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> I disagree. I suspect you don't, because I agree with your counter-argument. I think language is flexible. It only matters that someone can understand what w

by sago 12y ago

> I disagree. I suspect you don't, because I agree with your counter-argument. I think language is flexible. It only matters that someone can understand what we mean, because it is the meaning that matters, not the word. Too often discussions end up about what words really mean or should mean. That feels like an argument that is getting somewhere, but it actually does very little intellectual work. It distracts from talking about the actual topic. That's all I meant. > That we optimize for imminent capability is obvious. Not to me. There's nothing gambling about, trying to make it so that potential capability is more accurately correlated to imminent capability. Then both strategies align. As you say work to fulfil everyone's potential. But as long as systemic privilege exists there will be some with more resources and access to capabilities despite lower potential. So we end up employing large numbers of sub-optimal people just because they could afford to become educated / mentored / inspired, and ignoring others with far more potential because they didn't happen to have those benefits. As I said, I'm not totally convinced by the economic argument (or rather I'm not convinced that, if it were false in some way, it would be a good reason to keep privilege unchecked), but that's what the argument is, as I understand it. > Note: Click on the unique comment link You're my hero/ine thank you!

kbenson 12y ago
I suspect you don't, because I agree with your counter-argument. Case in point. Not to me. There's nothing gambling about, trying to make it so that potential capability is more accurately correlated to imminent capability. Then both strategies align. I wasn't stating the choice is obvious, I was stating that I think what we currently do is obvious. The difference is do we hire based on potential capability, which there's no way of knowing for sure, or hire based on imminent capability, which is at least somewhat testable? So we end up employing large numbers of sub-optimal people just because they could afford to become educated / mentored / inspired, and ignoring others with far more potential because they didn't happen to have those benefits. Yes, and my argument is that I'm not convinced that an alternate method at the hiring stage would be beneficial in the long run. I believe we continue to hire those people that are sub-optimal in potential capability yet have higher imminent capability (through privilege, yes). To hire others would in no way guarantee a better outcome, even if you could identify the ones with untapped potential - there's no guarantee that potential could be developed well in many work environments. If done one a wide scale, there would be a necessary drop in societal imminent capability, but the real question is how fast does it recover (if it does), and does it result in a better eventual outcome than another strategy? That other strategy I would propose is to hire as we currently do (mostly based on imminent capability), and leverage the gains we know this gives us into reducing the effects of privilege where possible. I think the United States has practiced this in greater or lesser degrees over the last century, and I think it's worked quite well. I just think changing the formula of who works based on capability is messing far too closely with one of the fundamental levers of capitalism, and there are less radical approaches that can and should be followed through on first.
- sago 12y ago
  I'm not sure. When I was hiring for good C++ game engine programmers, our recruitment test had people program in a language they'd never seen before. Because I believed that the imminent capability of a person in C++ wasn't as good a determiner of their long term value as their potential capability, which I thought was more likely correlated to flexibility, learning speed, calmness under difficult conditions, clarity of reasoning. So I think this already happens in hiring. What I'm describing is one end of a continuum. My point is that it isn't clear to me that day 1 competence is a good optimisation strategy. And if I optimize for day 10 competence, then why not day 100, 500, and so on? There's got to be a tipping point somewhere, but it isn't obvious where.
  - kbenson 12y ago
    Combined response. Re: hiring programmers, I think we attempt to mostly hire for imminent capability, but we aren't always very good at it in some industries. When referring to someone that knows one computer language learning another one, I don't even really consider that potential capability in the same respect to what we've been discussing. That's so far past the major effects of privilege, as we've been discussing them, that I think it's nearly inconsequential. Programming is a very high level skill in our current society, I view privilege having the most influence here in affecting whether the person learns the discipline at all, not whether they can abstract from one category to another within it. With respect to our earlier discussion, I would view it more as choosing to hire someone that knows how to program, or someone that seems bright but does not know how to program and hoping they will develop some aptitude for it at a later date based on their general intelligence. I think there are a lot of assumptions and waiting pitfalls in that. Can you say what systemic biases you think have been driven out so far by doing this? I'm curious what you're thinking about. I'd certainly say that there have been some improvements. But 'quite well' seems overly optimistic to me. I think education, health and income are the big winners there, and I also think those are the biggest differentiators that privilege provided prior to that. Sure, income may not initially seem like a big win, but compared to pre-minimum wage and labor law America, I think the change is massive. Not having to go to work at 10 because your family needs the money to not starve is quite a contrast to the current situation. Not having to devote your life to god in a convent or monastery to get a good education without spending money. Civil rights. Suffrage. That's not to say these are solved problems, and the privilege afforded in some of these cases doesn't still provide a very large benefit, but there have been major improvements, and I attribute the climate that allowed them to the rapidly improving economic situation of the average person, and I attribute that to the massive speed of innovation, which I think was allowed by attempting to maximize the effectiveness of the resources we have available at the specific time.

