4 ms·

Really glad to see these trends, not only at Stanford, but other universities. Diversity in any field makes it richer.

eru 11y ago
> Diversity in any field makes it richer. In a testable way? I'm really interested to see which of diversity's claimed benefits hold up to scrutiny. Perfectly happy to see diversity as an end and not a means.
- reagency 11y ago
  Do some Googling for research papers and report back what you find
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Unfortunately finding a contrary result is a career limiting move. Consider Robert Putnam, who suppressed his research (showing that diversity harms social cohesion) for 6 years while trying to "develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity". http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007....
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      Here's the abstract from your link. A bit more complicated than your summary. Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        If you read the paper itself, it's basically empirical work describing the negative effects, followed by an essay claiming the positive ones. As I said - he spent 6 years looking for something to counter his empirical results, and published when he came up with it. Note also that I'm not strongly endorsing this work - I'm just pointing out the strong desire to not publish a result against diversity.
        kelukelugames 11y ago
        Thanks for explaining. I guess people are still wary since The Bell Curve.
    - brighteyes 11y ago
      I think it's obvious that diversity can be both good and bad. A team where everyone speaks a different language is very diverse, but not effective, since there is no communication. One in which they at least share some common language which for all of them is a second language, not with full fluency, would be able to function, but likely not as efficiently as one in which everyone speaks the same language as their mother tongue. And language can be just an analogy. Instead of language, imagine a cultural background of shared assumptions and experiences. A shared background can help avoid misunderstandings and speed up communication. At the same time, it's clear that diversity can help in many ways, avoiding single-mindedness, for example. If everyone has the same concepts and background, they might miss something important. For political reasons, people like to say that diversity is good, and it is indeed good in some ways. But that's far from the whole story. It would be better to not use "diversity is good for business" as a slogan, when there are other more valid reasons to fix issues with inclusion where they exist.
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        It's hardly clear to me that ethnic diversity helps in any way for most companies. Several people at my current company told me they were excited that I'd be providing diversity. I asked them what they thought that would bring them, and after pressing the issue I realized they had no clue. I have no clue either. Some unique perspectives I bring: I favor rigid APIs over close team communication, I favor Bayesian statistics over frequentist, and I'm working on convincing folks that the JVM is actually a great platform to deploy code on. Are these technical matters something that a certain ethnic group (different from mine) is uniquely single minded about? I've been the bringer of diversity for most of my career. And I can't think of a time when it's actually mattered.
        kelukelugames 11y ago
        It's good PR okay?!?! Makes us feel less guilty or something like that.
        brighteyes 11y ago
        I agree it might not help in all cases. But ethnic diversity can obviously help in marketing, assuming the target audience has multiple ethnicities, which is often the case. Aside from marketing, it might help less as you get more and more technical, but it might still help in areas in the "middle" like product design, etc.
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    This is not true. I'm tired of people confusing correlation with causation. The famous studies that people cite shows a correlation between women in senior management and profitability. It is entirely possible that the most competent women are attracted to the most profitable companies.
tomp 11y ago
Given the proportion of Asians in CS/programming, it's probably one of the most diverse industries. Don't fall into the feminist indoctrination that "diversity" only means women or that women are a minority.
- reagency 11y ago
  Having 1 or 2 races dominating the population doesn't make it racially diverse.
  - this2shallPass 11y ago
    It doesn't. Should we include Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Indian people in one bucket? What about those descended from European Jews- are they just white people? With a finer-tooth comb, it's more racially diverse than the prevailing dialogue indicates.
  - tomp 11y ago
    More racially diverse than other high-paying industries in the US, which I'm guessing sre mostly dominated by white people (except basketball).
    - artificial 11y ago
      As white people make up a significant portion of the population this just explains demographics more than anything. You might also correctly guess high-paying industries in Japan are dominated by Japanese people.
compostor42 11y ago
Does anybody else find it creepy when people say things like "diversity in any field makes it richer","diversity is our strength", etc... with a straight face? Very Orwellian. Honestly, who talks like this in real life besides some HR drone? Its like you have these canned, cliche lines programmed into your brain or something.

