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MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

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Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#551

Post by llm_trw »

noisy_boy wrote: post #522
llm_trw wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which may have been true in 1970s, today I get told in emails to pass over White and Asian candidates because we need more diversity. The sheer hubris of putting racism in writing makes me feel like I'm in a topsy turvy 1950s.

It is true in 2024 also, just that you have to choose a location different from US; go to Southeast Asia to see it in action everyday, where everyone is extra nice to white people - sales people are extra polite, people laugh extra hard at everything white people say, the lady at the counter pays first attention to white people among the group of folks waiting and so on. I have heard white people say "I loved the exp…

So in South East Asia they are nice to minorities? That's nice.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#552

Post by pygar »

gameman144 wrote: post #544
pygar wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have 5 equally good candidates, 4 men and 1 woman that woman has a 1/5 chance of being selected. The others also have a 1/5 chance as individuals but the candidate selected has a 4/5 likelihood of being male. If you want to hire more women what do you do exactly?

In this scenario, you should expect to have a representation of around 1 woman per 4 men, if the rate of qualified candidates is 1 woman per 4 men. If you want to hire more than that ratio, you have to be doing some discarding of otherwise qualified candidates on the basis only of being men.

Sure. But even if you want to hire at about 1 women per 4 men you would need to actively do so. I.E. create a hiring policy in which she would be selected instead of one of the other equally qualified men.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#553

Post by JSavageOne »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #510
jhardy54 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diversity applicants Friendly nudge that this isn’t a meaningful term. Once you start noticing people saying things like “our hiring pool is 60% diversity” it’s hard to unsee.

I don't agree. "Diversity" has a commonly accepted meaning which in the US at least, means everything except white men. Female or non-white are "diversity." A great example are the statements and articles from 2020 when Biden announced the most diverse ever White House Communications Team which was 100% female. Biden talked about how critical diversity was and bragged about this 100% female communications team. All t…

Asians aren't counted as "diversity" either. This is why they're referred to as "an inconvenient minority" in the context of DEI.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#554

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

resolutebat wrote: post #163
zdragnar wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just modern news, people tend to be intellectually lazy on any topic they are emotionally invested in. Just look at the fallout from Harvard professor Roland Fryer publishing a study (after hiring a second set of grad students to review the data because he was himself surprised by the results). People didn't react logically, with proportionate arguments, reasoning or counter data. They reacted emotionally, f…

Context for others who missed this particular storm in a teacup: https://freespeechunion.org/harvard-professor-needed-armed-p... On the question of non-lethal uses of force, the study found “sometimes quite large” racial differences in police use of force, even after accounting for “a large set of controls designed to account for important contextual and behavioural factors at the time of the police-civilian interact…

Wow, I hadn't heard this before l, and it made me pretty furious:

> An important scholarly intervention within a particular field of academic research, you might say. But Prof Fryer has now revealed that at the time the research was conducted, Harvard colleagues familiar with the results urged him not to publish his findings, telling him that he’d ruin his career.

This whole article is sad and disgusting, especially because, as a result of this research, Prof Fryer was proposing some actual interventions to reduce biased applications of non-lethal use-of-force, but because the data didn't fit the prevailing narrative, it was attacked. Just gross.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#555

Post by somenameforme »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #482
Aurornis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard this same argument for DEI statements every time the topic has been debated: They sidestep arguments about DEI statements and instead retreat to safer arguments about how advancing DEI is a good thing. On one hand, I get it. Arguing for DEI in an abstract sense is much easier than arguing for specific interventions. On the other hand, this is the textbook example of a Motte-and-bailey fallacy, where the de…

> On the other hand, this is the textbook example of a Motte-and-bailey fallacy In a textbook, it would be called "equivocation". > where the debater conflates two topics Yep. I continue to be somewhat disturbed by the fact that giving a new name to a problem we've recognized for thousands of years has apparently increased awareness. Did people not realize equivocation was bad before Scott Alexander?

Alternatively, you're reversing the causality. As such fallacies have become borderline ubiquitous in many relevant aspects of life, greater appreciation and understanding of what's happening led to the emergence of language that's not only more figurative and visual, but also more precise. Because while all motte and bailey fallacies will be false equivocations, not all false equivocations will be motte and bailey fallacies.

Engaging in a genocidal action and then claiming it's self defense when scrutinized is a textbook motte and bailey fallacy. Claiming that people who oppose said genocide are supporters of fringe radical elements within the genocided, is a false equivocation, but not a motte and bailey fallacy. Indeed, you could make your exact argument about association fallacies, or a wide array of other fallacies for that matter - as most tend to involve false equivocation at some point.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#557

Post by afro88 »

underlipton wrote: post #445
sensanaty wrote: post #415

The western idea of DEI has always puzzled me ever since I first came across it (or at least the D portion of DEI, which in my mind is the most important one). I'm a Serb by blood and grew up in and have lived in Indonesia for the majority of my life, and I went to an international school with kids from quite literally every single corner of the earth, many of them being some exotic mix of various ethnicities. Despit…

You actually explained the need for DEI. >Yet if some HR person would interview me, a white-skinned guy, and then my best friend, a black-skinned guy who has African/Japanese ancestry, I'd definitely be placed in the same "bucket" as the white Dutchies around me and my friend with the black Dutchies, despite him and I actually having identical experiences and mindsets and not really having anything in common with the…

Why not measure on diversity of thought then?

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#558

Post by justinclift »

JSavageOne wrote: post #553
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. "Diversity" has a commonly accepted meaning which in the US at least, means everything except white men. Female or non-white are "diversity." A great example are the statements and articles from 2020 when Biden announced the most diverse ever White House Communications Team which was 100% female. Biden talked about how critical diversity was and bragged about this 100% female communications team. All t…

Asians aren't counted as "diversity" either. This is why they're referred to as "an inconvenient minority" in the context of DEI.

For that, does "asians" mean people from the middle of asia (ie middle east), or people from south east asia (ie oriental)?

Asking because the term has different meanings in say the UK (asian -> from middle east) vs Australia (asian -> from south east asia).

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#559

Post by nucleardog »

resolutebat wrote: post #163
zdragnar wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just modern news, people tend to be intellectually lazy on any topic they are emotionally invested in. Just look at the fallout from Harvard professor Roland Fryer publishing a study (after hiring a second set of grad students to review the data because he was himself surprised by the results). People didn't react logically, with proportionate arguments, reasoning or counter data. They reacted emotionally, f…

Context for others who missed this particular storm in a teacup: https://freespeechunion.org/harvard-professor-needed-armed-p... On the question of non-lethal uses of force, the study found “sometimes quite large” racial differences in police use of force, even after accounting for “a large set of controls designed to account for important contextual and behavioural factors at the time of the police-civilian interact…

Any media coverage that isn’t from a niche right wing news site yelling about the woke kids?

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#560

Post by j16sdiz »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #510
jhardy54 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> diversity applicants Friendly nudge that this isn’t a meaningful term. Once you start noticing people saying things like “our hiring pool is 60% diversity” it’s hard to unsee.

I don't agree. "Diversity" has a commonly accepted meaning which in the US at least, means everything except white men. Female or non-white are "diversity." A great example are the statements and articles from 2020 when Biden announced the most diverse ever White House Communications Team which was 100% female. Biden talked about how critical diversity was and bragged about this 100% female communications team. All t…

An Asian-owned company in US can easily get 80%+ Asian. Is that "diversity"?

This depends on how you frame. It is not diverse for the company, but it could be in the larger social context. Putting the same thing in, say, San Francisco can be different from doing the same in Utah.

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