When OK to Discriminate?
Two days ago I asked 8 related questions via Twitter. Here is one:
Should it be okay to use political views or ideology as a basis for choosing associates at work (W), i.e., employee or business partner, or for choosing who you live with (L), i.e., house or apartment mates?
— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson) December 22, 2018
The rest of the questions made one of two changes. One change was to swap the type of choice from work/life to “producer (P) of a good or service to choose its customers (or price), or for a consumer (C) to choose from whom it buys”. The other change was to swap the choice basis from “political views or ideology” to “age”, “sex/gender”, or “race/ethnicity”. Here is the table of answer percentages (and total votes):
(Column “W not L” means “P not C” for relevant rows. Matching tweets, by table row #: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.)
While the people who answered my poll are not a random sample of my nation or planet, I still think we can draw some tentative conclusions:
1) People are consistently more forgiving of discrimination in living spaces relative to work, and by consumers relative to producers. Almost no one is willing to allow it for work/producers, and yet not for living/consumers.
2) Opinion varies a lot. Aside from the empty column just described, most other answers get substantial support. Thought it seems few are against using age or sex/gender to choose who you live with.
3) Some kinds of bases are more accepted than others. Support was weakest for discrimination using race/ethnicity, and strongest for using age.
4) There seems to be more support for treating work and living mates differently than for treating producers and consumers differently.
Of course we’d learn more from a large poll asking more specific questions.
Good point. I would argue that institutions with strong social components tend to have editorial perspectives, and at least for those who are hired into positions that are directly involved with their mission, such "discrimination" is not only OK, but necessary.
But not for "back office" or technical positions in such institutions.
Example: A friend of mine is a liberal of liberals, and worked as a librarian for Fox News for many years. She left for a better job but was happy to leave.
People will discriminate when they know. I should have added that. In fields with a strong social component, like journalism, television, public relations, some parts of academia, you may know all the practitioners in your town (and their views), or be able to pick up certain cues. This may be less knowable or relevant in IT and technical fields.