eru 11y ago

> Diversity in any field makes it richer. In a testable way? I'm really interested to see which of diversity's claimed benefits hold up to scrutiny. Perfectly happy to see diversity as an end and not a means.

reagency 11y ago
Do some Googling for research papers and report back what you find
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Unfortunately finding a contrary result is a career limiting move. Consider Robert Putnam, who suppressed his research (showing that diversity harms social cohesion) for 6 years while trying to "develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity". http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007....
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Here's the abstract from your link. A bit more complicated than your summary. Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      If you read the paper itself, it's basically empirical work describing the negative effects, followed by an essay claiming the positive ones. As I said - he spent 6 years looking for something to counter his empirical results, and published when he came up with it. Note also that I'm not strongly endorsing this work - I'm just pointing out the strong desire to not publish a result against diversity.
      - kelukelugames 11y ago
        Thanks for explaining. I guess people are still wary since The Bell Curve.
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    I think it's obvious that diversity can be both good and bad. A team where everyone speaks a different language is very diverse, but not effective, since there is no communication. One in which they at least share some common language which for all of them is a second language, not with full fluency, would be able to function, but likely not as efficiently as one in which everyone speaks the same language as their mother tongue. And language can be just an analogy. Instead of language, imagine a cultural background of shared assumptions and experiences. A shared background can help avoid misunderstandings and speed up communication. At the same time, it's clear that diversity can help in many ways, avoiding single-mindedness, for example. If everyone has the same concepts and background, they might miss something important. For political reasons, people like to say that diversity is good, and it is indeed good in some ways. But that's far from the whole story. It would be better to not use "diversity is good for business" as a slogan, when there are other more valid reasons to fix issues with inclusion where they exist.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      It's hardly clear to me that ethnic diversity helps in any way for most companies. Several people at my current company told me they were excited that I'd be providing diversity. I asked them what they thought that would bring them, and after pressing the issue I realized they had no clue. I have no clue either. Some unique perspectives I bring: I favor rigid APIs over close team communication, I favor Bayesian statistics over frequentist, and I'm working on convincing folks that the JVM is actually a great platform to deploy code on. Are these technical matters something that a certain ethnic group (different from mine) is uniquely single minded about? I've been the bringer of diversity for most of my career. And I can't think of a time when it's actually mattered.
      - kelukelugames 11y ago
        It's good PR okay?!?! Makes us feel less guilty or something like that.
      - brighteyes 11y ago
        I agree it might not help in all cases. But ethnic diversity can obviously help in marketing, assuming the target audience has multiple ethnicities, which is often the case. Aside from marketing, it might help less as you get more and more technical, but it might still help in areas in the "middle" like product design, etc.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  This is not true. I'm tired of people confusing correlation with causation. The famous studies that people cite shows a correlation between women in senior management and profitability. It is entirely possible that the most competent women are attracted to the most profitable companies.

tomp 11y ago

Given the proportion of Asians in CS/programming, it's probably one of the most diverse industries. Don't fall into the feminist indoctrination that "diversity" only means women or that women are a minority.

reagency 11y ago
Having 1 or 2 races dominating the population doesn't make it racially diverse.
- this2shallPass 11y ago
  It doesn't. Should we include Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Indian people in one bucket? What about those descended from European Jews- are they just white people? With a finer-tooth comb, it's more racially diverse than the prevailing dialogue indicates.
- tomp 11y ago
  More racially diverse than other high-paying industries in the US, which I'm guessing sre mostly dominated by white people (except basketball).
  - artificial 11y ago
    As white people make up a significant portion of the population this just explains demographics more than anything. You might also correctly guess high-paying industries in Japan are dominated by Japanese people.

compostor42 11y ago

Does anybody else find it creepy when people say things like "diversity in any field makes it richer","diversity is our strength", etc... with a straight face? Very Orwellian. Honestly, who talks like this in real life besides some HR drone? Its like you have these canned, cliche lines programmed into your brain or something.