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Diversity was not a thing throughout the early 20th century when most of the innovations that made the modern world were invented. > An apocryphal example of t

by hsn915 5y ago

Diversity was not a thing throughout the early 20th century when most of the innovations that made the modern world were invented. > An apocryphal example of this is avionics software companies hiring teams with no overlap in universities to ensure that software was created with very distinct approaches. How is this relevant? Diversity of thought is not the same as diversity of race.

elliekelly 5y ago
I’m not the person you’re replying to but I don’t really read the comment as being specifically about race at all? I think what they’re getting at is that an app made by and for one “identity group” (and it could be any identity group) is an app that’s intentionally not optimized for diversity and that lack of diversity (no matter how it’s defined) might have some unexpected consequences.
zbentley 5y ago
Well, since we live in a deeply racist society, the backgrounds of people of different ethnicities are often quite different. That can produce diversity of thought in a similar way to differences in educational or geographical background. Race is only one part of GP's suggestion about diversity contributing to product quality, but you seem to have stuck on it. As for the fact that many important innovations were developed before diversity was valued as much as it is today, I am reminded of a blind inventor, who achieves great things in spite of disability: imagine how much more he could do if given the power of sight!
- hsn915 5y ago
  Really? Almost all the companies I've been to have "diversity" of ethnicity but there's no diversity of thought at all. Because they only hire people who think like them. Let me give you a concrete example: If your business is based on "cloud" and "docker" and "dynamically typed languages", how likely are you to hire someone who thinks the cloud is overrated and that using docker is over engineering and that statically typed and compiled languages are better for productivity and reliability? The chance you would hire such a person is nil. And if you do by mistake hire such a person, it's probably because there did not voice this opinion during the interview process and just "played along" to get the job. So you will hire a bunch of people from different ethnicities who all buy into the "cloud is the future" mindset and who think that learning a 100 different tools and configuration languages is how to build a modern website.

by hsn915 5y ago

elliekelly 5y ago

I’m not the person you’re replying to but I don’t really read the comment as being specifically about race at all? I think what they’re getting at is that an app made by and for one “identity group” (and it could be any identity group) is an app that’s intentionally not optimized for diversity and that lack of diversity (no matter how it’s defined) might have some unexpected consequences.

zbentley 5y ago

Well, since we live in a deeply racist society, the backgrounds of people of different ethnicities are often quite different. That can produce diversity of thought in a similar way to differences in educational or geographical background. Race is only one part of GP's suggestion about diversity contributing to product quality, but you seem to have stuck on it. As for the fact that many important innovations were developed before diversity was valued as much as it is today, I am reminded of a blind inventor, who achieves great things in spite of disability: imagine how much more he could do if given the power of sight!

hsn915 5y ago
Really? Almost all the companies I've been to have "diversity" of ethnicity but there's no diversity of thought at all. Because they only hire people who think like them. Let me give you a concrete example: If your business is based on "cloud" and "docker" and "dynamically typed languages", how likely are you to hire someone who thinks the cloud is overrated and that using docker is over engineering and that statically typed and compiled languages are better for productivity and reliability? The chance you would hire such a person is nil. And if you do by mistake hire such a person, it's probably because there did not voice this opinion during the interview process and just "played along" to get the job. So you will hire a bunch of people from different ethnicities who all buy into the "cloud is the future" mindset and who think that learning a 100 different tools and configuration languages is how to build a modern website.