and mental capabilities, nor the interests and inclinations to use them in the pursuit of. People should be given the same opportunities and rights, but that does not include access to earned positions, advanced opportunities, rewards, &c. which they did not earn.
---

Take this as an example: all people in a state should have full, free access to public schooling of the same quality as that afforded to all of their cohort. That's pretty much universally accepted in the first world through secondary school. There's some debate about university being included, but lets' assume that it is. So then, a student has completed their schooling and is ready to move into the next stage of their life.

Maybe they want to go to graduate school and pursue further education. If they demonstrated the skills demanded by their program of choice, as measured by whatever metrics are in place, they will likely be accepted and be free to attend classes, eventually obtaining a degree. If they did not demonstrate those skills (say, they barely scraped through their undergraduate work with a 2.0 GPA and didn't take any courses relevant to the Masters program they applied for), they should not be given access to the program in the name of equality.

Obviously, they should not be rejected for any reason other than a lack of merit, but lack of merit alone is enough. And they were not treated unfairly or as less than others of their cohort. They had the same opportunities and resources, but some combination of low talent, unwillingness or inability to apply themselves, poor attention to their work, &c. relative to their peers meant that they were less qualified--so much so, in this case, that they failed to gain entry at all.

That's the fundamental delusion behind the notion of absolute equality, that the discrimination of ability is negative. It's not. It's even present at the most basic level in our evolutionary development and instinctive reproductive urges. If someone cannot competently perform a function, they should not be allowed to try if any other option exists. If they are less competent than another individual, they should not be chosen unless the other person carries baggage sufficient to outweigh their competence.

It's also why affirmative action is a slapdash band-aid solution; the source of the issue is that minority groups are often treated unfairly at much more basic levels. Their family may have been broken or impoverished, the public goods available to them worse than those available to others in their generation, and related issues which set them behind in fundamental ways--lower interest, underdeveloped knowledge, less access to professional and academic social networks, &c., such that they are often less able and less motivated to seek out higher-level opportunities, not because of their own fundamental abilities and nature, but because their development was curtailed and stunted by a flawed system which treated them unfairly in their foundational years.

IOW hiring quotas treat a symptom, not the illness. It makes people concerned with the problem feel better without actually resolving it.

---

On a related note, you can see how things tend to progress when the problem is addressed at the root in the American legal system in the context of gender. Obvious there is and has been a very heavy male majority in the legal profession. Among the senior ranks of law firms, judicial positions, &c. that's still true. But in the past decade or so, that's actually flipped among law students, with a current female majority (at least as of a couple years ago when I was researching this), and the gender split of practicing lawyers was within a percent or two of 50-50.

That's what real progress looks like. The process starts at a very young age, so you won't even begin to see results until a decade or more after changes are implemented, and you'll still have decades more where the old guard are still working. I think it's not really that surprising that the "ALL the change, NOW" demographic is mostly among my generation and younger, given that we're generally impatient entitled idjits. Not excluding myself from that either, by the by. :V

[miauw62]

Affirmative action does not cause less competent people to be hired. Without it, less competent people would be hired anyway because of subconscious bias.

That's the basic idea. It helps. It doesn't work on its own, which is why it's usually not implemented on its own.

[pisskop]

AA places a burden on the system that otherwise wouldnt exist.  It muddies the waters with regards to how much support people require to be equal.  It does little to address the issue of inequality, and actually hurts the concept of merit based advancement.

It undermines the achievements of those who are eligible to benefit from it and it creates even more inequality.


But Im really not up for a debate on the issue atm.  Im more or less on board with the idea that we don't really want AA or similar things, and should instead strive to improve the standards of those who currently stand to gain unfairly and unjustly.

[TempAcc]

Affirmative action and hiring quotas are contingency measures to keep things from becoming worse, but don't actualy make anything better by their lone selves. If the government isn't investing in society in order to provide better and more accessible education and stimulating the market by not taxing everything ever and not bogging it down with bureaucracy in order for it to grow quicker and have more jobs availiable (which in turn enable a lot more people to give themselves and their family better education), then shit isn't gonna get better. Having to rely on a special law to force people to hire you over someone with the exact same qualifications should never be an acceptable permanent situation in any society.

Those measures can't be an end onto themselves. You don't solve inequality by compensating it with more inequality. You just do it to keep things from going to hell while you work on a proper solution. The main problem is that a lot of people see measures such as these as something to strive for, since actualy dealing with the real problems in society isn't the kind of thing you can fix with legislation and direct governmental action only (and because measures such as those are a very convenient way to attract votes).

Plus, I don't think anyone can even pretend that affirmative action accounts for every kind of ~socially disadvantaged~ group out there, which only makes things even worse, since you got some groups being favoured while others remain unattended.

[origamiscienceguy]

What if it was like a blind audition? Where the employer (or related poitions of authority) never see the candidate, or their information, and only their qualifications. It would be more complicated, but it would be better from a statistics standpoint.

