411–420 of 536 posts
Mind you I hired anyone who could do the job in previous roles, there was no discussion about any of this.
People are more biased and racist than ever.
For an example of this, see this story about Canadian professor and laser scientist Patanjali Kambhampati who was denied for grants because his avowed commitment to mere non-discrimination and merit-based hiring was deemed insufficient. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/minority-professor-deni...
Is that a numbers game? How many people don't get jobs because of the "wrong" skin color? They don't get famous too, that's why no news site brings an article about them. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/harrison_matthew_s_200512_ms....
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…
No. But two white men could also have vastly different life experiences, possibly even more different than between one white man and a black woman, depending on who they are.
If your primary goal is to increase intellectual diversity than you need to look at more than just race, gender, and sexual identity. And I don't think that would be a bad thing. But that's not to say that there aren't other goals of DEI, such as trying to offset the disadvantages faced by certain groups of people.
Isn't the real issue behind all the names (diversity, inclusion, etc) about the equalizing of opportunity or at the very least, bringing certain oppressed groups (and, if you don't think certain groups are or have been oppressed or discriminated against, educate yourself) up the opportunity curve? Do we want to live in a world where you have less opportunity because of characteristics you were born with?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh?
You asked me upthread to come up with some strong arguments (to contrast with the really weak ones in the post) for the article's position. I'm asking you to do the same in the other direction.
You said you knew of lots of good criticisms against a position, and I asked you what they were.
I'm saying that I can't make out what it is about article's position that you're saying is bad. Since you mentioned opposition who are animated by the author's position, I'm asking: "Who are the opposition? What does animate them?"[1] The fact that I don't know and couldn't figure out what you're referring to is the premise of the subthread. (And not false premise—like a contrived exercise.) Asking me to "come up" with arguments is different from asking you to say what you already have on your mind. Asking for me to come up with them when premise is that I've already articulated an inability to make sense of what's presented so far is another level removed from that, still.
1. It's actually not even different from the first question—just two different sets, and me asking, what are the sets' members? since you alluded to knowledge of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mainly agree with the OP. While they don't come out and say it, most on the DEI frontlines execute on the idea that the fix to the fact that "those people have been discriminated against, well, forever" is not to do away with discrimination completely, but rather to discriminate actively against races/genders/orientations that haven't been discriminated against in the same way. This strikes me as faulty thinking. R…
Giving alms to the poor isn't "revenge-driven justice against the rich" - it's helping out people in need. Refusing to give alms to the poor "because it would discriminate against the rich" seems obviously fallacious to me. Surely one can by analogy reason that there are ways to support historically disadvantaged groups that aren't "perpetuating discrimination"?
I get really frustrated with moralistic arguments that treat "ideology" as a value-neutral thing. like this:
> In the academy, left-wing beliefs dominate; therefore, the affirmative action supporters would be first and foremost demanding preferences for conservatives, libertarians, moderates, fascists, monarchists, and other people who do not accept the current progressive orthodoxy.
Some of those people don't want to be tolerant or cooperative. In order to have a conversation we have to want the same thing and to agree to the same rules and operate in good faith.
If your opinion of "diversity" is that its pointless and hurts white men, and your peers at the university believe that cultural diversity is an important part of ideological diversity, and they AGREE that diversity statements help achieve that, then maybe you will also be a bad fit. Thats ok. Work at a different institution.
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 t…
The problem is that people are obsessed with the median person of a given race (and how these "median people" compare with each other) that they project these median personas onto individuals. In other words, they treat individuals as fungible tokens of their race. It doesn't matter if a black candidate has had an easy suburban life and a white candidate grew up in poverty, the DEI lens just sees a black candidate and a white candidate, and the perennial social imperative to bring the median black person and the median white person closer to parity.
Hiring for social diversity (e.g race, ethnicity, gender, age) when the benefits of diversity come from cognitive diversity (micro vs macro pov, engineer working with computer scientist) is a very inefficient way of doing things. Yes it may be that someone of a different gender/race/ethnicity may have a different way of thinking, but it may also not be the case
As an Hispanic Engineer I would hate to be hired to fill up a diversity quota... I am better than that. And as a Software Engineering hiring manager, when hiring I always strive to to be statistically unbiased in the diversity distribution in my team. My base distribution is the population of Software Engineering University graduates. As long as that base population has 1/10 women and 1/20 "non majority population" (…