‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#531

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #290

JamesBarney wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm super suspicious of research like that for a couple of reasons. One it would it be impossible to publish research that came to the opposite conclusion. Imagine seeing a headline that said "replacing female and black executive leadership with old white dudes increases profit" by McKinsey. Second the magnitude of the impact seems insane. This seems larger than the difference most studies find between good leadershi…

The issue a non-diverse team will hit is getting blind-sided by lack of perspective on emerging phenomena. Given that aspect, I don't find it surprising that the benefits from a diverse team could exceed the benefits between the difference in average and good leadership. Both an average and a good leader will drown the same army if they lead them into a swamp because they've never seen a swamp before.

A blue collar factory worker, a harvard grad management consultant, and a business researcher who are all white males try to reduce car part inventory through logistical innovation.

A black woman, a white man, and Asian woman who all graduated from Harvard and worked for McKinsey try to reduce car part inventory through logistical innovation.

I wouldn't be surprised if the more diverse group came up with a better solution.

To take your contrived example regional diversity will have a much larger impact on making sure someone has encountered a swamp than racial diversity.

I think it's easy to overestimate the effect of racial diversity and underestimate the effect of other types of diversities on problem solving style because one is so easy to see.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#532

Post by randomsearch » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

another-dave wrote: post #56

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

Minor point about rowing back on the need for constant news updates - I happily rely on checking high quality news outlets morning evening and watching Channel 4 News at 7pm. I don’t watch 24 hour news channels, and it works just fine. It’s certainly possible for a person to go back to considered coverage.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#533

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #346

JamesBarney wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm sure there are complicated issues around race and gender that training can give you the tools to solve these examples seems pretty easy to fix. > Or evaluating every interview candidate's communication skills and cultural fit based on a conversation about rock climbing and craft beer. I feel like any cultural fit test is going to be inherently sexist/racist/classist. Better to just throw them out. Also why…

> Is the complaint this person isn't doing their job? Then it should be treated like every other complaint. Sure, but how is that? Different performance problems call for different solutions. Do you treat it like the newly hired dyslexic person? Like the person who's going through a difficult divorce? Like the person who likes to party and sometimes comes in tired or hung over? Like the person with gaps in their educ…

Like any other performance issue limited to a month each year. If it's mild and they're otherwise a great employee probably just ignore it. If it's large drop in performance that is having a material impact on the team, document the performance impact, take any steps necessary to mitigate the impact of the drop in performance and ask if there is anything you can do to help them improve their performance.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#534

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #234

zozbot234 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments? The way you describe this, it reads like a really, really weird cargo cult where just confessing to one's supposed racism will somehow make you more open to people of differing backgrounds. How exactly does this help?

Not yet, but these are still pretty new to corporate environments. I've been in "harassment prevention" training sessions for years, but only within the last year sat through my first "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) training. (It was not an inquisition; quite helpful in the opinion of this middle aged white guy.) There is research that shows that companies with diverse leadership and staff financially outper…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#535

Post by wil421 » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #369

globular-toast wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US isn't the world.

Obviously, but calling gay rights a "battle already won" when the third largest country in the world by population still has one of its two major political parties fighting tooth-and-claw on the issue seems premature.

What do the 2 largest countries by population do?

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#536

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #514

rayiner wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you see the difference between teaching people about structural racism and having them stand up and declare "I am a racist" and "I am a gatekeeper of white supremacy?" Two things about that are outside acceptable norms: 1) Having people declare personal complicity for a general social ill; and 2) Using words that have widely-understood connotations to mean something different in order to achieve shocking rheto…

How does that change the normal interaction dynamic?

I generally try to avoid racist people, because they'll treat me and many of my friends poorly. That's what "racism" meant in the culture I was brought up in - a racist person was by definition one who treated certain races poorly.

Because of that, it's very hard for me to have normal interactions with people who explicitly identify as racist, even if they say they're a special kind of racist who intends to treat me well.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#537

Post by DenisM » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

jjones2 wrote: post #368

You can tell that much of it is paid and bots. Social media spreads a lot of negativity.

Any reading material you would suggest? I do wonder how much of the raging conflict is organic vs paid, and how much organic afterglow one gets from paying for a certain campaign.

If your theory is correct much of this kerfuffle will dry up right after the election, along with the funding.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#538

Post by totetsu » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #243

totetsu wrote: post #69

You know I don't recall hearing the term "culture war" when I was studying critical theory and culture and media and so on at university last decade.. I heard about hegemony, and how theories of cultural transmission have changed over time.. I heard of Edward Said and his The Myth of the “Clash of Civilizations”, I heard of Virilio's "Pure War" of technology vs humanity... but I can't recall any discussion of a cultu…

Well, that's obvious. Social sciences that describe societies usually lag behind the events they describe. That's natural. It's also true for other sciences. You won't learn cutting edge Physics in your lecture class. You'll learn the established stuff. It takes a long time till you attend lectures where you'll hear that stuff and it won't be general admission.

Well maybe. But it seems to me that the proponents of the phrase culture war are like the people who flunked phys101 and the started a YouTube channel to explain how their perpetual motion engine works.. they made up a new phrase because they don't want to accept any of the prior thought and discussion in the area that doesn't lead to their conclusions

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#539

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #443

JamesBarney wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm super suspicious of research like that for a couple of reasons. One it would it be impossible to publish research that came to the opposite conclusion. Imagine seeing a headline that said "replacing female and black executive leadership with old white dudes increases profit" by McKinsey. Second the magnitude of the impact seems insane. This seems larger than the difference most studies find between good leadershi…

I would expect a company with more diverse leadership to outperform, because they are able to access more talent. White men are like 35% of the U.S. population in total. So on the back of the envelope, a corporate culture that inclines toward hiring white men, also inclines against hiring from 65% of the population. That's a lot of talent available for your competitors to hire. And the numbers get even more dramatic…

Remember this research was done across the globe including countries like Brazil and Japan.

But to focus on the U.S. most really competitive institutions in the U.S. like medical institutions are not running into the problem of having too many white people. Medical institutions have too many Asians, and not enough Black and Hispanic people to have a representative graduating class.

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/allopathic-distrib...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#540

Post by ozim » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

ilyaeck wrote: post #382

andrew_ wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Social Dilemma" on Netflix touches on this - in part, the algorithms that run these platforms and govern (guide?) user interaction are responsible in large part for pitting people against each other. It's in their best interest to keep eyeballs on their respective sites as much has humanly possible.

Hardly a credible source of objective information, given that The Social Dilemma is itself a piece of media designed to trigger people into consuming and spreading it.

That was my main "funny thing" about that movie. It makes those algorithm choices more dramatic than they are just to trigger people more. If you are into those things movie about "how bad big corporations are" is then served algorithmically to you by Netflix which is one of those big bad corporations.