Comment by ritchiea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ritchiea | Hacker News Reader

I suspect this getting up-voted is about the Google engineer's diversity essay. How about instead of framing it in terms of what you can't say politically, let's rephrase it another way:

Imagine you make a post inside your company Slack complaining all your colleagues are stupid and unqualified. You'd probably be reprimanded right?

Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority colleagues (and future female and minority colleagues)? Don't we all monitor our words at least a bit at work for the sake of the day going smoothly?

And if he's so correct about Google's diversity initiatives being a problem and/or failure why doesn't he start a company that only hires men to take advantage of the market inefficiency in hiring (if you say hiring laws would get in the way, when is the last time a company paid a serious price for failing to have diverse hires)?

The most upvoted HN comments on threads about the diversity manifesto reek of protecting the status of the people already at the top. And are as flimsy and irrational as they claim the liberal values they decry are. White men have traditionally been in power in this country and suppressed the rights of women & minorities to vote, educate themselves & work for years. How can we know that another group wouldn't be historically more powerful without a control group study where each group is allowed to be a historical oppressor for an equal amount of time?

> Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority colleagues

No, actually quite the opposite.

When a company/university/country enshrines diversity quotas, they are basically telling minorities that they are by default stupider than average.

Also, enforcing these diversity quotas will create a (probably valid) impression that minority members who make it anywhere did not do so on their own merit.

As a minority I would much rather know there are no diversity programs so that I know that where ever I get, it's based on my merit, not some charity. Even if I was the only one in the room from my ethnic origin (which is actually often the case).

I've never interpreted diversity programs as telling minorities we are stupider. Universities are a great example, wealthier people with more money can afford better educations and test prep for their children. If the "merit" you refer to is manufactured by circumstance, and the circumstances are weighted in favor of the already powerful, why should we accept the status quo & pretend the admissions standard are an objective measurement?

Quotas are a crude tool but I'd rather see something like that than simply accept a world with a cycle of the powerful remaining powerful in large part due to the less powerful never having opportunity.

What makes you think success at high school is related to wealth? I've never noticed any such correlation. My family was not particularly wealthy and I did just fine in school.

You don't need any wealth to enter university. You just need to be smart and get good grades.

Family wealth plays no factor what so ever.

The studies disagree with you.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherma...

What you found is correlation not causation. The cause is probably deeper, for example, lower IQ.

Actually I think diversity quotas imply one of two things:

- Underrepresented groups are by default less qualified than average

- Hiring decisionmakers are incapable of assessing people objectively enough to overcome inherent biases

Are there other possible consistent implications? Honest question.

It seems to me either scenario is fundamentally toxic.

I firmly believe hiring decision makers are incapable of assessing people objectively.

The only people who will be receptive to working for someone who feels that way about them will only be those who have decided for themselves they are not capable of assessing people objectively either. A less charitable way to put it is these people have decided their own biases are beyond rehabilitation, so these are the people you are selecting for if you hold that view. (In reality, I think people who support these quotas agree with you but think they don't have biases, it's everyone else that can't be trusted. An equally toxic scenario.)

The argument is that there is already a discriminatory quota in favour of white men (as any casual inspection of the figures will demonstrate and would require wilful blindness to refute). But none of them are complaining about this of course. They are on the contrary complicit in blissful ignorance of the fact because it is so entrenched it has become institutionalised.

If you come from a disadvantaged position, you have to be better to succeed, not equal. White men don't have it easy but they have it less hard.

So then based on the admittance data Asians have it easiest? Must be due to discrimination in their favor, not because they are pressured to get good grades and do well. Surely you see the hypocrisy of such a position?

On the contrary, growing up white and middle class stacks the odds in your favour in the same way. Many well-off Asian families possibly even more so for the reasons you point out (I spend a lot of time in Asia and know it well). If you are a white middle class male you have better options in education and you are brought up for success, less likely to get arrested and so on - so yes of course you will be more likely to get into a good college and be able to cover costs, and you will be with more people who look and talk like you and that network will be important in getting jobs down the line (or partners and investors for your business). And no, it's still not easy.

But merit is just a table stake and never goes far on its own. Nobody is supposing that companies are occupied by a bunch of white cabbages (although the fact that googleboy got any support really does make me wonder as he was so intellectually vacuous). And it's ingrained into our culture that white men take the top jobs right through business, culture and arts, science, and politics - so the danger is we see it as 'how things are' and assume it's evolved for the best.

But it's completely optional and man-made, and ultimately a political choice, 1. not to have a level playing field when it comes to equality of opportunity and 2. to stack it in that direction. The reality is that tech companies led by women do better and the biggest indicator of ending up poor is having the misfortune to be born poor, so society at large isn't going to fall in by redressing the balance.

And no, fixing a racist and sexist system isn't racism or sexism. The issue many people have here is that they don't recognise it as institutionally racist and sexist in the first place. That's because they are the beneficiaries of the system and cannot see it (I know how hard it is to see past that as I'm one too, and this is why I mention the Blub paradox). You are absolutely right to look at the the figures and point out the number of Asians. We need to check the figures because we can't be objective by just going off our feels (we are a great bunch of guys and love and respect women and don't have a racist bone in our bodies etc). It's a systemic issue, very rarely a personal one (although of course it's personal to all those who are disadvantaged by it).

>The reality is that tech companies led by women do better Wow, what a sexist thing to say. Ignoring Marissa Mayer for the moment, are you claiming that women are inherently better at something than men? Isn't that a little like claiming that men are better than women at technical roles? That white people are better than black people at building civilization? Seriously, that is a nazi-esque belief you have there. I suggest you reconsider your stance before making claims about one group being better in any way than another.

Lol at you fumbling for anecdota about MM when you hear a fact you don't like. Yes, I'm pointing out that women-owned tech companies financially outperform male-owned tech companies. Data, nothing to do with beliefs. (Men do have terrible academic drop out records by comparison with women and need affirmative remediation themselves in that area, all things being equal.)

http://truewealthvc.com/women-led-businesses-outperform/

btw I believe that comparing someone to a Nazi is against the conduct rules of HN and can earn you a shadowban

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