5 ms·

you don't have to be a leftist to know diversity is a good thing

rgoulter 6y ago
Words can be loaded with political affiliation. The way you choose to say "we want everyone to feel welcome" might (unintentionally) make some people feel that they're not actually welcome.
AmericanChopper 6y ago
There is nothing inherently good or bad ethnic diversity. What is inherently good is to not treat people any differently because of their ethnic/gender/sexuality... group membership. But that’s not the objective of HR diversity programs. Those programs are designed to introduce race based (or gender based, or sexuality based...) decisions into the hiring and promotion processes. You can form your own opinion on whether that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s certainly not universally agreed upon as a good thing (in fact it’s quite controversial), and it certainly is a common element in “progressive left” ideologies. However, I would also very much appreciate knowing whether a company has such policies as early in the hiring process as possible.
- atq2119 6y ago
  > There is nothing inherently good or bad ethnic diversity. Depends on the context. For example, if your user base is diverse, it can be larger than if it wasn't - the total potential market is larger. So, diversity is profitable in that context. Serving a diverse user base well is potentially easier with diverse staff. Remember those "Falsehoods programmers believe about X" articles? With a diverse team, chances are higher that those falsehoods are caught early, because the team covers a broader range of life experiences. So, diversity is good in that context. How much of an impact this argument has depends on the concrete role, of course. My work tends to be very low on the overall software stack, and the notion that diversity helps seems very weak there. At the very least, I expect that diversity of thought or actual neurodiversity matters more than ethnic or gender diversity.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I don’t think your first point is particularly relevant to the topic. If you were to continue growing a customer base forever, you’d presume that it would increasingly become more diverse forever. But the point you’re making seems to be that having more customers is good, not that having a more diverse set of customers is good. I think your second point is completely valid. Having a greater diversity of skills, perspectives, experience, ideas... on a team seems to be obviously beneficial. But that’s not at all relevant to the types of diversity HR programs aim to implement. Those programs are generally concerned with factors like ethnicity, gender, and sexuality... which are not at all related to the factors you mentioned.
    - atq2119 6y ago
      Yeah, the first point is more of a lemma that supports the second point.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    > At the very least, I expect that diversity of thought or actual neurodiversity matters more than ethnic or gender diversity. The interview questions like this are usually designed to eliminate neurodiversity. I mean, how many people on autistic spectrum could successfully navigate them without triggering at least one "red flag"? (When even things like "correctly answers part of the question, forgets there was a second part" are considered red flags.)
    - atq2119 6y ago
      Those questions are probably not intentionally designed to eliminate neurodiversity, but I agree that that's a side effect. The set of categories that diversity advocates typically care about is itself not diverse.
frongpik 6y ago
Are you pro life or against life? See how an innocent looking question can be a disguised trap. As an anon user, you can ignore the question and move on. However imagine this is asked by your interviewer or by someone who has power over your career, and asks this on a stage in front of a large audience.
koolba 6y ago
...but you have to pretend to be one in public to continue working here.
kortilla 6y ago
“We emphasize equity” instead of “we emphasize equality” or “we reward merit” means there is going to need to be a lot of extra justification to promote/reward you if you are competing with someone from a disadvantaged background.
lr4444lr 6y ago
Motte and Bailey, dude. You KNOW that's not what these questions are really about...
- eat_veggies 6y ago
  the motte being "diversity" and the bailey being...?
  - lr4444lr 6y ago
    In good faith I will grant that maybe you don't know. A lot of things: including but not limited to relaxing standards of competence on hiring or promotion based on a person's protected status attributes, elevating certain controversial social and political opinions or hypotheses to fact while rendering other equally valid ones taboo, and operating under the assumption of guilt for certain people or incidents regardless of or at least before the facts of the case are analyzed.
BurningFrog 6y ago
Sure. And you don't have to be a Trumpist to want to make America great. But both those phrases are strong tribal markers.

Words can be loaded with political affiliation. The way you choose to say "we want everyone to feel welcome" might (unintentionally) make some people feel that they're not actually welcome.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

There is nothing inherently good or bad ethnic diversity. What is inherently good is to not treat people any differently because of their ethnic/gender/sexuality... group membership. But that’s not the objective of HR diversity programs. Those programs are designed to introduce race based (or gender based, or sexuality based...) decisions into the hiring and promotion processes. You can form your own opinion on whether that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s certainly not universally agreed upon as a good thing (in fact it’s quite controversial), and it certainly is a common element in “progressive left” ideologies. However, I would also very much appreciate knowing whether a company has such policies as early in the hiring process as possible.

atq2119 6y ago
> There is nothing inherently good or bad ethnic diversity. Depends on the context. For example, if your user base is diverse, it can be larger than if it wasn't - the total potential market is larger. So, diversity is profitable in that context. Serving a diverse user base well is potentially easier with diverse staff. Remember those "Falsehoods programmers believe about X" articles? With a diverse team, chances are higher that those falsehoods are caught early, because the team covers a broader range of life experiences. So, diversity is good in that context. How much of an impact this argument has depends on the concrete role, of course. My work tends to be very low on the overall software stack, and the notion that diversity helps seems very weak there. At the very least, I expect that diversity of thought or actual neurodiversity matters more than ethnic or gender diversity.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I don’t think your first point is particularly relevant to the topic. If you were to continue growing a customer base forever, you’d presume that it would increasingly become more diverse forever. But the point you’re making seems to be that having more customers is good, not that having a more diverse set of customers is good. I think your second point is completely valid. Having a greater diversity of skills, perspectives, experience, ideas... on a team seems to be obviously beneficial. But that’s not at all relevant to the types of diversity HR programs aim to implement. Those programs are generally concerned with factors like ethnicity, gender, and sexuality... which are not at all related to the factors you mentioned.
  - atq2119 6y ago
    Yeah, the first point is more of a lemma that supports the second point.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > At the very least, I expect that diversity of thought or actual neurodiversity matters more than ethnic or gender diversity. The interview questions like this are usually designed to eliminate neurodiversity. I mean, how many people on autistic spectrum could successfully navigate them without triggering at least one "red flag"? (When even things like "correctly answers part of the question, forgets there was a second part" are considered red flags.)
  - atq2119 6y ago
    Those questions are probably not intentionally designed to eliminate neurodiversity, but I agree that that's a side effect. The set of categories that diversity advocates typically care about is itself not diverse.

frongpik 6y ago

Are you pro life or against life? See how an innocent looking question can be a disguised trap. As an anon user, you can ignore the question and move on. However imagine this is asked by your interviewer or by someone who has power over your career, and asks this on a stage in front of a large audience.

koolba 6y ago

...but you have to pretend to be one in public to continue working here.

kortilla 6y ago

“We emphasize equity” instead of “we emphasize equality” or “we reward merit” means there is going to need to be a lot of extra justification to promote/reward you if you are competing with someone from a disadvantaged background.

lr4444lr 6y ago

Motte and Bailey, dude. You KNOW that's not what these questions are really about...

eat_veggies 6y ago
the motte being "diversity" and the bailey being...?
- lr4444lr 6y ago
  In good faith I will grant that maybe you don't know. A lot of things: including but not limited to relaxing standards of competence on hiring or promotion based on a person's protected status attributes, elevating certain controversial social and political opinions or hypotheses to fact while rendering other equally valid ones taboo, and operating under the assumption of guilt for certain people or incidents regardless of or at least before the facts of the case are analyzed.

BurningFrog 6y ago

Sure. And you don't have to be a Trumpist to want to make America great. But both those phrases are strong tribal markers.