Bay Area: Join us next week, 8/17, to talk about diversity (or lack thereof) in tech

Slack engineering director Leslie Miley will talk about problems with diversity in Silicon Valley.

Read the whole story

 

[shieldw0lf]

Tribalism is bigotry. Identity politics is bigotry. You are bigots.

 

[lint gravy]

shieldw0lf[/url]":ni9l1vcw]Tribalism is bigotry. Identity politics is bigotry. You are bigots.

I'm more of a smallot myself. No point in being greedy.

I can't wait for the next comment. What odds it'll have "SJW" in it?

 

[TK]

Welp, I can see right now how this thread is going to go.

Article: Identity politics rah rah!

Comment 1: All identity politics is bigotry

Comment 2: Commenter 1 and anyone who thinks that way is a bigot.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Commenter 1 was right, by the way.

 

[ApplePaladin]

Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

 

[think_inside_the_box]

If one agrees race should not matter, does that also imply racial diversity should also not matter?

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Bay Area: Join us next week, 8/17, to talk about diversity (or lack thereof) in tech

I'm reminded of a particular Ars group photo. Diversity indeed.

 

[ziegler]

Definition of meritocracy
plural meritocracies

1
: a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2
: leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

 

[Deleted member 330960]

Great, please stop discriminating against Asians since there is actual data to back this up. Once we have data to back up discrimination against $ethnicity then we can take action.

Affirmative action in schools is discriminating against Asian students.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/ ... ining-ever

 

[ZhanMing057]

I'll put on my pedant's hat for a moment and take a shot at a serious comment not involving the b-word.

- Asians are disproportionately over-represented in STEM and in particular in engineering and CS. Isn't that the very definition of diversity? If not, why should only particular minorities count as agents of diversity and not others?

- STEM-oriented schools with race-blind admissions report low shares of blacks (<5% at MIT/Caltech verses 13% of the general population) as well as Hispanics. Now one could argue that there are development constraints to being a minority member, but what does this have to do with companies?

- In less STEM-focused liberal arts institutions, evidence suggests that blacks nonetheless choose, on average, curriculum with significantly lower difficulty. Once again, this is an issue but not something that any tech company has any obligation to resolve.

- Aggregate data does seem to suggest that blacks are underrepresented in tech *on average* (6% to 1-3% in various firms). But the data says nothing about the distribution of skill levels among the entire market pool of applicants with CS backgrounds. The average says very little without information about the shape of the distribution.

- To the best of my knowledge I have not seen any recent work on the effect of diversity on firm profitability or performance. There are recent non-technical studies but the empirics are far from convincing. Earlier work suggest that correlation is weak at best in either direction, but those were conducted before the likes of Google and Facebook existed.

- Finally, my work suggests that there are significant barriers to education attainability at the primary and secondary levels because of systematic racial aversion in wealthy urban/suburban neighborhoods that essentially force blacks to accept a sub-optimal set of residential options. I'm not going to post links to my own stuff but here is a similar piece. What I'm saying is that there are far more important discussions to be had about race and education in this country, and whatever fraction of employees at Facebook are black isn't among those discussions.

Edit: added a few points.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

TK[/url]":1dwxo1ac]Welp, I can see right now how this thread is going to go.

Article: Identity politics rah rah!

Comment 1: All identity politics is bigotry

Comment 2: Commenter 1 and anyone who thinks that way is a bigot.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Commenter 1 was right, by the way.

Anyone looking at this objectively in the US must surly see that neither position is completely correct. Some is and some isn't, completely depending on context.

Regarding the black lives matter movement, if you aren't black and your reaction to the BLM movement is that all lives matter, you're missing the point. Of course all lives matter. The BLM message is really that black lives matter too, not that they matter more than any other lives. And if you look at how they are treated economically, by the police and by the justice system, they have a valid (very) complaint.

When a group is being systematically discriminated against, it's not bigotry for them try to address the issues politically.

Anyone who argues that blacks in this country aren't at a significant disadvantage do to systemic issues in society and the various government systems is blind, or willfully ignorant.

Note that this does not constitute pity, nor am I saying that all black people suffer from this.

Yes, I am a privileged white male, but obvious is obvious.

BTW I'm focusing on this topic becasue the the lead image of a black lives matter hashtag in case it gets changed.

 

[ApplePaladin]

ziegler[/url]":1z2g1yel]Definition of meritocracy
plural meritocracies

1
: a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2
: leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

And that would be relevant if any actual, functioning meritocracies existed in the real world.

 

[lint gravy]

I went to diversity training and was disappointed. I thought they said perversity training. They told me come back with pants on.

 

[ziegler]

itdraugr[/url]":10fa6wau]Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

That's because diversity for the pure sake of diversity is total bullshit.

