5 ms·

This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted att

This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted attempts everywhere in the late 90's. Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity. I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity during a co-op tour and had posters of Africa all over the room. But why would I expect someone who just learned the term to actually grok it? Bummer you go the offensive end of that. EDIT: From the article "It was when I first realized that tech leaders have no idea what it is to manage work dynamics through a gendered lens." When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CodeMage 6y ago
> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. I've seen this described as "privilege of individuality", a privilege accorded to the majority and denied to the minority: https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1352785720822394885 https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/135278572082239488...
- lovegoblin 6y ago
  There's always a relevant xkcd, right? https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/
- curryst 6y ago
  I think part of that is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM/Cisco/etc". You're somewhat more insulated from accusations of cringe or racism because you can't accuse someone of those things for how they view their own culture. It's a touchy area, nobody wants to be in the news because their recruiting event turned racist. Reactions are harsh, I don't think "We did research and tried to put on a tastefully themed event, but failed to consider this particular viewpoint" is going to get you out of the news. I also always took the "ambassador" to be an external facing thing. They speak for their culture at that company; the places I've seen it I was never given the impression that they were meant to be an ambassador for their entire culture. Maybe I was misreading it, though.
launderthis 6y ago
thats what you get when you government mandate things. You cant expect things like diversity and culture to be processed by law. You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse. Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota. I blame society, people cry about diversity but all they want to see is someone of a particular type in a manager position and never really as, "what is this person doing", "do they really get to make an impact". Diversity propaganda is all so shallow and has only made relationships different cultures worse.
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  You: "thats what you get when you government mandate things." Also you: "You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse." /facepalm/
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Where's the contradiction? Things can be made non-profitable outside of government interventions like fines of tax incentives etc. In fact, the parent's position is an 100% consistent libertarian position: they believe that such a problem will (or wont) be solved by the market itself, and that companies should follow such incentives not being forced by laws. E.g. diversity would be good economically for companies, because else they will lose black, asian, indian, etc talent they could hire.
- edoceo 6y ago
  Who defines the rules in the society that you blame? How would they be enforced?
- imtringued 6y ago
  It's an example of treating the symptoms. The company has a hiring pipeline biased toward white people so it tries to compensate by having a second pipeline biased toward non white people when the actual solution is to make one pipeline that works for everyone. This reminds me of a VC/incubator who was offering a favorable equity loan hybrid where you get no strings funding with the additional benefit that you can buy your equity back at any time for 3x the original investment. It turns out that this met the needs of a lot of black and female founders even though diversity was not even an explicit goal. You could literally feel the HN commenters roll their eyes while they said "So this is just a terrible loan with high interest rates?" as if having access to business loans is completely natural like breathing air, when it's the exception for black people.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion. Which is why the entire concept of demographics-based "diversity" is such a shambles. The premise is supposed to be that if you get some women and minorities in there then you'll have a diversity of opinion. But then you select for the women willing to work 80 hour weeks, which is highly atypical and selects out e.g. prospective mothers, ensuring they're not represented in your organization. You select for the minorities with degrees from prestigious schools which selects out people who know what it's like to grow up poor. You end up with diversity on paper but not in practice, which is not only useless but worse than nothing because it creates the impression that you now have a diversity of opinion and you don't.
- anthony_romeo 6y ago
  Your overall stance seems to require the assumption that “diversity on paper” is the more common/significant outcome relative to “diversity of opinion”. Do you happen to have any info which might support such an assumption?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The thing you're asking for is the source of the problem. It's the Seeing Like A State thing. If you had some kind of actually robust diversity metric and not something which is going to get crushed into a black hole by Goodhart's Law then you would have a solution to the problem, but if you don't then you can't even measure it. If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data you can on multiple metrics (birthplace, parental income, culture, language, etc.) and then hire for maximum entropy. "Diversity" hiring based on a specific individual metric is literally the opposite of that, because it finds the people who are the least unlike the existing people in your company but can check the box on the form.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
kvetching 6y ago
It's sickening that a white man doesn't have a chance at any of the big companies, unless he's a programming god. This makes white supremacy even more of a problem because the white people that are there, are some of the best ever.
- mattm 6y ago
  As a white, non-god developer who just went through a job hunt, I had offers from big companies. I don't think this is an issue in any manner.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Do you have statistics backing your claim that white men have no chance? It couldn't be further from my experience. In the 20 years I've been working in tech, I've seen countless candidates rejected because of "culture fit." Of those, the majority were women; but also black, Hispanic, and indigenous men. Only one was a white guy: he was overtly sexist towards every woman he encountered, including the HR recruiter. Edit: oh, I forgot one. One white guy was slightly effeminate by north American standards, and wasn't considered after somebody made a comment to the effect of "I think it's weird when men wear scarves". I think he was French (or Québécois), and I wouldn't speculate about his sexuality
- seattle_spring 6y ago
  TIL that I'm a programming God.
- midasz 6y ago
  I'm as white as it gets. Blonde, blue eyes, and I've never had a problem getting a job. This victim complex is based on nothing but disinformation from alt-right actors. We're not the victims, not in any way. Just because people are trying to make opportunities more equal doesn't mean we are suddenly oppressed.
  - ta988 6y ago
    Absolutely. I also noticed (a feeling for now but I will start documenting) that in the last two years and especially more in the last months there seem to be more and more of this kind of comments here (the one you are dismantling, not yours). And weirdly they seem to be dog-whistling to each other and they gather in subcomments areas.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

