| You're right, I assumed you defend the type of policies I disagree with without clarifying whether that is the case - I'm sorry for doing that, you were right. Regarding your reply: I agree with most of your reply and enjoyed reading your blog post. I feel I understand your position much better now and can see where you are coming from. > Is there a different policy you want to discuss? I'd like to clarify whether we agree or disagree on the original argument - hypothetically, regardless of any specific policy. I hope I don't misrepresent your views in the following. In your blog post you seem to argue that feelings of unfairness by the over-represented group in response to positive discrimination are built on a misconception [1]. My original reply to you was in the same vein and I'd like to understand where exactly we disagree on that. I believe discrimination based on group membership is not justifiable. The only way in which positive discrimination can be justified is therefore if its application does not actually cause discrimination but only corrects for existing discrimination. As we don't know for sure yet how much of the representation gap can be attributed to discrimination, we should not use positive discrimination to correct for it as we potentially do more than correcting for it but actually discriminate. Hypothetically, if the split would be 45/55 in a perfectly just world, aiming for 50/50 through positive discrimination would in practice discriminate and not just correct for discrimination. Please note that I agree with the outcomes of positive discrimination until the effect of the original discrimination is canceled out - I just don't feel we can distinguish both cases and should not dismiss feelings of injustice in response to that as "built on a misconception". [1] > In any discussion of positive discrimination there’s a risk that the overrepresented group (usually white men) may feel threatened. Unsafe. People aren’t born aware of their comparative advantage or disadvantage, and sometimes never see it, so when other groups seem to be given a leg up it can feel unfair. > Feelings of injustice may be built on a misconception, but they still exist and are natural |