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If there is no correlation between productivity and age/race/whatever then it is a massive inefficiency in the labor market for there to be such arbitrary discr

If there is no correlation between productivity and age/race/whatever then it is a massive inefficiency in the labor market for there to be such arbitrary discrimination.

xenophanes 16y ago
I would be surprised if there is no correlation between age or race (or gender, and others) and productivity. For age, it's hard to guess if the productivity is more or less for older people (the extra wisdom and experience helps a lot!). It must vary by field. It'd be pretty shocking if no fields at all have significant correlations between productivity and age.
- Dove 16y ago
  Indeed. Beliefs That Hurt People != Beliefs That Are False File that under "things you're not allowed to say." But it's worth asking what you think it would be just for society to do if it turned out, on some topic, that the ageists/racists/sexists/religionists/orientationists?/etc. . . . were right.
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    What should society do in that case? Absolutely nothing. Or more precisely: eliminate any remaining anti-voluntary laws. In a fully voluntary society, what "society should do" is a non-issue. As for individuals, they should do what they think is best. So some will think it's bad to hire X persons b/c they are, in fact, 3% worse at their jobs. And others will think it's bad if no X persons can get jobs, and will hire them at full salary to be nice, or to use in marketing literature. And others will be happy to hire X persons, but at 3.1% less than the market rate would be for non-Xs with the same skill set. etc. shrug.
    - Dove 16y ago
      A clarifying example: Suppose the sexists are right, and women are poor programmers. They're okay students and can fight their way through an undergrad program, but give them a year or two in the workforce to come up to speed, and they never really develop an ability to attack hard problems. They just kind of flail at problems unproductively, rely on peers to bail them out, generally make a mess of the codebase, and cry if you criticize them. Suppose the world is like that. And suppose, then, we have a woman who bucks the trend -- really can code, but is new to the industry. Which is the better world? (A) The talented woman can't get a job, or has to go to extreme lengths to prove herself, over and over again, throughout her career. But everyone around her is free to run their business as they choose, hence most women don't even try to go into the field. (B) Employers are legally required to hire equally qualified candidates regardless of gender. Hence, many women in the graduating class of C.S. majors land jobs and are predictably incompetent. But the one talented woman also gets a job. Personally, I find (A) vastly preferable. As an interesting side note, the hypothetical situation actually exists in some fields (think heavy labor), and--despite the occasional injustice--I think everyone is actually pretty happy with (A).
      - xenophanes 16y ago
        Yeah I agree. (B) is a style of playing God, and it's the use of force. Fundamentally, it's irrational to force people who disagree with you to do things your way if they don't see why it's best -- to make them go against their best judgment (also irrational to deny they have best judgment, attribute their ideas to things other than thought, and so deny the disagreement exists at all, and forcibly override them on that basis). The only rational thing to do if you want a (B) style world is persuade people, which is not at all the same as campaigning for laws to force people. And by the way, straight, white, Christian males go to extraordinary and ridiculous lengths to prove themselves, all the time. For example, working super hard in school for 10 years to gain credentials. That's ridiculous and only loosely correlated to actual merit. And I, as someone who chose not to do that, have to prove myself in other ways, which can be hard sometimes, but so what? In general, proving yourself and gaining a reputation is a hard problem that does take effort to solve. And a system where people don't have to prove themselves to the satisfaction of their employers/clients/customers/spouses/friends/etc would be insane.
Dove 16y ago
You can't look at just one side of it. Which is the larger inefficiency: People acting according to their best judgement, but they happen to be wrong? Or people unable to act according to their best judgement because they can't document that their motivations are pure?

If there is no correlation between productivity and age/race/whatever then it is a massive inefficiency in the labor market for there to be such arbitrary discrimination.

xenophanes 16y ago

I would be surprised if there is no correlation between age or race (or gender, and others) and productivity. For age, it's hard to guess if the productivity is more or less for older people (the extra wisdom and experience helps a lot!). It must vary by field. It'd be pretty shocking if no fields at all have significant correlations between productivity and age.

Dove 16y ago
Indeed. Beliefs That Hurt People != Beliefs That Are False File that under "things you're not allowed to say." But it's worth asking what you think it would be just for society to do if it turned out, on some topic, that the ageists/racists/sexists/religionists/orientationists?/etc. . . . were right.
- xenophanes 16y ago
  What should society do in that case? Absolutely nothing. Or more precisely: eliminate any remaining anti-voluntary laws. In a fully voluntary society, what "society should do" is a non-issue. As for individuals, they should do what they think is best. So some will think it's bad to hire X persons b/c they are, in fact, 3% worse at their jobs. And others will think it's bad if no X persons can get jobs, and will hire them at full salary to be nice, or to use in marketing literature. And others will be happy to hire X persons, but at 3.1% less than the market rate would be for non-Xs with the same skill set. etc. shrug.
  - Dove 16y ago
    A clarifying example: Suppose the sexists are right, and women are poor programmers. They're okay students and can fight their way through an undergrad program, but give them a year or two in the workforce to come up to speed, and they never really develop an ability to attack hard problems. They just kind of flail at problems unproductively, rely on peers to bail them out, generally make a mess of the codebase, and cry if you criticize them. Suppose the world is like that. And suppose, then, we have a woman who bucks the trend -- really can code, but is new to the industry. Which is the better world? (A) The talented woman can't get a job, or has to go to extreme lengths to prove herself, over and over again, throughout her career. But everyone around her is free to run their business as they choose, hence most women don't even try to go into the field. (B) Employers are legally required to hire equally qualified candidates regardless of gender. Hence, many women in the graduating class of C.S. majors land jobs and are predictably incompetent. But the one talented woman also gets a job. Personally, I find (A) vastly preferable. As an interesting side note, the hypothetical situation actually exists in some fields (think heavy labor), and--despite the occasional injustice--I think everyone is actually pretty happy with (A).
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      Yeah I agree. (B) is a style of playing God, and it's the use of force. Fundamentally, it's irrational to force people who disagree with you to do things your way if they don't see why it's best -- to make them go against their best judgment (also irrational to deny they have best judgment, attribute their ideas to things other than thought, and so deny the disagreement exists at all, and forcibly override them on that basis). The only rational thing to do if you want a (B) style world is persuade people, which is not at all the same as campaigning for laws to force people. And by the way, straight, white, Christian males go to extraordinary and ridiculous lengths to prove themselves, all the time. For example, working super hard in school for 10 years to gain credentials. That's ridiculous and only loosely correlated to actual merit. And I, as someone who chose not to do that, have to prove myself in other ways, which can be hard sometimes, but so what? In general, proving yourself and gaining a reputation is a hard problem that does take effort to solve. And a system where people don't have to prove themselves to the satisfaction of their employers/clients/customers/spouses/friends/etc would be insane.

Dove 16y ago

You can't look at just one side of it. Which is the larger inefficiency: People acting according to their best judgement, but they happen to be wrong? Or people unable to act according to their best judgement because they can't document that their motivations are pure?