CodeMage 6y ago

> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. I've seen this described as "privilege of individuality", a privilege accorded to the majority and denied to the minority: https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1352785720822394885 https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/135278572082239488...

lovegoblin 6y ago
There's always a relevant xkcd, right? https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/
curryst 6y ago
I think part of that is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM/Cisco/etc". You're somewhat more insulated from accusations of cringe or racism because you can't accuse someone of those things for how they view their own culture. It's a touchy area, nobody wants to be in the news because their recruiting event turned racist. Reactions are harsh, I don't think "We did research and tried to put on a tastefully themed event, but failed to consider this particular viewpoint" is going to get you out of the news. I also always took the "ambassador" to be an external facing thing. They speak for their culture at that company; the places I've seen it I was never given the impression that they were meant to be an ambassador for their entire culture. Maybe I was misreading it, though.

launderthis 6y ago

thats what you get when you government mandate things. You cant expect things like diversity and culture to be processed by law. You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse. Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota. I blame society, people cry about diversity but all they want to see is someone of a particular type in a manager position and never really as, "what is this person doing", "do they really get to make an impact". Diversity propaganda is all so shallow and has only made relationships different cultures worse.

SavantIdiot 6y ago
You: "thats what you get when you government mandate things." Also you: "You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse." /facepalm/
- coldtea 6y ago
  Where's the contradiction? Things can be made non-profitable outside of government interventions like fines of tax incentives etc. In fact, the parent's position is an 100% consistent libertarian position: they believe that such a problem will (or wont) be solved by the market itself, and that companies should follow such incentives not being forced by laws. E.g. diversity would be good economically for companies, because else they will lose black, asian, indian, etc talent they could hire.
edoceo 6y ago
Who defines the rules in the society that you blame? How would they be enforced?
imtringued 6y ago
It's an example of treating the symptoms. The company has a hiring pipeline biased toward white people so it tries to compensate by having a second pipeline biased toward non white people when the actual solution is to make one pipeline that works for everyone. This reminds me of a VC/incubator who was offering a favorable equity loan hybrid where you get no strings funding with the additional benefit that you can buy your equity back at any time for 3x the original investment. It turns out that this met the needs of a lot of black and female founders even though diversity was not even an explicit goal. You could literally feel the HN commenters roll their eyes while they said "So this is just a terrible loan with high interest rates?" as if having access to business loans is completely natural like breathing air, when it's the exception for black people.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion. Which is why the entire concept of demographics-based "diversity" is such a shambles. The premise is supposed to be that if you get some women and minorities in there then you'll have a diversity of opinion. But then you select for the women willing to work 80 hour weeks, which is highly atypical and selects out e.g. prospective mothers, ensuring they're not represented in your organization. You select for the minorities with degrees from prestigious schools which selects out people who know what it's like to grow up poor. You end up with diversity on paper but not in practice, which is not only useless but worse than nothing because it creates the impression that you now have a diversity of opinion and you don't.

anthony_romeo 6y ago
Your overall stance seems to require the assumption that “diversity on paper” is the more common/significant outcome relative to “diversity of opinion”. Do you happen to have any info which might support such an assumption?
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  The thing you're asking for is the source of the problem. It's the Seeing Like A State thing. If you had some kind of actually robust diversity metric and not something which is going to get crushed into a black hole by Goodhart's Law then you would have a solution to the problem, but if you don't then you can't even measure it. If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data you can on multiple metrics (birthplace, parental income, culture, language, etc.) and then hire for maximum entropy. "Diversity" hiring based on a specific individual metric is literally the opposite of that, because it finds the people who are the least unlike the existing people in your company but can check the box on the form.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

kvetching 6y ago

It's sickening that a white man doesn't have a chance at any of the big companies, unless he's a programming god. This makes white supremacy even more of a problem because the white people that are there, are some of the best ever.

mattm 6y ago
As a white, non-god developer who just went through a job hunt, I had offers from big companies. I don't think this is an issue in any manner.
klyrs 6y ago
Do you have statistics backing your claim that white men have no chance? It couldn't be further from my experience. In the 20 years I've been working in tech, I've seen countless candidates rejected because of "culture fit." Of those, the majority were women; but also black, Hispanic, and indigenous men. Only one was a white guy: he was overtly sexist towards every woman he encountered, including the HR recruiter. Edit: oh, I forgot one. One white guy was slightly effeminate by north American standards, and wasn't considered after somebody made a comment to the effect of "I think it's weird when men wear scarves". I think he was French (or Québécois), and I wouldn't speculate about his sexuality
seattle_spring 6y ago
TIL that I'm a programming God.
midasz 6y ago
I'm as white as it gets. Blonde, blue eyes, and I've never had a problem getting a job. This victim complex is based on nothing but disinformation from alt-right actors. We're not the victims, not in any way. Just because people are trying to make opportunities more equal doesn't mean we are suddenly oppressed.
- ta988 6y ago
  Absolutely. I also noticed (a feeling for now but I will start documenting) that in the last two years and especially more in the last months there seem to be more and more of this kind of comments here (the one you are dismantling, not yours). And weirdly they seem to be dog-whistling to each other and they gather in subcomments areas.