5 ms·

> Before we can have a healthy conversation about this, I assume you’ll agree that our industry has an inclusion and diversity problem. If this isn’t the case,

> Before we can have a healthy conversation about this, I assume you’ll agree that our industry has an inclusion and diversity problem. If this isn’t the case, you can stop here; I doubt I’m going to convince you of anything in this post. I guess I have to stop reading there. :/

alkibiades 8y ago
same :(
- kcmastrpc 8y ago
  you're welcome, i saved you both 3 minutes of your life.
yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
I love the implication that if you don’t agree, you can’t have a healthy discussion. I’m also not sure of the aim; if you have no desire to convince those who don’t initially agree, you’re preaching to the choir. Isn’t the diversity gang enough of an echo chamber already?
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  So very this. I'm more than happy to discuss how alcohol does impact diversity and inclusion in negative ways. I think it's fascinating subject I haven't thought about.
- r00fus 8y ago
  A reasonable discussion has to take some ground level agreements before you can discuss the finer details. Otherwise you get Twitter.
  - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
    I was under the impression that the issue with twitter was with the maximum length of posts which encourages low-quality one-liners.
- normal_man 8y ago
  It could just be an attempt to discuss nuances of the situation with people who are on the same page rather than feeling like they have to engage every bad faith "devil's advocate" who wanders in and somehow disagrees with the fact that a very small amount of black or hispanic people work in tech.
  - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
    Have you considered that those arguing against the standard diversity tropes aren’t arguing in bad faith? At least from my perspective, affirmative action is immoral, and any notion of power imbalance doesn’t seep into my understanding of the definition of discrimination. People can have deeply considered all the nuances posed and still come up with a perspective that differs from the accepted social justice narrative.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    I've not met someone who rejects the assertion that there's a diversity and inclusion problem simultaneously asserting that the data do not in fact show that various classes are underrepresented.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  The aim is to be able to focus on the actual issue the piece is concerned with, rather than spending hours sea-lioning (see https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning) every tangentially related issue that connects to it over and over again.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    That would seem to intertwine very well with gish galloping. Simultaneously feign sincerity, argue over definitions, demand sources of every word, and combine it with countersources from a gish... Well. That explains Reddit! /g (Its the procedure of an argument by flooding you with half baked sources, and by the time you're through 5, you have 20 more.) https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop (Edit: I wasn't proposing DOING that. I was making note that these logical fallacies tend to stack and greatly compound each other. And they can be a nightmare to unravel if ONLY in a gish gallop. If both of these are executed, the gish is a insincere attempt at complete disruption; and anyone trying to stop it is accused of being really rude. And from a social media perspective, someone calling out a sealioning themselves looks rude.)
- n4r9 8y ago
  You're constructing a straw man. The post is making an argument for why there's a lack of inclusion. This rests on the assumption that a lack of inclusion exists. Defending that assumption is left to other discussions, nevertheless there are many people who already agree with it. If you're not such a person i.e. you don't agree with the assumption, the post isn't for you: you have nothing to gain from it.
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    It's possible for there to be no systemic inclusion problem and alcohol creates inclusion problems.
    - alkibiades 8y ago
      i guess i’m not sure what the solution is. are we not supposed to drink? Any hobby or activity that not everyone participates in has the potential to be non inclusive. At my last work a lot of people loved camping but i didn’t. Should i stop them from camping because they might make social bonds that aren’t available to me?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - n4r9 8y ago
        I think the onus is on the company to pro-actively organise social events which don't centre on drinking.
        alkibiades 8y ago
        but some people are introverts. so it’s not very inclusive to have any event as an extrovert would be more likely to go and make connections and introverts would be discriminated. maybe we should ban all events
        squirrelicus 8y ago
- mikestew 8y ago
  I love the implication that if you don’t agree, you can’t have a healthy discussion. I love it, too. It gets it out of the way upfront: if we can't agree on $THIS base assumption, then we can't have a healthy discussion about $THAT. In order for that to happen, we need to have another discussion first." If, after discussing whether or not there is an inclusion and diversity problem, you are still at odds, there is little point in further refining the discussion by including alcohol.
