Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why • Hacker News Board

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#41

Post by collyw » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:33 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #32

gattilorenz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity quotas are by their very nature institutional discrimination. Sure, they are institutional discrimination in the sense that institutions recognize the differences between gender/races and the differences in the treatment they receive, which is often based on negative prejudice (the other meaning of "discrimination" [1]). Discrimination is not negative per se, as long as it's the "neutral" meaning of the w…

Picking candidates of your preferred gender/ethnicity over candidates of your non-preferred gender/ethnicity is the canonical definition of institutional discrimination. It takes a huge amount of double-think to arrive at the conclusion that this is the same as having gendered bathrooms. Any institution that prefers candidates of a particular gender/ethnicity is prejudicially discriminating against all other candidat…

Sad to see this comment down voted.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#42

Post by NeedMoreTea » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

fipple wrote: post #26

"Diversity" is just overrated completely, as a concept. The highest-performing company in America, Apple, has close to zero race or gender diversity, and if you peel back one layer, it has very little diversity of thought" as well. Why? Because the company was built to execute Steve Jobs' ideas. The more that any given executive could run an emulator of Steve Jobs' brain, the less of Jobs' time he required. "Ideas ar…

I have never understood the point of view that diversity is unnecessary. Quite apart from the most diverse places I've worked having been by far the most enjoyable across my career.

You say Apple has almost none, yet is doing great. So what? Lots of things that were or are shit have done well. Even things that are now illegal. Do you like discrimination?

Every company the size of Apple should have people of all backgrounds, ages, sex, race. For every room full of twenty somethings designing a "great" product achieving ridiculous financial results there will be a dozen features or possibilities missed to invisibly cater better for more groups (potential customers).

Perhaps they need to use it in subtly different ways, or have different goals that needs an option or overlay not seen by the room full of bros. Perhaps when you hit 50 and your eyesight isn't quite so sharp so you need reading specs before you reach for the phone you realise Apple's much vaunted, industry leading, accessibility is shit. A few 40 year olds on all the teams might have noticed that and come up with better ideas and solutions than the current dross.

As to diversity being a drawback in execution, what utter twaddle.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#43

Post by throwappppp » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

fipple wrote: post #26

"Diversity" is just overrated completely, as a concept. The highest-performing company in America, Apple, has close to zero race or gender diversity, and if you peel back one layer, it has very little diversity of thought" as well. Why? Because the company was built to execute Steve Jobs' ideas. The more that any given executive could run an emulator of Steve Jobs' brain, the less of Jobs' time he required. "Ideas ar…

Diversity is advertised too much those days, but in reality, it barely matters.

The advocates need to further explain why it is good for the team and such. Since many companies, including my own, implementing the diversity initiative by lowering the bar for the diversity candidates, even those that are being turned down at earliest stage, still interestingly, being rescued later. However, even people take issues about the candidate in question, they are afraid to voice any opinions, because the fear of being labeled as bigots. As ironic as it gets, during the group meeting, that the said candidate apparently doesn't have any deliverable for 6 months, still being praised with great efforts and hard works, while others in the team are pressured to take over what is supposedly to be done by the candidate.

I don't think this put the diversity initiative into good lights. It only further convinces people that it is more to the vanity of higher management other than productivity/benefits of the team/company itself.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#44

Post by collyw » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #36

manigandham wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people care so much about what others look like in a field instead of doing what they're interested in? Perhaps that's the real issue at the root of all this.

Because people who look different from people who are currently in the field they're interested in feel like they aren't welcome and won't pursue it. It's not about this generation; it's the next.

Is there any evidence of this? I hear it talked about a lot, but I have never seen anything that actually proves this is the case.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#45

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #31

toomanybeersies wrote: post #24

What I've always found odd is when a company advertises something like "we have 50% women on the programming team" when only 20% of the programming workforce is female. That's not really fair is it? The company is overly diverse if anything. In a way they're stealing women from the workforce of other companies. Diversity needs to happen from the ground up. Affirmative action is more effective and more appropriate the…

If you want the best candidates you want to make your company look as desirable as possible. A 50% M/F workforce isn't scaring any good candidates away and might even attract a superstar who prefers a great culture over a bigger paycheque. It's just playing up a company's strengths.

From the perspective of the company, sure. It's in a company's best interests to do whatever they can to attract the best candidates. I'd prefer to work in a company that isn't a complete sausage fest, just like I'm sure most people would.

I was more commenting that in general trying to get 50% women on your tech team isn't going to help the industry as a whole.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#46

Post by michaelmrose » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #31

toomanybeersies wrote: post #24

What I've always found odd is when a company advertises something like "we have 50% women on the programming team" when only 20% of the programming workforce is female. That's not really fair is it? The company is overly diverse if anything. In a way they're stealing women from the workforce of other companies. Diversity needs to happen from the ground up. Affirmative action is more effective and more appropriate the…

If you want the best candidates you want to make your company look as desirable as possible. A 50% M/F workforce isn't scaring any good candidates away and might even attract a superstar who prefers a great culture over a bigger paycheque. It's just playing up a company's strengths.

