3 ms·

How do you define diversity? What are you even measuring? Am I diverse because I’m left handed or does it have to be about skin colour, gender and sexual prefer

How do you define diversity? What are you even measuring? Am I diverse because I’m left handed or does it have to be about skin colour, gender and sexual preferences?

jeffreyrogers 8y ago
I think I see where you're going with this, and it's not really a discussion I'm interested in getting involved with because any time I've seen a discussion about whether and what diversity matters it devolves into the two sides talking past each other. On the one side you have people arguing that personality traits are unevenly distributed through the population so pursuing diversity is not worthwhile since the existing state of things already reflects people's ability to do the required work. On the other hand you have people arguing that systemic oppression prevents minority groups from being represented in proportion to their abilities. Whichever side is right is largely irrelevant to the point I was making, which is that even if you care about diversity, there aren't really effective ways to increase it besides affirmative action style policies. I might be wrong about this, but I have not seen evidence of other diversity policies that are actually effective.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  > there aren't really effective ways to increase it besides affirmative action style policies I think it depends on how broadly you define "affirmative action style policies", i.e. if you say that encompasses anything that helps one group more than others, then sure, but if your comment is more about quotas/preferential selection I think there are plenty of policies that exist. Assuming you do mean the latter, some examples I have seen implemented include: more flexible work environments, interview coaching for diverse candidates, outreach to diverse groups to ensure that they actually apply at the rates that they exist in the pipeline.
  - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    By affirmative action I just mean policies that apply lower hiring standards for certain groups. I have seen those examples too, but I don't believe they are very effective in practice.

How do you define diversity? What are you even measuring? Am I diverse because I’m left handed or does it have to be about skin colour, gender and sexual preferences?

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

I think I see where you're going with this, and it's not really a discussion I'm interested in getting involved with because any time I've seen a discussion about whether and what diversity matters it devolves into the two sides talking past each other. On the one side you have people arguing that personality traits are unevenly distributed through the population so pursuing diversity is not worthwhile since the existing state of things already reflects people's ability to do the required work. On the other hand you have people arguing that systemic oppression prevents minority groups from being represented in proportion to their abilities. Whichever side is right is largely irrelevant to the point I was making, which is that even if you care about diversity, there aren't really effective ways to increase it besides affirmative action style policies. I might be wrong about this, but I have not seen evidence of other diversity policies that are actually effective.

Eridrus 8y ago
> there aren't really effective ways to increase it besides affirmative action style policies I think it depends on how broadly you define "affirmative action style policies", i.e. if you say that encompasses anything that helps one group more than others, then sure, but if your comment is more about quotas/preferential selection I think there are plenty of policies that exist. Assuming you do mean the latter, some examples I have seen implemented include: more flexible work environments, interview coaching for diverse candidates, outreach to diverse groups to ensure that they actually apply at the rates that they exist in the pipeline.
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  By affirmative action I just mean policies that apply lower hiring standards for certain groups. I have seen those examples too, but I don't believe they are very effective in practice.