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It was an allegory, and a well worn joke. I even marked it "/s". Do you also get confused by Onion headlines? >We can make up things about racist police hiring

It was an allegory, and a well worn joke. I even marked it "/s". Do you also get confused by Onion headlines? >We can make up things about racist police hiring, but that's not the same as facts. Yeah, I was just kidding, there are probably no racists running police departments. I mean, what are the odds?

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Sorry, it must be humorless Wednesday for me. If a polygraph is misused, that's sad and wrong. But it can also be used as an interview technique, to put folks under pressure and get more authentic answers to important questions. Maybe its all psychological, but that's fine. As long as it helps screen, and does more good than harm.
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Fair enough. Humor isn't always easy in text anyway. The polygraph is a confidence game. It is 100% psychological. If you're honest and you try hard, you'll still harm some people arbitrarily. It has immense potential for abuse though, and I would reject its use for that reason; even if it didn't suffer from the other problem.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    I guess I'd repeat the point: some hiring isn't about being fair to the candidates. Any harm to them (unfairly excluding a good candidate) is mitigated if the process keeps out disastrously inappropriate candidates. And if the polygraph operator is independent, then abuse would have to be systematic somehow. Which may not be a lot different from any other interview technique.
    - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      I don't agree that employers, especially government employers, are entitled to treat job candidates unfairly.
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        In an ideal world. But on the other hand, who would agree that we should make NO attempt to exclude certain personalities from being police officers? Sometimes the cost of wrong hiring is much, much larger than the cost of unfairness.
        fineman 11y ago
        The bigger problem is that it just doesn't work Even if we posit that we can be extra-rough in screening because we need the best for $GOOD_ENOUGH_REASON. The "bad guys" know that the polygraph is nearly worthless. They know what's theatre and what's not. So you don't apply any pressure to them. They know that placating you with your pat questions is the solution and they calmly work toward that. So your chance of success against anyone "worth worrying about" is nearly zero. But the people who will crack, and probably have a nearly unending closet of real and semi-real stories, are the innocent people. This isn't just collateral damage, but now you're wasting time investigating people who are almost certainly not the bad guys. And reducing your labor pool...
        spacemanmatt 11y ago
        Many police departments administer an IQ test, on which scoring too high is grounds for exclusion. Given that, I'm willing to say maybe we really should deny the police forces a personality filter. The filter they have chosen is terrible.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Sorry, it must be humorless Wednesday for me. If a polygraph is misused, that's sad and wrong. But it can also be used as an interview technique, to put folks under pressure and get more authentic answers to important questions. Maybe its all psychological, but that's fine. As long as it helps screen, and does more good than harm.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Fair enough. Humor isn't always easy in text anyway. The polygraph is a confidence game. It is 100% psychological. If you're honest and you try hard, you'll still harm some people arbitrarily. It has immense potential for abuse though, and I would reject its use for that reason; even if it didn't suffer from the other problem.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  I guess I'd repeat the point: some hiring isn't about being fair to the candidates. Any harm to them (unfairly excluding a good candidate) is mitigated if the process keeps out disastrously inappropriate candidates. And if the polygraph operator is independent, then abuse would have to be systematic somehow. Which may not be a lot different from any other interview technique.
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    I don't agree that employers, especially government employers, are entitled to treat job candidates unfairly.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      In an ideal world. But on the other hand, who would agree that we should make NO attempt to exclude certain personalities from being police officers? Sometimes the cost of wrong hiring is much, much larger than the cost of unfairness.
      - fineman 11y ago
        The bigger problem is that it just doesn't work Even if we posit that we can be extra-rough in screening because we need the best for $GOOD_ENOUGH_REASON. The "bad guys" know that the polygraph is nearly worthless. They know what's theatre and what's not. So you don't apply any pressure to them. They know that placating you with your pat questions is the solution and they calmly work toward that. So your chance of success against anyone "worth worrying about" is nearly zero. But the people who will crack, and probably have a nearly unending closet of real and semi-real stories, are the innocent people. This isn't just collateral damage, but now you're wasting time investigating people who are almost certainly not the bad guys. And reducing your labor pool...
      - spacemanmatt 11y ago
        Many police departments administer an IQ test, on which scoring too high is grounds for exclusion. Given that, I'm willing to say maybe we really should deny the police forces a personality filter. The filter they have chosen is terrible.