>A system based on something other than merit. If the people in charge aren't the people with the most merit, they aren't really qualified.

Merit isn't an absolute, there's no test that shows what your merit would be to a company. Diversity adds to your merit, both through positive PR and through having a range of experiences to draw from when dealing with a problem.

If my code sucks, I have exactly the same experience fixing it that a black woman would have, because the arbiter of correctness is a computer without any opinions about the author. Diversity in skill comes from having worked in different kinds of software and languages and frameworks, not going out and collecting fifty shades of node hipster.

Sometimes code sucks because the programmer doesn't realize names work differently in other cultures.[1] Sometimes it sucks because it outs LGBT kids.[2] Sometimes it sucks because nobody noticed what the team called something was also a racial slur.

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

[1] is part of the basic domain knowledge that makes one competent. E.g., any programmer who deals with US PII should also know that social security number collisions exist even though nobody on the team has struggled with it. Your coworkers' personal experiences are not the only or best way to learn about users' problems, because not only are they a very small sample but they are self-selected nerds and inherently unlike most users (unless you sell programming tools).

[2] is a product design decision, not a programmer's ignorant error. "A product should side with a child against their legal guardian who actually paid for the product" is by no means the consensus across all cultures.

Neither of those things would be better because of a black woman being a programmer.

Even as an LGBT person myself, I probably wouldn't have thought about the implications of the second one.

The first one is fixable by not being a shit programmer. You don't need to know anything about the names of other cultures, you just need to know that everything should be using Unicode, although I agree that Euro-centrism dominates programming and computer science in general.

So why is it the first thing you mention in your HN profile?

Because it's an extremely important part of who I am. If you look, you'll notice there's more than that.

Also, because people will see my comments and scream something about me being a white cishet male or say that I "sound like a cisshit". Shit's happened to me before and I try my best to squash it before it happens again.

"Meritocracy" isn't. It's a sham, a veneer layered on over an ugly and disgusting history of bigotry and oppression, to cover up the underlying biases which still exist and are perpetuated every day.

Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "unqualified" or else they'd already have succeeded.

Which is much like the economics joke: an economist and his friend are walking along, and the friend spots a $20 bill on the ground reaches for it. The economist says "that's impossible -- if it really were a $20 bill it would've been picked up by someone else already!"

We know that the old convenient lies -- "people of that race/gender/etc. just aren't as interested in our field" or "evolution shaped their brains to be good at other things, not at this thing" or... well, any of them -- are just that: lies. We know that when a more level playing field is forced upon an industry, suddenly that industry stops looking a lot less white and a lot less male, and further stabs the heart of the "it's a meritocracy" lie.

Promoting the lie of "meritocracy" is, at this point, insupportable and indefensible, no matter who does it or why.

> Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "unqualified" or else they'd already have succeeded

You're not describing meritocracy, which has literally nothing to do with majority conformity, but literally reduces to ability. It's the most unbiased position possible.

There is literally zero unjustified bias in a true meritocracy.

When trying to build a meritocracy, pre-existing bias can certainly skew who has more ability, because some group or other has better access to education or opportunities for acquiring better experience. The solution is not to decry meritocracy, but to enforce those principles even more strongly.

They're describing what Michael Young coined the term "meritocracy" to warn about.

The closest thing to a consensus on programmer productivity is that it's impossible to quantify. How can we objectively predict ability when we don't know how to objectively measure outcomes?

You can't measure productivity in an interview, so I don't see how this is relevant. At best, you can test for knowledge and understanding, which is exactly what people do. I don't see how this entails some kind cultural homogeneity.

> The closest thing to a consensus on programmer productivity is that it's impossible to quantify

Precision isn't as important as accuracy, and this is achievable. It's difficult, but not impossible.

Thank you, you said it much better than I could've.

Your entire post can be responded to with two words: Citation needed.