I am from a country(India) where reservations and quotas are as rampant as breathing. Quotas and reservations are disastrous to any community over the longer run.
The only place where reservations make any impact is areas where there are too many good candidates and somebody from the lesser privileged sections of the society who is equally good can't make it due to the limited availability of opportunities. In such cases it makes some sense to offer the minorities a degree of reservation as the culture is unwelcoming to a meritorious minority person.
Any thing apart from this and what you will see is, the social problems remain totally unchanged. Reservations and quotas means some one from privileged class who is deserving of a position will be denied the opportunity, and some one oppressed class who is not deserving will get the opportunity instead. The net result is the whole system will be poisoned. Work never gets done, more and more hard working people are denied opportunities. At the same undeserving people get the same opportunities and make a big waste out of them.
If some one is good, they will win anyway. If they are not, they can't and won't.
Our job is to create a level playing field. So that anybody who want's to, can deliver.
There is a provable, significant difference is earning/wealth between different castes in India[1]. If you believe that there is no difference between people depending on their caste, this is situation you want to remedy.
If there has been systematic discrimination against a class of people, spanning centuries, they can not compete without providing affirmative action. Quota's are a way to level the playing field.
"If some one is good, they will win anyway. If they are not, they can't and won't."
Not if the means of productions, wealth and power is hoarded by a few.
I was born and raised in rural India and have seen numerous Dalits benefit from reservations. Reservations in India is a complex sociological arrangement and deeply linked with Casteism and systematic repression for centuries. Just citing few examples of candidates from non-deserving backward castes is not enough to invalidate reservations. There have been attempts to hijack the issue for political political gains, but that's the problem with the political class, not with the Reservations.
A: Number of people who benefit from reservations.
B: Number of people who suffer because of reservations.
Over the years B has been far too larger than A.
Thanks to the IT boom in the 90's. One of the biggest reasons best people from India left to the west was because their much deserved opportunity went to some one who didn't do 1/10th the work they did.
You are speaking with a sense of entitlement which is vain. Backward castes and Dalits constitute 75% of the population of India. So if the electorate decided they need affirmative action as even after 60 years of independence, their representation remains below 20% in white collar jobs, then it is their prerogative. Since when do the minority dictate terms to a majority in a democratic polity. Grow up dude, and be thankful that you still have 50% seats in general category and that is given to you by the will of the majority.
The whole point of constitutional systems is that the majority can't infringe the rights of a minority even by majority vote. I'm not as familiar with the Indian political system as with the US and Europe, but there's a reason no one does unrestricted democracy without limits on state authority.
There is an unprecedented case in India where 75% of population was subjected to persecution for thousands of years in the name of caste and one generation is not enough to get back the ability to compete in general category, especially for people who were regarded as untouchables. How will ensuring 50% of jobs for 75% of the populace, by their elected representatives infringe on minority rights? This is called social justice - opposite of which is fascism.
These days due to reservations, people want to be born in lower castes in India. Because there a lot of free perks, reservations and generally people get a lot of things with little effort.
Compare this with the general merit category where even true meritorious students are denied their due.
In India there are protests by groups asking the government to name them as backwards classes.
"These days due to reservations, people want to be born in lower castes in India."
Pure unadulterated bullshit or trolling.
Er.. I'm from India too.. and kamaal.. you seem to be stuck in the small college student protests about reservation around 7 - 8 years ago.
Nobody wants to be born in a lower caste. In the end, such comments are just jokes. India's social playing field is still more important to the ordinary people. Especially when castes play a big role in marriages in India, the next most important thing after society as a whole.
So, i have to ask... whats your angle kamaal. Convincing HN that reservations are bad is going to make no difference on the politics of India. You seem to be ranting about it every chance you get (and against poor people from the last comment i read).
Also, your rant here is only against the backward sections of society, which have been denied equal opportunities for ages and have now become a political pawn in the reservations fiasco.
I question this, because India, as you know has reservations for women too, already in many educational institutions, pending in the parliament.
So, instead of quoting something relevant like the impact of various reservations the country has implemented for women, you seem to just pout out your own agenda.
Don't wanna make the world a better place? Please don't try to make it worse.
>>Er.. I'm from India too.. and kamaal.. you seem to be stuck in the small college student protests about reservation around 7 - 8 years ago.
Yeah, may be. Most people who come from a middle class general category are going to suffer from reservations. Because they will be doing all the hard work only to watch someone who scored some thing like half their marks eat all their opportunities.
>>Nobody wants to be born in a lower caste. In the end, such comments are just jokes.
Have you ever visited a local Taluk office? Say some where in Bangalore? Do you even know how much bribe is given simply to obtain a OBC certificate because some one needs a job, or to get a seat and doesn't have the required marks to get one?.
>>So, i have to ask... whats your angle kamaal.
Let me put it the other way, what's your angle. I've put my views clear.
You should elaborate how denying the hardworking general category students their due chance is helping the country.
>>Also, your rant here is only against the backward sections of society, which have been denied equal opportunities for ages and have now become a political pawn in the reservations fiasco.
So is this now a revenge cycle? Are we supposed to make the general category suffer because some 20 generations back a ancestor of their made a mistake.
>>I question this, because India, as you know has reservations for women too, already in many educational institutions, pending in the parliament.
Last time I checked most women who stand for elections in my area were the wives of most prominent rowdies/mafia types.
>>So, instead of quoting something relevant like the impact of various reservations the country has implemented for women, you seem to just pout out your own agenda.
>>Don't wanna make the world a better place? Please don't try to make it worse.
Sorry you need to give your agenda, not me.
