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Who cares about diversity?

fakenous.substack.com

211–220 of 536 posts

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was in reference to yours and the parent combined. It should be easy to look at the C-board and find diversity because in a global economy there are tons of people with the experience as you've proved with your great example.

OK, if GGP agrees that those companies are diverse at the top by virtue of those CEOs, then are we all aligned that there's no issue there?

yep

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#212
post #89

The whole blog is like this; it's all sort of comically smug "everybody else in the entire world is wrong, and here is a 7-point axiomatic derivation proving it"†, much of it depending on specific definitions of specific words. Check-mate, atheists! There are lots of good, sharp, critical things to say about the DEI movement, most especially "institutional" DEI, but you can't meaningfully say them when you write with…

> The author isn't a rando! This is a tenured professor of philosophy at a major university. You know, writing like a high school sophomore on a message board. Man, that's disappointing. I like Prof. Huemer's writings on free will and philosophy of mind [1] a lot ("Existence Is Evidence of Immortality" is a fun one). I was unaware of his blog up until now—reading it makes me think significantly less of him. [1]: http…

If you knew someone who didn't like mushrooms, and you saw them enjoy a dish with mushrooms in it without knowing, and then after you told them they said they didn't like it at all actually, wouldn't that seem silly?

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment just implies that you assume any minority candidate that HR failed to screen is a diversity hire. And of course now every minority employee at your company has to excel or else they might torpedo the entire diversity hiring initiative.

No, that’s your assumption. The parent comment didn’t say it happens all the time, only that it does happen.

Nah, it’s pretty obvious. Maybe you need to learn to read between the lines.

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#214
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication is that somehow being correct in an argument matters more than tone, which is... childish. If you want to have a productive argument (as opposed to just being an asshole screaming at passerby) you need to convince people that you are worth engaging. This means showing good faith and not being overly dismissive (i.e. tone).

You think tone matters more then being correct?

If you're talking about purely conveying information, tone is largely immaterial.

If you're talking about convincing people, proper tone is a prerequisite to conveying information.

For most communication, tone starts out being infinitely more important that anything you're saying. Once you reach an inflection point, tone is sufficient and correctness can take priority. The inflection point varies based on your audience.

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#215

So here's where I'm stuck: On the one hand I totally understand the objections to categorizing people based on things that won't affect their job performance per se -- skin color, gender, who they are attracted to, etc. But on the other hand, those people have been systematically discriminated against, well, forever. So the question is, where should the fix be applied? If the only people who have the skills to do the…

> And frankly I'd rather have the black woman on the team to offer that perspective, especially for product decisions, because they might have interesting things to say.

I'm trying to imagine how this would work in practice but products aren't usually designed by committee in giant brainstorming sessions where everyone gets to provide their opinion from their little expert/experience positions.

That usually happens through research and feedback loops. Being flexible and adapting. It doesn't require having to hire from every demographic and expert group, and putting them directly on your product/engineering teams.

If you're targeting a specific demographic or niche market is typically helps to be from that group or at a minimum be constantly talking to them (ala what Steve Blank talks about endlessly). It also helps with sales/marketing when communicating, etc.

But this stuff doesn't seem like a rule you can apply generally when composing a team or building a company like choosing the right Lego blocks by demographic profile.

It's not like building a team in an RPG video game where you're trying to find the right balance of race/gender/religion/culture.

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#216
post #89

The whole blog is like this; it's all sort of comically smug "everybody else in the entire world is wrong, and here is a 7-point axiomatic derivation proving it"†, much of it depending on specific definitions of specific words. Check-mate, atheists! There are lots of good, sharp, critical things to say about the DEI movement, most especially "institutional" DEI, but you can't meaningfully say them when you write with…

This sounds like the kind of thing you say when you are annoyed but cant find a good argument against the points being made.

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Re: Who cares about diversity?

#217

I am absolutely all in for equality, but definitely strongly against equity. When I get HR try to shove a resume down my throat because it ticks all of their boxes despite having none of the boxes to be succesful on the job, that is when I draw the line. I don't care if you're white, black, purple or green, and whether you fuck men, women, all of them or none of them is none of my business. At the end of the day I wa…

[deleted]

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#218

This diversity stuff comes from the very top, when I was doing my PhD the three most productive (and published) grad students and post docs were a few white and chinese guys. But every grant I proofread from my advisor extolled the "diverse" make up of the lab and the contributions from underrepresented minorities therein (women of various backgrounds) who largely did not contribute to any of the prior work on which…

As always, follow the money.

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#219

So here's where I'm stuck: On the one hand I totally understand the objections to categorizing people based on things that won't affect their job performance per se -- skin color, gender, who they are attracted to, etc. But on the other hand, those people have been systematically discriminated against, well, forever. So the question is, where should the fix be applied? If the only people who have the skills to do the…

I'd previously bought into the meritocracy argument, but was eventually convinced to update those beliefs when presented with a new perspective. If you only look at the end-result, then meritocracy makes sense. But the trajectory which each person takes in order to arrive at that destination can vary wildly depending on how priviledged of a lifestyle you were born into.

It's entirely possible to pick up and develop the required skills while on the job in many cases. Companies ultimately end up benefiting from this by spreading out the responsibility of training people, which results in a stronger more robust workforce.

Re: Who cares about diversity?

#220

I am absolutely all in for equality, but definitely strongly against equity. When I get HR try to shove a resume down my throat because it ticks all of their boxes despite having none of the boxes to be succesful on the job, that is when I draw the line. I don't care if you're white, black, purple or green, and whether you fuck men, women, all of them or none of them is none of my business. At the end of the day I wa…

Your statement (maybe because of a massive pendulum swing in society) in some circles is considered racist, regardless of your motivations. This is a major difficulty we face today, mass irrationality in society.

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