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0 pointsscott_w1y ago0 comments

You fell into the instant trap I was talking about by equating DEI to “hiring quotas.” That’s a lazy and stupid approach to the problem of increasing opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The solution is, unfortunately, much more difficult and requires work across society to achieve it.

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thaumasiotes1y ago

You're imagining that there's ever been a meaning of DEI other than quotas, but there hasn't. That's the way it began and the only thing it's ever done or wanted.

scott_wOP1y ago

Then maybe you should see how it’s done in other countries and companies. I’ve worked on hiring and we’ve never once lowered our standards just to get in a black candidate. What I’ve seen done is conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants, changing language to increase applications from women, blind reviews where you can’t see the name or details of the applicant (to minimise subconscious bias).

All of these actually happen and, to a greater or lesser extent, do help without discriminating against white applicants. How do I know? I ended up only hiring two white men in that particular round!

modo_mario1y ago

>conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants

Which involved doingwhat exactly?

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rayiner1y ago

Except that’s what it becomes in practice. As soon as you inject race into these decisions, it becomes de facto racial quotas and preferences: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti...

It took like five minutes for Biden to start deploying SBA loans whites weren’t eligible for and for NASDAQ to create diversity quotas for boards. Racial gerrymandering is always the ultimate goal of this stuff.

ars1y ago

In theory sure, in practice DEI = hiring quotas.

The definition you want DEI to have: Extra training for DEI students, does not exist in the real world. And if it did no one is complaining about it.

> That’s a lazy and stupid approach

Exactly. Which is why DEI has becomes such a negative term. You want a different definition, but that's simply not how it's used.

scott_wOP1y ago

To avoid repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945302

> Exactly. Which is why DEI has becomes such a negative term. You want a different definition, but that's simply not how it's used.

No, the reason has been the refusal of people in positions of power to engage thoughtfully with the genuine criticism.

int_19h1y ago

It is kind of inevitable when you think of it. Regardless of how one implements DEI, its success is still going to be measured by looking at the demographic breakdown. So even if the implementation isn't literally quotas, the metric is - and once you have the metric, everything else is optimized around that. If quotas cannot be used directly, then other mechanisms will be introduced that amount to the same thing in practice (as with Harvard character assessment etc).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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thaumasiotes1y ago

You're imagining that there's ever been a meaning of DEI other than quotas, but there hasn't. That's the way it began and the only thing it's ever done or wanted.

scott_wOP1y ago

All of these actually happen and, to a greater or lesser extent, do help without discriminating against white applicants. How do I know? I ended up only hiring two white men in that particular round!

modo_mario1y ago

>conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants

Which involved doingwhat exactly?

1 more reply

rayiner1y ago

ars1y ago

In theory sure, in practice DEI = hiring quotas.

The definition you want DEI to have: Extra training for DEI students, does not exist in the real world. And if it did no one is complaining about it.

> That’s a lazy and stupid approach

Exactly. Which is why DEI has becomes such a negative term. You want a different definition, but that's simply not how it's used.

scott_wOP1y ago

To avoid repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945302

> Exactly. Which is why DEI has becomes such a negative term. You want a different definition, but that's simply not how it's used.

No, the reason has been the refusal of people in positions of power to engage thoughtfully with the genuine criticism.

int_19h1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse