Queensland University of Technology defends removing 'merit' from hiring policy

[Neutrion]

So I take it the Vice Chancellor will be standing down so she can be replaced by someone who is far more qualified.

By qualified I mean someone who is disabled,  identifies as a gender other then male and female, who also identifies as coming from a disadvantaged area, extra points awarded if it is determined  by a committee of specially selected lefties people who identify as human as having "suffered" at the hands of some more powerful country when they were a child.

So at this point in time, going by what I read on the news, she would be replaced this week by a genderless, disabled person from Gaza who specialises in rocket science or underground mining geology.   

After all they have to lead by example right?

Good points, but in your list the analfabets would still be underrepresented. And having an analfabet quota based on the Australian population would be utterly racist.

And regarding the white guys on the picture it is horrendous to see you all calling them men....
How do you know? You might offend them! I recommend Queensland University to also implement new clothing standard, which makes it possible in any season the genitalia and a 17cm circle around it to be clearly seen. This would make these offenses less likely! (And would have other positive social effects which miss Sheil doesn't have to know about.)

But to be a bit more serious, there was an interesting study which one of the german state TVs also made a documentary about recently. Without the editors actually understanding the broader implications I think. They found that people were able to estimate other peoples intelligence levels by the look of a single picture. And the experiment was really well made. ALL the participants with different ages and gender were able to do it. I would really like to see more studies into this. It tells me that my gut feelengs regarding some are actually correct. If we are talking about being "biased" towards people.
The "bias" it seems could be actually quiet correct.


 

[coppice]

Well, that's what you get when you let a leftist through your door. They shame you for who you are, send you on reeducation camp, or get you fired. Set up camp, and make policies like this.
Never hire an identity politician, they are truly the most toxic employees, and what their policies are doing is in fact illegal.

the Pareto rule is about to change from "20% people doing 80% work" to "5% people doing 95% work." 

I'm pretty sure the 5/95 rule has been in effect for several decades already

It's called Price's law, and for large organizations it's much worse than 80/20 or even 95/5.

80/20 comes from the Pareto distribution. Price's law says half the results are produced by the most productive square root of the workforce. The two things are related, but not the same. Pareto is basically what happens when you have a statistical distribution with one end clipped. For example, there is no practical limit to how rich someone can get, but if poverty leads you to starve to death you are out of the game. Simulate the statistics of that and you will find you get more and more people out of the game, and a few winners taking all. If you just slightly nudge the destitute back into the game using a minor tax on the big winners you can massively even things up. If politicians could actually follow a statistics course they might act very differently.

[Bud]

They found that people were able to estimate other peoples intelligence levels by the look of a single picture.

IBM first meeting Bill Gates:
"We were waiting in the front, and this young fella came out to take us back to Mr. Gates office. I thought he was the office boy."
 

[coppice]

As the title says:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

There have been a spate of books in the last couple of years decrying merit. They seem kinda wacky, until you read how they are defining merit. They are using it mostly as a synonym for credentials, rather than any concept of merit the general public would recognise. Huge numbers of credentialed people are pretty useless, so there is a lot of merit in the argument in these books, using their weird dictionary.

[coppice]

They found that people were able to estimate other peoples intelligence levels by the look of a single picture.

IBM first meeting Bill Gates:
"We were waiting in the front, and this young fella came out to take us back to Mr. Gates office. I thought he was the office boy."
 

That may have more to do with his look of youth than his apparent IQ. Also a lot of business people are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, so they might lack this ability to get a good estimate of intelligence.

[Neutrion]

They found that people were able to estimate other peoples intelligence levels by the look of a single picture.

IBM first meeting Bill Gates:
"We were waiting in the front, and this young fella came out to take us back to Mr. Gates office. I thought he was the office boy."
 

That may have more to do with his look of youth than his apparent IQ. Also a lot of business people are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, so they might lack this ability to get a good estimate of intelligence.

Participants in the test were average people. The case with Gates could be biased by clothing, age, situation, etc. This experiment was done in a way to possibly exclude all these factors. After the initial guess they were also later allowed to see videos about the guessed persons, so there were many stages.

