Discriminating based on belief.

Frankly, I'd hire the lizard dude. If nothing else it would keep life entertaining.

Although I can see why there are laws against discrimination, I would not be angry or upset if a fundamentalist christian employer chose not to hire me based on my lack of belief. If his religion is that important that he would pass on a hard-working honest and capable employee over just a religious disagreement, then we would never get along and working there would be unpleasant for both of us. I think it would be a different situation if the person wouldn't be working with me directly. If it were, say, a person in the human resources department who was in charge of hiring whose personal views did not conform to the overall company philosophy. In that case it would be highly irresponsible for them to pass off a qualified applicant due to their own personal beliefs.

yasic said:

Is it wrong to hire the other candidate on the basis that if this one can be so illogical on one topic that he might have other beliefs that might badly influence his work?

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A sincere belief that Obama is a lizard man disguised by magic does not need to be illogical. I think that in situations like this, you should question the candidate to find out why he believes in lizard men, and such questioning is fully ethical and should be legal. If the answers to the question reveal insanity or an unsound mind, feel free to reject the candidate. If the answers to the question just reveal that the candidate only believes in the lizard man theory, but doesn't claim to know, not hiring the man seems the wrong thing to do.

Every single human being has beliefs that aren't grounded on some objective truth. For example, I believe that I'm not living in the Matrix, but if you do believe that you're living in the Matrix, I can't really come up with any arguments why you're wrong. An appeal to Occam's Razor would be my best shot (and that also applies in the lizard president case), but that's more a rule of thumb, and not some absolute law of logic. As long as you're not claiming that you're 100% sure that you're living in the Matrix and that agent Smith is trying to convince you to murder people, I would have no problem with hiring you.

I don't think it's right to ask about people's beliefs in professional interview settings. I've had employers that I would have felt extremely uneasy sharing my atheism with for fear of losing the job or making the job needlessly tense.

If reptile guy sucks at the job, fire him. If he does it well, who cares what he believes?

rockaction said:

I don't think it's right to ask about people's beliefs in professional interview settings. I've had employers that I would have felt extremely uneasy sharing my atheism with for fear of losing the job or making the job needlessly tense.

If reptile guy sucks at the job, fire him. If he does it well, who cares what he believes?

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Depending on the type of job, only firing people after they've made mistakes can be really costly or even deadly.

When your job is flipping burgers, your religious beliefs aren't very relevant (although I still wouldn't hire "agent smith wants me to kill people"-guy). When your job involves keeping nuclear power plants from blowing up, or transporting nuclear weapons, or doing research on extremely contagious deadly diseases, or managing a hospital, or... etc etc, the manner in which you think becomes pretty relevant.

Mystman said:

Depending on the type of job, only firing people after they've made mistakes can be really costly or even deadly.

When your job is flipping burgers, your religious beliefs aren't very relevant (although I still wouldn't hire "agent smith wants me to kill people"-guy). When your job involves keeping nuclear power plants from blowing up, or transporting nuclear weapons, or doing research on extremely contagious deadly diseases, or managing a hospital, or... etc etc, the manner in which you think becomes pretty relevant.

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High-stake jobs require a lot of training and knowledge, though. It's not like some random nutjob can all of a sudden have clearance to work with anthrax if he aces his job interview.

And what kind of beliefs are we talking about here? Is it even possible to find out if someone believes something really off the wall that could lead to dangerous behavior? How do you screen for that?

yasic said:

Lets say you are hiring people to work at a job that requires some sort of intellect, not just manual capacity. (For instance architect or music teacher).

You have two candidates about equally qualified, but you know that one genuinely believes that lizard-folk run the whitehouse and that Obama is literally a reptile using magic to look human.

Is it wrong to hire the other candidate on the basis that if this one can be so illogical on one topic that he might have other beliefs that might badly influence his work?

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So your question is, is it ok to hire sane people over crazy people?

Sure it's fine.

rockaction said:

High-stake jobs require a lot of training and knowledge, though. It's not like some random nutjob can all of a sudden have clearance to work with anthrax if he aces his job interview.

And what kind of beliefs are we talking about here? Is it even possible to find out if someone believes something really off the wall that could lead to dangerous behavior? How do you screen for that?

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"Common" dangerous beliefs are things like the idea that the Rapture is coming soon, and/or that people can/should speed it up. There is a significant number of Christians who are actively trying to bring about the end of the world, or who don't care about pollution etc because they and their kids are going to be beamed up within the next few years. Other ideas aren't dangerous on their own, but can betray some faulty mental processes that may not be obvious from other sources. Some creationists are totally fine (e.g. people who simply have never seen the evidence, or people who fully admit that they flat out ignore all evidence), but some have mental traits that can be dangerous in certain positions (e.g. people who see the evidence, and then cherry pick the bits that fit their pre-conceived notions, without noticing that they're doing it)

You can just directly ask after the often occurring weird stuff (or subtly bring it up, etc). That would still make you miss the (extremely) rare things... but those are (extremely) rare, so there's not a big chance that your candidates hold those beliefs. You can't catch everything, but catching the majority is better than catching nothing, right?