I want to see more white guys in the NBA.
I want to see more mexicans working in chinese restaurants and more chinese working in mexican restaurants.
I want to see more men working in education.
I want to see more female boy scout leaders or more men girl scout leaders.
I want to see fewer asians in STEM.

All bullshit.

What I really want to see is MLK Jr's dream.

 

[BalderTinDaicon]

think_inside_the_box[/url]":3jswjva5]If one agrees race should not matter, does that also imply racial diversity should also not matter?

That's exactly right, but these people don't want equal rights when they talk about diversity. They are demanding special treatment.

 

[think_inside_the_box]

Many on the left want racial diversity, while at the same time making both races as equal as possible and eliminating as many differences between the races as possible. That seems hypocritical to me. Wouldn't real proponents of racial diversity want each race to have distinctness? Is it really racial diversity if the parts that make us diverse are only superficial?

 

[TK]

itdraugr[/url]":2385p5em]Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

I think more large furry critters become pretzel-like when "diversity" is unquestioningly accepted as self-evidently an awesome thing that deserves an unlimited amount of time and effort, above all other problems, to correct a perceived lack of.

The twist becomes even tighter when proponents cannot and will not explain how their proposed actions are not directly in support of the various *isms that they claim to hate, and the twist becomes tight enough to open a garage door when the proponents begin accusing people who ask this question of being guilty of all manner of horrible things.

Sprinkle on a dash of rejection of any and all objective reasoning in the face of subjective feelings, and you have the recipe for interplanetary war against Kashyyyk.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

think_inside_the_box[/url]"h1o46bt]If one agrees race should not matter, does that also imply racial diversity should also not matter?

It depends on whether or not the lack of diversity is systemic discrimination, or honest self selection, does it not?

 

[Mydrrin]

My thoughts are there are problems with the pipeline of people they have available to them. 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants are more likely than even upper income whites to be in college. You see the same problem with doctors, nurses...there is much diversity. But not the right kind?

To me the opportunity isn't there for Hispanics and Afro-American. Hispanics and Afro-American parents typically work low income jobs, the wages in these jobs are often subsistence. There is little left over to help go to college nor time to help with homework or extra help time for kids. To me the simplest way is increase to the minimum wage for full time work to allow people's children go to college. Or increase subsidies for students, but that is only part of the answer.

 

[sttm]

What I'd like to know about these diversity agendas:
1. What % is the correct %? The goals seems to be to have X percent of Y race, so what is that percent for each race, and what did you base that on? For instance should tech hiring have a similar racial breakdown as society as a whole, or as STEM graduates?
2. How do you get to that percent? Are you actually advocating that people be hired, and fired, because of their race, sexual orientation, or gender?
3. What proof can you show that there actually is an advantage to having diversity in Tech? How does having every possible skin color in your engineering team make for better code?

 

[StillGridlocked]

32% of Google employees are Asian while 59% are White - from CNBC.

Which group is over represented?

 

[lint gravy]

think_inside_the_box[/url]":1orkxeim]Many on the left want racial diversity, while at the same time making both races as equal as possible...

To those of us playing bingo, does this one let me check the #ManyPeopleAreSaying box?

 

[Dilbert]

Sorry to hijack this. Or maybe it is not a hijack. It is tangentially relevant.

Don't really care who my coworkers in tech are or where they came from or if they are green or purple. As long as they are bright, can reason themselves out of problems, have analytical minds, problem solving skills, know how to find the information they need, remember that information when a similar problem occurs again.

You need to be smart to work in tech. That's often all it takes. We can train you to do the job as long as you are smart. No one wants to talk about this. Intelligence is largely determined by genes and not which fancy school one went to.

Some people were born to flip burgers. Some people were born to develop software. Not everyone can work in tech.

 

[ziegler]

itdraugr[/url]":2ge85rh0]

ziegler[/url]":2ge85rh0]Definition of meritocracy
plural meritocracies

1
: a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2
: leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

And that would be relevant if any actual, functioning meritocracies existed in the real world.

Guess what....pushing hiring practices based on race/sex/religion/ et.al. isnt how to get there.
You know...Content of Character and all that jazz.

 

[ApplePaladin]

TK[/url]":25yhluyz]

itdraugr[/url]":25yhluyz]Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

I think more large furry critters become pretzel-like when "diversity" is unquestioningly accepted as self-evidently an awesome thing that deserves an unlimited amount of time and effort, above all other problems, to correct a perceived lack of.

The twist becomes even tighter when proponents cannot and will not explain how their proposed actions are not directly in support of the various *isms that they claim to hate, and the twist becomes tight enough to open a garage door when the proponents begin accusing people who ask this question of being guilty of all manner of horrible things.

Sprinkle on a dash of rejection of any and all objective reasoning in the face of subjective feelings, and you have the recipe for interplanetary war against Kashyyyk.

The problem with invoking straw opponents who supposedly respond to criticism with accusations is that it derails from the actual conversation about whatever is being discussed.

