
Rethinking Approaches to Diversity And Inclusion - kiyanwang
https://hackernoon.com/diversity-and-inclusion-why-you-need-to-rethink-your-approach-to-diversity-and-inclusion-87615bc0894f
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ipsocannibal
I fear the current "Diversity" zeitgeist has become a shakedown scam by so
called experts to line their pockets based on the threat of bad PR. In my
experience these "experts" and "founders" advice on attaining "diversity"
boils down to excluding technically competent but "over-representitive" groups
in favor of other "under-represented" groups within the hiring process. The
members of these "over-represented" groups, i.e. Caucasian and North Asian
males of American origin, become the hires of last resort. In effect a quota
system is established in order demonstrate the desired proportions of "under-
represented" groups within a role are being achieved thus preventing negative
PR.

Parallel with exclusionary hiring policies a propaganda campaign within a
organization must be waged in order to brow beat members of the "over-
represented" groups into accepting that such exclusionary policies are
necessary and just in order to achieve some nebulous moralistic goal as
defined by the "diversity" "experts" and "founders". From said propaganda the
members of the "over-represented" groups must learn to accept and fulfill the
role "ally" toward all members of the designated "under-represented" groups.
This role can be simplified into "supporter of exclusionary policies of which
I'm the target".

Mind you the "experts" and "founders" advocate for "diversity" and "inclusion"
only within job roles that are typically male dominated and techincally
oriented. The exclusionary hiring policies and propaganda campaigns never
include increasing "diversity" within female dominated roles, e.g. HR,
Recruiting, etc., or non-techincal roles, e.g. Custodial, Facilities,
Security, Transportation, etc. This is so because the threat of bad PR doesn't
hold much weight when certain target groups are not members of the "over-
represented" group within the role.

Ultimately, I fear the current methods of addressing the "diversity" issue are
counterproductive, hypocritical, and morally prescriptive in the same ways
that other zeitgeist initiated crusades have been in recent history, e.g. "War
on Drugs".

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Erik816
Or maybe actually rethink it, and question whether diversity is a universal
good or one value among many that comes with trade offs.

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mlloyd
Probably wouldn't say this if you were underrepresented.

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DoofusOfDeath
Yeah, people seem to be more sympathetic to plights they've experienced
themselves.

Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the overall
society needs to solve.

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mcphage
> Regardless of whether or not such a plight is the biggest problem the
> overall society needs to solve.

What if societies could work on solving multiple problems at once?

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ipsocannibal
Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a
society to solve problems is not infinite.

Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems
"because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition.

~~~
mcphage
> Sure, but how do you prioritize which ones to solve? The capacity for a
> society to solve problems is not infinite.

Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with.

> Furthermore, how do you define what a "problem" is for a society? It seems
> "because it happened to me" is a relatively weak definition.

It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a subset
of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving them.

~~~
ipsocannibal
> Thankfully, neither are the problems that society is faced with.

True, yet I think we can agree that some problems are more easily solvable
than others. Likewise, solving some problems will have greater positive impact
on society as a whole than others. Therefore, it's probably a good idea to
have some type of estimation strategy for determining the above stated
properties of societal problems.

> It turns out, you don't actually need to! Some problems are faced by a
> subset of a society, and often that subset are most interested in solving
> them.

Then what you are describing is not a societial problem. I can define any
individual as a subset of a society. That does not make that individual's
problems societal. Expand your subset to include 0.05% of the population,
their problems still are not societal. I would say there is some critical mass
of people that must experience a problem before it becomes a societal problem.
What that proportion is I do not know.

Furthermore, there are ways to solve problems for one subset of people by
damaging another subset of people. Example, slavery. In these cases I don't
think you have actually solved a societal problem. You've caused one.

I would claim this is the case for the "diversity" issue. A small set of
"experts" have determined based on little to no evidence that for a certain
set of job roles the proportions of people in said roles must reflect some
vagued idealized ratios based upon superficial biological characteristics. In
order to address the "problem" that the current propotionality of members in
these job roles do not reflect their ideal a public smear campaign is
unleashed in order to threaten non-compliant organizations into instituting
exclusionary hiring policies and moralistic internal propaganda campaigns.

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mcphage
> I would say there is some critical mass of people that must experience a
> problem before it becomes a societal problem. What that proportion is I do
> not know.

Good idea... let’s use it to evaluate diversity programs. Well, it’ll help
women, which is roughly 50%. And black males (since we’ve already included
women), another 6%. That’s pretty good! Does your “critical mass” include 175
million people, do you think?

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tomohawk
Thinking there is more diversity between defined groups than within such
groups - that is the definition of racism. And why do we listen to these
people who define the groups a certain way anyway? This is no way for us to
pull together and work together. We shouldn't be suckers for the divide and
conquer approach.

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ashleyn
"Diversity" is a problem that can only be solved supply-side. If you want
particular demographics in your field, the solution begins in early childhood,
it begins in the home and the school. This preserves the still-essential
meritocratic aspect of hiring while making an effort to diversify your
culture.

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jacknews
I find the link "Pssst…the real reason why we should #MentorHer" to be rather
angry and prescriptive. There appears to me to be an increase in the number of
propagandic articles dictating how men should have.

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Kequc
Hire the most skilled people available to fill any role. These are companies,
businesses, they have a duty to investors and stock holders. If you're worried
about giving jobs to anyone other than the most skilled applicants, please
redirect your attention to the schools and educational institutions.

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jacknews
The article details steps to be taken, obviously in pursuit of a diversity
goal state, but the goal is never stated.

What is the actual objective? To me, it should be a simple case of
eradicating, or compensating for, bias. No more, no less.

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TheAdamAndChe
What do you mean by bias? This claim assumes that bias against certain
cultures is necessary for growth, but why is bias always bad?

For example, if I hire an experienced senior dev over a junior, that's biased
against the younger worker because of their lack of experience. Yet I end up
with a more productive workforce. How is that bad? How do we determine which
kind of biases are bad and which are good?

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killjoywashere
You want a lighter, more resilient bridge, you put the concrete under tension.
You want a lighter, more resilient bicycle wheel, you put the spokes under
tension. You want a lighter, more resilient company, adding a little tension
to the teams because _you_ know the _company_ will have to weather diversity-
related issues.

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TheAdamAndChe
Intentionally causing conflict and lowering the quality of life of your
workers just so some diversity quota can be met seems kind of sociopathic to
me. I really don't see how intentional conflict would benefit a company.

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killjoywashere
I'm pretty sure the US's better nature is to be a melting pot of the world.
I'm sure if you've gotten this far, you can get along with other people and
realize it is beneficial to all when you do.

