Steve Sailer makes an interesting point: Standardized tests were originally put in place to prevent racial discrimination, and yet now are being accused of holding back (non-Asian) minorities.
Affirmative action is a weird beast.
I wonder if Asians and whites who work jobs where their race is a disadvantage are more likely to try harder or just give up on being promoted based on merit?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
When Did Fairness Become Oppressive?
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2 comments:
I have never actually seen affirmative action applied in a workplace, aside from the usual disclaimors posted and the interview team coached in how to avoid a discrimination suit. In my experience, merit has very little to do with promotion; it's all about social networking, and being more like the person doing the promoting as possible is always an advantage.
I have never experienced affirmative action directly either, at least nothing like the explicit racial quotas being aimed for in New Haven. I don't think I could stomach working in that kind of environment very long.
To answer my own question, I'm guessing that the aggrieved parties in an true affirmative action workplace (or somewhere with lots of nepotism) would try hard when there were senior positions open, and then coast the rest of the time.
It never really bothers me that there are incompetent coworkers getting paid more than me until I have to interact with them. And then I throttle back my productiveness to a point where I don't feel like I'm being taken advantage of.
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