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> due to culture they avoid it And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. > Creating

> due to culture they avoid it And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. > Creating groups of people by what I consider irrelevant details > ensure that children who are interested in STEM can follow it, regardless of gender People massively underestimate the importance of role models and empathy in career decision making. At some point you need to jump start it and use contextual signs to plot future potential. We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success. I'm expecting this line of argument to get me downvotes on HN, but contextual recruitment, and that increasing levels of diversity on all teams being a good thing (even if it means, within a few percentage points, hiring for potential than current expertise), is a fairly uncontroversial thing in the world of recruitment.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
I'd say if you have two people that are in the same ballpark technically but one is from a disadvantaged background, that one probably showed more grit to get where they are and will be a better producer. So I'm with you there. But that's still about hiring the best person. What I can't get behind is the idea that making blatant 'diversity hires' is going to fix broader societal problems.
- wastedhours 8y ago
  Again, someone makes a much better TL;DR of my point :) I'd say though that your second point is actually part of the first, the desire to look for and help those from disadvantaged backgrounds is really just a sourcing strategy to find that "best person". Quota filling and box ticking isn't good for anyone and that's a BS strategy any way you look at it. But if you're in it for the right reasons and the candidate's in the right ballpark, is capable, and can also serve as a role model to attract more people like them - it's a win-win. Especially in tech, recruitment pipelines across the board are so screwed if we only limit ourselves to attracting white, middle class, men as the need for knowledge workers booms. Just to fill future jobs we're going to need people from across the spectrum to feel as they though should be heading for those roles.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then? I hope you're not under any illusion that this is anything other than racist and sexist. IMO you don't defeat racism and sexism by deciding to be racist and sexist.
    - wastedhours 8y ago
      > So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then? Erm, no. My points, to avoid confusion: 1) contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success. That's not any more discriminatory than putting a mental weight to a particular university someone studied at, and is the basis for pretty much every "best practice" recruitment process out there. 2) we need white, middle class men, + a load more other people as well. How is that not clear?
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        >contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success // Now you're bullshitting, you've just decided that all people who aren't middle-class white males are inferior, and based it solely on those characteristics. It seems like, in common with many that you hold to an idea of "positive discrimination", that's what your comment attests to at least. That's still discrimination, if you select on race/sex when it's not relevant then that's racism/sexism. Many people, the majority it seems, are fine with that. We don't need white middle class men at all, we need people [who can perform job roles]. Those people have a sex and colour, for sure, but that's (mostly) entirely irrelevant to their worth/suitability.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  The problem there is people then assume "X && Y == not disadvantaged" because they already have their quota of people with those characteristics, hence discriminating against that student purely based on X and Y.
asdkhadsj 8y ago
> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. That's fair, and I understand that solutions to social problems are complex and hard to quantify. I certainly do not know the solutions. Yet, if we hire based on skin color, we are by definition not hiring by skill, talent, interests, etc. This also will inherently breed resentment and cause issues, but perhaps that's an accepted cost by your measure. My concern is that this method of solving the culture issue will cause more problems than solve. Ie, maybe the next generation contains more women who are honestly interested in STEM, and pursue it; Great! But it got there on the backs of, by definition, unqualified women in STEM. That alone has to breed a culture of women not being equal to men in STEM, because we spent the last X years hiring by gender and skin color, rather than purely by merit. Do you disagree with these sentiments? I feel your solution is a possible solution, but with multiple, possibly worse, downsides.
- wastedhours 8y ago
  I do disagree to the extent that the role models for men in STEM are borne out of the same, unfair, cycle. [0] We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that? I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates. [0] am intrinsically aware of my own position, being a white male, but I do work in a sector looking at a different form of inequality so have some context as to the issue.
  - asdkhadsj 8y ago
