Does Diversity In Tech Actually Matter?

Megalith

Megalith

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Why yes, I believe it does. But a wise man once told me that you should really hire based on skills and the ability to do the job.

The answer, of course, is yes; but there are some caveats. Diversity is quite a subjective idea and it is -- as with so many concepts -- something that is hard to bring about in a way that satisfies everyone. What does diversity mean? Should a company's workforce comprise precisely the same racial, sexual, gender, religious, etc breakdown as the country as a whole? Or the entire globe? Do the percentage of workers from different backgrounds need to be the same at all levels of the company, or just work out as an average?
 
Diversity matters, because if you hire someone different, they'll recognize talent that a homogenized group might not. I learn more from people I don't normally associate with/agree with than otherwise.
 
someone has to take out the trash and sweep the floors
 
I wouldn't care if a tech company's workforce consisted of nothing but left-handed transvestites against global warming. If they build the best product on the market, I'll buy it.
 
+1 No, it doens't matter as long as they are doing their job, making cool shit.

Everyone is so caught up on this equality/diversity kick - like somehow a product will be better if the company has exactly 50% women working there, or one of every race. All that matters if putting the best person for the job in the seat.

Odds are if you are so hell bent on having perfect 50/50 distribution of gender, you aren't as focused on having a GOOD product. And if you are someone that bitches about the lack of diversity in X company or sector... you are welcome to start your own.
 
IMO, you should hire the best people you can for the job, and if that results in a diverse workforce, then great; if it doesn't, that's fine, too.
 
Short answer: no.

Slightly longer answer: if the are hiring the best person for the position no matter who that person is, then no it doesn't matter.
 
nilepez said:
Diversity matters, because if you hire someone different, they'll recognize talent that a homogenized group might not. I learn more from people I don't normally associate with/agree with than otherwise.
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Maybe if we had more diversity in Hollywood, we wouldn't have 150 channels of garbage on cable.

Seems like the people who scream the loudest about the need for diversity, want nothing to do with real diversity in their own lives.
 
nutzo said:
Maybe if we had more diversity in Hollywood, we wouldn't have 150 channels of garbage on cable.

Seems like the people who scream the loudest about the need for diversity, want nothing to do with real diversity in their own lives.
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Huh?
 
The only diversity that really matters is diversity of thought. If everyone thinks the same way, you will not be innovative or good at solving difficult problems.
 
nilepez said:
Diversity matters, because if you hire someone different, they'll recognize talent that a homogenized group might not. I learn more from people I don't normally associate with/agree with than otherwise.
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Yeah, but having diversity does not necessarily mean you have someone who thinks out of the box. In fact you can absolutely have that with nothing but males... or white people... or asian people or whatever bit of lack of diversity some group is bitching about for the minute, you need people who are creative thinkers, not just yes men (or women)
 
Diversity? Why don't you just call it "quota hiring"? Seriously. If you don't hire based on skills and ability, but on some sort of visible or behavioral trait (or self-professed demographic classification), then you are not hiring the best and brightest. If you don't hire the best and brightest, you are hobbling yourself. A hobbled company will be less successful than an unhobbled company.

The only reason to use quota hiring systems is to appease a coercive government. And we all know that governments are efficient paragons of innovation and quality.

Racism is racism. Call it "diversity" or "quota", or "affirmative action", if you hire based on skin color, you are engaged in racist practices.
 
Here's the thing. Regardless of how one views this issue the fundamental truth is that groups of people that are in a permanent underclass and their is a large percentage of minorities in that group. In order for people to move out of this permanent underclass they're going to have to get good educations and jobs. I do think that many that complain about this issue are more than happy to have a permanent underclass because it's less competition for them.
 
Forced diversity is generally not of benefit to anyone. Hire on merit alone.
As far as there being a permanent underclass, well duh, every free society has one. You are free to succeed, and free to fail. Not everyone succeeds. While it is not a choice to be born into it, in the US at least, it certainly is a choice whether you stay in it. The education is available. Do half ass decently in high school, and most any minority can get a near free ride through college via grants, and scholarships. It does take some work though, which may be the biggest hurdle for this underclass. Beating the social stigma this underclass has assigned to scholastic achievement is not easy.
 
