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There's a difference between attempting to have a more diverse workforce and externally enforcing diversity. There are lots of places you can add to diversity

There's a difference between attempting to have a more diverse workforce and externally enforcing diversity. There are lots of places you can add to diversity without hurting anyone else's chances unfairly For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at the major Society of Women Engineers job fairs, is that discrimination? Men are only being hurt in that there are more people applying for the same positions. As another option, one could argue that there is a societal imbalance in the development of the talent pool, and attempt to correct that. If a company puts effort into encouraging women to go into engineering and, as an outcome, their pool of qualified applicants is more diverse, is that employment discrimination? What I'm saying is that a company can put effort into expanding the diversity of their employee base in ways other than strict quotas and hiring discrimination, and without lowering the standard of the employees they hire. Is that really so bad?

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
>For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at the major Society of Women Engineers job fairs, is that discrimination? Men are only being hurt in that there are more people applying for the same positions. Nobody would object to a company seeking candidates by turning over every rock out there. More power to you. The objection is using gender as a criteria in hiring decisions. >one could argue that there is a societal imbalance in the development of the talent pool, and attempt to correct that. But, it doesn't. It actually incentivizes keeping the imbalance because it guarantees advantage in outcome based on that imbalance in development of the talent pool. One shouldn't "attempt" something that affects lives in this significant way. You better be 100% sure about it. If there is doubt then fall back to individuality, not "group" think. >What I'm saying is that a company can put effort into expanding the diversity of their employee base in ways other than strict quotas and hiring discrimination, and without lowering the standard of the employees they hire. Is that really so bad? You haven't given an example of "expanding diversity" without "quotas". When you say you want to "expand", by definition you are not happy with existing representations and want to change it to another higher % point. That higher % is what I call quota. Let's imagine 70/30 split between women and men at Google. You would like it to be 50/50. You would like it to be 50/50 in five years. That means hiring has to be lopsided for next five years, may be 10/90 in favor of women to get to 50/50 in 5 years. Don't you think it is discriminatory to the male engineering students who are graduating in next 5 years? Should Google fire existing male employees to keep it fair to the students who are graduating in next 5 years?
tzs 9y ago
> For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at the major Society of Women Engineers job fairs, is that discrimination? Men are only being hurt in that there are more people applying for the same positions. That's how Caltech got from about 15% female undergraduates when I was there (early '80s) to 44% female nowadays. They treated qualified high school girls the way schools with big highly rated athletics programs treat star high school athletes. They would identify prospects, and then put a lot of effort into convincing them they wanted to come to Caltech. For boys you only got more than lukewarm recruitment attention if you looked like you might be the next Arthur Rubin or Peter Shor. The girls that did apply were judged using the same standards that were used for the boys, so they didn't have any advantage or disadvantage in actually getting admitted (except possibly in the case of ties...not sure how they handled those).
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  >They treated qualified high school girls the way schools with big highly rated athletics programs treat star high school athletes. They would identify prospects, and then put a lot of effort into convincing them they wanted to come to Caltech. Shouldn't motivation count? Shouldn't liking something, wanting something count? Would you do a good job if you don't like your job, think it was sold to you? Or, would you do a good job because you can't wait to go to job every morning? Isn't what you say exactly what Damore's claim is? It's not like Caltech was rejecting women, but that women were not chasing education at Caltech. It was their decision, their choice to not go to Caltech. They were making choices on their own that had impact on how numbers at Caltech panned out. It's good to advertise to new potential candidates to join the college. Has anyone spoken to women who joined Caltech only because of the hard sell that they did, later to drop out and do something else? Why can't we trust women to make the decision about their career? Amazon hired someone from car manufacturing to build the data centers. https://www.wired.com/2013/02/james-hamilton-amazon/ https://www.wired.com/2013/02/james-hamilton-amazon/ I can get behind that completely, it makes sense. Google wanting more of certain gender doesn't make sense to me.
  - 9y ago

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago

>For example, you can widen the diversity of your applicant pool by reaching out to the groups you want to increase. If a company makes sure to have a booth at the major Society of Women Engineers job fairs, is that discrimination? Men are only being hurt in that there are more people applying for the same positions. Nobody would object to a company seeking candidates by turning over every rock out there. More power to you. The objection is using gender as a criteria in hiring decisions. >one could argue that there is a societal imbalance in the development of the talent pool, and attempt to correct that. But, it doesn't. It actually incentivizes keeping the imbalance because it guarantees advantage in outcome based on that imbalance in development of the talent pool. One shouldn't "attempt" something that affects lives in this significant way. You better be 100% sure about it. If there is doubt then fall back to individuality, not "group" think. >What I'm saying is that a company can put effort into expanding the diversity of their employee base in ways other than strict quotas and hiring discrimination, and without lowering the standard of the employees they hire. Is that really so bad? You haven't given an example of "expanding diversity" without "quotas". When you say you want to "expand", by definition you are not happy with existing representations and want to change it to another higher % point. That higher % is what I call quota. Let's imagine 70/30 split between women and men at Google. You would like it to be 50/50. You would like it to be 50/50 in five years. That means hiring has to be lopsided for next five years, may be 10/90 in favor of women to get to 50/50 in 5 years. Don't you think it is discriminatory to the male engineering students who are graduating in next 5 years? Should Google fire existing male employees to keep it fair to the students who are graduating in next 5 years?

tzs 9y ago

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
>They treated qualified high school girls the way schools with big highly rated athletics programs treat star high school athletes. They would identify prospects, and then put a lot of effort into convincing them they wanted to come to Caltech. Shouldn't motivation count? Shouldn't liking something, wanting something count? Would you do a good job if you don't like your job, think it was sold to you? Or, would you do a good job because you can't wait to go to job every morning? Isn't what you say exactly what Damore's claim is? It's not like Caltech was rejecting women, but that women were not chasing education at Caltech. It was their decision, their choice to not go to Caltech. They were making choices on their own that had impact on how numbers at Caltech panned out. It's good to advertise to new potential candidates to join the college. Has anyone spoken to women who joined Caltech only because of the hard sell that they did, later to drop out and do something else? Why can't we trust women to make the decision about their career? Amazon hired someone from car manufacturing to build the data centers. https://www.wired.com/2013/02/james-hamilton-amazon/ https://www.wired.com/2013/02/james-hamilton-amazon/ I can get behind that completely, it makes sense. Google wanting more of certain gender doesn't make sense to me.
- 9y ago