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    The problem is the "our industry" problem vs "workplaces that include alcohol" problem. The latter can exist without the former.
Insanity 8y ago
I think it largely depends on _where_ you work. You can't just say "our industry" and have it applied world-wide. In all companies I have worked at - there has been diversity. I am also someone who doesn't drink and never felt like this is an issue, though I am from one of the best-known countries for their beer. Next to waffles and chocolates, that's pretty much our thing. I've almost always had a team that existed of a mix of ethnicities and gender. I do think that beer doesn't belong in the workplace, but we do have days when we drink _after_ work, and not necessarily in the workplace. No one ever complained about me getting a coke instead.
- kcmastrpc 8y ago
  no one complains, and my experience is entirely anecdotal but i've had situations where turning down a drink or the next round was met with, "what's wrong with you?"-esque inquires.
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    The correct response to "What's wrong with you[, you should take the drink]" is to face the situation forthrightly, not shrink before the social pressure.
  - Insanity 8y ago
    I did have people question why I do not drink, without accusing me. I just say it is a personal choice and that is the end of it. Sometimes, if I am with people who I know longer, I tell them it is because of having an alcohol related death in the family. I also continue with saying I don't mind that they drink. I have done this for about 11 years without any issues.
- tluyben2 8y ago
  It depends on the role but I definitely know cases (anecdotal) where sales or pre-sales not drinking with a client/partner/investor was ‘no one complains’ (to your face) but resulted in losing out on a contract or requests for another contact because of social incompatibility. And not one or two. In my experience bucketloads of tech sale deals are done over copious drinking and being an outsider there is not considered a good thing. Admitted; on the workfloor after work with the team no one gives a crap although you might, again in my experience, get less invites for social gatherings as it is still considered ‘boring’ in many circles. That girl or guy who never meshes well at TGiF or the ‘after work pint at the local’. As someone who sometimes drinks too much and often drinks nothing at all (I have no off switch so I prefer nothing), I know that feeling; you really need a lot of energy and patience to stick around at gatherings where everyone is plastered and having too much fun and you are sober. I have seen the issue in UK, US, NL, DE, HK, AU and, ofcourse, CN. But anecdotal so your mileage definitely may vary.
robax 8y ago
Are you saying the tech industry doesn't have a diversity problem? Isn't the gender ratio all the evidence you need?
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  No, and no, but the point is the author should be inviting those that disagree to read, not trying to fence them out.
  - kcmastrpc 8y ago
    You're right, and I won't make that mistake again.
  - Pica_soO 8y ago
    Its not about diversity, its about controlling the discourse and the social narrative of a society- aka, its about power. Real discussion could erode those artificial boundaries and propaganda towers. They want you to yell, but they dont want you to talk.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  It's not clear what it's evidence of. At the very least, it's part of a very large, universal, and systemic body of societal evidence that (1) Women and men tend to (when considering large numbers) choose different professions when they are choosing freely for themselves (2) The more egalitarian and socially inclusive a society is, the more the differences between women and men are exaggerated, especially in career choices. I want women and men to choose occupations that are easy for them to find long term meaning in. I don't want my girls choosing STEM because they feel like they're less-than if they don't. Here's a reductio ad absurdum: is it a diversity and inclusion problem that there are almost no female bering sea crab fisherwomen or oil rig workers? Men are more willing to choose more lethal professions, it's part of what our hormones tell us to do.
  - kcmastrpc 8y ago
    We can't compare high-risk jobs with IT, for obvious reasons. I'm merely suggesting a correlation between the proliferation of alcohol in our industry, the parties, the trade shows, with the prevalence of young white males in our line of work. I merely found data which loosely supports (and you could successfully argue that it has no correlation) my hypothesis.
bischofs 8y ago
"You don't agree with me, I can't change that so please exclude yourself from the conversation"
adrusi 8y ago
I've seen plenty of arguments against the claim that the tech industry has a bias problem, but that's only one of a number of inclusion/diversity problems an industry could have. If members of underrepresented_group would prefer to have more colleagues from underrepresented_group, then that's a problem, even if it's not an injustice. If you have friends from underrepresented_group, and having less of a drinking culture would solve their problem, then you have a reason to want less of a drinking culture. The author probably thinks there is an injustice, because people who write on this topic usually think there is. Nothing that they say depends on the problem being one of injustice.

