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> Why are companies promoting "pride"...telling workers to attend 'lgbt tolerance' meetings,etc... Wth!!!! You ask this question, then answer it in your very n

> Why are companies promoting "pride"...telling workers to attend 'lgbt tolerance' meetings,etc... Wth!!!! You ask this question, then answer it in your very next line. People don't respect everyone. They are intolerant.

ericdykstra 8y ago
If an employee is harassing or demeaning their coworker based on their beliefs, that's enough grounds to fire an employee. Is there any evidence that promoting "pride" and "lgbt tolerance" makes employees treat each other well in cases where they otherwise wouldn't have?
- austinheap 8y ago
  From Harvard Business Review: "Results from our experiment involving 118 undergraduate students showed that taking the perspective of LGBT individuals or racial minorities — by writing a few sentences imagining the distinct challenges a marginalized minority might face — can improve pro-diversity attitudes and behavioral intentions toward these groups." https://hbr.org/2017/07/two-types-of-diversity-training-that-really-work https://hbr.org/2017/07/two-types-of-diversity-training-that...
  - badrabbit 8y ago
    You shouldn't be tolerated or respectes as a result of your 'race' or 'sexuality'. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
  - ericdykstra 8y ago
    A small sample of students taking a survey isn't very convincing evidence.
    - wwweston 8y ago
      It's certainly not total evidence, and I rather imagine there are limits to the effect if it exists at all. But 118 students isn't that small of a sample (if I'm picking a methodological criticism, it'd be that it's a sample of college students rather than the general population). And the exercise seems reasonably likely to provide some of the reported effect, and those effects fit with other studies that hold reading/writing fiction improves people's ability to model others better and some degree of empathy.
    - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
      And yet you can't provide any counter evidence.
      - ericdykstra 8y ago
        The burden of proof for efficacy is on the ones dragging employees into mandatory meetings about non-work-related material. But just for fun, here's another HBR article that shows that "the three most popular interventions make firms less diverse." https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail
    - mlevental 8y ago
      you asked if there was any evidence and then when evidence was given you dismissed it. do you know what the word "any" means? also this is argument in bad faith (asking for evidence and then discounting validity).
      - ericdykstra 8y ago
        It's bad faith to ask for evidence, then when provided with bad evidence, to say that it's bad? I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that diversity training does anything but shield companies from lawsuits to some extent.
        mlevental 8y ago
        >haven't found any compelling evidence you really don't see how this is circular? how do you feel about this paraphrasing of climate change denial? "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that climate change is an anthropogenically driven process." or this one of heliocentrism "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that the sun is at the center of the solar system." or this one of "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that the earth is round." you get my point? "compelling" is personal.
        ericdykstra 8y ago
        You're comparing apples and oranges. What we know about our ball earth and heliocentrism are as close to solved science as it gets. I don't know much about climate change theory, but for the purposes of this conversation let's just say it's less settled than heliocentrism (we know and can predict patterns of the Earth's movement around the sun into the far future with great accuracy, but there is no such accuracy with prediction of climate change). But you compare those to diversity training efficacy, which has no empirical evidence, and the controlled studies examining effects have conflicting results. This is just not an honest comparison at all. I dismissed your study because it literally doesn't tell me anything about the real world, not because I hand-waive anything that I don't agree with. Would you change any of your own life habits based on how 100 college kids subjectively reported on their feelings? It's ridiculous to compare the amount of information that kind of study tells us to the astounding accuracy of how our heliocentric model of the solar system can and has predicted where and when solar eclipses will happen down to the minute.