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[MetalSlimeHunt]

In fairness, you probably could become a highly skilled surgeon without being able to read, so long as you were apprenticed by one that could for a decade or two.

[hector13]

... 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 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.

I think you'll find that came from a lack of knowledge in anatomy and general medical knowledge rather than an inability to read.

In fairness, you probably could become a highly skilled surgeon without being able to read, so long as you were apprenticed by one that could for a decade or two.

A former boss of my wife was expected to be able to perform surgery after having seen it performed one time.

[pisskop]

That sounds slightly unreasonable.

what was her job,. educational background, experience in the field, and who was expecting this?  And on whom, I suppose

[miauw62]

affirmative action means hiring incompetent people, makes sense. after all, if women/black people were competent, how come were not hiring them?

[hector13]

That sounds slightly unreasonable.

what was her job,. educational background, experience in the field, and who was expecting this?  And on whom, I suppose

Veterinarian.

She wasn't expected to do this; he was when he was first practicing. His comment was basically that he was shown how to do it by whoever he was working for, then expected to be able to do it to that standard.

[heydude6]

If women/black people were competent, how come were not hiring them?

Because people still have biases and an employer who sees a woman/black person apply for a job might subconsciously see them as less competent than they actually are.

Someone here earlier mentioned the fact that women were almost never hired in orchestras because the people believed that women couldn't play instruments as well as men could. This wasn't some sort superstition, everyone assumed it was a scientific fact that women couldn't play as well as men. When women auditioned, the judges heard a worse sound due to their bias. It was only when blind auditions became a thing that conductors started hiring women (with lots of resentment). They were actually flabbergasted by how "manly" the women sounded.

I do not believe affirmative action/gender quotas should be the solution though because it doesn't eliminate the root of the problem which is the bias during the hiring process. Someone in the Gender Quotas thread mentioned how this might actually make things worse since people might start believing that the minority (although women aren't technically a minority) is getting the job only because of the gender quotas and that they wouldn't have been able to get the job the "proper" way.

[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"

Which then usually leads to "-So we'll have someone else do it instead, because it'll take you too long to master it" or something

That's an example of the employer being able to decide who they consider is the best applicant for the job. The employer, after hiring the applicant, will be paying the worker for the work they do in the job. The employer is choosing who they think is the best option for investing their money in. Like how customers can choose which provider of a good or service is the best choice to give their money to.

Anyway, just because one employer may choose not to hire someone because the person isn't the best applicant for the job isn't the same as someone being absolutely denied the opportunity to do a job because of a specific attribute they have no control over (race or "birthright" or etc). The opportunity for them to be hired could still be there, but they just need to improve their credentials so that in future opportunities for employment then they are the best applicant for the job.

[Spehss _]

k.

[Flying Dice]

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.

Here's a better one which comes up regularly pretty much everywhere: fire departments.

Setting aside how some departments do tend to be good ol' boys clubs, this is the central issue with equality of result: when trying out for a position, a potential firefighter has to meet certain physical standards. The average woman is less able to meet those standards than the average man. That's not to say that women don't meet the physical fitness requirements--obviously, some do, but at a lower rate than men.

What do you want to do there? Hire firefighters who aren't capable of doing their jobs? What happens when someone dies because of lowered physical standards? It's already a problem when you're just talking about, say, someone who isn't very good at maths being hired as an accountant, or someone who has a junior-high reading level being hired to write articles, but when it's a position which peoples lives literally depend on you don't have room for mucking around. If a woman can do the job, excellent. If she can't, she doesn't have any more business doing it than a man who can't meet the same standards.

--

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.

This is the attitude I don't understand. People continually moan about society being broken and unfair, but whenever someone mentions eradicating the problems at the root they just waffle about how it's not possible and we should just be happy with ineffectual surface patches.

That's utter bullshit, and it's what has me increasingly convinced that a lot of people calling for equality tacitly desire inequality which favors them. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that there have been people there to deride every effort at improving the human condition which any portion of our species has undertaken. If there's a second, it's that they were mostly wrong and thank goodness for that. If everyone had an attitude like that, we'd still be nomadic hunter-gatherers, because every prehistoric human ancestor would have given up on agriculture and simple architecture as being hopeless pipe dreams.

I'll wallow as little as I can help in the squalor of distrust, bigotry, and injustice, and I'll respect those who woefully accept it as their lot even less than those who revel in it.

[TempAcc]

Nature confirmed for asshole? :v
Its true, fuck nature.

Anyway, rarely do I find any movement or ideology that claims to be fighting for social equality that I take seriously, since it always ends up falling into the same ideological hole: "some things are more equal than others".
Or for the less savvy: "only shit we care about matters and the rest can get fucked lol".

*Sees people crying about how high end corporate careers, major artistic roles and scientific fields are mostly occupied by men
*Never sees anyone complain that men make up the huge majority of the contingent of workers in jobs that expose them to the elements, fire hazard, electricity and other such dangers. Never saw anyone protest for a woman's right for equal opportunity in sewer worker jobs, etc.

[Frumple]

Never saw anyone protest for a woman's right for equal opportunity in sewer worker jobs, etc.

I have. Occasionally, but it's been for decades, now, and so far as I recall it's been a talking point for folks looking for more equitable treatment of women for about as long as there's been much of a movement to speak of.

[penguinofhonor]

I've seen plenty of feminists spend a day on the ocean and return with a haul of tuna, but I've never even seen one even mention gender equality. You think they'd bring it up if it mattered so much to them. How can you take a movement like that seriously?

[GiglameshDespair]

Why don't we all just say: those who give a shit are assholes and we should ignore their opinions.

'Because that's a huge amount of people to carelessly generalise' is probably why.

[hector13]

You're swearing an awful lot, Moonlit.

That shall be my wtf for the day. As well as my fully armoured dude taking 82 damage in Mount and Blade from a frickin' javelin.

[Frumple]

*eyeballs the world's trans population* Yeah, I'd probably disagree that everyone that gives a shit about gender are all assholes. Just a titch of disagreement, there.