Nasgul said:
Who cares.........the Chinese make everything for us.
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That's part of our problem. Our permanent underclass used to do that unskilled labor for us. Now they don't because the Chinese are doing them so there are fewer jobs to go around for them. So more of them are on the dole or in prison than ever, while at the same time breeding faster than the working and upper classes. Here is your unrest.
 
[21CW]killerofall;1041797021 said:
The only diversity that really matters is diversity of thought. If everyone thinks the same way, you will not be innovative or good at solving difficult problems.
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Irony is that this in the form of diversity, diversity of ideas, that is most unwelcome/ignored by the people pushing 'diversity'. As seen by the previous 'huh'.

The Irony when arguing for diversity in a subject matter like getting more transistors on a silicon wafer is that they argue in theory the different backgrounds might bring different perspectives to a issue.

Kind of super hypocrites, not shocking. s.o.p.
 
GORANKAR said:
Forced diversity is generally not of benefit to anyone. Hire on merit alone.
As far as there being a permanent underclass, well duh, every free society has one. You are free to succeed, and free to fail. Not everyone succeeds. While it is not a choice to be born into it, in the US at least, it certainly is a choice whether you stay in it. The education is available. Do half ass decently in high school, and most any minority can get a near free ride through college via grants, and scholarships. It does take some work though, which may be the biggest hurdle for this underclass. Beating the social stigma this underclass has assigned to scholastic achievement is not easy.
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People in these threads will often tell me to stop living in the past. Yet how cliché is the saying that those who forget history are bound to repeat it. From my perspective of as a 47 year old black man who has worked all of this life and tried to take of myself and my family without special treatment or consideration because of race, it's still hard to for me to deny a theme in the history of this subject. I'm one of the more politically liberal folks on this forum but I believe in personal responsibility to the core. I am my own most enemy and I believe that that's true of for most people that live in a societies with high levels of freedom, the US being one such place.

That said, no matter what the issue has been through time there has been this idea of "giving stuff to black" people. Be it emancipation, the vote or the end of out right legal race based law, this notion of "giving away stuff" hangs like a pall. I certainly don't believe that people that are unqualified people should just be handed jobs. But who actually believes everyone that has a good job got it based solely on their own merit beyond matters of race? Probably no one regardless of creed or gender that's been in the working world no matter the occupation. It's not what you know but who you know right?
 
GORANKAR said:
That's part of our problem. Our permanent underclass used to do that unskilled labor for us. Now they don't because the Chinese are doing them so there are fewer jobs to go around for them. So more of them are on the dole or in prison than ever, while at the same time breeding faster than the working and upper classes. Here is your unrest.
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Actually the 'underclass' didn't. Working poor up to lower end and middle of the middle class did that work. Sending people to look for any jobs making harder mid-middle class on down. When people talk about the loss of the Middle class its directly tied to the loss of manufacturing. Cause in manufacturing you have to have a little on the ball. Since most is assembly line and if one task stops because some guy failed to show or screwed something up, dozens, hundreds or even thousands of other guys are stopped waiting for that guy to be replaced or the station fixed.
 
c3k said:
Diversity? Why don't you just call it "quota hiring"? Seriously. If you don't hire based on skills and ability, but on some sort of visible or behavioral trait (or self-professed demographic classification), then you are not hiring the best and brightest. If you don't hire the best and brightest, you are hobbling yourself. A hobbled company will be less successful than an unhobbled company.

The only reason to use quota hiring systems is to appease a coercive government. And we all know that governments are efficient paragons of innovation and quality.

Racism is racism. Call it "diversity" or "quota", or "affirmative action", if you hire based on skin color, you are engaged in racist practices.
Click to expand...

The issue is that Black and White huh (lol)...

That is the problem BOTH sides have issue with.

Who determines who is the "Best and Brightest"? That's right a person, a human being. We are biased by our very nature, its a survival instinct (go with what you know).


Here is the deal, yes affirmative action is straight up racism, hard not to make that comparison. What other solution do you suggest? How can you promote diversity without a goal or metric to judge? The scales were (are) so unbalanced doing nothing wasn't/isn't really an option.

The fact is if you let one single group just "naturally" try to diversify, you will get the slowest result. Something will have to change. Could be the % of applicants or customer base? What do you think is faster and more controllable? Quotas.

