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> Engineer here, and no, blind hiring will not bake-in any biases Yes, it will: if you're born to a well-off family, you'll go to better schools before college

> Engineer here, and no, blind hiring will not bake-in any biases Yes, it will: if you're born to a well-off family, you'll go to better schools before college. Due to this, you'll have a better chance at succeeding in college, have more resources to delve deeper into your field of study, better manage studying abroad, &c. All of these factors will make your list of skills more attractive to employers. Compared to someone who was poor who went to worse schools, didn't study abroad, and couldn't afford to spend more time on their field of study due to having to work to pay for college. This will make your list of skills less attractive to an employer. Right out of the gate, there is a bias against people who grew up poor in the hiring process. > it aims to hire the best candidates regardless of their race, origin, religion, accent and other irrelevant characteristics. It does so by devaluing repressed classes of people. This is a societal cost to benefit businesses.

klohto 8y ago
The example you showed is absolutely wrong. Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. EDIT: I have missed the whole point of the parent comment.
- ianleeclark 8y ago
  > That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. That expertise is a direct result of class. I feel like I've sufficiently explained how class-based biases will still slip through this system, so respond to it directly and tell me _how bias is not present_ in that system. > Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. I never said businesses ought do x, I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process which will produce negative outcomes for society.
  - klohto 8y ago
    > I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process You're right. I've missed your point. You're correct that this will have negative results.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    > That expertise is a direct result of class On average, it's important to note.
nemo44x 8y ago
This is how I mainly take it. A lot of comments about how this will make it "bias free!" and "nondiscriminatory" when really what it will do is give advantaged people even more advantage. Those who were not able to go to the better school and get more life experiences and obtain connections are going to be even further behind. There seems to be this implied belief that there's a conspiracy in the West to hire white males above all. This simply isn't true. By having access to race and gender and even age in some cases it allows us to select for a diverse set of candidates. So although we may not (or we may!) end up with an outcome that is as diverse as the set we started with, we at least made the effort to give different people an equal opportunity. If I'm only allowed to recruit based on the best credentials then those with a socioeconomic advantage will continue to.
- manigandham 8y ago
  You have no idea what someone's advantage in life is, and you're turning "diversity" into "diversity of race and gender" which is about nothing but immutable physical characteristics. Life is not constant. People move through various conditions all the time. Are you going to deny someone who grew up poor and then got a scholarship to Harvard? Putting people into permanent "social classes" is far worse than letting people use their abilities and become competent independently.
  - nemo44x 8y ago
    > Are you going to deny someone who grew up poor and then got a scholarship to Harvard? This is the exception to the rule and not really relevant to anything I said I think? What about the kid who grew up poor and could have gotten into Harvard but didn't go because their parent was sick and couldn't afford care and they attended a local college to be home with them? This is more likely. > Putting people into permanent "social classes" is far worse than letting people use their abilities and become competent independently. I agree - letting people use their abilities to advance themselves is best. If anything, I support blind screening of applicants. But I think the approach here has different intentions than what will very possibly occur - those with access continue to compound that.
Aqua 8y ago
Obviously. That's the entire point of hiring, as a business owner I want to hire the candidate that will deliver the best results. There is no doubt that certain people are privileged early in their lives, that's how it has always been, is and will be. The world is not a utopia where everyone is wealthy, healthy and equal, people in China are politically oppressed, children all over the world are starving and Russia gradually invades Ukraine leading to another all-out war. Doing worse in a job interview doesn't mean you were discriminated, it means that you need to revise the material and reapply.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
Your comments do a good job of articulating the emotional arguments people use to support affirmative action. But the problem with affirmative action is that it seeks to counter bias by introducing more bias. It's a form of damage control in that it ignores the root causes of the problems it tries to address. You argue that removing identifying marks unfairly tips the balance toward those who will be better prepared for the job (i.e. those who did not grow up poor). But assuming a particular test is the best measure of one's on-the-job performance, how can changing that test for some (based on things that identify them as "repressed") create any societal good? You're only pushing the problem out in front of you, and you'll eventually meet it again, but in a different form. The problem is that people grow up poor, and that poverty creates severe disadvantage. Let's fix that problem at the source (there are a lot of NPOs that try to do this - free after-school programs, etc.) and keep hiring standards constant and unbiased. Poverty can't be solved by changing admissions and hiring standards to avoid rejecting poor-performing people who grew up poor. That approach only creates new problems.
- ianleeclark 8y ago
  > Your comments do a good job of articulating the emotional arguments people use to support affirmative action. This is unfair: I never said anything about affirmative action, made normative claims, or appealed to emotion. I stated why this test would still have bias towards poorer classes. The narrative I was concerned with pointing out was that class characteristics could be biased in similar ways to physical characteristics and that mechanisms seeking to remove bias of physical characteristics will still allow bias for class characteristics.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    By emotional argument I meant an argument whose strength lies in its effect on emotions, as opposed to its rational strength. Perhaps that's a weasel term. But I tried to back up my assertion that introducing bias can't remove bias. > mechanisms seeking to remove bias of physical characteristics will still allow bias for class characteristics. If by "bias for class characteristics" you mean "objective standards", I call that nonsense. By definition, an objective standard will cease to be objective once a subjective-based alteration is introduced. If an objective standard happens to favor one class over another, it's not the standard's problem. The problem lies in whatever caused that class to do worse.

