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This brings up the same core issue as all official diversity initiatives: as soon as you talk about it, you destroy it. When you make diversity a focus and cel

by dawg- 7y ago

This brings up the same core issue as all official diversity initiatives: as soon as you talk about it, you destroy it. When you make diversity a focus and celebrate yourself for being diverse, then the spirit of diversity is ruined. It's like something out of a zen koan. A truly diverse organization would not need to put out press releases and build its brand on being diverse, nor would they need to start official initiatives to select "diverse" employees (the very concept of an individual being "diverse" betraying the absurdity of the whole enterprise). You are left with a shell of the real thing - it's a commitment to aesthetic diversity (even of the neuro- variety), without the spirit that diversity is meant to represent. In a situation of aesthetic diversity, people are valuable because they are "diverse", rather than from simply being people. Their adjective ends up coming first (autistic, black, queer, etc.) and, at least at the level of the organization, their humanity gets left behind.

pjkundert 7y ago
The only true diversity in human affairs is Intellectual diversity -- which is the antithesis of the goal of all corporate "diversity" campaigns: Virtual Signaling for Profit.
tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
This is 1000% true. Before getting into tech, I did odd jobs for years. I worked in the restaurant industry, retail clothing, hospitals, landscaping, etc. I worked in teams where I was the only man, teams where we were all men, and teams with a somewhat even split. Diversity was never anything more than a short HR training session, and that was it. There was no advocacy, no talk of being "allies". And everything just worked. Even though I prefer working on diverse teams (diverse along any and every dimension), I really dislike virtually all current activism that's supposed to be about diversity. It just feels...gross.
lsniddy 7y ago
I can understand how diversity in experience and personality can be positive from a business perspective, but why can't the inverse be true as well?
cheald 7y ago
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

by dawg- 7y ago

pjkundert 7y ago

The only true diversity in human affairs is Intellectual diversity -- which is the antithesis of the goal of all corporate "diversity" campaigns: Virtual Signaling for Profit.

tenaciousDaniel 7y ago

This is 1000% true. Before getting into tech, I did odd jobs for years. I worked in the restaurant industry, retail clothing, hospitals, landscaping, etc. I worked in teams where I was the only man, teams where we were all men, and teams with a somewhat even split. Diversity was never anything more than a short HR training session, and that was it. There was no advocacy, no talk of being "allies". And everything just worked. Even though I prefer working on diverse teams (diverse along any and every dimension), I really dislike virtually all current activism that's supposed to be about diversity. It just feels...gross.

lsniddy 7y ago

I can understand how diversity in experience and personality can be positive from a business perspective, but why can't the inverse be true as well?

cheald 7y ago

Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."