As an investment in society, affirmative action is one way to bring the next generations to a particular sociological norm (say educated upper middle class). Where a minority family can raise their kids to be more like their majority peers. Talk similarly, dress similarly, similar hobbies etc. While color is obvious its the sociological differences that really separate us. The US as free as we say we are, only for the those that are like everyone else.

People want to focus on color, and that is just the most obvious difference. People can adjust to race, its the social differences that people can't get over. Race/color just allows one to judge social differences faster.

When it comes to hiring everyone has a preconceived notion on what is a good candidate, in most cases people are just naturally more comfortable with someone similar or fit said preconceived notion.

No matter how not racist you think you aren't, you really are. It doesn't matter what race you are either. Its just natural. Even just acknowledging it, means you are basically giving more bias based on that fact.

The big question on "Affirmative Action" is when do you stop? We have supposedly been a "racism" free country for over 50 years yet there are still HUGE social gaps where minority's seem to have a majority.
 
Hiring should be based on skill set qualifications ONLY, not skin color, ethnicity gender and other irrelevant rubbish. The qualifying criteria should NEVER be affirmative actioned lower for an unqualified individual, whether they are mentally and or physically qualified should be ALL that matters.
 
jpm100 said:
Irony is that this in the form of diversity, diversity of ideas, that is most unwelcome/ignored by the people pushing 'diversity'. As seen by the previous 'huh'.

The Irony when arguing for diversity in a subject matter like getting more transistors on a silicon wafer is that they argue in theory the different backgrounds might bring different perspectives to a issue.

Kind of super hypocrites, not shocking. s.o.p.
Click to expand...

+++1, personal experience has shown that they are tolerant as long as you agree with them on everything
 
c3k said:
Diversity? Why don't you just call it "quota hiring"? Seriously. If you don't hire based on skills and ability, but on some sort of visible or behavioral trait (or self-professed demographic classification), then you are not hiring the best and brightest. If you don't hire the best and brightest, you are hobbling yourself. A hobbled company will be less successful than an unhobbled company.

The only reason to use quota hiring systems is to appease a coercive government. And we all know that governments are efficient paragons of innovation and quality.

Racism is racism. Call it "diversity" or "quota", or "affirmative action", if you hire based on skin color, you are engaged in racist practices.
Click to expand...

So then the reason that there are so few women and minorities (other than Asians/indians) in tech is because those other groups are inferior?
 
dandirk said:
The issue is that Black and White huh (lol)...

That is the problem BOTH sides have issue with.

Who determines who is the "Best and Brightest"? That's right a person, a human being. We are biased by our very nature, its a survival instinct (go with what you know).


Here is the deal, yes affirmative action is straight up racism, hard not to make that comparison. What other solution do you suggest? How can you promote diversity without a goal or metric to judge? The scales were (are) so unbalanced doing nothing wasn't/isn't really an option.

The fact is if you let one single group just "naturally" try to diversify, you will get the slowest result. Something will have to change. Could be the % of applicants or customer base? What do you think is faster and more controllable? Quotas.

As an investment in society, affirmative action is one way to bring the next generations to a particular sociological norm (say educated upper middle class). Where a minority family can raise their kids to be more like their majority peers. Talk similarly, dress similarly, similar hobbies etc. While color is obvious its the sociological differences that really separate us. The US as free as we say we are, only for the those that are like everyone else.

People want to focus on color, and that is just the most obvious difference. People can adjust to race, its the social differences that people can't get over. Race/color just allows one to judge social differences faster.

When it comes to hiring everyone has a preconceived notion on what is a good candidate, in most cases people are just naturally more comfortable with someone similar or fit said preconceived notion.

No matter how not racist you think you aren't, you really are. It doesn't matter what race you are either. Its just natural. Even just acknowledging it, means you are basically giving more bias based on that fact.

The big question on "Affirmative Action" is when do you stop? We have supposedly been a "racism" free country for over 50 years yet there are still HUGE social gaps where minority's seem to have a majority.
Click to expand...

Its because of welfare dependence and government b.s that this problem never goes away. I am not black nor white, and my group never gets any special treatment and we did alright for ourselves. There are always obstacles in life, trying to use the violence of government to make it easier for one group of people at the expense of another is inherently unfair.

