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If you're pushing to have unqualified people on your board simply because they're women, your company will die. Aside from that, why strive if I know I have a g

If you're pushing to have unqualified people on your board simply because they're women, your company will die. Aside from that, why strive if I know I have a good chance of getting a position even without any kind of merit? Fucking hell, I want to be seen as more than just a disabled trans woman, I want people to look at the shit I've done and say "Wow, she's really awesome, let's hire her/accept her into our college", not "Wow, she's super oppressed! We can get grants if we do nice things for her!". Hiring me/accepting me based on "diversity" is the most patronizing thing you can fucking do. I don't need your help because I'm a minority, and viewing me as just a trans person instead of viewing me as a normal candidate is breaking me down to nothing but my identity, and that's transphobic as fuck.

threeseed 9y ago
a) I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. b) Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today. And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of the board and encouraging more diverse people to join the SLTs. c) Not sure what that rant at the end has to do with anything.
- voice_of_reason 9y ago
  Your virtue signaling feat has apparently failed
  - kybernetikos 9y ago
    This is a low effort comment that adds nothing to the conversation. The most generously I can interpret this is that you are claiming that the poster you are responding to does not authentically hold the views you disagree with. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, because if that's all you've got, it's a horrible way to argue and poisons debate. Apply it to yourself - a quick overview of these threads show that there are a lot of people who share your viewpoint, do you think that me claiming that you don't authentically hold those views and are only arguing them in order to get people to like you would be a good addition to the debate? Claiming that nobody could possibly have a genuine different opinion to you says more about you than about them.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  >I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. That's what being against meritocracy means. 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. >Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today Appeal to popularity is a fallacy > And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of the board and encouraging more diverse people to join the SLTs. Do you have citations for those? >Not sure what that rant at the end has to do with anything. Personal reasons, mainly. Just tired of being seen as nothing but a trans person. Yeah, it's part of me, but I hate when people make that my entire personality.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    >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.
    - concede_pluto 9y ago
      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.
      - pseudalopex 9y ago
        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-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/windows-10-automatically-sends-parents-detailed-dossier-of-their-childrens-internet-history-and-10472226.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
zzalpha 9y ago
Oh come on. Anyone seriously espousing the idealism of pure "meritocracy" needs to put aside their gradeschool naivete. Next you'll start quoting Anne Rand back to us. It's one of those ideas that sure sounds good... I mean, who can possibly argue with the idea that they should pick the best speakers with the best content? Until you actually think about it. What you fail to recognize is that, unless you can find me quantitative measures that can be used to determine a person's skill, meritocracy isn't about merit. It's about convincing fallible human beings of the level of merit. And that means running up against both conscious and unconscious cognitive bias. So the reality is, like it or not, if you want a fair shot in the professional world, you damn well do need the help of people fighting the good fight against personal and institutional bias. Hell, 20 or 30 years ago it's entirely possible you wouldn't have had a job at all if it weren't for the actions of people who came before you who understood this and fought for a more inclusive society and workplace. But it's rather easy to rail against policies like affirmative action when you've already benefited from them. It reminds me of anti-vaxxers who argue about the rarity of diseases to justify not getting inoculated, not realizing that that situation exists because people got vaccinated.
- cc81 9y ago
  In life in general sure but in cases like these a blind review process (that I think they used) should be good enough. I mean it is pretty odd that you would do a call for papers and pick out those you liked the most without knowing race or gender but then replace some just because it turns out they had the wrong gender/skin color/whatever.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - zzalpha 9y ago
    I mean it is pretty odd that you would do a call for papers and pick out those you liked the most without knowing race or gender but then replace some just because it turns out they had the wrong gender/skin color/whatever. It's actually totally understandable. Let me explain. The conference organizers clearly have diversity as a goal. In their naivete, they thought to themselves "we want equality for everyone! I know... let's just make this a pure meritocracy! Then there won't be bias and everyone will be happy!", and so they used a blind review process. Of course, it didn't dawn on them at the time that if you took a blind random sampling of programmers, had them write presentations, and then approved them, you'd end up with a lack of diversity because the industry itself has an almost comically absurd lack of diversity. So unless the average skill level of individuals in minority groups is extemely disproportionately higher than the average population (which rather contradicts the idea that race or gender don't impact skill), they would be poorly represented because they're poorly represented in our community in general. So after approving their blindly reviewed set of presentations, they realized, shoot, they have an alarming lack of diversity in their presentations (read the above two paragraphs again if you don't understand why). And so now they have to go back to the drawing board. All because they didn't understand population statistics.