[TempAcc]

The problem is that nowadays pretty much nobody will hire you without actualy interacting personally with you in a way or another. Some might, but they usualy ask for some real good and reliable references first.

[SirQuiamus]

I am unsure if it has been posted before, but https://imgur.com/a/skffp The State of Georgia vs Denver Allen Fenton. Everything about it. It is also kind of offensive at times, so be aware of that. There's also a video with Judge Morty and Defendant Rick, using this transcript, somewhere on Youtube.

o_o

o_O

x_x

[hops]

The issue with meritocracy is that merits are fundamentally against the concept of equality and human dignity. In an ideal world everybody should be perfect.

This is the problem with using "equality" when one means "fairness". The facet of equality encompassing rights, opportunities, &c. -- YES! That is good and right, we need that. The facet of equality encompassing the idea of "people should be given positions and tasks even if others are available and better able to perform them" is not. That's the issue. All people should be treated fairly, with the aegis of fairness including equal treatment under the law, equal access to public goods, &c.

Because people are not equal. People do not all do things exactly as well or poorly as each other. They do not all have the exact same physical and mental capabilities, nor the interests and inclinations to use them in the pursuit of. People should be given the same opportunities and rights, but that does not include access to earned positions, advanced opportunities, rewards, &c. which they did not earn.
---

Take this as an example: all people in a state should have full, free access to public schooling of the same quality as that afforded to all of their cohort. That's pretty much universally accepted in the first world through secondary school. There's some debate about university being included, but lets' assume that it is. So then, a student has completed their schooling and is ready to move into the next stage of their life.

Maybe they want to go to graduate school and pursue further education. If they demonstrated the skills demanded by their program of choice, as measured by whatever metrics are in place, they will likely be accepted and be free to attend classes, eventually obtaining a degree. If they did not demonstrate those skills (say, they barely scraped through their undergraduate work with a 2.0 GPA and didn't take any courses relevant to the Masters program they applied for), they should not be given access to the program in the name of equality.

Obviously, they should not be rejected for any reason other than a lack of merit, but lack of merit alone is enough. And they were not treated unfairly or as less than others of their cohort. They had the same opportunities and resources, but some combination of low talent, unwillingness or inability to apply themselves, poor attention to their work, &c. relative to their peers meant that they were less qualified--so much so, in this case, that they failed to gain entry at all.

That's the fundamental delusion behind the notion of absolute equality, that the discrimination of ability is negative. It's not. It's even present at the most basic level in our evolutionary development and instinctive reproductive urges. If someone cannot competently perform a function, they should not be allowed to try if any other option exists. If they are less competent than another individual, they should not be chosen unless the other person carries baggage sufficient to outweigh their competence.

It's also why affirmative action is a slapdash band-aid solution; the source of the issue is that minority groups are often treated unfairly at much more basic levels. Their family may have been broken or impoverished, the public goods available to them worse than those available to others in their generation, and related issues which set them behind in fundamental ways--lower interest, underdeveloped knowledge, less access to professional and academic social networks, &c., such that they are often less able and less motivated to seek out higher-level opportunities, not because of their own fundamental abilities and nature, but because their development was curtailed and stunted by a flawed system which treated them unfairly in their foundational years.

IOW hiring quotas treat a symptom, not the illness. It makes people concerned with the problem feel better without actually resolving it.

---

On a related note, you can see how things tend to progress when the problem is addressed at the root in the American legal system in the context of gender. Obvious there is and has been a very heavy male majority in the legal profession. Among the senior ranks of law firms, judicial positions, &c. that's still true. But in the past decade or so, that's actually flipped among law students, with a current female majority (at least as of a couple years ago when I was researching this), and the gender split of practicing lawyers was within a percent or two of 50-50.

That's what real progress looks like. The process starts at a very young age, so you won't even begin to see results until a decade or more after changes are implemented, and you'll still have decades more where the old guard are still working. I think it's not really that surprising that the "ALL the change, NOW" demographic is mostly among my generation and younger, given that we're generally impatient entitled idjits. Not excluding myself from that either, by the by. :V

How is treating people based on things they have received as a culmination of their genetics and birthright fair?

[BlackHeartKabal]

The issue with meritocracy is that merits are fundamentally against the concept of equality and human dignity. In an ideal world everybody should be perfect.

This is the problem with using "equality" when one means "fairness". The facet of equality encompassing rights, opportunities, &c. -- YES! That is good and right, we need that. The facet of equality encompassing the idea of "people should be given positions and tasks even if others are available and better able to perform them" is not. That's the issue. All people should be treated fairly, with the aegis of fairness including equal treatment under the law, equal access to public goods, &c.

Because people are not equal. People do not all do things exactly as well or poorly as each other. They do not all have the exact same physical and mental capabilities, nor the interests and inclinations to use them in the pursuit of. People should be given the same opportunities and rights, but that does not include access to earned positions, advanced opportunities, rewards, &c. which they did not earn.
---

Take this as an example: all people in a state should have full, free access to public schooling of the same quality as that afforded to all of their cohort. That's pretty much universally accepted in the first world through secondary school. There's some debate about university being included, but lets' assume that it is. So then, a student has completed their schooling and is ready to move into the next stage of their life.