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  >If an employee is harassing or demeaning their coworker based on their beliefs, What does beliefs mean to you? Beliefs cast a very wide net. Is there no point at which a coworker should be cast out? Perhaps it is their religious belief that women should not be allowed to work. May such a person remain? Are we not to push back?
  - ericdykstra 8y ago
    If a religious man believes women should not be allowed to work, why would he join a company that hires women in the first place? If he does, anyway, does it matter what he believes if he treats his coworkers (male and female) with respect anyway? If the belief doesn't manifest itself in negative actions, I don't really care what's going on in his head.
- guipsp 8y ago
  It would certainly ward off some employees that don't agree with the values being promoted (a good thing!).
- evil-olive 8y ago
  It's not black & white. There isn't just "acceptable behavior" and then "behavior so bad you should be fired on the spot for a first offense". There is a large grey area in between of behavior that might be inappropriate, depending on context, or that might be problematic but easy to correct by saying "here's why that's bad, don't do it again". To think of it another way - you'll get fired for sexual harassment, but companies still give mandatory training about what exactly sexual harassment is and how to avoid it. Why should this be any different?
  - ericdykstra 8y ago
    Companies give mandatory training for sexual harassment and diversity because it's either a legal requirement or a preemptive legal defense against lawsuits.
badrabbit 8y ago
Why is disrespecting or demeaning a coworker for any reason allowed? If I disrespect you because your haircut is unfashionable,would that be ok? If the meeting was about supporting neo-nazis ,would that not be saying the conmpany tolerates neo-nazis and does not welcome those who hate neo-nazism? Yet, you should respect your neo-nazi coworker,even if you were not told so.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  It seems there are many valid reasons to disrespect a coworker, and being a neo-nazi is one of them. You cannot hide a violent philosophy behind a shield of "it is my beliefs". None of us shall ever accept it. If it becomes the law that I must accept neo nazis, I still will not.
  - badrabbit 8y ago
    No,they are your coworker. Period. They're not your friend. They are not promoting neo-nazi beliefs at work or direspecting other coworkers,what business of yours is their neo-nazi activity? Peace has a price.
    - casiotone 8y ago
      Pathetic. Their neo Nazi activity is my business because it’s infecting my community, it’s beating members of my community up and leaving them dying in the street. It’s making my community unsafe for people who have done nothing wrong. This capitulation of yours to dangerous, vicious belief systems is beneath contempt. We fight intolerance because it is never benign. It does not affect you but it affects others and you are willing to turn a blind eye and pretend everything is fine, because when YOU walk home, nobody is going to stomp your head into a curb.
    - woodruffw 8y ago
      It's my business because, should they have it their way, I wouldn't be alive. Asking people to be tolerant of ideologies that pose an existential threat is contradictory at best.
dang 8y ago
That's much too shallow, generic, and flamebaity a tangent to lead anywhere other than a stupid ideological flamewar, which is what we got. Ideological flamewars are stupid, even if the people contributing to them are smart. They're also repetitive, which makes them off topic here. So could you please not post like this again to HN? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864365 and marked it off-topic.

