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by throwaway120398 1672 days ago
I'm afraid that, to my mind, it doesn't matter whether the goal is to discriminate or not. The discrimination itself is a problem, and we'd be better agreeing that this is a place we will not go to, no matter the end.
1 comments
nnvvhh 1672 days ago
The problem with this view, to me, is that it takes a really narrow view of discrimination. Why are you only concerned with the hiring process of software engineers? To me, bad-faith alarm bells go off when concern about discrimination only rears its head when the speaker's corner of the world is impacted. There are much more pernicious problems that need addressing than the quality of engineers at your job. How is the need for meritocratic software hiring more urgent and pressing than rectifying major societal problems? Are you OK with permanently setting in place the underclass, subjugated status of entire minority communities so your page loads are quicker?
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throwaway120398 1672 days ago
Somehow many people in this thread are jumping to rebut the idea of meritocratic hiring. I'm with you on that. I think meritocracy is a naive idea and it's actively damaging when hiring teams think they can boil the talent of candidates, and their effectiveness to do a job, down to some objective and comparable score of merit.

I also don't give a shit about making my page loads quicker. That's rarely what the world, or the business for that matter, needs.

What I'm talking about is the specific phenomenon of discriminating against a candidate based on their gender or race, and whether people think this is okay.

I'm concerned with the process of hiring software engineers because it's something I have to do daily, and have done for a very long time. I'm coming here to talk about it (rather than other social issues) because I think others here have experience in the same area.

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nnvvhh 1672 days ago
You can't discuss the topic you raised without discussing social issues because it IS a social issue. Affirmative action in hiring software engineers is not a distinct topic, you simply raised the topic of affirmative action among the tech community.

And I will say, it is fine to broach these subjects. Your concerns are legitimate. I simply choose to take a much broader view of things and feel that until we get much closer to making the world more equal and righting past injustices, we should try and use as many tools we have to close the wealth gap between majority and minority groups.

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