If cramming all that stuff into a job interview would be awkward (it probably is), you could make it a policy to subtly bring up the topics during lunch/coffee breaks during the first few weeks while the new employee is still in a "trial period", where you can fire him if it turns out that he just isn't a good fit for the company..

If their belief can reasonably lead to diminished performance, then yes, of course you can. If their belief is, "I can only work between 1pm and 2pm on the third Saturday of each month", then you can obviously choose not to hire them.

yasic said:

Lets say you are hiring people to work at a job that requires some sort of intellect, not just manual capacity. (For instance architect or music teacher).

You have two candidates about equally qualified, but you know that one genuinely believes that lizard-folk run the whitehouse and that Obama is literally a reptile using magic to look human.

Is it wrong to hire the other candidate on the basis that if this one can be so illogical on one topic that he might have other beliefs that might badly influence his work?

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that would depend on the job and also how I would test candidates for it, for instance if it were an architect or music teacher I wouldn't have a problem with it, but say were it a PR job especially in diplomatic/international circles then it definitely would affect whether or not he was hired.

Let's go back to the idea in the original post.

Obama is one of the lizard people disguised by magic.

I'm even going to use Clarke's law and give a pass on the magic part since an advanced technoloty is indistinguishable from magic.

What about the conspiricy aspects? 99% plus of the time people with beliefs like this think it is a conspiricy and one to the detriment of at least the U.S. if not all humanity. What if later this person decides yuo or others at your company are partof the conspiricy?

Sorry I do not put those who report to me at needless risk. Nuts can turn dangerous or even deadly.

Interesting point. Personally it should not matter what you believe as long as you can do the job. There are exceptions to this of course... you could hardly hire a Muslim to be a christian pastor. I work with a devout athiest and he respects my views and I respect his, we have some interesting discussions too.

Don't you check references on a potential employee? Aside from getting written evaluations, we always call past employers to assess an applicant's performance. We try to hire on objective grounds. Which is the applicant who has the best combination of training, experience, and performance in prior employment. If she has the skills we need, and has shown good, professional behavior in the past, then I don't much care, and don't really need to know about her personal beliefs.

jayem said:

Don't you check references on a potential employee? Aside from getting written evaluations, we always call past employers to assess an applicant's performance. We try to hire on objective grounds. Which is the applicant who has the best combination of training, experience, and performance in prior employment. If she has the skills we need, and has shown good, professional behavior in the past, then I don't much care, and don't really need to know about her personal beliefs.

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Which touches on an interesting question. If you are interviewing someone who you do not previously know just how would you find out about any beliefs? If the beliefs are unusual and are not a reasonable responce to a question you asked then as I see it this is a mark against the applicant irrespective of the actual beliefs involved. How big a mark would change a lot just on exactly how the information came out.

Truly the individual is the minority of today. I would say we don't have to like someone for them to do you a good job, however; real production is based on team work. I've worked in many work environments and you can be the best at what you do, but at times it isn't what you know it is who you know......your name proceeds you..... Meaning your name goes out infront of you or before you get there by reputation!

yasic said:

Lets say you are hiring people to work at a job that requires some sort of intellect, not just manual capacity. (For instance architect or music teacher).

You have two candidates about equally qualified, but you know that one genuinely believes that lizard-folk run the whitehouse and that Obama is literally a reptile using magic to look human.

Is it wrong to hire the other candidate on the basis that if this one can be so illogical on one topic that he might have other beliefs that might badly influence his work?

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This depends if I believe that Obama is a lizard man in disguise or not? If I do, shouldn't I refuse to hire anyone that does not agree with my belief?

Same question, applies if I don't.

And why stop there?

Why not just go with generic political party, I mean if someone is illogical enough to support a political party other then the Bull Moose, and I know fully that all other parties are out to destroy our way of life and subjugate us) shouldn't I have the right to discriminate against them for being that stupid?

But why stop there? Don't they know vanilla is the best flavor? It's illogical to think otherwise!

And Santa, I mean come one, everyone knows he's real, and shouldn't I have the right to discriminate against anyone that believes otherwise?

And space aliens, everyone knows they don't exist, anyone who is illogical enough to think they do I should have the right to discriminate against, shouldn't I?

So where do I get to draw the line?

Look at what happen to the German society. Before, during and after they pitched the Jews into the furnesses. Inner city's play on ethnic, political and religious viewpoints. People identify their problems with types an shadows rather than taking personal responsibility! People are crazy and it's getting worse!

Key said:

So where do I get to draw the line?

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Ideally, people should be able to refuse to hire anyone for any reason. 1 company deciding not to hire white/black/gay/straight/male/female/dumb/smart people is no problem at all. The problems only start when so many companies have discriminatory practices towards 1 group (e.g., all companies in 1 town not hiring black people), that the possibilities for people of that group to lead their lives are diminished.