To illustrate the point. After WWII, the poverty rate in this country dropped by 1% every 3 years. Then Lyndon Johson came around and passed the Great Society Program to use government welfare to reduce poverty and guess what happened since. Poverty rate not only remained stagnant but also started to creep up.

poverty-rate-historical1.png


Diversity will naturally happen in the workplace, because of natural economic law. If the argument that diversity brings new ideas is true, then it follows that business that adopt that model will outperform those that didn't. Through competition and creative destruction, eventually most business will have a diverse workforce. Using a law to do this only perverse the process, now business will hire under-qualified people just to not get fined. This could even lead to a backlash.

People need to stop trying to use force to compel people to do things. If you can't convince someone through oral argument and examples that your way is better, than maybe your idea isn't what its cracked up to be.
 
By using terms such as "permanent underclass" you are revealing an amazing bias and are clinging to a false meme.

This discussion cannot go forward with that type of thinking. One last thought: a white man and a black man apply for the job and they both identical pedigrees. Would you hire the black man ahead of the white man to further your "diversity" agenda? Is that not racist? (Oh, you'd say a black man cannot have the same pedigree due to "institutional racism". Again, using false logic to support your preferred outcome, which is racist at its core.)

Ta ta.
 
jpm100 said:
Irony is that this in the form of diversity, diversity of ideas, that is most unwelcome/ignored by the people pushing 'diversity'. As seen by the previous 'huh'.
Click to expand...

The "huh" wasn't because the some person didn't understand the premise. The "huh" is because people don't react to buzzwords (ex: Obama, Soros, or Hollywood) like some people do and it's kind of stupid. First of all the people "pushing diversity" in Hollywood are probably minorities in the first place. So you can probably expect that. Second, if you really want to compare how diverse Hollywood is vs say the Republican party be my guest, feel free. It's kind of a stupid comparison but it's funny watching people try and make it.

jpm100 said:
The Irony when arguing for diversity in a subject matter like getting more transistors on a silicon wafer is that they argue in theory the different backgrounds might bring different perspectives to a issue.
Click to expand...

In terms of changing the laws of physics? No. In terms of coming up with new ways of doing things that don't break the laws of physics without scientific reasoning? Happens all of the time.

When Microsoft or say Google looks to a crowd that operates outside of it's group think it's looking for that very thing... diversity. Someone who thinks differently.

Hell even nature deals with the power of diversity. That fact that you think something like that is debatable is kind of strange.
 
nilepez said:
So then the reason that there are so few women and minorities (other than Asians/indians) in tech is because those other groups are inferior?
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It has nothing to do with inferiority. It's because when they get an education at all, they don't get the type that are in demand for those tech jobs. Have you sat in stem classes? What were the demographics of those classes? Why wouldn't the demographics of those classes carry over into the work place?
 
OlIv0rIolI said:
To illustrate the point. After WWII, the poverty rate in this country dropped by 1% every 3 years. Then Lyndon Johson came around and passed the Great Society Program to use government welfare to reduce poverty and guess what happened since. Poverty rate not only remained stagnant but also started to creep up.
Click to expand...

Ah you got to love Libertarians. Anyway, there's one big ole problem with that graph. The biggest "great society program" didn't come from LBJ. The biggest programs came from Social Security.

You know the spot in that graph that represents a huge cliff. :rolleyes:
 
nilepez said:
Diversity matters, because if you hire someone different, they'll recognize talent that a homogenized group might not. I learn more from people I don't normally associate with/agree with than otherwise.
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Diversity of thought or diversity of ethnicity?
 
Wyodiver said:
Let's not forget, folks, as a white guy, i made sure that i used non-caps, lest i were to offend anybody,

Get over yourselves. Move on. Stop imagining problems where problems don't exist.
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Actually, a problem does exist. There are not enough minorities and women graduating with the degrees to fill some arbitrary diversity quota in stem fields. That leads to these companies either not meeting this quota and taking a beating in the press, or the hiring of tokens. I should not have to elaborate why the hiring of tokens is a terrible practice.
 
You hire the best person for the right job. However it works out, it works out.

Anything less is simply fucking with numbers to make someone else happy.
 
