6 ms·

Or maybe actually rethink it, and question whether diversity is a universal good or one value among many that comes with trade offs.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mlloyd 9y ago
Probably wouldn't say this if you were underrepresented.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  Yeah, people seem to be more sympathetic to plights they've experienced themselves. Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the overall society needs to solve.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the overall society needs to solve. What if societies could work on solving multiple problems at once?
    - ipsocannibal 9y ago
      Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a society to solve problems is not infinite. Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems "because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition.
      - mcphage 9y ago
        > Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a society to solve problems is not infinite. Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with. > Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems "because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition. It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a subset of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving them.
        ipsocannibal 9y ago
        > Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with. True, yet I think we can agree that some problems are more easily solvable than others. Likewise, solving some problems will have greater positive impact on society as a whole than others. Therefore, it's probably a good idea to have some type of estimation strategy for determining the above stated properties of societal problems. > It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a subset of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving them. Then what you are describing is not a societial problem. I can define any individual as a subset of a society. That does not make that individual's problems societal. Expand your subset to include 0.05% of the population, their problems still are not societal. I would say there is some critical mass of people that must experience a problem before it becomes a societal problem. What that proportion is I do not know. Furthermore, there are ways to solve problems for one subset of people by damaging another subset of people. Example, slavery. In these cases I don't think you have actually solved a societal problem. You've caused one. I would claim this is the case for the "diversity" issue. A small set of "experts" have determined based on little to no evidence that for a certain set of job roles the proportions of people in said roles must reflect some vagued idealized ratios based upon superficial biological characteristics. In order to address the "problem" that the current propotionality of members in these job roles do not reflect their ideal a public smear campaign is unleashed in order to threaten non-compliant organizations into instituting exclusionary hiring policies and moralistic internal propaganda campaigns.
        mcphage 9y ago
        > I would say there is some critical mass of people that must experience a problem before it becomes a societal problem. What that proportion is I do not know. Good idea... let’s use it to evaluate diversity programs. Well, it’ll help women, which is roughly 50%. And black males (since we’ve already included women), another 6%. That’s pretty good! Does your “critical mass” include 175 million people, do you think?
tdb7893 9y ago
From a practical standpoint it's good for teams to be diverse and inclusive (it raises effectiveness, increases the talent pool, etc...) but also from a more philosophical point of view diversity and inclusion are necessary for an actual meritocracy as it's hard to say you have a true meritocracy when some people are hampered unnecessarily by cultural differences. The problem is that some people take "diversity initiatives" too far and it ends up being counterproductive (like agile and TDD and all that).
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  Seems to me that requiring, rather than simply allowing, a team to be diverse actually restricts the talent pool. That is, it reduces the number of viable teams one can form from a population. And if you have an existing team you need to grow, it can rule out some candidates.
  - pooya13 9y ago
    True. But if we want to break a feedback loop and exit a local minimum in hopes of reaching a global minimum it might be needed to force diversity out of the local minimum for a period before letting it to naturally settle.
  - Hnrobert42 9y ago
    I understand your position I agree with it in theory. In practice, that’s not how things work. If it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. In practice, simply “allowing” for diversity doesn’t work. The only way to reach diversity goals is to actively include people. So long as those people are qualified, I am okay if the cost is missing out on a slightly more qualified candidate. Not least of which because horing isn’t an exact science in which qualifications are completely measurable and all possible candidates are always considered. Again, reality is messy. So a few white dudes (such as myself) might not get a job because of a quota. Big deal. If I am such hot shit that I definitely should have gotten the job, then I won’t have a problem getting a job elsewhere.
    - 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mlloyd 9y ago

Probably wouldn't say this if you were underrepresented.

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
Yeah, people seem to be more sympathetic to plights they've experienced themselves. Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the overall society needs to solve.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the overall society needs to solve. What if societies could work on solving multiple problems at once?
  - ipsocannibal 9y ago
    Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a society to solve problems is not infinite. Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems "because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      > Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a society to solve problems is not infinite. Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with. > Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems "because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition. It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a subset of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving them.
      - ipsocannibal 9y ago
        > Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with. True, yet I think we can agree that some problems are more easily solvable than others. Likewise, solving some problems will have greater positive impact on society as a whole than others. Therefore, it's probably a good idea to have some type of estimation strategy for determining the above stated properties of societal problems. > It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a subset of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving them. Then what you are describing is not a societial problem. I can define any individual as a subset of a society. That does not make that individual's problems societal. Expand your subset to include 0.05% of the population, their problems still are not societal. I would say there is some critical mass of people that must experience a problem before it becomes a societal problem. What that proportion is I do not know. Furthermore, there are ways to solve problems for one subset of people by damaging another subset of people. Example, slavery. In these cases I don't think you have actually solved a societal problem. You've caused one. I would claim this is the case for the "diversity" issue. A small set of "experts" have determined based on little to no evidence that for a certain set of job roles the proportions of people in said roles must reflect some vagued idealized ratios based upon superficial biological characteristics. In order to address the "problem" that the current propotionality of members in these job roles do not reflect their ideal a public smear campaign is unleashed in order to threaten non-compliant organizations into instituting exclusionary hiring policies and moralistic internal propaganda campaigns.
        mcphage 9y ago
        > I would say there is some critical mass of people that must experience a problem before it becomes a societal problem. What that proportion is I do not know. Good idea... let’s use it to evaluate diversity programs. Well, it’ll help women, which is roughly 50%. And black males (since we’ve already included women), another 6%. That’s pretty good! Does your “critical mass” include 175 million people, do you think?

tdb7893 9y ago

From a practical standpoint it's good for teams to be diverse and inclusive (it raises effectiveness, increases the talent pool, etc...) but also from a more philosophical point of view diversity and inclusion are necessary for an actual meritocracy as it's hard to say you have a true meritocracy when some people are hampered unnecessarily by cultural differences. The problem is that some people take "diversity initiatives" too far and it ends up being counterproductive (like agile and TDD and all that).

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
Seems to me that requiring, rather than simply allowing, a team to be diverse actually restricts the talent pool. That is, it reduces the number of viable teams one can form from a population. And if you have an existing team you need to grow, it can rule out some candidates.
- pooya13 9y ago
  True. But if we want to break a feedback loop and exit a local minimum in hopes of reaching a global minimum it might be needed to force diversity out of the local minimum for a period before letting it to naturally settle.
- Hnrobert42 9y ago
  I understand your position I agree with it in theory. In practice, that’s not how things work. If it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. In practice, simply “allowing” for diversity doesn’t work. The only way to reach diversity goals is to actively include people. So long as those people are qualified, I am okay if the cost is missing out on a slightly more qualified candidate. Not least of which because horing isn’t an exact science in which qualifications are completely measurable and all possible candidates are always considered. Again, reality is messy. So a few white dudes (such as myself) might not get a job because of a quota. Big deal. If I am such hot shit that I definitely should have gotten the job, then I won’t have a problem getting a job elsewhere.
  - 9y ago