Sure, you can say that people who kneejerk respond to criticisms of diversity with accusations of bigotry are engaging in poor form. But that doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion about why diversity helps businesses by injecting new perspectives into homogeneous business structures and how targeting diversity as a hiring practice reveals the problem with the way social networking is often used to grant jobs to underqualified applicatnts from the favored in-group of the hiring party.

 

[Viewer]

TK[/url]":1iqtk2ai]Welp, I can see right now how this thread is going to go.

Article: Identity politics rah rah!

Comment 1: All identity politics is bigotry

Comment 2: Commenter 1 and anyone who thinks that way is a bigot.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Commenter 1 was right, by the way.

awesome! great job!

I thought I was the main fringe guy on this site who would post like this. There are more of us!

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Dilbert[/url]":cdhe6kkc]Sorry to hijack this. Or maybe it is not a hijack. It is tangentially relevant.

Don't really care who my coworkers in tech are or where they came from or if they are green or purple. As long as they are bright, can reason themselves out of problems, have analytical minds, problem solving skills, know how to find the information they need, remember that information when a similar problem occurs again.

You need to be smart to work in tech. That's often all it takes. We can train you to do the job as long as you are smart. No one wants to talk about this. Intelligence is largely determined by genes and not which fancy school one went to.

Some people were born to flip burgers. Some people were born to develop software. Not everyone can work in tech.

What about ageism?

 

[TK]

itdraugr[/url]":3kia7pct]

The problem with invoking straw opponents who supposedly respond to criticism with accusations is that it derails from the actual conversation about whatever is being discussed.

itdraugr[/url]":3kia7pct] For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

Indeed.

But that doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion about why diversity helps businesses by injecting new perspectives into homogeneous business structures...

..and how targeting diversity as a hiring practice reveals the problem with the way social networking is often used to grant jobs to underqualified jobs of the favored in-group of the hiring party.

Finally, something that can be discussed! Perhaps we could begin by discussing why and how these "new perspectives" are worth the time and effort that Silicon Vally seems to spend working itself up over? And why your gender or race is taken as predictive of these valuable perspectives? I mean, I thought the whole point here was that prejudging people by things they can't control is a shitty thing to do.

And speaking of hiring practices granting positions to unqualified workers, that makes sense, I think we can agree here that qualifications should be the most important thing when hiring. But then why is the answer to put *less* stress on qualifications and more on your identity, i.e. things you have no control over?

 

[Deleted member 192806]

itdraugr[/url]":12c274cw]

ziegler[/url]":12c274cw]Definition of meritocracy
plural meritocracies

1
: a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

2
: leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria

And that would be relevant if any actual, functioning meritocracies existed in the real world.

Open Source.

 

[.劉煒]

Are Asians overrepresented in Tech?

 

[theramenman]

tayhimself[/url]":utsksfpg]Great, please stop discriminating against Asians since there is actual data to back this up. Once we have data to back up discrimination against $ethnicity then we can take action.

Affirmative action in schools is discriminating against Asian students.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/ ... ining-ever

LOL you thing they give a shit about Asian's? We're the one minority that its okay to make fun of, okay to exclude, okay to pretend like we don't count as a minority because we typically do better than others given the same resources. Good luck trying to convince anyone that putting Asians down to artificially give other minorities a slight boost is unfair. By the down-vote's on your comment despite linking an objective, data rich article, you can already tell how much these so called egalitarian people care about Asians.

 

[Viewer]

Mydrrin[/url]":3n9b9l0q]
To me the opportunity isn't there for Hispanics and Afro-American. Hispanics and Afro-American parents typically work low income jobs, the wages in these jobs are often subsistence. There is little left over to help go to college nor time to help with homework or extra help time for kids.

Then why isn't the problem directly related to low income families of all ethnic groups?

 

[ApplePaladin]

Dilbert[/url]":32e12rdg]Sorry to hijack this. Or maybe it is not a hijack. It is tangentially relevant.

Don't really care who my coworkers in tech are or where they came from or if they are green or purple. As long as they are bright, can reason themselves out of problems, have analytical minds, problem solving skills, know how to find the information they need, remember that information when a similar problem occurs again.

You need to be smart to work in tech. That's often all it takes. We can train you to do the job as long as you are smart. No one wants to talk about this. Intelligence is largely determined by genes and not which fancy school one went to.

Some people were born to flip burgers. Some people were born to develop software. Not everyone can work in tech.

A university press release is not a peer-reviewed journal. Try to find some peer-reviewed literature to support your claim that intelligence is largely determined by genetics. A university press release that was celebrated in a post on stormfront seven years ago isn't a quality source.

 

[Viewer]

sttm[/url]":2tmq9l4r]
1. What % is the correct %?

The % that live in the city or nation.

