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> I anecdotally recall studies that found organizations with greater diversity deliver better financial results People also tout these studies for getting more

by jdrc 5y ago

> I anecdotally recall studies that found organizations with greater diversity deliver better financial results People also tout these studies for getting more women in business leadership. in reality that's a weird argument, women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. Maybe business culture with its rigid and often stupid conventions and demands has a lot to do with it. Things like, how business people socialize, what they 're expected to wear, what business gifts they send etc.

jchw 5y ago
Pretty sure the idea is that diversity (of thought and other) itself can improve outcomes, not that anyone is necessarily better or worse at their jobs.
- jdrc 5y ago
  well, if we accept that the success of business is the sum of its parts, then it is implied that the diverse people add something more than others
  - fatbird 5y ago
    "The sum of its parts" is a very opaque phrase here. But even without defining it, anyone with work experience has some understanding of the effect of workplace dynamics, environmental factors, office morale, and other intangible influences on one's productivity and hence, the business's success. In other words, there are emergent properties in the calculus of success, and pursuing diversity is one way of trying to control that. "Diverse" people do not have to be intrinsically better employees, for them to positively affect the business's success.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jdrc 5y ago
      Sorry, you put a lot of buzzwords there, but buzzwords do not constitute any proof. It's certainly true in low-skill businesses like , i dunno, agriculture that production scales linearly. If nonlinear interactions occur it would be interesting to name them, instead of attributing it to some kind of magic ether. I dont like this completely vague explanation because it's exactly the rhetoric that people mock when they want to attack diversity
      - jchw 5y ago
        Then let’s hear some hard logic. You’ve presented literally nothing. If the best response you have is handwaving team dynamics as a buzzword, and pretending its not a real and tangible thing, go to work and start abusing all of your coworkers and see if their performance remains consistent.
      - fatbird 5y ago
        Well, to make it concrete then: I've seen teams get happier and more productive when some asshole is removed from the team; I've likewise seen teams get less productive because someone is added who drains morale, interest and productivity because they're continually negative and waste everyone's time with distracting concerns and a lot of "yes, but what about this?" type navel-gazing. I've found my own productivity fluctuating with different coworkers based on how well I communicate with them (where someone I struggle to interact with well gets along well with others). So no, you can't view overall productivity as the sum of individual productivity because there are factors like this that are a function of group composition. And there's a lot of factors that are not functions of individual productivity.
  - jchw 5y ago
    Great; I definitely do not accept that, and in fact it’s pretty trivially false even if you can’t really prove it.
    - jdrc 5y ago
      to begin with, that's logically false [unless u mean it's undecideable which is a vanishingly small probability] i also have no interest in replying to flame bait
      - jchw 5y ago
        Please explain your logic. Are you saying that someone’s contribution to the company is: A.) mathematically exact (lol) B.) not dependent on their team dynamics?
krapp 5y ago
>in reality that's a weird argument, women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. In reality every non-majority demographic has to be better in order to be accepted. They often have to work harder just to reach the default that the majority takes for granted, because that system works with the majority, and against everyone else.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  Do they? Here is the composition of Ivy League non-international students, courtesy of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30338742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30338742: Ivy League US Ratio Jewish 17.2% 2.4% 7.16 Asian 19.6% 5.3% 3.71 White (incl. Jewish) 50.3% 61.5% 0.82 Hispanic 11.4% 17.6% 0.65 Black 7.8% 12.7% 0.61 White (non-Jewish) 33.1% 59.1% 0.56
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    what'd those numbers look like in 1980 no reason just curious.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    Which column identifies how hard people in any of these demographics worked to achieve this outcome?
    - car_analogy 5y ago
      You want to attribute different outcomes to differences in behavior by race? In this case, you're saying that Jewish students are 11x more hard-working than Hispanic ones, and Asian students are 6x more hard-working than Black ones? Which other racial disparities do you attribute to differences in behavior?
      - magicalist 5y ago
rectang 5y ago
> women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. And yet they are not. Why not? > Maybe business culture with its rigid and often stupid conventions and demands has a lot to do with it. If we look at the history of these groups in the US, Occam's Razor points to simple bigotry as an explanation.
- _3u10 5y ago
  I’ve never had an issue with it. Well I’m not a woman but as for the rest of it it’s never been an issue. The only time it’s even been mentioned is that when traveling by bus in Texas in 1999 that I should make sure I take my ID with me when leaving the bus just incase there’s ICE around. My experience has been that people largely create their own problems, right now I’m in a very catholic country and looking for a cross necklace. It’s just to avoid people asking me if I believe in God which I don’t care to talk about. Blend in and you’ll have 100x less problems. Your work likely doesn’t care who you’re banging but is going to care if you want to talk about your relationship all day instead of business.