Mathematically its hard to select a higher percentage of anything than the population of applicants without picking inferior players.

I know its challenging to rank people in real world jobs compared to say scores on a test but humor me here. Say you score people on an objective metric from 100 to 0 and you have 5 times more applicants than jobs. One logical way to hire than is to hire the top 20% of the population.

If the overall population is 20% female than all things being equal 20% of the top 20% will also be female.

How then do you arrive at 50% female while still trying to maintain quality. You have to remove the lowest ranking male and replace him with a female from the applicant pool. All the woman above this man are logically all in the to hire pool already. The only applicants available are those ranked below him so you must be logic replace a more qualified man with a less qualified woman.

As you travel from 20% to 50% you must pick increasingly less qualified individuals to hire in order to reach your goals. Presumably your last hire would be from the 35% percentile instead of the 20th?

The real world is multidimensional, complicated, and much harder to rank but bias logically has to reduce overall fitness on the larger scale.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#47

Post by chii » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #35

fipple wrote: post #26

"Diversity" is just overrated completely, as a concept. The highest-performing company in America, Apple, has close to zero race or gender diversity, and if you peel back one layer, it has very little diversity of thought" as well. Why? Because the company was built to execute Steve Jobs' ideas. The more that any given executive could run an emulator of Steve Jobs' brain, the less of Jobs' time he required. "Ideas ar…

It makes me sad that you think diversity is overrated because there are corporations who get "great financial results" without it. Diversity is good because it is designed such that, as best we can, everyone has equal opportunities. While, as a white man the fact that I may have been overlooked in graduate programs because many engineering firms have quotas sucks, but it is one small impediment in a world which was b…

> diversity is overrated because there are corporations who get "great financial results" without it.

in a competitive market, the company that performs well would be the one that's diverse, if the theory is to be believed. I have not yet seen much evidence for or against though.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#48

Post by gattilorenz » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #32

gattilorenz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity quotas are by their very nature institutional discrimination. Sure, they are institutional discrimination in the sense that institutions recognize the differences between gender/races and the differences in the treatment they receive, which is often based on negative prejudice (the other meaning of "discrimination" [1]). Discrimination is not negative per se, as long as it's the "neutral" meaning of the w…

Picking candidates of your preferred gender/ethnicity over candidates of your non-preferred gender/ethnicity is the canonical definition of institutional discrimination. It takes a huge amount of double-think to arrive at the conclusion that this is the same as having gendered bathrooms. Any institution that prefers candidates of a particular gender/ethnicity is prejudicially discriminating against all other candidat…

Well, my point was exactly that discriminating is fine, if it means recognizing differences and providing equal opportunities (sure, that's not exactly what quotas do all the times, but it's what they are trying to do).

You don't have to agree, of course. I wonder if you think that there is prejudice/discrimination that quotas are trying to fix (in a deeply flawed way, according to your view; in an imperfect but still better-than-nothing way according to mine), or if the whole starting point is wrong.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#49

Post by collyw » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:43 AM UTC

Leary wrote: post #19

American Companies and universities will rarely admit they are using quotas. Rather, diversity initiatives boost the probability of hire for certain demographics. This may help correct existing prejudice and discrimination, but it is also unfair to the other demographics. Hopefully companies will consider other avenues to increase their diversity rather than having differing hiring standards.

> This may help correct existing prejudice and discrimination, but it is also unfair to the other demographics.

Correcting prejudice by introducing more prejudice doesn't see like the best way to go about it.

Re: Diversity quotas suck. Here’s why

#50

Post by AmericanChopper » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 7:46 AM UTC

gattilorenz wrote: post #48

AmericanChopper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picking candidates of your preferred gender/ethnicity over candidates of your non-preferred gender/ethnicity is the canonical definition of institutional discrimination. It takes a huge amount of double-think to arrive at the conclusion that this is the same as having gendered bathrooms. Any institution that prefers candidates of a particular gender/ethnicity is prejudicially discriminating against all other candidat…

Well, my point was exactly that discriminating is fine, if it means recognizing differences and providing equal opportunities (sure, that's not exactly what quotas do all the times, but it's what they are trying to do). You don't have to agree, of course. I wonder if you think that there is prejudice/discrimination that quotas are trying to fix (in a deeply flawed way, according to your view; in an imperfect but stil…

Well thanks for being honest I guess...

But you won’t convince me that institutional racism and sexism are justifiable, no matter how much you think some group deserves it.

I also find it hilarious that you have come to the defence of institutional racism and sexism on the basis of equal opportunity...