The thinking is if a city or nation has a certain demographic mix of whites/asians/hispanics/blacks, then there should be similar proportions hired into tech, voted in as political leaders, arrested for crimes, disciplined at schools, directing movies, acting as movies, etc.

This is based on the assumption that all ethnic groups are absolutely perfectly identical and any deviation is evidence of injustice and immoral bias.

Of course, this is absurd. Look at gender differences in tech hiring or police arrests or school discipline reports. Of course males and females have different patterns of behavior and different results. Similarly with ethnic groups.

sttm[/url]":2tmq9l4r]
3. What proof can you show that there actually is an advantage to having diversity in Tech? How does having every possible skin color in your engineering team make for better code?

There are actual studies that conclude this. But in social science, you can cook up a study to support whatever conclusion that you want. And certain people both personally and politically want studies to justify coerced diversity initiatives.

 

[ApplePaladin]

TK[/url]":20mrz4sv]

itdraugr[/url]":20mrz4sv]

The problem with invoking straw opponents who supposedly respond to criticism with accusations is that it derails from the actual conversation about whatever is being discussed.

itdraugr[/url]":20mrz4sv] For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

Indeed.

But that doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion about why diversity helps businesses by injecting new perspectives into homogeneous business structures...

..and how targeting diversity as a hiring practice reveals the problem with the way social networking is often used to grant jobs to underqualified jobs of the favored in-group of the hiring party.

Finally, something that can be discussed! Perhaps we could begin by discussing why and how these "new perspectives" are worth the time and effort that Silicon Vally seems to spend working itself up over? And why your gender or race is taken as predictive of these valuable perspectives? I mean, I thought the whole point here was that prejudging people by things they can't control is a shitty thing to do.

And speaking of hiring practices granting positions to unqualified workers, that makes sense, I think we can agree here that qualifications should be the most important thing when hiring. But then why is the answer to put *less* stress on qualifications and more on your identity, i.e. things you have no control over?

Quite simply, diverse perspectives are encouraged because they allow businesses to better predict and serve a wider set of customers and their needs. The benefits of having a person with a disability on-staff to tell you how your amazing new product would be useless to a person with mobility problems and provide suggestions for how to serve those needs better seems obvious. The same with developing and marketing products and services for people outside of the "straight white dude" demographic.

You're assuming that practicing diverse hiring practices puts less stress on qualifications. Why? There's no qualitative evidence to support that position.

 

[Morley Dotes]

I think we need an opinion survey.

Think that will clear things up?

 

[ZhanMing057]

itdraugr[/url]":k7kjmz46]

Dilbert[/url]":k7kjmz46]Sorry to hijack this. Or maybe it is not a hijack. It is tangentially relevant.

Don't really care who my coworkers in tech are or where they came from or if they are green or purple. As long as they are bright, can reason themselves out of problems, have analytical minds, problem solving skills, know how to find the information they need, remember that information when a similar problem occurs again.

You need to be smart to work in tech. That's often all it takes. We can train you to do the job as long as you are smart. No one wants to talk about this. Intelligence is largely determined by genes and not which fancy school one went to.

Some people were born to flip burgers. Some people were born to develop software. Not everyone can work in tech.

A university press release is not a peer-reviewed journal. Try to find some peer-reviewed literature to support your claim that intelligence is largely determined by genetics. A university press release that was celebrated in a post on stormfront seven years ago isn't a quality source.

There are actually quite a few studies that show that intelligence has a large hereditary component. The citations in this Wikipedia page summarizes things up nicely.

There are also numerous publications on racial differences in intelligence. Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist and don't know much about psych journals. But these are impressively cited and I do know that American Psychologist is the official APA journal and very well-regarded.

 

[Jackattak]

ziegler[/url]":39dceynf]

itdraugr[/url]":39dceynf]Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

<snip>
I want to see more mexicans working in chinese restaurants
<snip>

Move to San Francisco.

 

[Ojref]

Hiring diversity for the sake of diversity is a ridiculous premise. People should stand on their own merits and accomplishments, and they bring what they bring to the organization. As a business owner I will hire employees on qualifications, experience and how their personality and behavior fits with the established organization, never simply because they are a member of a race or gender, or based on pressure from liberal-leftist politics.

 

[ziegler]

Jackattak[/url]":3mpnbsxm]

ziegler[/url]":3mpnbsxm]

itdraugr[/url]":3mpnbsxm]Yeah, this comment thread is going to be a garbage fire. For some reason a certain subset of people really get their wookie in a tangle when others have the temerity to suggest that diversity is a good thing.

<snip>
I want to see more mexicans working in chinese restaurants
<snip>

Move to San Francisco.

In that case, I want to see more straight people working in gay bars and vice versa. Matter of fact, I want to see gay bars forced to admit 93.8% straight people so it can be diverse and reflect the population mix correctly. source