1 restaurant deciding to only hire beautiful people: no problem. All restaurants deciding to only hire beautiful people: that's not good. 1 restaurant only hiring beautiful people, and the owner only finding black people beautiful: no problem. All restaurants only hiring black people: not good.

"the line" should then be drawn dynamically: when there's a problem (e.g. black people not being able to get a job in certain industries), you should ban that type of discrimination, and maybe even only for that specific industry. When there's no problem (e.g. a black person who's refused at 1 restaurant can just get a job down the street), you should give employers freedom to choose, imho.

Not allowing any discrimination leads to ridiculous situations where everyone knows that people are being discriminated, but all involved need to pretend that nothing discriminatory is going on. The recent case of a Pakistani actor who wanted to be an extra on the Hobbit movie is a good example. A casting agent told her: sorry, but you simply don't have the right skin color for the part, and why should we go through the trouble of turning you Hobbit-coloured with make-up etc when we can just hire a white actor? (well, he didn't say the last part, but that's a pretty good reason for just hiring white people to play hobbits). The casting agent was fired, the media jumped on it, the production company went "we certainly don't condone such racist behavior!"... meanwhile, all the Hobbit/Elven/Dwarven extras in the LotR just "happen" to be white, and no one cares.

edit: you could say that when you discriminate based on some feature X, that it should at least have some influence on the job that you're hiring someone to do. The problem with that is that it's hard to find a balance. It will either be too strict, where selecting on relevant features becomes illegal (e.g., physical beauty in any employees that have contact with customers), or it will be too lenient, where you just get people making up barely relevant stuff or rare situations in which a certain feature might matter (e.g. not hiring Christians because there's a chance that they'll be Raptured away, which would disturb the functioning of the company)

edit2: gotta remember that last one for when I want to reject a Christian in a creative way and feel like getting sued..

Mystman said:

e.g. not hiring Christians because there's a chance that they'll be Raptured away, which would disturb the functioning of the company

edit2: gotta remember that last one for when I want to reject a Christian in a creative way and feel like getting sued..

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Yah, I myself have said "sorry, I can't hire anyone that adheres to Evolution, they might have a throw back moment and start flinging poo at people when upset"

Given this was a construction company, I got some laughs, and the discussion turned to if an evolutionist had sex with a monkey would it incest or inappropriate behavior with animals.

So, there are jabs on both sides, in case you wanted to know.

God Bless

yasic said:

Lets say you are hiring people to work at a job that requires some sort of intellect, not just manual capacity. (For instance architect or music teacher).

You have two candidates about equally qualified, but you know that one genuinely believes that lizard-folk run the whitehouse and that Obama is literally a reptile using magic to look human.

Is it wrong to hire the other candidate on the basis that if this one can be so illogical on one topic that he might have other beliefs that might badly influence his work?

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I think it is wrong from a legal standpoint.

However, as someone hiring, the person mentioning that he/she believes Lizard People rule the world is not only a bizarre belief, but a bizarre thing to mention in a job interview, because you want to come off presenting yourself as an intelligent, reliable, ambitious, approachable and eager employee who will be an asset to the company.

I teach English, and I have some controversial beliefs. I believe that we have been contacted and are being contacted by beings either from another planet or another plane. I believe that there is definitely a spirit world that exists, though I can't prove it. I believe in the concept of the 3rd Eye, and often see people inside my head with my 3rd eye quite differently. Often, I sense people's energy, their true self, and am usually right. I believe that positive thought actually has an effect on the physical world and other people, as does negative thought. I believe that all people will one day return to God, because I trust in the power of God and love. I believe that karma is like the law of physics - when we put out good, good comes back to us, and when we put out negativity, it also comes back to us, and each returns 3 fold.

I would never mention this during a job interview to teach.

I do have some controversial beliefs that relate to teaching:
If you treat students like children, they will behave that way.
If you treat adult students like adults, they will act like adults, and take responsibility for their actions.
I don't nag students to do assignments when they say they don't want to do them. I simply tell them that they don't "have to" do anything. They make a choice. If they choose not to do a presentation, it's actually easier for me. I just give them a zero. However, every action has a consequence, so they must choose the outcome they want.
I tell students to celebrate every mistake, because they have just discovered an error, which makes them learn, and prevent making it again. They become better speakers of the language.
Unlike many of the teachers, I have no problem with a student leaving to make a phone call, leaving to text, or leaving to go to the washroom. They are adults. However, I am not going to repeat myself when they return.

These are the kinds of things that I would mention in an interview.

I would probably not hire the person that believes in the Lizard People, a conspiracy theory that I personally find fascinating, mostly because bringing that up would make me see the person as kind of a freak in presenting themselves at the interview, and probably being kind of a Dwight Shrewt to have on the team.