alkibiades 8y ago

same :(

kcmastrpc 8y ago
you're welcome, i saved you both 3 minutes of your life.

yakshaving_jgt 8y ago

I love the implication that if you don’t agree, you can’t have a healthy discussion. I’m also not sure of the aim; if you have no desire to convince those who don’t initially agree, you’re preaching to the choir. Isn’t the diversity gang enough of an echo chamber already?

squirrelicus 8y ago
So very this. I'm more than happy to discuss how alcohol does impact diversity and inclusion in negative ways. I think it's fascinating subject I haven't thought about.
r00fus 8y ago
A reasonable discussion has to take some ground level agreements before you can discuss the finer details. Otherwise you get Twitter.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
  I was under the impression that the issue with twitter was with the maximum length of posts which encourages low-quality one-liners.
normal_man 8y ago
It could just be an attempt to discuss nuances of the situation with people who are on the same page rather than feeling like they have to engage every bad faith "devil's advocate" who wanders in and somehow disagrees with the fact that a very small amount of black or hispanic people work in tech.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  Have you considered that those arguing against the standard diversity tropes aren’t arguing in bad faith? At least from my perspective, affirmative action is immoral, and any notion of power imbalance doesn’t seep into my understanding of the definition of discrimination. People can have deeply considered all the nuances posed and still come up with a perspective that differs from the accepted social justice narrative.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  I've not met someone who rejects the assertion that there's a diversity and inclusion problem simultaneously asserting that the data do not in fact show that various classes are underrepresented.
smacktoward 8y ago
The aim is to be able to focus on the actual issue the piece is concerned with, rather than spending hours sea-lioning (see https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning) every tangentially related issue that connects to it over and over again.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  That would seem to intertwine very well with gish galloping. Simultaneously feign sincerity, argue over definitions, demand sources of every word, and combine it with countersources from a gish... Well. That explains Reddit! /g (Its the procedure of an argument by flooding you with half baked sources, and by the time you're through 5, you have 20 more.) https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop (Edit: I wasn't proposing DOING that. I was making note that these logical fallacies tend to stack and greatly compound each other. And they can be a nightmare to unravel if ONLY in a gish gallop. If both of these are executed, the gish is a insincere attempt at complete disruption; and anyone trying to stop it is accused of being really rude. And from a social media perspective, someone calling out a sealioning themselves looks rude.)
n4r9 8y ago
You're constructing a straw man. The post is making an argument for why there's a lack of inclusion. This rests on the assumption that a lack of inclusion exists. Defending that assumption is left to other discussions, nevertheless there are many people who already agree with it. If you're not such a person i.e. you don't agree with the assumption, the post isn't for you: you have nothing to gain from it.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  It's possible for there to be no systemic inclusion problem and alcohol creates inclusion problems.
  - alkibiades 8y ago
    i guess i’m not sure what the solution is. are we not supposed to drink? Any hobby or activity that not everyone participates in has the potential to be non inclusive. At my last work a lot of people loved camping but i didn’t. Should i stop them from camping because they might make social bonds that aren’t available to me?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - n4r9 8y ago
      I think the onus is on the company to pro-actively organise social events which don't centre on drinking.
      - alkibiades 8y ago
        but some people are introverts. so it’s not very inclusive to have any event as an extrovert would be more likely to go and make connections and introverts would be discriminated. maybe we should ban all events
        squirrelicus 8y ago
mikestew 8y ago
I love the implication that if you don’t agree, you can’t have a healthy discussion. I love it, too. It gets it out of the way upfront: if we can't agree on $THIS base assumption, then we can't have a healthy discussion about $THAT. In order for that to happen, we need to have another discussion first." If, after discussing whether or not there is an inclusion and diversity problem, you are still at odds, there is little point in further refining the discussion by including alcohol.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  The problem is the "our industry" problem vs "workplaces that include alcohol" problem. The latter can exist without the former.

