What forms of discrimination does tptacek's argument not apply to?
Is there some reason that irrational taste-based discrimination would not trigger candidate embarrassment and self-selection, but rational lawsuit-fear based discrimination would? (More precisely, rational in a world where tptacek's hypothetical perfect market self-regulation mechanism did not apply, but irrational in such a world.)
a world where women are hired but not promoted? Or where the discrimination falls under the heading of "culture fit" instead of explicit policy? Or even where women are hired and promoted equally, but otherwise treated like shit in the office?
Why would non-promotion or "treated like shit" not trigger the negative consequences tptacek proposes? Would he and his fellow travelers not blow the whistle, quit or catcall their job ads?
What's perceived as discrimination varies. Society at large disapproves of discrimination, so everyone believes "it's not me". It's harder to pretend something as overt as a policy against hiring women is anything but discrimination, as opposed to "just having fun" or "random chance".
> What forms of discrimination does tptacek's argument not apply to?
Job ads that say let's bro down and crush some code? (Generally speaking if women are a small percentage of the applicant pool, it would almost certainly be the case that the optimal hiring funnel makes you more likely to hire a given man than a given woman.)
That would be discrimination on the part of the female applicants, not on the part of the employer. The woman is not hired because she chose not to apply, not because she was rejected by the employer's choice.
