I think that we have more-or-less agreed as societies that there are some traits that is is okay to use to make choices about people (mainly: their actions/behaviors), and there are some traits that is is not okay to use (mainly: things that the person didn’t choose and isn’t responsible for). Race, religion, gender, and the like are widely accepted[1] as not socially acceptable traits to use when evaluating people’s ability to be a member of a team.[2] But there are other traits that we commonly treat as acceptable to use as the basis of treating people differently, such as what school someone went to, how many years of work experience they have, if they have a similar communication style as us, etc.
I think I might split this into two different issues.
One issue is: it isn’t very fair to give or withhold jobs (and other opportunities) based on things that people didn’t really have much choice in (such as where they were born, how wealthy their parents were, how good of an education they got in their youth, etc.)
A separate issue is: it is ineffective to employment decisions (hiring, promotions, etc.) based on things that don’t predict on-the-job success.
Sometimes these things line up nicely (such as how it isn’t fair to base employment decisions on hair color, and it is also good business to not base employment decisions on hair color). But sometimes they don’t line up so nicely: I think there are situations where it makes sense to use “did this person go to a prestigious school” to make employment decisions because that will get you better on-the-job performance; but it also seems unfair because we are in a sense rewarding this person for having won the lottery.[3]
In a certain sense I suppose this is just a mini rant about how the world is unfair. Nonetheless, I do think that a lot of conversations about hiring and discriminations get the two different issues conflated.
Employment is full of laws, but even in situations where there isn’t any legal issue (such as inviting friends over for a movie party, or organizing a book club) I view it as somewhat repulsive to include/exclude people based on gender/race/religion/etc. Details matter a lot, and I can think of exceptions, but that is more or less my starting point.
I’ve heard the phrase “genetic lottery,” and I suspect genes to contribute a lot to academic/career success. But lots of other things outside a person’s control affect how well they perform: being born in a particular place, how good your high school teachers were, stability of the household, if your parents had much money, and all the other things that we can roughly describe as “fortune” or “luck” or “happenstance.”
I know lots of people with lots of dispositions experience friction with just declining their parents’ religions, but that doesn’t mean I “get it” i.e., conflating religion with birth lotteries and immutability seems a little unhinged to me.
There may be a consensus that it’s low status to say out loud “we only hire harvard alum” or maybe illegal (or whatever), but there’s not a lot of pressure to actually try reducing implicit selection effects that end up in effect quite similar to a hardline rule. And I think harvard undergrad admissions have way more in common with lotteries than religion does!
I think the old sequencesy sort of “being bad at metaphysics (rejecting reductionism) is a predictor of unclear thinking” is fine! The better response to that is “come on, no one’s actually talking about literal belief in literal gods, they’re moreso saying that the social technologies are valuable or they’re uncomfortable just not stewarding their ancestors’ traditions” than like a DEI argument.
There is more to get into here but two main things:
I guess some EAs, and some who I think do really good work do literally believe in literal gods
I don’t actually think this is that predictive. I know some theists who are great at thinking carefully and many athiests who aren’t. I reckon I could distinguish the two in a discussion better than rejecting the former out of hand.
These thoughts are VERY rough and hand wavy.
I think that we have more-or-less agreed as societies that there are some traits that is is okay to use to make choices about people (mainly: their actions/behaviors), and there are some traits that is is not okay to use (mainly: things that the person didn’t choose and isn’t responsible for). Race, religion, gender, and the like are widely accepted[1] as not socially acceptable traits to use when evaluating people’s ability to be a member of a team.[2] But there are other traits that we commonly treat as acceptable to use as the basis of treating people differently, such as what school someone went to, how many years of work experience they have, if they have a similar communication style as us, etc.
I think I might split this into two different issues.
One issue is: it isn’t very fair to give or withhold jobs (and other opportunities) based on things that people didn’t really have much choice in (such as where they were born, how wealthy their parents were, how good of an education they got in their youth, etc.)
A separate issue is: it is ineffective to employment decisions (hiring, promotions, etc.) based on things that don’t predict on-the-job success.
Sometimes these things line up nicely (such as how it isn’t fair to base employment decisions on hair color, and it is also good business to not base employment decisions on hair color). But sometimes they don’t line up so nicely: I think there are situations where it makes sense to use “did this person go to a prestigious school” to make employment decisions because that will get you better on-the-job performance; but it also seems unfair because we are in a sense rewarding this person for having won the lottery.[3]
In a certain sense I suppose this is just a mini rant about how the world is unfair. Nonetheless, I do think that a lot of conversations about hiring and discriminations get the two different issues conflated.
People’s perspectives vary, of course, but among my own social groups and peers “discrimination based on race/sex/etc. = bad” is widely accepted.
Employment is full of laws, but even in situations where there isn’t any legal issue (such as inviting friends over for a movie party, or organizing a book club) I view it as somewhat repulsive to include/exclude people based on gender/race/religion/etc. Details matter a lot, and I can think of exceptions, but that is more or less my starting point.
I’ve heard the phrase “genetic lottery,” and I suspect genes to contribute a lot to academic/career success. But lots of other things outside a person’s control affect how well they perform: being born in a particular place, how good your high school teachers were, stability of the household, if your parents had much money, and all the other things that we can roughly describe as “fortune” or “luck” or “happenstance.”
I know lots of people with lots of dispositions experience friction with just declining their parents’ religions, but that doesn’t mean I “get it” i.e., conflating religion with birth lotteries and immutability seems a little unhinged to me.
There may be a consensus that it’s low status to say out loud “we only hire harvard alum” or maybe illegal (or whatever), but there’s not a lot of pressure to actually try reducing implicit selection effects that end up in effect quite similar to a hardline rule. And I think harvard undergrad admissions have way more in common with lotteries than religion does!
I think the old sequencesy sort of “being bad at metaphysics (rejecting reductionism) is a predictor of unclear thinking” is fine! The better response to that is “come on, no one’s actually talking about literal belief in literal gods, they’re moreso saying that the social technologies are valuable or they’re uncomfortable just not stewarding their ancestors’ traditions” than like a DEI argument.
There is more to get into here but two main things:
I guess some EAs, and some who I think do really good work do literally believe in literal gods
I don’t actually think this is that predictive. I know some theists who are great at thinking carefully and many athiests who aren’t. I reckon I could distinguish the two in a discussion better than rejecting the former out of hand.