    Sidenote, I appreciate your viewpoints to this complex subject and that we're able to discuss it calmly. These things can boil out of control even if you try to be as gentle as possible. > We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that? That's a fair example. Today? Likely not. The 1st generation however? I imagine plenty of women/etc felt resentment towards men for being unfairly chosen in the market. I mean, that's why were discussing this now - right? There's a group of people that some claim are being chosen for unethical reasons.. of sorts. > I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates. Yea, and I'm not trying to straw man here about hairdresser/rocket-science bit. I just mean that, the moment we stop choosing based on criteria that matter to the subject (skill/talent/etc), and instead choose on criteria that matter to a 3rd party subject (skin color/etc), we cause new problems. We may solve problems, but we also cause problems. As an easy example; I think this whole conversation would be far less common if everyone, and I do mean everyone, believed that hiring was truly always based on color/gender/etc blind skill, ethic, etc. If we believed that hiring truly had no bias towards white-males, then by forcing "other" people into it would inherently be hiring less qualified individuals. This would be done with goal of spawning a new generation of children who are more attracted to STEM, but my point is, there is a cost now. So I think we'd need to be very sure that we're acknowledging the costs now and if they're worth a perceived gain in the future. Another HN user[1] had a really interesting viewpoint too, about another country. His/her example really highlighted why I'm even unsure that shoehorning more women into X field is really an effective approach. Likewise, if we're going to discuss this I think we also need to discuss historically women driven industries, and need to force less women working there and more men working there. Culturally there are a many professions that are heavily dominated by one gender. Yet we're only talking about STEM, for example. As with all of this, lets be equal. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17918184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17918184
emodendroket 8y ago
> We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success. Honestly, we are even talking about making way for someone of equal, or even higher, raw talent but of a different background. To say otherwise takes the (in my opinion obviously not justified) premise that without any intervention hiring functions as a perfect meritocracy.
- wastedhours 8y ago
  I think you're agreeing with me?
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I mostly agree but I'm saying you're understating the case by accepting the AA opponent's false premise that AA means accepting objectively worse "diversity hires."
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  That is where I take issue. You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based off those two things. You don't know if you are looking at a wealthy black kid, or a poor white kid, you don't know which house hold had a dysfunctional abusive situation based off skin or gender. You can't tell which one was made fun of in school and bullied. You can't even say which one had actually had more exposure to whatever field you are hiring for. You just can't, that is not how it works. You are being racist and sexist if you make assumptions about a individual based off their skin color or gender. How all the sudden you know somebodies background because you have negative views about what it must have been like to be born a certain color or gender. And don't tell me that you are not doing that, otherwise you would be using some other metric than gender or color to suggest the things you are suggesting. I would be furious if I just got done interviewing with you and you thought I had high raw talent because of my skin color or gender. I have said many times when this topic comes up. If you really want to make change you have to do so at the beginning of the pipe line, when the kids are young. Support for low income single parent family's (any race). Ensure the environment is well suited for girls to take part in tech activities (e.g. treat everybody the same). I don't buy the "needs roll models" argument at all. Kids / people are either going to like program or not. And if the problems is "there are too many dudes" in tech then maybe we should all stop vilifying the men in tech and create environments where both sexes can learn to calibrate and work together. After reading stuff from vice, and the like no wonder girls/women would be terrified to work with men. tl;dr Do everybody a favor and stop imagining how disadvantage somebody is based off their skin color, or gender, you really have no clue.
manfredo 8y ago
> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. This is not always the case. I attended part of high school at a private school that practiced aggressive affirmative action. The result was that students quickly realized the gulf in academic caliber between most of the recipients of affirmative action and high performing students avoided working with them. Not only did it fail to rectify racist assumptions, it actually reinforced them by creating an environment where these assumptions held true. Affirmative action in the workplace risks playing out the same way. I'm definitely in favor of affirmative action in the form of more heavily recruiting at women's conferences, historically black universities, etc. but actually hiring candidates based on identity who would otherwise not be extended an offer certainly is a controversial practice - even in highly liberal places like Silicon Valley.

