Comment by chitowneats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chitowneats | Hacker News Reader

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The crucial piece you're missing is that the problem is further upstream. Most American commercial pilots are white men. Most job applicants are too.

Forcing airlines to hire people who are not qualified just to meet a quota is the absolute worst way to solve this problem. In fact, it exacerbates it. What do you think happens when you force employers to hire people who are unqualified, and those people are all women or minorities? Well, now you just might create a perception that women and minorities are inherently less capable. Obviously untrue. But let's fix the pipeline instead of mandating "equity".

We should also work towards accepting that people are different and they have different drives and passions in their life. I imagine most Hindu women do not aspire to being professional rappers, or construction workers, for example.

There's a difference between having a quota and having a target.

Targets can be missed, and reasons for the miss can be explored, e.g. were there sufficient qualified candidates in the pipeline? If not, what can be done about it. The hope is that over time, a target will be hit.

That said, I agree with you that quotas are problematic. They are the wrong solution for the problem of lack of diversity.

> Targets can be missed, and reasons for the miss can be explored, e.g. were there sufficient qualified candidates in the pipeline? If not, what can be done about it. The hope is that over time, a target will be hit.

And if it's not, surely the company can find a hiring manager "a bit more motivated to hit company diversity targets".

If you run a mom and pop shop and need a new employee, sure, this strategy is great. Codifying it at major corporations creates all of the same bad incentives as quotas, just implicitly.

No, "fixing the pipeline" is also a red herring. The problem isn't "tech businesses should hire more women just for their gender" or "more women need to get CS degrees". The way you get to, say, all white men in your field is from attrition; i.e. all the women and minorities burning out and changing careers. That burnout comes from exploitative labor practices and workplace harassment, which are rampant in the tech industry - and especially in games development.

If your business is able to properly enforce workplace rules against harassment, then you will have more women and minorities than other firms purely because they will remain at the company. No need for quotas, diversity hires, or affirmative action.

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