Hacker News Reader

Comment by miffel | Hacker News Reader

I would insist that you try to open up your worldview slightly and accept that sometimes having a team with more than just white men can be desirable and lead to better outcomes for the end product. Maybe bandaids are not the best example, but consider pulse oximeters[0].

There are many examples like this if you care to look for them. I would recommend the books Weapons of Math Destruction and Invisible Women for some very well done research on the way that you can codify human biases in processes that should neutral.

I would also personally recommend that you give an earnest try to understanding why so many people argue for diversity. A genuine attempt. Even if you don't fully change your mind on it I think you will find it easier to approach the world with a little more compassion for people who don't look like you.

[0]: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequalit...

View on HN

Lets make a deal: I'll read your diversity books if you realize that meritocracies will never go away. You might be able to suppress them, but the smart people (and they're not just white people) will reorganize behind your back and be better than whatever you are doing. See INTC vs. TSMC for probably the best example since you're into references.

Pulse oximiters are another terrible example by the way. Couldn't we hire a bunch of really tanned white people since you're just talking skin color?

Hmm, I would hope that you want to read books that challenge your way of thinking to strengthen your beliefs and help you examine them through a lens you haven't considered before.

I wish I could agree in good conscience that we are currently in a perfectly meritocratic system, but alas (sorry to drop another reference on you, I guess I just enjoy having evidence to point to for justifying my beliefs), there's many cases where minorities are being unfairly passed up on [0].

Regarding pulse oximeters... maybe, maybe not. Seems like it would be an interesting field of study, the research of the different levels of light absorption between skin with different melanin pigments, and whether tanning or genetics plays a bigger role. If only there was more funding for something like that, huh? :)

[0] https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-n...

> if you realize that meritocracies will never go away

I understand the DEI stuff as partially trying to get more diverse input, but also as a way to help make up for disadvantages that minorities have had historically. Of course a white person from a wealthy background has more chances to get in the "merit" club.

Are you seriously suggesting that really tanned white people have a similar skin tone to Black people?

r.e. tsmc VS Intel, is tsmc much more meritocratic than Intel? I haven't really heard this anywhere. I've heard they're an extremely hierarchical org and work insane hours for comparatively low pay.

Dont deflect, the example is meant to show that your criteria for diversity, why and how, is dumb. Please give a better example or answer my original questions. I never said a diverse workforce is bad, I simply asked for concise examples on why its good.

You can make whatever excuses that you want, but Asian companies are not diverse at all and they are doing pretty well and show no signs of slowing down. Don't you think that if a diverse workforce really mattered (as opposed to the most qualified workforce) they would be pursuing it?

I gave 2 examples - automatic faucet and women sized crash test dummies, your response was seriously that they could use very tanned white people. As if that is not "deflection".

> Don't you think that if a diverse workforce really mattered (as opposed to the most qualified workforce) they would be pursuing it?

"A company from a homogenous country is homogenous. They are the best at XYZ, therefore DEI must be bad because how else could they become number 1 without diversity"

This is a bad argument because there's a million other things that other companies, diverse or not, are best at. It doesn't really tell us much.

I'm sad your profile says you joined to talk fpga, since I used to do that and you don't seem nice to work with.

Diversity does make a diff but it depends on the problem. Its sort of the Explore-Exploit trade off.

For Explore type problems diversity has a much bigger impact then Exploit type problems. To add to the drama/misunderstandings/confusion sometimes you assemble a team for explore and they do find the gold mine, but then they arent suited to exploit it cuz its in their nature to explore. And vice versa.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com