yourbandsucks 8y ago

I'd say if you have two people that are in the same ballpark technically but one is from a disadvantaged background, that one probably showed more grit to get where they are and will be a better producer. So I'm with you there. But that's still about hiring the best person. What I can't get behind is the idea that making blatant 'diversity hires' is going to fix broader societal problems.

wastedhours 8y ago
Again, someone makes a much better TL;DR of my point :) I'd say though that your second point is actually part of the first, the desire to look for and help those from disadvantaged backgrounds is really just a sourcing strategy to find that "best person". Quota filling and box ticking isn't good for anyone and that's a BS strategy any way you look at it. But if you're in it for the right reasons and the candidate's in the right ballpark, is capable, and can also serve as a role model to attract more people like them - it's a win-win. Especially in tech, recruitment pipelines across the board are so screwed if we only limit ourselves to attracting white, middle class, men as the need for knowledge workers booms. Just to fill future jobs we're going to need people from across the spectrum to feel as they though should be heading for those roles.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then? I hope you're not under any illusion that this is anything other than racist and sexist. IMO you don't defeat racism and sexism by deciding to be racist and sexist.
  - wastedhours 8y ago
    > So you're happy to discriminate against "white, middle class, men" then? Erm, no. My points, to avoid confusion: 1) contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success. That's not any more discriminatory than putting a mental weight to a particular university someone studied at, and is the basis for pretty much every "best practice" recruitment process out there. 2) we need white, middle class men, + a load more other people as well. How is that not clear?
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      >contextual recruitment means you choose the candidate with better potential for success // Now you're bullshitting, you've just decided that all people who aren't middle-class white males are inferior, and based it solely on those characteristics. It seems like, in common with many that you hold to an idea of "positive discrimination", that's what your comment attests to at least. That's still discrimination, if you select on race/sex when it's not relevant then that's racism/sexism. Many people, the majority it seems, are fine with that. We don't need white middle class men at all, we need people [who can perform job roles]. Those people have a sex and colour, for sure, but that's (mostly) entirely irrelevant to their worth/suitability.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
The problem there is people then assume "X && Y == not disadvantaged" because they already have their quota of people with those characteristics, hence discriminating against that student purely based on X and Y.

asdkhadsj 8y ago

> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. That's fair, and I understand that solutions to social problems are complex and hard to quantify. I certainly do not know the solutions. Yet, if we hire based on skin color, we are by definition not hiring by skill, talent, interests, etc. This also will inherently breed resentment and cause issues, but perhaps that's an accepted cost by your measure. My concern is that this method of solving the culture issue will cause more problems than solve. Ie, maybe the next generation contains more women who are honestly interested in STEM, and pursue it; Great! But it got there on the backs of, by definition, unqualified women in STEM. That alone has to breed a culture of women not being equal to men in STEM, because we spent the last X years hiring by gender and skin color, rather than purely by merit. Do you disagree with these sentiments? I feel your solution is a possible solution, but with multiple, possibly worse, downsides.