[floobydust]

3rd year university, all engineering students are told their grades are going to be "normalized" with those of other faculties such as Science, Computing Science, Physics, Math etc.
We were all "huh?" 
It turns out engineering grades for the same courses were held down, much lower which was a problem for students transferring between faculties and of course... weak students needed a better chance at passing in engineering. Instead of weeding them out.
Made me laugh because 1st year engineering was brutal for marks, they trashed students on purpose to get them to drop out - you don't get a refund on tuition then. The uni made good money off this and enrollment numbers looked good for the government.

So all of our grades took a jump up, I estimate +20% or ~1/9.0 scale 
That was the day I realized student achievement and merit is arbitrary. Any problems you can blame the students for being lazy, low achievers. Set the bar wherever you like, but the Bell Curve can still be hacked and warped as needed.

In academia there are many "weak" profs that used a garbage thesis for their PhD. Some were pretty dumb but got their post-doc.
Merit? It could not be measured. Even volume, # of papers published actually means nothing. The content of the papers was most important but nobody ranks that, including the funding and grant agencies- that bring money into a university. An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

[Neutrion]

EDIT:
A 6 year PhD in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at no less than Yale anyone?
https://anthropology.yale.edu/academics/graduate-programs/combined-phd-anthropology-wgss

Full of women? Well I would like to do a long term study for my Phd work on  "Measuring Caucasian Humans with female reproductive organs  changing intensity of reproductive instinct in direct contact with a male test person with male reproductive organs  under variable mechanical arrangements and verbal communication patterns"
Unfortunately a lot of experiments are needed for it, but I am sure the leaders of the programs will help me with the arrangement of them. I hope I can apply for some scholarship as well.
 

[tszaboo]

Well, that's what you get when you let a leftist through your door. They shame you for who you are, send you on reeducation camp, or get you fired. Set up camp, and make policies like this.
Never hire an identity politician, they are truly the most toxic employees, and what their policies are doing is in fact illegal.

the Pareto rule is about to change from "20% people doing 80% work" to "5% people doing 95% work." 

I'm pretty sure the 5/95 rule has been in effect for several decades already

It's called Price's law, and for large organizations it's much worse than 80/20 or even 95/5.

80/20 comes from the Pareto distribution. Price's law says half the results are produced by the most productive square root of the workforce. The two things are related, but not the same. Pareto is basically what happens when you have a statistical distribution with one end clipped. For example, there is no practical limit to how rich someone can get, but if poverty leads you to starve to death you are out of the game. Simulate the statistics of that and you will find you get more and more people out of the game, and a few winners taking all. If you just slightly nudge the destitute back into the game using a minor tax on the big winners you can massively even things up. If politicians could actually follow a statistics course they might act very differently.

What I'm saying is that Price's law is more applicable for a workspace work/effort assessment, than Pareto principle, since that is actually describing a work done by different people. I've always applied Pareto's principle as an estimation on how much time it takes to do 80% of the work.
But then, strangely, Pareto's principle approximates a solution to Price's law, for a certain sized organization.

EDIT:
A 6 year PhD in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at no less than Yale anyone?
https://anthropology.yale.edu/academics/graduate-programs/combined-phd-anthropology-wgss

Full of women?

We should demand equal representation in those studies. And  reduce the faculty numbers until it's 50% men.

[coppice]

What I'm saying is that Price's law is more applicable for a workspace work/effort assessment, than Pareto principle, since that is actually describing a work done by different people. I've always applied Pareto's principle as an estimation on how much time it takes to do 80% of the work.
But then, strangely, Pareto's principle approximates a solution to Price's law, for a certain sized organization.

That's inaccurate. Price's Law doesn't refer to work done. It refers to results achieved. Most people in most organisations are doing quite lot of work. Most just aren't producing many useful results. What I find most interesting about Price's Law is it seems like something that should only apply to high skill activities, yet people who have tried to apply it to things like simple assembly work have found it a good fit there, too.

[Neutrion]

EDIT:
A 6 year PhD in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at no less than Yale anyone?
https://anthropology.yale.edu/academics/graduate-programs/combined-phd-anthropology-wgss

Full of women?

We should demand equal representation in those studies. And  reduce the faculty numbers until it's 50% men.

Oh, no no no NO! I suggest this to be a strictly genitalically female study with the invitation of one single non american with a diverse reproductive organ interested in the above mentioned PhD work.
Otherwise the masculinity would be too toxic!