And how are you making the world a better place by denying the hardworking their due chance. And taking all their opportunities and giving to some one who probably didn't do 1/10th the work they do.
When bias (like gender, or race) is so prolific. It is institutional change that is required.
You are arguing, just make it a level playing field and the hardworking woman will eventually show up. But that takes generations for change to happen.
In a lot of our eyes, that is not good enough. Change needs to happen now. Quota systems may deny an opportunity to a deserving person (as the quota is full). But it is morally equivalent to being denied an opportunity due to some other kind of bias (i.e because you are a woman).
So really, quotas is just a new (not prejudicial) form of bias. The only difference is, it will eventually change the whole system (for the better). Where as prejudicial bias just makes the system worse.
I would say that by keeping the status quo (i.e. 90+% men in tech) you are poisoning the system.
Reservations don't bring about institutional changes.
Again, I have to come down to giving the example of Indian society[Sorry can't help it, but 60 years of these experiments make India the perfect case study for these sort of problems].
In India, there are cases where some one got a medical seat through reservations. The person generally goes on to become a pretty good doctor, earns well and is now pretty much empowered to do anything he/she wants. But yet you will see their children claim seats though reservations. What's more ridiculous? You can even get a post graduation seat through reservations. Why does one need a reservation when a transparent ranking process exists through a competitive exam? The exams are often objective multiple choice questions and the candidates identity is anonymous and known only through a serial number.
While all this is happening, some guy in the general category watches his well deserved seat go to some other guy who makes it through on just qualifying marks.
At one point of time, before the free market reforms in the 90's. This problem was the big reason, why so many Indian's left India to settle abroad.
>>The only difference is, it will eventually change the whole system (for the better).
It won't.
Quota/Reservations systems at best work like socialist/communist set ups.
Sooner or later- The deserving guy finds no motivation to continue contributing to the system. The undeserving guy never contributes because regardless of his work the rewards are assured.
> Are we supposed to make the general category suffer because some 20 generations back a ancestor of their made a mistake.
So what's your proposal here? I would love that each generation we had the wealth allocated on a purely merit basis but the world does not work like that, I know a fair share of mediocre people with fortunes who can send their children to better schools and some smarter poor fellas that can't, and besides I live in Brazil and ignoring the past did not produced a really better alternative.
I don't like reservations very much, but sometimes they're necessary. And anyway, if they're reservations, they will only take SOME opportunities away from the privileged, and give them to the minorities. Not all of them.
Interesting. So you're saying have an extra seat reserved for minorities only, and the minority on the seat must have the appropriate qualifications. That way no one is disadvantaged by the new system.
That's actually a great way of doing things and i'm surprised it's not used more.
I only say there must be a level playing field so that hard working women get same chances as men.
Reservations create a scenario where you are lower the entry bar for A group of people. While keeping it high for B group of people. Net result is there will no motivation for A set of people to try anything extra since they are guaranteed an entry anyway. At the same a certain set of people from B will stop doing any good work because regardless of their work, A's are going to get their chances.
The whole system collapses.
India has tried this for the past 60 years. The situation has only gone worse.
Work should be done to help women win without reservations.
You dance around it, but that's what you're saying. What else would explain the < 5% female speaker rate at conferences? Obviously the good women are making it, and the rest... just aren't very good.
"Reservations" or whatever you want to call them are lowering the bar to the same level as other people, but of course the "B"s are going to scream blue murder because they now have to work instead of cruising.
Women do not constitute 50% of the people in tech it makes sense for them to be a minority when presenting.
Why are they a minority in tech in the first place? Well video games got me and most of my friends into tech, and when I was in high-school in the mid 90s most girls abhorred games and considered them childish and geeky. It was a serious social faux pas to be a tech geek who loved hacking around with computers and playing video games. I never met a single girl in the 90s who was into it beyond playing an occasional game of Mario Kart.
Does anybody know the proportion of women in tech? If there is a lower proportion of women speaking at conferences than in the industries that the conferences are about, you may have a point.
I will call for a reservation policy if you show me instances where a good well deserved talk from a women was rejected at a conference just because she is a woman.
Are there cases where a talk from a woman was judged not because of its merit but because the speaker's gender?
If all woman who have good talks are getting their chances, I don't even see a problem here.
That's a horrible comment that deserve being down voted into the ground.
Not only is it a strawman argument, but it also reiterates sexist claims about women. At best, your comment gets ignored and worst, the comment will work against creating gender equality.
It's not a strawman, it's called argumentum ad absurdum. If we take his premise as true:
> If some one is good, they will win anyway. If they are not, they can't and won't.
The conclusion from that is that the lack of women in tech is because they're not very good at it. If women were good at tech, then from his statement there would be more of them (they would "win anyway").
This is clearly absurd - hence he's wrong, or at least needs to support/make his argument a little better.
Do I really need to stick </sarcasm> tags on everything?
The only place where reservations make any impact is areas where there are too many good candidates and somebody from the lesser privileged sections of the society who is equally good can't make it due to the limited availability of opportunities. In such cases it makes some sense to offer the minorities a degree of reservation as the culture is unwelcoming to a meritorious minority person.
Any thing apart from this and what you will see is, the social problems remain totally unchanged. Reservations and quotas means some one from privileged class who is deserving of a position will be denied the opportunity, and some one oppressed class who is not deserving will get the opportunity instead. The net result is the whole system will be poisoned. Work never gets done, more and more hard working people are denied opportunities. At the same undeserving people get the same opportunities and make a big waste out of them.
If some one is good, they will win anyway. If they are not, they can't and won't.
Our job is to create a level playing field. So that anybody who want's to, can deliver.