Maybe they want to go to graduate school and pursue further education. If they demonstrated the skills demanded by their program of choice, as measured by whatever metrics are in place, they will likely be accepted and be free to attend classes, eventually obtaining a degree. If they did not demonstrate those skills (say, they barely scraped through their undergraduate work with a 2.0 GPA and didn't take any courses relevant to the Masters program they applied for), they should not be given access to the program in the name of equality.

Obviously, they should not be rejected for any reason other than a lack of merit, but lack of merit alone is enough. And they were not treated unfairly or as less than others of their cohort. They had the same opportunities and resources, but some combination of low talent, unwillingness or inability to apply themselves, poor attention to their work, &c. relative to their peers meant that they were less qualified--so much so, in this case, that they failed to gain entry at all.

That's the fundamental delusion behind the notion of absolute equality, that the discrimination of ability is negative. It's not. It's even present at the most basic level in our evolutionary development and instinctive reproductive urges. If someone cannot competently perform a function, they should not be allowed to try if any other option exists. If they are less competent than another individual, they should not be chosen unless the other person carries baggage sufficient to outweigh their competence.

It's also why affirmative action is a slapdash band-aid solution; the source of the issue is that minority groups are often treated unfairly at much more basic levels. Their family may have been broken or impoverished, the public goods available to them worse than those available to others in their generation, and related issues which set them behind in fundamental ways--lower interest, underdeveloped knowledge, less access to professional and academic social networks, &c., such that they are often less able and less motivated to seek out higher-level opportunities, not because of their own fundamental abilities and nature, but because their development was curtailed and stunted by a flawed system which treated them unfairly in their foundational years.

IOW hiring quotas treat a symptom, not the illness. It makes people concerned with the problem feel better without actually resolving it.

---

On a related note, you can see how things tend to progress when the problem is addressed at the root in the American legal system in the context of gender. Obvious there is and has been a very heavy male majority in the legal profession. Among the senior ranks of law firms, judicial positions, &c. that's still true. But in the past decade or so, that's actually flipped among law students, with a current female majority (at least as of a couple years ago when I was researching this), and the gender split of practicing lawyers was within a percent or two of 50-50.

That's what real progress looks like. The process starts at a very young age, so you won't even begin to see results until a decade or more after changes are implemented, and you'll still have decades more where the old guard are still working. I think it's not really that surprising that the "ALL the change, NOW" demographic is mostly among my generation and younger, given that we're generally impatient entitled idjits. Not excluding myself from that either, by the by. :V

How is treating people based on things they have received as a culmination of their genetics and birthright fair?

In an ideal meritocracy, you could do, earn, and achieve whatever you wish irregardless of genetics and birthright. It's just a dumb dream, though.

[Lord Shonus]

How is treating people based on things they have received as a culmination of their genetics and birthright fair?

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who is barely able to read?

What is being talked about is fairness of opportunity vs fairness of result. In an ideal meritocracy, the only criterion for advancing into a profession or field of study would be your ability to do the work of that profession or field of study. In a fair meritocracy, any inequality in the chance to gain that ability would be attacked mercilessly, but if you can't get the ability, you don't get to do that profession no matter how much you want it.

[Spehss _]

How is treating people based on things they have received as a culmination of their genetics and birthright fair?

Do you have any way to change a person's genetics or birthright so that any "inequalities" they may have compared to others are rectified? Because otherwise I guess they'll just have to work with what they got.

It seems more fair to be able to work for a goal, even if there's more effort required than what someone else would have to do, than not be able to work towards that goal at all because they're in some group that's excluded from working towards that goal. Ex."You can't do that work because you're a woman, and that's final" compared to "You could do that work but it will be harder for you to master that work and fill that role because you're a woman"

[hector13]

How is treating people based on things they have received as a culmination of their genetics and birthright fair?

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who is barely able to read?

What is being talked about is fairness of opportunity vs fairness of result. In an ideal meritocracy, the only criterion for advancing into a profession or field of study would be your ability to do the work of that profession or field of study. In a fair meritocracy, any inequality in the chance to gain that ability would be attacked mercilessly, but if you can't get the ability, you don't get to do that profession no matter how much you want it.

The ability to read is unlikely to have an effect on your ability to perform surgery. Indeed, just because you can read about a surgery, doesn't mean you know how to perform it...

Poor example, but your point was good.

[Frumple]

... I would like to meet the surgeon with a positive survivor to fatality and/or major fuckup rate that couldn't read. Or even just read poorly. Last I checked we tried that at points in the past, and got bloodletting, excess cranial holes, and a great deal of amputation.

I know if an ambulance drove me up to a hospital after getting my legs mangled, and then told me my surgeon was illiterate, I'd be noping myself right off that stretcher and taking my chances with bleeding out.