[Halcyon]

In relation to the article: What a load of shit. There really isn't much more that I can say.

[RJSV]

   Diversity, and don't forget fairness.
   I took the tack, similar to '.RC.' posted reply.
Mentioned 'Diversity signalling' in off-hand way, like "...Everybody knows that's a silly boast, how diverse our business, club, etc. is."
   WRONG MOVE there.  I got 86xed and plus they (said) my 'files were shredded'...whatever that means, in 2023.

[vk6zgo]

As the title says:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

Queensland University of Technology's vice-chancellor has defended the decision to remove all references to "merit" from its hiring policy.
Staff were told about the move via an internal email, which informed them that they would be moving away from "the merit principle" towards a "more inclusive suitability assessment".
Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil told ABC Radio Brisbane the suitability assessment would consider factors such as gender and ethnic backgrounds.

Professor Sheil said it would also consider the current demographic breakdown of their various schools and disciplines.

She said women, for example, were under-represented in science and engineering at QUT whereas men were under-represented in teaching and nursing.
She dismissed suggestions that the hiring process should be colourblind, saying that was impossible in practice.

"When people say things like 'We do this on merit', they're actually reflecting the bias of their own experience," Professor Sheil said.
"There's so much data on this around selection, whether it's recruitment into orchestras or into universities.
"There isn't a way of being colourblind that's not got some form of bias into it."

She said staff undertook unconscious bias training, and that the selection committees were chosen with diversity in mind.
She said they would aim to hire a diversity of personalities, such as recruiting more outgoing scientists who were good at industry engagement.

'We don't want everybody to look the same'
Professor Sheil denied the policy was a "political" decision, insisting it was a practical move to improve the university's talent pool.

"We need to access the entire talent pool, and we don't want everybody to look the same," she said.
"We need the workforce to reflect the students coming through, and we also know people look at things differently when they come from different backgrounds.
"I've been working in improving diversity in academic environments my entire career; it's got nothing to do with contemporary politics."

Professor Sheil said she was the first female professor of chemistry in Australia and has subsequently spent her life trying to get more women into science.
QUT claims the suitability assessment is based on the Queensland Public Service Commission's hiring strategy.

I've always thought "merit" was bullshit, particularly when management use it.
Every time I see it used by that demographic, I read it as "drinks with the Boss".
But, then, I'm old & nasty!

[EEVblog]

Well, that's what you get when you let a leftist through your door. They shame you for who you are, send you on reeducation camp, or get you fired. Set up camp, and make policies like this.
Never hire an identity politician, they are truly the most toxic employees, and what their policies are doing is in fact illegal.

Any wiff of identiy politics in a job candidate will usually get you instantly rejected these days. It's back firing big time.
Those who got caught up in the whole woke trend thing, if they have an ounce of sense left will scrub their history as best they can, starting with the pronouns.

[tggzzz]

As the title says:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

Queensland University of Technology's vice-chancellor has defended the decision to remove all references to "merit" from its hiring policy.

At first I wondered whether this was a false report designed to provke "dog whistle" reactions.

Kurt Vonnegut memorably and neatly skewered such policies with his 1961 short story "Harrison Bergeron". It seems 2081 has arrived ahead of schedule
https://ia803002.us.archive.org/25/items/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron.pdf
or see any of the soulless study notes such as
https://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/harrison-bergeron/summary/

Sounds like the vice chancellor could do with reading some literature

[tggzzz]

Meanwhile, the students, the university and the Australian people should disobey the "decision", and remove her instead.  Find out who come up with that "decision", too.  Whoever is messing with the education system is doing so to ruin your future.

There's an alternative: malicious sabotage.

Where identity politics is involved, I'll bet that there is a policy about LGBTQGHXK. In that case all the men have to do is state that they "identify as female". If enough do it, maybe some of the women will be ejected to ensure balance or be forced to "identify as men".

[coppice]

As the title says:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/qut-defends-removing-merit-from-hiring-policy/103114562

Queensland University of Technology's vice-chancellor has defended the decision to remove all references to "merit" from its hiring policy.

At first I wondered whether this was a false report designed to provke "dog whistle" reactions.

