[arrrg]

It’s not enough. You cannot just magically wish the world to change and hope everything will turn out alright. You actually have to put in the work. There may be systematic reasons at work that make sure everything is as fucked up as it currently is and we cannot just wish them away. The world is not fair or just and merit is a bullshit metric that does not work at all.

How could we change that for the better? I think quotas are certainly a nice stopgap that can help move us forward and out of this fucked up shit we are currently in. It’s a hack, sure, a dirty one, even, but as far as hacks go I think it’s quite nice.

If you are really convinced that merit based selection is even possible (all a question of degrees, right?) targeted outreach (i.e. actually asking many interesting people to submit something, not just waiting for submissions) combined with a blind review process could also work quite nicely. I know of conferences where that alone (i.e. purely merit based selection, but preceded by targeted outreach – so of those who submitted something really only the very best presenters were selected) actually worked nicely and led to dramatic shifts in – their case (because they decided to tackle gender first, but there are obviously many other angles) – gender balance.

[Lawtonfogle]

>It’s a hack, sure, a dirty one, even, but as far as hacks go I think it’s quite nice.

And a hack that can backfire when people start incorporating the existence of the quota into their judgment about someone. For example, in a place where a quota exists to ensure a minimum number of A are hired, people will begin to assume that B's are more competent. And if the quota is actually working, they will be correct. (It is possible for A-ism to be so bad that the average B is worse than the average A even given the quota, which may mean it is even worse for A as people will often not realize this is the case and think that the average B must in all cases be better than the average A when there is a quota helping A.)

[mcantelon]

There's also the issue of "corrective" quotas creating new forms of discrimination (against asian Americans, for example: http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-organizations-see... ). I think targeted outreach and blind evaluation of applications are less prone to result in new problems.

[Lawtonfogle]

Is it considered a new form of discrimination and not the desire effect because it is Asians and not Caucasians who suffer the greatest penalty? If that is the case, that alone tells you all you need to know about if this process is racist or not.

[mcantelon]

Good point. Even acknowledging the idea that whites can be discriminated against in certain circumstances is verboten.

[arrrg]

That honestly seems like an unimportant little diversion that doesn’t matter.

Only used by people who really think there is no problem, used to argue in bad faith.

But, ok, can you suggest an alternative that’s not just proving up the awful status quo? I love more elegant solutions!

[Lawtonfogle]

>That honestly seems like an unimportant little diversion that doesn’t matter.

Because any (to continue my example) A-ism that is caused by the quota is counted together with preexisting A-ism. Thus, while it does not appear a big deal, it may be a major deal.

[hunterloftis]

The inspiration for the original article was an (accomplished) A being deeply bothered by the phenomenon you have described as "an unimportant little diversion."