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Answer the question, would the car be different if Henry Ford was black? Would the AC induction motor be different if Tesla was Hispanic? Would the transistor b

Answer the question, would the car be different if Henry Ford was black? Would the AC induction motor be different if Tesla was Hispanic? Would the transistor be different if Shockley was Asian? Shall I go on? Believe it or not, it doesn't just apply to White people. The most important products don't care about what you look like. "Are cars and other goods tailored to the needs of local markets?" I would argue they always were. The color of a band-aide does not change its main functionality. Neither do any of your other examples. Humans all need a car with 4 wheels and band-aides that stick.

verall 3y ago
Why answer? Your argument as far as I can read it is "Physics exists, therefore DEI is bad". Can you help me fill in the gap? What is your clearly rhetorical question getting at?
xethos 3y ago
> I would argue they always were. I would posit we can't even get healthcare without bias for people that aren't straight white men. There are subtle differences in body composition between men and women, doubly so for larger (or smaller) body types, but ignoring those differences isn't exactly something from the far-flung past [0]. Otherwise we can quibble over how treating everyone as an average can and has cost lives [1]. People are different, and very small differences can have unexpectedly outsized impacts on usability. > The most important products don't care about what you look like The product doesn't care, but this site is awash in stories about how management or engineering should have just talked to the damn floor workers. Worked together, instead of dictating from on-high that the machine in question works well in the lab, and is an elegant, cost-effective solution - that the people actually in the shop know will fail immediately. DEI (when done right) is not diversity hires. It's accepting others have different ideas that you may not have seen. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28343109/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28343109/ [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages/article_e3231734-e5da-5bf5-9496-a34e52d60bd9.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...
- mwbajor 3y ago
  "should have just talked to the damn floor workers. " You're all over the place trying to avoid my question. We're talking about product consumers. Mismanagement is an aberration in a long reversion to the mean of the product's specs that people want. What car would black Henry Ford make? What kind of induction motor would hispanic Tesla make? Keep cherry-picking references, though. Isn't there a crisis in the replication of journal articles anyway??
miffel 3y ago
I would insist that you try to open up your worldview slightly and accept that sometimes having a team with more than just white men can be desirable and lead to better outcomes for the end product. Maybe bandaids are not the best example, but consider pulse oximeters[0]. There are many examples like this if you care to look for them. I would recommend the books Weapons of Math Destruction and Invisible Women for some very well done research on the way that you can codify human biases in processes that should neutral. I would also personally recommend that you give an earnest try to understanding why so many people argue for diversity. A genuine attempt. Even if you don't fully change your mind on it I think you will find it easier to approach the world with a little more compassion for people who don't look like you. [0]: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequality-black-people-are-3-times-more-likely-experience-pulse https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequalit...
- mwbajor 3y ago
  Lets make a deal: I'll read your diversity books if you realize that meritocracies will never go away. You might be able to suppress them, but the smart people (and they're not just white people) will reorganize behind your back and be better than whatever you are doing. See INTC vs. TSMC for probably the best example since you're into references. Pulse oximiters are another terrible example by the way. Couldn't we hire a bunch of really tanned white people since you're just talking skin color?
  - miffel 3y ago
    Hmm, I would hope that you want to read books that challenge your way of thinking to strengthen your beliefs and help you examine them through a lens you haven't considered before. I wish I could agree in good conscience that we are currently in a perfectly meritocratic system, but alas (sorry to drop another reference on you, I guess I just enjoy having evidence to point to for justifying my beliefs), there's many cases where minorities are being unfairly passed up on [0]. Regarding pulse oximeters... maybe, maybe not. Seems like it would be an interesting field of study, the research of the different levels of light absorption between skin with different melanin pigments, and whether tanning or genetics plays a bigger role. If only there was more funding for something like that, huh? :) [0] https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-names https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-n...
darkerside 3y ago
Bandaids are a bit of an ironic example. They were probably made the skin color of their majority customers, and not that of their inventors, but someone might have been in a position to ask whether there should be more than one color.

verall 3y ago

Why answer? Your argument as far as I can read it is "Physics exists, therefore DEI is bad". Can you help me fill in the gap? What is your clearly rhetorical question getting at?

xethos 3y ago

> I would argue they always were. I would posit we can't even get healthcare without bias for people that aren't straight white men. There are subtle differences in body composition between men and women, doubly so for larger (or smaller) body types, but ignoring those differences isn't exactly something from the far-flung past [0]. Otherwise we can quibble over how treating everyone as an average can and has cost lives [1]. People are different, and very small differences can have unexpectedly outsized impacts on usability. > The most important products don't care about what you look like The product doesn't care, but this site is awash in stories about how management or engineering should have just talked to the damn floor workers. Worked together, instead of dictating from on-high that the machine in question works well in the lab, and is an elegant, cost-effective solution - that the people actually in the shop know will fail immediately. DEI (when done right) is not diversity hires. It's accepting others have different ideas that you may not have seen. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28343109/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28343109/ [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages/article_e3231734-e5da-5bf5-9496-a34e52d60bd9.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...

mwbajor 3y ago
"should have just talked to the damn floor workers. " You're all over the place trying to avoid my question. We're talking about product consumers. Mismanagement is an aberration in a long reversion to the mean of the product's specs that people want. What car would black Henry Ford make? What kind of induction motor would hispanic Tesla make? Keep cherry-picking references, though. Isn't there a crisis in the replication of journal articles anyway??

miffel 3y ago

I would insist that you try to open up your worldview slightly and accept that sometimes having a team with more than just white men can be desirable and lead to better outcomes for the end product. Maybe bandaids are not the best example, but consider pulse oximeters[0]. There are many examples like this if you care to look for them. I would recommend the books Weapons of Math Destruction and Invisible Women for some very well done research on the way that you can codify human biases in processes that should neutral. I would also personally recommend that you give an earnest try to understanding why so many people argue for diversity. A genuine attempt. Even if you don't fully change your mind on it I think you will find it easier to approach the world with a little more compassion for people who don't look like you. [0]: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequality-black-people-are-3-times-more-likely-experience-pulse https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequalit...

mwbajor 3y ago
Lets make a deal: I'll read your diversity books if you realize that meritocracies will never go away. You might be able to suppress them, but the smart people (and they're not just white people) will reorganize behind your back and be better than whatever you are doing. See INTC vs. TSMC for probably the best example since you're into references. Pulse oximiters are another terrible example by the way. Couldn't we hire a bunch of really tanned white people since you're just talking skin color?
- miffel 3y ago
  Hmm, I would hope that you want to read books that challenge your way of thinking to strengthen your beliefs and help you examine them through a lens you haven't considered before. I wish I could agree in good conscience that we are currently in a perfectly meritocratic system, but alas (sorry to drop another reference on you, I guess I just enjoy having evidence to point to for justifying my beliefs), there's many cases where minorities are being unfairly passed up on [0]. Regarding pulse oximeters... maybe, maybe not. Seems like it would be an interesting field of study, the research of the different levels of light absorption between skin with different melanin pigments, and whether tanning or genetics plays a bigger role. If only there was more funding for something like that, huh? :) [0] https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-names https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-n...

darkerside 3y ago

Bandaids are a bit of an ironic example. They were probably made the skin color of their majority customers, and not that of their inventors, but someone might have been in a position to ask whether there should be more than one color.