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Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

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Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#41

Post by tga »

whichdan wrote: post #31
fosk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, you know what he meant. This is getting to a point that even genuinely talking about it, and rightly so, risks backfiring at you because there’s always somebody willing to make 10 extra mental steps to find it offensive.

They could have easily omitted the "assuming they can do the job" part without affecting the statement. There's a reason that it was added.

Exactly, and the reason is the implied risk of unchecked "diversity" leading to hiring underqualified people just for the sake of boosting quotas.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#42

Post by whatyoucantsay »

dragonwriter wrote: post #34
whatyoucantsay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am referring to the way many on the far left speak of intersectionality as a number of diversity or victimhood points to be tallied. The truth is, like many multivariate functions, more complex. Here is an example. Being male is not a privilege for a young black man being stopped by a police officer in the United States. On the contrary, it greatly increases the odds he will soon be unjustly killed. Similarly, bein…

> I am referring to the way many on the far left speak of intersectionality as a number of diversity or victimhood points to be tallied. IME, to the extent that occurs, that's not at all typical of the far left, but (to the extent it happens at all), the weakly-ideology tribal-identity left. > Here is an example. Being male is not a privilege for a young black man being stopped by a police officer in the United State…

Yes, it's the more tribally motivated who take more simplistic views. Your comment actually highlights my point by adding another dimension to the example.

Also, I should admit it's difficult to tell who is further left than whom these days. The political spectrum itself is very multi-dimensional once one abandons the lens of a specific tribe. One must look no further than the reactions to Maajid Nawaz to see a prime example.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#43

Post by rdtsc »

> they “were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it.”

Indeed, diversity is about filling a quota on visible traits like genders, shade of skin color and so on.

> “More importantly, I want to assure you Apple’s view and our dedication to diversity has not changed.”

Well it's good to know what Apple's view of diversity is.

Sometimes it can be ambiguous and one might actually believe them when they say "We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation". But this cleared it up. Yeah they don't really believe it drives innovation. If they did every manager in the chain and team member would go out of their way to hire "diverse" people because it would directly improve the product and the bottom line, but they don't believe that as institution.

Neither does Google or other big tech company. They wouldn't need a "diversity president" if they did. Diverse candidates would find their way to their new positions pretty easily, helped by stock options, good salaries and so on. Look how efficiently these companies seek and find leaders in various technologies or project or areas of interest.

What they believe is avoiding bad PR. They don't want to be criticized by some tech gossip blog about not being "diverse" and deep down they know how that tech blog measure "diversity".

Also tangentially related, notice how many times age is included in "diversity" spectrum? Somehow hiring people of various ages is not seen as improving diversity because well, it's not about gender or skin color, so gossip tech blogs won't notice and still criticize them.

In light of that, it makes complete sense that Denise had to apologize. But it was a very useful move as well simply because it made the true values more transparent. Given everything else, at least it's good to have more transparency and clarity.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#44

Post by dictum »

omegaworks wrote: post #32
jasode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use the fired Apple employees idea that diversity is multidimensional , you might have the following situations: Group 1: 1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad) 2) white woman (Democrat Stanford grad) 3) black man (Democrat Stanford grad) Group 2: 1) white man (Democrat Stanford grad) 2) white man (Libertarian Kansas kid self-taught) 3) white man (South Africa bootcamp grad) Depending on what's important, Group 2 w…

* Why assume Group 2 has, or can produce, higher-valued thoughts ? * Why are there only three seats at the table? Diversity and inclusion is about analyzing and addressing systemic assumptions and the arbitrary, exclusionary constraints we put on ourselves as an industry. Contrived hypothetical scenarios fail to frame the real problem because those contrived scenarios are exactly what good policies push back against.

I don't see where the parent comment implies Group 2 is expected to produce "higher-valued" thoughts.

Neither more diversity of thought between members of a group OR a single leaning, shared by all members of a group imply higher value.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#46

Post by tscs37 »

yedava wrote: post #39
exabrial wrote: post #25

The more stuff I see like this, the more I'm convinced the only way to actually help diversity along is a free market solution. Instead of demanding quotas, just have the data available publically. The reasons are many, but the biggest is that I feel that hiring people that are bad at their job but have some physical characteristic, will make the problem much worse in the long run by "proving the biased people right"…

People can learn on the job and can become not 'bad', right? Or is it the case that some set of people have some innate quality that makes them always be bad at a job?

Some people don't understand computers at all. Teaching them to engineer software, for example, can be a long and expensive undertaking. Which these people might not be interested in since they are good in other things.

I think it's not good to simply assume that you can insert any random person in a job and they'll "just become not bad" at it.

And this is not restricted to any nationality, gender, etc, either, you can take any two random humans and they'll (with high probability) like and perform at a job at different levels, irrelevant of the amount of learning performed (respective to the learning level atleast)

It's not some innate quality, it's just how people all over the globe are made: different.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#48

Post by LordKano »

cgore wrote: post #2

I'm a white guy. I'm a software engineer. I'm totally cool with hiring people who aren't white guys (assuming they can do the job.) It seems that Denise Young Smith understands that, but there's a weird fringe of the extreme left that only sees headcounts by color and gender, and only sees me as "a white guy", and only sees others as "an ", and it's sad that a black woman got fired for being reasonable instead of hav…

I'm a black guy in tech. I have never had a problem in the industry solely because of my race. I have had personality conflicts that may have been exacerbated because of culture differences but it was the personality conflicts that were the root.

Now, even I am being painted as "Not diverse enough" for the contingent of which you speak. Recently, I read this and it sums up where it's all heading next.

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/straight-black-men-are-...

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#49

Post by ksk »

fosk wrote: post #26
whichdan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"people who aren't white guys (assuming they can do the job.)" This sort of language is problematic and harmful in that it implies that "white guys" (not even white people, just men) by default can always "do the job," and that anyone outside of that group must be judged to some sort of different standard. It makes it challenging to talk about diversity when statements start off with racist and sexist undertones.

Oh come on, you know what he meant. This is getting to a point that even genuinely talking about it, and rightly so, risks backfiring at you because there’s always somebody willing to make 10 extra mental steps to find it offensive.

Its really frustrating that peoples innocent statements are purposely twisted like this to suit personal agendas.

Re: Apple’s diversity chief out after outcry

#50

Post by [deleted] »

dictum wrote: post #44
omegaworks wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Why assume Group 2 has, or can produce, higher-valued thoughts ? * Why are there only three seats at the table? Diversity and inclusion is about analyzing and addressing systemic assumptions and the arbitrary, exclusionary constraints we put on ourselves as an industry. Contrived hypothetical scenarios fail to frame the real problem because those contrived scenarios are exactly what good policies push back against.

I don't see where the parent comment implies Group 2 is expected to produce "higher-valued" thoughts. Neither more diversity of thought between members of a group OR a single leaning, shared by all members of a group imply higher value.

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