4 ms·
> In a way, affirmative action is rewarding merit -- it's just a different definition of merit that looks at how much you've excelled in your field in the conte
by afiori 8y ago
> In a way, affirmative action is rewarding merit -- it's just a different definition of merit that looks at how much you've excelled in your field in the context of the difficulties you faced along the way.
This a good way to put it, but under this light an income-based affirmative action would maybe make more sense. Even better if based on both the income of you family and the Gini coefficient of you district/city/area.
(I am not an expert on affirmative action, I never heard of this but I don't know if it is already in place)
- Mirioron 8y agoI don't see how affirmative action makes sense. I can understand spending more resources to catch people up from poor backgrounds, so that they can pass the bar, but I don't see why you would want to lower the bar.
- smallgovt 8y agoOne reason is that, as as society, we've agreed that we value (and want to reward) hard work over god-given talent. So, if there is a prestigious position available, we would rather award it to someone who is slightly less capable but had to work much harder to get where he/she is. This value structure arguably hurts productivity, but it's not inferior in an absolute sense. It all depends on what we value.
- afiori 8y agoI disagree with you motivation, affirmative action purpose is to give a second chance to people who had a bad hand at life: you had a terrible high school? maybe you can still become a fantastic Ph.D. if you got the chance at a better university. It is not about hard work but how exam and unidimensional numbers are a poor way to grade humans when you consider a variety of backgrounds.