OlIv0rIolI said:
To illustrate the point. After WWII, the poverty rate in this country dropped by 1% every 3 years. Then Lyndon Johson came around and passed the Great Society Program to use government welfare to reduce poverty and guess what happened since. Poverty rate not only remained stagnant but also started to creep up.

poverty-rate-historical1.png
Click to expand...
Did you seriously post a graph illustrating the poverty rate steadily dropping between 1964 and 1968, labeled in red for emphasis, and then argue how this demonstrates the poverty rate "remained stagnant but also started to creep up" during those years?

Do you know how to read a graph? :rolleyes:
 
kac77 said:
Ah you got to love Libertarians. Anyway, there's one big ole problem with that graph. The biggest "great society program" didn't come from LBJ. The biggest programs came from Social Security.

You know the spot in that graph that represents a huge cliff. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
It's true that LBJ's New Deal programs account for that huge drop in poverty from the 30's until the 60's, but I wouldn't call that the biggest problem with the graph.

The biggest problem with the graph is it doesn't parse between black and white poverty. Those New Deal programs specifically excluded workforce segments that were dominated by blacks. Social security, workforce protections, minimum wages, and housing bills month other things weren't afforded to black workers and citizens until the mid-60's during Great Society reforms. That's one of the main problems with the argument that slavery ended hundreds of years ago and therefore nothing today in relation to that period is relevant.

It's also one of the reasons policies that were in effect during the lives of people who are still alive account for a lot of the disparity between races (and genders, it's not just a race thing...affirmative action benefits more upwardly mobile, white women than it does racial minorities) and those discriminatory laws and practices are not some artifact of a bygone era.
 
mope54 said:
Did you seriously post a graph illustrating the poverty rate steadily dropping between 1964 and 1968, labeled in red for emphasis, and then argue how this demonstrates the poverty rate "remained stagnant but also started to creep up" during those years?

Do you know how to read a graph? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I guess you never heard of 2nd order effect. Just like the hottest time of the day is not at noon but around 3-4pm. Legislation doesn't take effect right away after passing into law. it usually takes a couple of years before its implemented across the nation. The great society program has been used to fight poverty for 4 decades with no positive effect
 
OlIv0rIolI said:
I guess you never heard of 2nd order effect. Just like the hottest time of the day is not at noon but around 3-4pm. Legislation doesn't take effect right away after passing into law. it usually takes a couple of years before its implemented across the nation. The great society program has been used to fight poverty for 4 decades with no positive effect
Click to expand...
If your argument is that it takes a few years for legislation to take effect, then the fact that The Office of Economic Activity was dismantled by Nixon and Ford and the rest of the economic package's funding was cut in Reagan's first budget in 1981 means that those programs have not been implemented for the past four decades.

Your argument is wrong, however, factually and historically. Spending for those programs were immediately implemented, poverty in the lowest income brackets was reduced by double digits basically overnight (why would you think that immediate funding of education opportunities, health care, and housing would take "years" to see the impact? How ridiculous are you wiling to stretch reason to fit into your illogical box?), lasting impacts are still Medicaid and Medicare along with Head Start, to name just a few of the successful projects launched that weren't able to be cut by Republicans after his presidency due to their effectiveness and popularity.
 
GORANKAR said:
Actually, a problem does exist. There are not enough minorities and women graduating with the degrees to fill some arbitrary diversity quota in stem fields. That leads to these companies either not meeting this quota and taking a beating in the press, or the hiring of tokens. I should not have to elaborate why the hiring of tokens is a terrible practice.
Click to expand...

You have to love the unintended consequences of government regulations.
 
Tyler-Durden said:
I wouldn't care if a tech company's workforce consisted of nothing but left-handed transvestites against global warming. If they build the best product on the market, I'll buy it.
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And there we are. It doesn't matter what/who/why you are , it simply matters how well you do your job. The problem of getting hung up on gender is that it means possibly tossing out better employee's for the sake of political nonsense.

If any group of any kind of people don't have a large presence in some kind of field our job shouldn't be to eliminate people who do have a large presence in that field. Instead our job should be to encourage anyone with the skill/talent for that field to apply.

No one should suffer some kind of bias simply because of politics. I find it distressing. Having said that I also think adults need to consider more carefully how they shoehorn there children in gender roles. Stop treating girls like little queens/princesses and stop treating boys like they are about to play the Superbowl over the weekend. Treat them as fresh entities and be there for them in whatever interests them and this whole issue will be solved without hurting the workforce at large.
 
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