by jdrc 5y ago

jchw 5y ago

Pretty sure the idea is that diversity (of thought and other) itself can improve outcomes, not that anyone is necessarily better or worse at their jobs.

jdrc 5y ago
well, if we accept that the success of business is the sum of its parts, then it is implied that the diverse people add something more than others
- fatbird 5y ago
  "The sum of its parts" is a very opaque phrase here. But even without defining it, anyone with work experience has some understanding of the effect of workplace dynamics, environmental factors, office morale, and other intangible influences on one's productivity and hence, the business's success. In other words, there are emergent properties in the calculus of success, and pursuing diversity is one way of trying to control that. "Diverse" people do not have to be intrinsically better employees, for them to positively affect the business's success.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdrc 5y ago
    Sorry, you put a lot of buzzwords there, but buzzwords do not constitute any proof. It's certainly true in low-skill businesses like , i dunno, agriculture that production scales linearly. If nonlinear interactions occur it would be interesting to name them, instead of attributing it to some kind of magic ether. I dont like this completely vague explanation because it's exactly the rhetoric that people mock when they want to attack diversity
    - jchw 5y ago
      Then let’s hear some hard logic. You’ve presented literally nothing. If the best response you have is handwaving team dynamics as a buzzword, and pretending its not a real and tangible thing, go to work and start abusing all of your coworkers and see if their performance remains consistent.
    - fatbird 5y ago
      Well, to make it concrete then: I've seen teams get happier and more productive when some asshole is removed from the team; I've likewise seen teams get less productive because someone is added who drains morale, interest and productivity because they're continually negative and waste everyone's time with distracting concerns and a lot of "yes, but what about this?" type navel-gazing. I've found my own productivity fluctuating with different coworkers based on how well I communicate with them (where someone I struggle to interact with well gets along well with others). So no, you can't view overall productivity as the sum of individual productivity because there are factors like this that are a function of group composition. And there's a lot of factors that are not functions of individual productivity.
- jchw 5y ago
  Great; I definitely do not accept that, and in fact it’s pretty trivially false even if you can’t really prove it.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    to begin with, that's logically false [unless u mean it's undecideable which is a vanishingly small probability] i also have no interest in replying to flame bait
    - jchw 5y ago
      Please explain your logic. Are you saying that someone’s contribution to the company is: A.) mathematically exact (lol) B.) not dependent on their team dynamics?

krapp 5y ago

>in reality that's a weird argument, women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. In reality every non-majority demographic has to be better in order to be accepted. They often have to work harder just to reach the default that the majority takes for granted, because that system works with the majority, and against everyone else.

car_analogy 5y ago
Do they? Here is the composition of Ivy League non-international students, courtesy of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30338742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30338742: Ivy League US Ratio Jewish 17.2% 2.4% 7.16 Asian 19.6% 5.3% 3.71 White (incl. Jewish) 50.3% 61.5% 0.82 Hispanic 11.4% 17.6% 0.65 Black 7.8% 12.7% 0.61 White (non-Jewish) 33.1% 59.1% 0.56
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  what'd those numbers look like in 1980 no reason just curious.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  Which column identifies how hard people in any of these demographics worked to achieve this outcome?
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    You want to attribute different outcomes to differences in behavior by race? In this case, you're saying that Jewish students are 11x more hard-working than Hispanic ones, and Asian students are 6x more hard-working than Black ones? Which other racial disparities do you attribute to differences in behavior?
    - magicalist 5y ago

rectang 5y ago

> women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. And yet they are not. Why not? > Maybe business culture with its rigid and often stupid conventions and demands has a lot to do with it. If we look at the history of these groups in the US, Occam's Razor points to simple bigotry as an explanation.

_3u10 5y ago
I’ve never had an issue with it. Well I’m not a woman but as for the rest of it it’s never been an issue. The only time it’s even been mentioned is that when traveling by bus in Texas in 1999 that I should make sure I take my ID with me when leaving the bus just incase there’s ICE around. My experience has been that people largely create their own problems, right now I’m in a very catholic country and looking for a cross necklace. It’s just to avoid people asking me if I believe in God which I don’t care to talk about. Blend in and you’ll have 100x less problems. Your work likely doesn’t care who you’re banging but is going to care if you want to talk about your relationship all day instead of business.