by sago 12y ago

kbenson 12y ago

I suspect you don't, because I agree with your counter-argument. Case in point. Not to me. There's nothing gambling about, trying to make it so that potential capability is more accurately correlated to imminent capability. Then both strategies align. I wasn't stating the choice is obvious, I was stating that I think what we currently do is obvious. The difference is do we hire based on potential capability, which there's no way of knowing for sure, or hire based on imminent capability, which is at least somewhat testable? So we end up employing large numbers of sub-optimal people just because they could afford to become educated / mentored / inspired, and ignoring others with far more potential because they didn't happen to have those benefits. Yes, and my argument is that I'm not convinced that an alternate method at the hiring stage would be beneficial in the long run. I believe we continue to hire those people that are sub-optimal in potential capability yet have higher imminent capability (through privilege, yes). To hire others would in no way guarantee a better outcome, even if you could identify the ones with untapped potential - there's no guarantee that potential could be developed well in many work environments. If done one a wide scale, there would be a necessary drop in societal imminent capability, but the real question is how fast does it recover (if it does), and does it result in a better eventual outcome than another strategy? That other strategy I would propose is to hire as we currently do (mostly based on imminent capability), and leverage the gains we know this gives us into reducing the effects of privilege where possible. I think the United States has practiced this in greater or lesser degrees over the last century, and I think it's worked quite well. I just think changing the formula of who works based on capability is messing far too closely with one of the fundamental levers of capitalism, and there are less radical approaches that can and should be followed through on first.

sago 12y ago
I'm not sure. When I was hiring for good C++ game engine programmers, our recruitment test had people program in a language they'd never seen before. Because I believed that the imminent capability of a person in C++ wasn't as good a determiner of their long term value as their potential capability, which I thought was more likely correlated to flexibility, learning speed, calmness under difficult conditions, clarity of reasoning. So I think this already happens in hiring. What I'm describing is one end of a continuum. My point is that it isn't clear to me that day 1 competence is a good optimisation strategy. And if I optimize for day 10 competence, then why not day 100, 500, and so on? There's got to be a tipping point somewhere, but it isn't obvious where.
- kbenson 12y ago
  Combined response. Re: hiring programmers, I think we attempt to mostly hire for imminent capability, but we aren't always very good at it in some industries. When referring to someone that knows one computer language learning another one, I don't even really consider that potential capability in the same respect to what we've been discussing. That's so far past the major effects of privilege, as we've been discussing them, that I think it's nearly inconsequential. Programming is a very high level skill in our current society, I view privilege having the most influence here in affecting whether the person learns the discipline at all, not whether they can abstract from one category to another within it. With respect to our earlier discussion, I would view it more as choosing to hire someone that knows how to program, or someone that seems bright but does not know how to program and hoping they will develop some aptitude for it at a later date based on their general intelligence. I think there are a lot of assumptions and waiting pitfalls in that. Can you say what systemic biases you think have been driven out so far by doing this? I'm curious what you're thinking about. I'd certainly say that there have been some improvements. But 'quite well' seems overly optimistic to me. I think education, health and income are the big winners there, and I also think those are the biggest differentiators that privilege provided prior to that. Sure, income may not initially seem like a big win, but compared to pre-minimum wage and labor law America, I think the change is massive. Not having to go to work at 10 because your family needs the money to not starve is quite a contrast to the current situation. Not having to devote your life to god in a convent or monastery to get a good education without spending money. Civil rights. Suffrage. That's not to say these are solved problems, and the privilege afforded in some of these cases doesn't still provide a very large benefit, but there have been major improvements, and I attribute the climate that allowed them to the rapidly improving economic situation of the average person, and I attribute that to the massive speed of innovation, which I think was allowed by attempting to maximize the effectiveness of the resources we have available at the specific time.