klohto 8y ago

The example you showed is absolutely wrong. Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. EDIT: I have missed the whole point of the parent comment.

ianleeclark 8y ago
> That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. That expertise is a direct result of class. I feel like I've sufficiently explained how class-based biases will still slip through this system, so respond to it directly and tell me _how bias is not present_ in that system. > Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. I never said businesses ought do x, I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process which will produce negative outcomes for society.
- klohto 8y ago
  > I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process You're right. I've missed your point. You're correct that this will have negative results.
- tomrod 8y ago
  > That expertise is a direct result of class On average, it's important to note.

nemo44x 8y ago

This is how I mainly take it. A lot of comments about how this will make it "bias free!" and "nondiscriminatory" when really what it will do is give advantaged people even more advantage. Those who were not able to go to the better school and get more life experiences and obtain connections are going to be even further behind. There seems to be this implied belief that there's a conspiracy in the West to hire white males above all. This simply isn't true. By having access to race and gender and even age in some cases it allows us to select for a diverse set of candidates. So although we may not (or we may!) end up with an outcome that is as diverse as the set we started with, we at least made the effort to give different people an equal opportunity. If I'm only allowed to recruit based on the best credentials then those with a socioeconomic advantage will continue to.

manigandham 8y ago
You have no idea what someone's advantage in life is, and you're turning "diversity" into "diversity of race and gender" which is about nothing but immutable physical characteristics. Life is not constant. People move through various conditions all the time. Are you going to deny someone who grew up poor and then got a scholarship to Harvard? Putting people into permanent "social classes" is far worse than letting people use their abilities and become competent independently.
- nemo44x 8y ago
  > Are you going to deny someone who grew up poor and then got a scholarship to Harvard? This is the exception to the rule and not really relevant to anything I said I think? What about the kid who grew up poor and could have gotten into Harvard but didn't go because their parent was sick and couldn't afford care and they attended a local college to be home with them? This is more likely. > Putting people into permanent "social classes" is far worse than letting people use their abilities and become competent independently. I agree - letting people use their abilities to advance themselves is best. If anything, I support blind screening of applicants. But I think the approach here has different intentions than what will very possibly occur - those with access continue to compound that.

Aqua 8y ago

Obviously. That's the entire point of hiring, as a business owner I want to hire the candidate that will deliver the best results. There is no doubt that certain people are privileged early in their lives, that's how it has always been, is and will be. The world is not a utopia where everyone is wealthy, healthy and equal, people in China are politically oppressed, children all over the world are starving and Russia gradually invades Ukraine leading to another all-out war. Doing worse in a job interview doesn't mean you were discriminated, it means that you need to revise the material and reapply.

TimTheTinker 8y ago

Your comments do a good job of articulating the emotional arguments people use to support affirmative action. But the problem with affirmative action is that it seeks to counter bias by introducing more bias. It's a form of damage control in that it ignores the root causes of the problems it tries to address. You argue that removing identifying marks unfairly tips the balance toward those who will be better prepared for the job (i.e. those who did not grow up poor). But assuming a particular test is the best measure of one's on-the-job performance, how can changing that test for some (based on things that identify them as "repressed") create any societal good? You're only pushing the problem out in front of you, and you'll eventually meet it again, but in a different form. The problem is that people grow up poor, and that poverty creates severe disadvantage. Let's fix that problem at the source (there are a lot of NPOs that try to do this - free after-school programs, etc.) and keep hiring standards constant and unbiased. Poverty can't be solved by changing admissions and hiring standards to avoid rejecting poor-performing people who grew up poor. That approach only creates new problems.

ianleeclark 8y ago
> Your comments do a good job of articulating the emotional arguments people use to support affirmative action. This is unfair: I never said anything about affirmative action, made normative claims, or appealed to emotion. I stated why this test would still have bias towards poorer classes. The narrative I was concerned with pointing out was that class characteristics could be biased in similar ways to physical characteristics and that mechanisms seeking to remove bias of physical characteristics will still allow bias for class characteristics.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  By emotional argument I meant an argument whose strength lies in its effect on emotions, as opposed to its rational strength. Perhaps that's a weasel term. But I tried to back up my assertion that introducing bias can't remove bias. > mechanisms seeking to remove bias of physical characteristics will still allow bias for class characteristics. If by "bias for class characteristics" you mean "objective standards", I call that nonsense. By definition, an objective standard will cease to be objective once a subjective-based alteration is introduced. If an objective standard happens to favor one class over another, it's not the standard's problem. The problem lies in whatever caused that class to do worse.