ericdykstra 8y ago

If an employee is harassing or demeaning their coworker based on their beliefs, that's enough grounds to fire an employee. Is there any evidence that promoting "pride" and "lgbt tolerance" makes employees treat each other well in cases where they otherwise wouldn't have?

austinheap 8y ago
From Harvard Business Review: "Results from our experiment involving 118 undergraduate students showed that taking the perspective of LGBT individuals or racial minorities — by writing a few sentences imagining the distinct challenges a marginalized minority might face — can improve pro-diversity attitudes and behavioral intentions toward these groups." https://hbr.org/2017/07/two-types-of-diversity-training-that-really-work https://hbr.org/2017/07/two-types-of-diversity-training-that...
- badrabbit 8y ago
  You shouldn't be tolerated or respectes as a result of your 'race' or 'sexuality'. Don't miss the forest for the trees.
- ericdykstra 8y ago
  A small sample of students taking a survey isn't very convincing evidence.
  - wwweston 8y ago
    It's certainly not total evidence, and I rather imagine there are limits to the effect if it exists at all. But 118 students isn't that small of a sample (if I'm picking a methodological criticism, it'd be that it's a sample of college students rather than the general population). And the exercise seems reasonably likely to provide some of the reported effect, and those effects fit with other studies that hold reading/writing fiction improves people's ability to model others better and some degree of empathy.
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    And yet you can't provide any counter evidence.
    - ericdykstra 8y ago
      The burden of proof for efficacy is on the ones dragging employees into mandatory meetings about non-work-related material. But just for fun, here's another HBR article that shows that "the three most popular interventions make firms less diverse." https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail
  - mlevental 8y ago
    you asked if there was any evidence and then when evidence was given you dismissed it. do you know what the word "any" means? also this is argument in bad faith (asking for evidence and then discounting validity).
    - ericdykstra 8y ago
      It's bad faith to ask for evidence, then when provided with bad evidence, to say that it's bad? I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that diversity training does anything but shield companies from lawsuits to some extent.
      - mlevental 8y ago
        >haven't found any compelling evidence you really don't see how this is circular? how do you feel about this paraphrasing of climate change denial? "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that climate change is an anthropogenically driven process." or this one of heliocentrism "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that the sun is at the center of the solar system." or this one of "I've read a good amount of the literature on this subject, and haven't found any compelling evidence that the earth is round." you get my point? "compelling" is personal.
        ericdykstra 8y ago
        You're comparing apples and oranges. What we know about our ball earth and heliocentrism are as close to solved science as it gets. I don't know much about climate change theory, but for the purposes of this conversation let's just say it's less settled than heliocentrism (we know and can predict patterns of the Earth's movement around the sun into the far future with great accuracy, but there is no such accuracy with prediction of climate change). But you compare those to diversity training efficacy, which has no empirical evidence, and the controlled studies examining effects have conflicting results. This is just not an honest comparison at all. I dismissed your study because it literally doesn't tell me anything about the real world, not because I hand-waive anything that I don't agree with. Would you change any of your own life habits based on how 100 college kids subjectively reported on their feelings? It's ridiculous to compare the amount of information that kind of study tells us to the astounding accuracy of how our heliocentric model of the solar system can and has predicted where and when solar eclipses will happen down to the minute.
gameswithgo 8y ago
>If an employee is harassing or demeaning their coworker based on their beliefs, What does beliefs mean to you? Beliefs cast a very wide net. Is there no point at which a coworker should be cast out? Perhaps it is their religious belief that women should not be allowed to work. May such a person remain? Are we not to push back?
- ericdykstra 8y ago
  If a religious man believes women should not be allowed to work, why would he join a company that hires women in the first place? If he does, anyway, does it matter what he believes if he treats his coworkers (male and female) with respect anyway? If the belief doesn't manifest itself in negative actions, I don't really care what's going on in his head.
guipsp 8y ago
It would certainly ward off some employees that don't agree with the values being promoted (a good thing!).
evil-olive 8y ago
It's not black & white. There isn't just "acceptable behavior" and then "behavior so bad you should be fired on the spot for a first offense". There is a large grey area in between of behavior that might be inappropriate, depending on context, or that might be problematic but easy to correct by saying "here's why that's bad, don't do it again". To think of it another way - you'll get fired for sexual harassment, but companies still give mandatory training about what exactly sexual harassment is and how to avoid it. Why should this be any different?
- ericdykstra 8y ago
  Companies give mandatory training for sexual harassment and diversity because it's either a legal requirement or a preemptive legal defense against lawsuits.

badrabbit 8y ago

Why is disrespecting or demeaning a coworker for any reason allowed? If I disrespect you because your haircut is unfashionable,would that be ok? If the meeting was about supporting neo-nazis ,would that not be saying the conmpany tolerates neo-nazis and does not welcome those who hate neo-nazism? Yet, you should respect your neo-nazi coworker,even if you were not told so.

gameswithgo 8y ago
It seems there are many valid reasons to disrespect a coworker, and being a neo-nazi is one of them. You cannot hide a violent philosophy behind a shield of "it is my beliefs". None of us shall ever accept it. If it becomes the law that I must accept neo nazis, I still will not.
- badrabbit 8y ago
  No,they are your coworker. Period. They're not your friend. They are not promoting neo-nazi beliefs at work or direspecting other coworkers,what business of yours is their neo-nazi activity? Peace has a price.
  - casiotone 8y ago
    Pathetic. Their neo Nazi activity is my business because it’s infecting my community, it’s beating members of my community up and leaving them dying in the street. It’s making my community unsafe for people who have done nothing wrong. This capitulation of yours to dangerous, vicious belief systems is beneath contempt. We fight intolerance because it is never benign. It does not affect you but it affects others and you are willing to turn a blind eye and pretend everything is fine, because when YOU walk home, nobody is going to stomp your head into a curb.
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    It's my business because, should they have it their way, I wouldn't be alive. Asking people to be tolerant of ideologies that pose an existential threat is contradictory at best.

dang 8y ago

That's much too shallow, generic, and flamebaity a tangent to lead anywhere other than a stupid ideological flamewar, which is what we got. Ideological flamewars are stupid, even if the people contributing to them are smart. They're also repetitive, which makes them off topic here. So could you please not post like this again to HN? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864365 and marked it off-topic.