Oh. Not that surprising, really. Affirmative action exists. Even (especially?) in the best schools in the nation. It's not just for race, though. Women get it at tech schools, men get it at some state schools, and poor people get it anywhere where most students are wealthy.
For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally.
edit: I go through all this work to say something to get an argument, and all I do is get a downvote? C'mon guys...
I'm fine with affirmative action. But I like to keep the debate on topic. You need to remember that aa is not a goal in itself (I think so, anyway). On the contrary, it is damaging in itself. It may justify the ends, but in itself it's bad.
Just like having a 99% white male University is not bad in itself, it's a consequence of bad - Inequality in society. The goal of aa (should be) is to deal with that.
There is an inherent problem. We tend to gauge gender equality by things like the male/female exec ratio. That's fine. But then we try to improve equality by artificially equalising that. Ok..but we are getting into murky waters? How do we know if the underlying problem is solved now. The goal of such a program is not to be needed at some point in the future. When you're talking about minorities in schools etc. that can take a long time, but aa is not acceptable (to me) indefinitely.
There's also another type of aa*. EG the organisation believes certain staff ratios are good for corporate culture, good for morale, good to give an impression of equability etc. etc. That's a different kettle of fish. Completely different. The company/school may have rational economic reasons for this decision, but that is discrimination for utilitarian reasons. How would you feel if for the same reasons, the decision was made to hire all white males?
Which is why I never called it an insight - you did :). It was eye opening for me personally. Like I said, I was more surprised how it carried over towards the poorer end of the spectrum. I definitely didn't go to a top tier university (for the record: University of Dayton in Ohio). I went to a University that wanted to improve it's diversity rankings in US News.
As a middle class white kid, I actually got bit by affirmative action, but I'm 100% for what I perceive as the idea behind it (give everyone a damn chance!) and hold no grudges at all. The execution, in my mind has just been bad because it leads to reverse discrimination. Unfortunately, I'm not well read enough in the subject to propose a plan to fix it. I'm working on it.
Don't worry aston, the News.YC audience is primarily white male libertarian (both right and left) leaning. Although it's a philosophically consistent position, I think it fails to recognize that there are deep inequities in society that the market/competition just cannot fix (and sometime the market sometimes exacerbates).
I understand there are inequalities. The fact that most of us were born in the United States or certain parts of Europe puts us in the top 5% (higher? 1%?) of the world.
The inequalities between Americans is almost trivial compared to the inequalities found between rich and poor countries. And even though I still do it, that's why I feel so foolish complaining about anything
Free markets never fix societal inequities. In fact, they exacerbate them. People with wealth use that wealth to generate more wealth. Additionally, only a percentage of the lower class can climb to the upper class in each generation. It amazes me that anyone thinks there can ever be "equality".
Given a choice between equality in actual misery and "poor" people who have multiple TVs, decent housing, way too much food, and so on, why would anyone prefer equality?
I mention that tradeoff because it's the decision we get to make. Free markets give us poor people who live like kings compared to the poor bastards who are all equal.
I think that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are an acceptable price to pay for a well-off poor people.
Me - I'm far more concerned with what I've got than I am with what someone else has. Why are you so concerned with what other people have? More to the point, how much are you willing to give up for equality?
I am not sure why equality === misery. But I am not talking about everyone having the same amount of money- using the word equality did not adequately convey my feelings on this. I am talking about setting a standard for living (we already have explicit and implicit standards) and then actually following the standard.
Depending on the metric you are using we do well. If you are talking about making sure people have the bare essentials, we do pretty well. The "extras" like education are lacking though.
Comments
Oh. Not that surprising, really. Affirmative action exists. Even (especially?) in the best schools in the nation. It's not just for race, though. Women get it at tech schools, men get it at some state schools, and poor people get it anywhere where most students are wealthy.
For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally.
edit: I go through all this work to say something to get an argument, and all I do is get a downvote? C'mon guys...
I'm fine with affirmative action. But I like to keep the debate on topic. You need to remember that aa is not a goal in itself (I think so, anyway). On the contrary, it is damaging in itself. It may justify the ends, but in itself it's bad.
Just like having a 99% white male University is not bad in itself, it's a consequence of bad - Inequality in society. The goal of aa (should be) is to deal with that.
There is an inherent problem. We tend to gauge gender equality by things like the male/female exec ratio. That's fine. But then we try to improve equality by artificially equalising that. Ok..but we are getting into murky waters? How do we know if the underlying problem is solved now. The goal of such a program is not to be needed at some point in the future. When you're talking about minorities in schools etc. that can take a long time, but aa is not acceptable (to me) indefinitely.
There's also another type of aa*. EG the organisation believes certain staff ratios are good for corporate culture, good for morale, good to give an impression of equability etc. etc. That's a different kettle of fish. Completely different. The company/school may have rational economic reasons for this decision, but that is discrimination for utilitarian reasons. How would you feel if for the same reasons, the decision was made to hire all white males?
Which is why I never called it an insight - you did :). It was eye opening for me personally. Like I said, I was more surprised how it carried over towards the poorer end of the spectrum. I definitely didn't go to a top tier university (for the record: University of Dayton in Ohio). I went to a University that wanted to improve it's diversity rankings in US News.
As a middle class white kid, I actually got bit by affirmative action, but I'm 100% for what I perceive as the idea behind it (give everyone a damn chance!) and hold no grudges at all. The execution, in my mind has just been bad because it leads to reverse discrimination. Unfortunately, I'm not well read enough in the subject to propose a plan to fix it. I'm working on it.
Don't worry aston, the News.YC audience is primarily white male libertarian (both right and left) leaning. Although it's a philosophically consistent position, I think it fails to recognize that there are deep inequities in society that the market/competition just cannot fix (and sometime the market sometimes exacerbates).
I understand there are inequalities. The fact that most of us were born in the United States or certain parts of Europe puts us in the top 5% (higher? 1%?) of the world.
The inequalities between Americans is almost trivial compared to the inequalities found between rich and poor countries. And even though I still do it, that's why I feel so foolish complaining about anything
Free markets never fix societal inequities. In fact, they exacerbate them. People with wealth use that wealth to generate more wealth. Additionally, only a percentage of the lower class can climb to the upper class in each generation. It amazes me that anyone thinks there can ever be "equality".
Given a choice between equality in actual misery and "poor" people who have multiple TVs, decent housing, way too much food, and so on, why would anyone prefer equality?
I mention that tradeoff because it's the decision we get to make. Free markets give us poor people who live like kings compared to the poor bastards who are all equal.
I think that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are an acceptable price to pay for a well-off poor people.
Me - I'm far more concerned with what I've got than I am with what someone else has. Why are you so concerned with what other people have? More to the point, how much are you willing to give up for equality?
I am not sure why equality === misery. But I am not talking about everyone having the same amount of money- using the word equality did not adequately convey my feelings on this. I am talking about setting a standard for living (we already have explicit and implicit standards) and then actually following the standard.
Depending on the metric you are using we do well. If you are talking about making sure people have the bare essentials, we do pretty well. The "extras" like education are lacking though.