wastedhours 8y ago
I do disagree to the extent that the role models for men in STEM are borne out of the same, unfair, cycle. [0] We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that? I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates. [0] am intrinsically aware of my own position, being a white male, but I do work in a sector looking at a different form of inequality so have some context as to the issue.
- asdkhadsj 8y ago
  Sidenote, I appreciate your viewpoints to this complex subject and that we're able to discuss it calmly. These things can boil out of control even if you try to be as gentle as possible. > We can go reductio ad absurdum and go all the way back and say that, for example, men were given the opportunities in STEM 200 years ago not because they were any more qualified, but because they were the ones allowed to go to school, causing an artificial cycle of inspiration and societal expectations around the profession. Do men or women in the sciences today feel guilt or resentment at that? That's a fair example. Today? Likely not. The 1st generation however? I imagine plenty of women/etc felt resentment towards men for being unfairly chosen in the market. I mean, that's why were discussing this now - right? There's a group of people that some claim are being chosen for unethical reasons.. of sorts. > I'd also argue against framing them as "unqualified women in STEM", as the basis of my argument isn't about, for example, shoehorning a hairdresser into a rocket science career, but just taking into account context when looking at similar candidates. Yea, and I'm not trying to straw man here about hairdresser/rocket-science bit. I just mean that, the moment we stop choosing based on criteria that matter to the subject (skill/talent/etc), and instead choose on criteria that matter to a 3rd party subject (skin color/etc), we cause new problems. We may solve problems, but we also cause problems. As an easy example; I think this whole conversation would be far less common if everyone, and I do mean everyone, believed that hiring was truly always based on color/gender/etc blind skill, ethic, etc. If we believed that hiring truly had no bias towards white-males, then by forcing "other" people into it would inherently be hiring less qualified individuals. This would be done with goal of spawning a new generation of children who are more attracted to STEM, but my point is, there is a cost now. So I think we'd need to be very sure that we're acknowledging the costs now and if they're worth a perceived gain in the future. Another HN user[1] had a really interesting viewpoint too, about another country. His/her example really highlighted why I'm even unsure that shoehorning more women into X field is really an effective approach. Likewise, if we're going to discuss this I think we also need to discuss historically women driven industries, and need to force less women working there and more men working there. Culturally there are a many professions that are heavily dominated by one gender. Yet we're only talking about STEM, for example. As with all of this, lets be equal. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17918184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17918184

emodendroket 8y ago

> We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success. Honestly, we are even talking about making way for someone of equal, or even higher, raw talent but of a different background. To say otherwise takes the (in my opinion obviously not justified) premise that without any intervention hiring functions as a perfect meritocracy.

wastedhours 8y ago
I think you're agreeing with me?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I mostly agree but I'm saying you're understating the case by accepting the AA opponent's false premise that AA means accepting objectively worse "diversity hires."
mbrumlow 8y ago
That is where I take issue. You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based off those two things. You don't know if you are looking at a wealthy black kid, or a poor white kid, you don't know which house hold had a dysfunctional abusive situation based off skin or gender. You can't tell which one was made fun of in school and bullied. You can't even say which one had actually had more exposure to whatever field you are hiring for. You just can't, that is not how it works. You are being racist and sexist if you make assumptions about a individual based off their skin color or gender. How all the sudden you know somebodies background because you have negative views about what it must have been like to be born a certain color or gender. And don't tell me that you are not doing that, otherwise you would be using some other metric than gender or color to suggest the things you are suggesting. I would be furious if I just got done interviewing with you and you thought I had high raw talent because of my skin color or gender. I have said many times when this topic comes up. If you really want to make change you have to do so at the beginning of the pipe line, when the kids are young. Support for low income single parent family's (any race). Ensure the environment is well suited for girls to take part in tech activities (e.g. treat everybody the same). I don't buy the "needs roll models" argument at all. Kids / people are either going to like program or not. And if the problems is "there are too many dudes" in tech then maybe we should all stop vilifying the men in tech and create environments where both sexes can learn to calibrate and work together. After reading stuff from vice, and the like no wonder girls/women would be terrified to work with men. tl;dr Do everybody a favor and stop imagining how disadvantage somebody is based off their skin color, or gender, you really have no clue.

manfredo 8y ago

> And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room. This is not always the case. I attended part of high school at a private school that practiced aggressive affirmative action. The result was that students quickly realized the gulf in academic caliber between most of the recipients of affirmative action and high performing students avoided working with them. Not only did it fail to rectify racist assumptions, it actually reinforced them by creating an environment where these assumptions held true. Affirmative action in the workplace risks playing out the same way. I'm definitely in favor of affirmative action in the form of more heavily recruiting at women's conferences, historically black universities, etc. but actually hiring candidates based on identity who would otherwise not be extended an offer certainly is a controversial practice - even in highly liberal places like Silicon Valley.