threeseed 9y ago

a) I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. b) Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today. And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of the board and encouraging more diverse people to join the SLTs. c) Not sure what that rant at the end has to do with anything.

voice_of_reason 9y ago
Your virtue signaling feat has apparently failed
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  This is a low effort comment that adds nothing to the conversation. The most generously I can interpret this is that you are claiming that the poster you are responding to does not authentically hold the views you disagree with. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, because if that's all you've got, it's a horrible way to argue and poisons debate. Apply it to yourself - a quick overview of these threads show that there are a lot of people who share your viewpoint, do you think that me claiming that you don't authentically hold those views and are only arguing them in order to get people to like you would be a good addition to the debate? Claiming that nobody could possibly have a genuine different opinion to you says more about you than about them.
PrimHelios 9y ago
>I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. That's what being against meritocracy means. 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. >Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today Appeal to popularity is a fallacy > And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of the board and encouraging more diverse people to join the SLTs. Do you have citations for those? >Not sure what that rant at the end has to do with anything. Personal reasons, mainly. Just tired of being seen as nothing but a trans person. Yeah, it's part of me, but I hate when people make that my entire personality.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  >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.
  - concede_pluto 9y ago
    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.
    - pseudalopex 9y ago
      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-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/windows-10-automatically-sends-parents-detailed-dossier-of-their-childrens-internet-history-and-10472226.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

zzalpha 9y ago

Oh come on. Anyone seriously espousing the idealism of pure "meritocracy" needs to put aside their gradeschool naivete. Next you'll start quoting Anne Rand back to us. It's one of those ideas that sure sounds good... I mean, who can possibly argue with the idea that they should pick the best speakers with the best content? Until you actually think about it. What you fail to recognize is that, unless you can find me quantitative measures that can be used to determine a person's skill, meritocracy isn't about merit. It's about convincing fallible human beings of the level of merit. And that means running up against both conscious and unconscious cognitive bias. So the reality is, like it or not, if you want a fair shot in the professional world, you damn well do need the help of people fighting the good fight against personal and institutional bias. Hell, 20 or 30 years ago it's entirely possible you wouldn't have had a job at all if it weren't for the actions of people who came before you who understood this and fought for a more inclusive society and workplace. But it's rather easy to rail against policies like affirmative action when you've already benefited from them. It reminds me of anti-vaxxers who argue about the rarity of diseases to justify not getting inoculated, not realizing that that situation exists because people got vaccinated.

cc81 9y ago
In life in general sure but in cases like these a blind review process (that I think they used) should be good enough. I mean it is pretty odd that you would do a call for papers and pick out those you liked the most without knowing race or gender but then replace some just because it turns out they had the wrong gender/skin color/whatever.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zzalpha 9y ago
  I mean it is pretty odd that you would do a call for papers and pick out those you liked the most without knowing race or gender but then replace some just because it turns out they had the wrong gender/skin color/whatever. It's actually totally understandable. Let me explain. The conference organizers clearly have diversity as a goal. In their naivete, they thought to themselves "we want equality for everyone! I know... let's just make this a pure meritocracy! Then there won't be bias and everyone will be happy!", and so they used a blind review process. Of course, it didn't dawn on them at the time that if you took a blind random sampling of programmers, had them write presentations, and then approved them, you'd end up with a lack of diversity because the industry itself has an almost comically absurd lack of diversity. So unless the average skill level of individuals in minority groups is extemely disproportionately higher than the average population (which rather contradicts the idea that race or gender don't impact skill), they would be poorly represented because they're poorly represented in our community in general. So after approving their blindly reviewed set of presentations, they realized, shoot, they have an alarming lack of diversity in their presentations (read the above two paragraphs again if you don't understand why). And so now they have to go back to the drawing board. All because they didn't understand population statistics.