Insanity 8y ago

I think it largely depends on _where_ you work. You can't just say "our industry" and have it applied world-wide. In all companies I have worked at - there has been diversity. I am also someone who doesn't drink and never felt like this is an issue, though I am from one of the best-known countries for their beer. Next to waffles and chocolates, that's pretty much our thing. I've almost always had a team that existed of a mix of ethnicities and gender. I do think that beer doesn't belong in the workplace, but we do have days when we drink _after_ work, and not necessarily in the workplace. No one ever complained about me getting a coke instead.

kcmastrpc 8y ago
no one complains, and my experience is entirely anecdotal but i've had situations where turning down a drink or the next round was met with, "what's wrong with you?"-esque inquires.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  The correct response to "What's wrong with you[, you should take the drink]" is to face the situation forthrightly, not shrink before the social pressure.
- Insanity 8y ago
  I did have people question why I do not drink, without accusing me. I just say it is a personal choice and that is the end of it. Sometimes, if I am with people who I know longer, I tell them it is because of having an alcohol related death in the family. I also continue with saying I don't mind that they drink. I have done this for about 11 years without any issues.
tluyben2 8y ago
It depends on the role but I definitely know cases (anecdotal) where sales or pre-sales not drinking with a client/partner/investor was ‘no one complains’ (to your face) but resulted in losing out on a contract or requests for another contact because of social incompatibility. And not one or two. In my experience bucketloads of tech sale deals are done over copious drinking and being an outsider there is not considered a good thing. Admitted; on the workfloor after work with the team no one gives a crap although you might, again in my experience, get less invites for social gatherings as it is still considered ‘boring’ in many circles. That girl or guy who never meshes well at TGiF or the ‘after work pint at the local’. As someone who sometimes drinks too much and often drinks nothing at all (I have no off switch so I prefer nothing), I know that feeling; you really need a lot of energy and patience to stick around at gatherings where everyone is plastered and having too much fun and you are sober. I have seen the issue in UK, US, NL, DE, HK, AU and, ofcourse, CN. But anecdotal so your mileage definitely may vary.

robax 8y ago

Are you saying the tech industry doesn't have a diversity problem? Isn't the gender ratio all the evidence you need?

WillPostForFood 8y ago
No, and no, but the point is the author should be inviting those that disagree to read, not trying to fence them out.
- kcmastrpc 8y ago
  You're right, and I won't make that mistake again.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  Its not about diversity, its about controlling the discourse and the social narrative of a society- aka, its about power. Real discussion could erode those artificial boundaries and propaganda towers. They want you to yell, but they dont want you to talk.
squirrelicus 8y ago
It's not clear what it's evidence of. At the very least, it's part of a very large, universal, and systemic body of societal evidence that (1) Women and men tend to (when considering large numbers) choose different professions when they are choosing freely for themselves (2) The more egalitarian and socially inclusive a society is, the more the differences between women and men are exaggerated, especially in career choices. I want women and men to choose occupations that are easy for them to find long term meaning in. I don't want my girls choosing STEM because they feel like they're less-than if they don't. Here's a reductio ad absurdum: is it a diversity and inclusion problem that there are almost no female bering sea crab fisherwomen or oil rig workers? Men are more willing to choose more lethal professions, it's part of what our hormones tell us to do.
- kcmastrpc 8y ago
  We can't compare high-risk jobs with IT, for obvious reasons. I'm merely suggesting a correlation between the proliferation of alcohol in our industry, the parties, the trade shows, with the prevalence of young white males in our line of work. I merely found data which loosely supports (and you could successfully argue that it has no correlation) my hypothesis.

bischofs 8y ago

"You don't agree with me, I can't change that so please exclude yourself from the conversation"

adrusi 8y ago

I've seen plenty of arguments against the claim that the tech industry has a bias problem, but that's only one of a number of inclusion/diversity problems an industry could have. If members of underrepresented_group would prefer to have more colleagues from underrepresented_group, then that's a problem, even if it's not an injustice. If you have friends from underrepresented_group, and having less of a drinking culture would solve their problem, then you have a reason to want less of a drinking culture. The author probably thinks there is an injustice, because people who write on this topic usually think there is. Nothing that they say depends on the problem being one of injustice.