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That's pretty cynical. This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. Because properly improving diversity means you're maki

by mrkurt 9y ago

That's pretty cynical. This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. Because properly improving diversity means you're making an environment that focuses less on "type of people" and more on "type of job". As an example, a lot of effort goes into a good interview process. When you work hard to minimize unconscious bias in interviews, you're making the interview process and criteria fit the actual job better. Bad interview processes select for people just like the interviewer, good interview processes select for the actual job and don't filter on tangential stuff.

maxxxxx 9y ago
I am a little cynical about the diversity efforts because I think they will maybe expand the favored groups a little but it's still OK to discriminate against a lot of other groups. I even wonder if we are removing some people from the "in" group and moving others in but in total the number of people that are "in" doesn't change that much.
- mrkurt 9y ago
  But what I'm saying is that most of the efforts, particularly the hiring / salary / perf eval related ones, are making the "in groups" matter less. I understand the cynicism, but the actual work people are putting in is much more nuanced than you'd expect from reading twitter or hn or the news. There's a reason that diversity appeals to companies, and it's not 100% morality. It's because diversity is an indicator that companies are doing better with HR. Fwiw, I'm actually someone working on this problem, and the changes we implemented improved the chances for every group you listed. That was not an accident, people who care about team performance worry about homogenous groups: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resume-1452025908 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resum...
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
> This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. A positive sum game can still result in losers. Imagine two players, both starting with 2 and 2 and ended up with -2 and 10. Not a zero sum game, but there is still a loser. Even if it makes things better on average, it can still be worse for select individuals. One example, as tech work places become more diverse, socially awkward people end up facing more trouble due to having to interact with a more diverse cast of individuals which involves an increasing scope of understanding of social interactions. If their own disadvantages are given no consideration, they end up worse off, and this can be even worse since their social awkwardness leads to a vastly smaller social support network to help them.

by mrkurt 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago

I am a little cynical about the diversity efforts because I think they will maybe expand the favored groups a little but it's still OK to discriminate against a lot of other groups. I even wonder if we are removing some people from the "in" group and moving others in but in total the number of people that are "in" doesn't change that much.

mrkurt 9y ago
But what I'm saying is that most of the efforts, particularly the hiring / salary / perf eval related ones, are making the "in groups" matter less. I understand the cynicism, but the actual work people are putting in is much more nuanced than you'd expect from reading twitter or hn or the news. There's a reason that diversity appeals to companies, and it's not 100% morality. It's because diversity is an indicator that companies are doing better with HR. Fwiw, I'm actually someone working on this problem, and the changes we implemented improved the chances for every group you listed. That was not an accident, people who care about team performance worry about homogenous groups: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resume-1452025908 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resum...

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

> This is not a zero sum game, improving diversity makes things better for everyone. A positive sum game can still result in losers. Imagine two players, both starting with 2 and 2 and ended up with -2 and 10. Not a zero sum game, but there is still a loser. Even if it makes things better on average, it can still be worse for select individuals. One example, as tech work places become more diverse, socially awkward people end up facing more trouble due to having to interact with a more diverse cast of individuals which involves an increasing scope of understanding of social interactions. If their own disadvantages are given no consideration, they end up worse off, and this can be even worse since their social awkwardness leads to a vastly smaller social support network to help them.