What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by kthejoker2 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

bioemerl wrote: post #281

kthejoker2 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not the way forward? Depends on the "some" being "harmed." This is a systemic problem, systemic measures will be taken, there will be winners and losers.

> Depends on the "some" being "harmed." How does harming anyone help? No it does not depend on the some. Life isn't a zero sum game. Pull people down and you don't distribute their value to others, you only destroy it.

You are begging the question, I don't believe eliminating private schooling harms anyone, nor will it "pull people down."

Inequity in schooling is already harming others.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by QuarterReptile » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:54 AM UTC

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #644

Der_Einzige wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. Portland went from shockingly massively increasing home prices to declining home prices in no small part due to this.

Isn't it generally better to have affordable housing than shockingly massively increasing home prices?

Clearly not, in the context of this discussion. No city is better off by eviscerated its tax base.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by telltruth » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #117

Maybe the question is why the leftists are so influential that for-profit companies are willing to comply with their ideology. Isn't the best way to increase the representation of minorities is to increase the funnel? Better schools, better teachers, more rigorous curriculum for all instead of for the elite students, a whole new culture that values curiosity and geekiness in general, and eventually a larger number of…

It's not left or right ideologies but CEO and their desire to be in good standing in social media. During early 2010s, there was whole barrage of books and editorial on income gap, gender gap and biases. News channels regularly picked up authors and circulated them on and on. Talk shows need someone to talk with and what could be better than these topics to energize audience to argue? This built-up a lot of resentment of being exploited and left behind in "diverse" group over short span of years which eventually exploded into me-too movement. During those days, a CEO will go out and post on Twitter how they cared about diversity and going all-in by tying the diversity targets with bonuses. Then if the next CEO doesn't do the same then they obviously looked upon as anti-diversity/racists. So, this whole thing cascaded into all big tech CEOs lining up to setup artificial diversity targets and that's where we are now. No one really cared that pipeline to funnel diversity in tech was broken at the start.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by slt2021 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

chrismcb wrote: post #659

dijonman2 wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hiring manager I have substantial pressure to hire incompetent people to meet quotas. I confronted my recruiter in front of witnesses and was partially shunned. I have been hiring for many years, and I truly pay no attention to gender or ethnicity. Now I am forced to. It’s an insult to those who earned their position. It’s an insult to me as I am less and less likely to get a new job because I won’t fit quotas.…

And that is illegal (assuming you are in the us)

it is not, almost all big employers happily announce that they are Affirmative Action employers and this provides shield for their actions

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by thegrimmest » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

abigail95 wrote: post #591

thegrimmest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're writing with the implicit assumption that private companies ought to be meritocratic above all. I don't think that's the case. I think private people and orgs ought to be free to choose whom they associate with, hire, and promote based on any criteria they can come up with. Nepotism? No problem. Height/weight/age/beauty/culture/hair colour discrimination? You bet. Then these orgs all compete and the most effic…

Sure that's a nice libertarian framing of the issue. I would love to be able to hire whoever I want, with no say from anyone else, for my companies. But that's not what the law says. Title VII of the CRA 1964 says: > It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (1)to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensat…

Yes please - let people make their own decisions. Why this list but not height or hair colour or beauty or sexual orientation or any one of 1000 traits that people have little to no control over? Do you think the last 50 years of identity-driven public policy have served to unify or divide Americans?

Also "race" isn't really a "thing", so what does it mean in the context of this law?

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by balls187 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

31337Logic wrote: post #608

balls187 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does that mean? Worrying that kids may not be able to get into a decent school because they're not diverse enough seems like a a nice problem to have--parents of "diverse" children have much larger worries. > Just about anyone can get into a school, or get a job. Wouldn't that mean that based on the equality of outcomes, it doesn't matter what type of school OP's kids go to, and therefore no reason to worry.

> Worrying that kids may not be able to get into a decent school because they're not diverse enough seems like a a nice problem to have--parents of "diverse" children have much larger worries. It only seems that way to you if you can't empathize with others. The OP makes a valid point. Any group that is caught in the crosshairs of discrimination will naturally be worried for their kids. It's not a "nice problem to ha…

No post body was provided.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by slt2021 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 3:00 AM UTC

massinstall wrote: post #631

uup wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single person can be diverse relative to a group, though. Like a black woman would add diversity to a group of white men, for instance. When we talk about diversity in recruiting, usually we mean diversity of the candidate relative to the makeup of the company.

Optically maybe, if that’s what you’re aiming for. Just assuming that the “group of white men” are “all the same” is not very deep. The truth is that they’re all individuals with individual stories strangers who judge them by their looks know nothing about. It used to be understood as a good thing to not judge people based on their gender or skin color, including the nowadays declared “evil” white men.

right words, but it is not what's happening in real world in hiring

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by forgomonika » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 3:04 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #660

forgomonika wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Just wow. So you are arguing that people from marginalized communities should just suck it up and stick to their own or constantly have to hide and adjust who they are to make others feel comfortable. I feel sorry for the people that you work with and god forbid you actually end up managing people. This sort of crap creates such a toxic environment for people.

I'm arguing that belonging to a majority does not place implicit responsibilities on people. Wanting to associate with culturally similar people is a natural human behaviour, not something to be ashamed of. You seem to be arguing that we should force people to deny this quite natural impulse in order to make minorities more comfortable. Seems pretty toxic/controlling to me. Let people be .

You do realize you are advocating for minorities to do all the work? Carry the burden, deal with the trauma that gets involved, constantly have to work at navigating everyone else, while people in a spot of privilege don't need to do any sort of work, right? This is the world you are arguing for and it's not a world you'll want to be living in long term. Hopefully you figure that out sooner before it's too late.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by telltruth » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 3:09 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #60

paxys wrote: post #32

It's telling that this person posted a job listing, interviewed dozens of candidates, realized they couldn't proceed because they hadn't interviewed any minority candidate, tried for months and were still unsuccessful at finding a single one , and the take away wasn't that they should fix their broken recruiting pipeline but that the corporate policy was what was wrong.

Why do you suppose that a non-broken recruiting pipeline would result in more diverse candidates? Do you really think all candidate pools in all professions, and in all locations, are as diverse as the population at all times?

At our school, 100% of teachers are women. One Hundred Percent. 97% of administrative staff is also women. In all of hair saloons in my area, 100% of staff is women. All of the nurses in our nearby hospital are women. They don't care about diversity and I do not think it is due to bias. I think they simply don't have enough men applying in their pipeline for these jobs. None of their CEOs have insisted in enforcing population statistics on to their employee statistics.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Post by thegrimmest » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 3:13 AM UTC

forgomonika wrote: post #668

thegrimmest wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm arguing that belonging to a majority does not place implicit responsibilities on people. Wanting to associate with culturally similar people is a natural human behaviour, not something to be ashamed of. You seem to be arguing that we should force people to deny this quite natural impulse in order to make minorities more comfortable. Seems pretty toxic/controlling to me. Let people be .

You do realize you are advocating for minorities to do all the work? Carry the burden, deal with the trauma that gets involved, constantly have to work at navigating everyone else, while people in a spot of privilege don't need to do any sort of work, right? This is the world you are arguing for and it's not a world you'll want to be living in long term. Hopefully you figure that out sooner before it's too late.

Yes, I do realize this. I'm arguing that people's privilege is theirs. It's not yours to redistribute as you see fit. The situation you're describing is reality - an inevitable consequence of human social biology.

When you belong to a minority, you navigate the world on the majority's terms. This is true everywhere but only in the US do people seem to get bent of of shape about it. The saying is "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". How would you mutilate this phrase so that it conforms to your worldview?