Kurt Vonnegut memorably and neatly skewered such policies with his 1961 short story "Harrison Bergeron". It seems 2081 has arrived ahead of schedule
https://ia803002.us.archive.org/25/items/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron.pdf
or see any of the soulless study notes such as
https://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/harrison-bergeron/summary/

Sounds like the vice chancellor could do with reading some literature

Reading Harrison Bergeron won't help someone like that. They see it as an operating manual for society. Some people read 1984 and think "cool, that's what we need". The very people who need to truly awaken need something where the conclusion is explicitly stated, or they just don't get the author's point.

[tggzzz]

Well, that's what you get when you let a leftist through your door. They shame you for who you are, send you on reeducation camp, or get you fired. Set up camp, and make policies like this.

The hard right do exactly the same kind of thing.

As was pointed out long ago, the hard left intimidate via mass marches, the hard right intimidate in back alleys. Choose your poison, or choose to avoid poison.

Never hire an identity politician, they are truly the most toxic employees, and what their policies are doing is in fact illegal.

Yes, except I'm not sure about "illegal"

[tggzzz]

Reading Harrison Bergeron won't help someone like that. They see it as an operating manual for society. Some people read 1984 and think "cool, that's what we need". The very people who need to truly awaken need something where the conclusion is explicitly stated, or they just don't get the author's point.

Incompetence vs ignorance vs malice? Any of those is possible

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between them. But arguably that doesn't matter, since they all should be fought.

[magic]

As was pointed out long ago, the hard left intimidate via mass marches, the hard right intimidate in back alleys.

This is not a fundamental difference but only a symptom of left infiltration of your government.

As is

Yes, except I'm not sure about "illegal"

Technically it was, or might still be illegal, like perhaps in America. But who cares if the courts rule otherwise?

[Neutrion]

Meanwhile, the students, the university and the Australian people should disobey the "decision", and remove her instead.  Find out who come up with that "decision", too.  Whoever is messing with the education system is doing so to ruin your future.

There's an alternative: malicious sabotage.

Where identity politics is involved, I'll bet that there is a policy about LGBTQGHXK. In that case all the men have to do is state that they "identify as female". If enough do it, maybe some of the women will be ejected to ensure balance or be forced to "identify as men".

Good Idea! Also womens toilet is a really discriminative thing, which should belong to the past.

I always wonder how this extremely small amout of people who are pushing this genderism could get so much influence.
Because with the skin color issue at least I see a lot of black etc. people, (in western Europe) but trans people and the extreme feminist brigade is possibly around 1/10000 ?-th of the population.
In Germany they even managed to change the language which is even annoying many leftist.
And in the german language it is much more irritating and complicated than in english.

So there are somwhere maybe a few thousand people who somehow got this extreme influence.
Do (did) they have botfarms? Or did anyone ever checked whether the shitstorm in case for example with Rowling was coming from real people?
Or are they sitting organised in front of the PC all day long hunting for some articles?
There are way more important issues with much more affected people where there is no change for decades, but this nonsense is spreading like pest.

[magic]

What would bot farms change?

The success of PQRS+ABCXYZ is a combination of two factors:
1. some narcissists having nothing better to do than sitting on the Internet all day and posting about their uniqueness, writing petitions and so on
2. stupidity and indoctrination of the general population to be "kind" and "understanding", largely a work done by earlier SJW movements

Okay, maybe a third:
3. rich media owners (in privatized media countries) giving air time to everything that focuses attention of pissed off plebs on something other than the rich

[armandine2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

I liked the bit where it was hard to get published

[coppice]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

I liked the bit where it was hard to get published

That was a funky period in British politics. The tripartite school system (actually just two levels in most of the country) was pushed by people on the left. It allowed working class kids in state schools to compete on fairly equal terms with wealthy kids going to expensive public schools, so it seemed like something the left should be behind. Before it was effectively rolled out across the whole of the UK fashion changed, and the left was suddenly in favour of scrapping the system, and having a single level of "comprehensive schools", which are a kind of "most children left behind" scheme . That suited the rich, as it reduced competition with their kids, so they let the change occur. No conspiracy, just everyone powerful pushing in the same direction with different goals.

That article says the Fabian Society wouldn't publish the book, not that is was hard to get published. I'm not sure which side of the argument the Fabian left was on at that time.