General > General Technical Chat

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: tpowell1830 on August 23, 2022, 05:19:27 pm ---As I have watched various arguments on this topic, it seems that when the term 'equity' is used, it means equality of outcome. This gets stuck in my mind because it goes flatly against 'equality', in my mind equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome automatically supersedes the tenet of merit, in the case of job performance.
--- End quote ---
Yes, exactly; and that is precisely why 'equity' is used instead of 'equality'.

It is a very deliberate, very careful replacement.  Do not think for a second that it could just be changed to 'equality', so we could agree, because the moment you do, it completely eradicates the underlying intersectionalist/tribalist idea that is the true purpose of why this is being pushed.  Try, and you'll be a bigger enemy than even the most racist bigot.


--- Quote from: tpowell1830 on August 23, 2022, 05:19:27 pm ---Money is not evil, but the love of money and power often corrupts.
--- End quote ---
If we had time and space to delve into it really deeply, we'd find out that it is not actually money or power itself, but the ease of applying them, and the temptation of applying them for personal short-term gain and completely ignoring everything else.  Most humans do not like to think; they just have to, in order to survive.

This also means that having a very competitive, very power-hungry persons in your executive team, can be a positive thing.  You just have to contractually make sure they are the company's own monsters, and not just monsters that happen to stay with the company for a while.  And you must pick ones that can be leaders, instead of accidentally eating your workforce for dinner.


--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 05:49:27 pm ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 23, 2022, 05:21:27 pm ---
--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring.
--- End quote ---
This I don't understand.  Isn't it more important to get good candidates instead of many candidates?
Or is the idea that as long as you have sufficient numbers of candidates, some of them will do?

--- End quote ---
I think you are being willfully obtuse here.
--- End quote ---
No, I can assure you I am not.  Yes, I agree that it is crucially important to reach all candidates that would be acceptable for the task, and that's not easy.


--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 05:49:27 pm ---If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice. For example, suppose some hypothetical conservative company in prior decades were to pre-filter all the resumes and only keep the ones for males under 40 with western sounding names? Don't you think they would have a strong chance of missing out on some really good people?
--- End quote ---
Don't be silly, of course they would miss out of majority of suitable candidates.  My point is, any company that is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot, is already dying.  You cannot compete in todays global economy and marketplace, if you hobble your own workforce like that; and any company that did something as stupid as that ought to fail rather quickly.  You do not need to teach successful executives to not do that, because they already know that it would be a waste of resources; it would be the equivalent of rejecting profit.

Let me throw the question back to you: Do you seriously think any decades-old company is today pre-filtering resumes to keep only the males under 40 with western sounding names?  I do not, exactly because they're learned how business works.  If they hadn't, they'd gone under already.

It may have been possible a few decades ago when there was much less competition –– remember, nowadays you compete against every other company on the planet, basically; not just those nearby –– but for sure isn't tenable today, not for long.  (It may be possible for a small garage that has a loyal customer base and zero growth and basically zero margin, or something similar, but they will go under whenever someone sensible starts a competing business.)

fourfathom:

--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 05:49:27 pm ---If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice.
--- End quote ---

Nobody here will suggest that restricting otherwise qualified individuals because of [category] is a good thing.  I think the objection is to artificially *inflating* the size of the pool, by reducing the entry requirements for certain classes of people.

pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: fourfathom on August 23, 2022, 06:13:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 05:49:27 pm ---If you artificially restrict the size of the pool, it is possible you might have excluded the best choice.
--- End quote ---

Nobody here will suggest that restricting otherwise qualified individuals because of [category] is a good thing.  I think the objection is to artificially *inflating* the size of the pool, by reducing the entry requirements for certain classes of people.

--- End quote ---

If the entry requirements are strictly focused on the needed skill set, there would not be a problem one would think. For a technical job I could see English speaking and writing as a requirement, which in turn rules out possible minorities. Is that a good reason to force hiring them anyway, and then have to pay for them learning English, because otherwise it won't work? Sure if the candidate has a good or better fit for the other skills it might pay off.

I'm not in the market for work so don't know what job adverts look like nowadays, but would be very surprised if there was mentioning of do not apply when you are a woman, or gay, or trans gender. That would be discrimination.

But for inflating the pool of applicants it would mean lower the required skill set, and how is that of value when you need a trained FPGA engineer and you lower it to "if you know something about electronics just apply". (Over exaggerating to get a point across)

daqq:

--- Quote from: IanB on August 23, 2022, 04:27:40 pm ---For example, having a diversity policy helps to maximize the pool of candidates when hiring.
--- End quote ---
How?

Any hiring policy aside from the following:

--- Quote ---We'll hire anyone who meets the position expectations. Anyone can apply.
--- End quote ---
is by definition discriminatory based on arbitrarily chosen characteristics. How does
--- Quote ---We'll hire an engineer, black people preferred since we ain't got enough of those to fill the quota
--- End quote ---
improve your hiring pool?

edit: Modified font size to be seen as "more calm" where it was meant for emphasis only.
This is basic statement logic. You are literally trimming an all inclusive statement and stating that it's more inclusive.

IanB:
Shouting is the last resort of those who don't have an argument.

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