• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

Split Thread Diversity Equity and Inclusion and merit in employment etc

If you're treating two people equally, and giving them both $100, but one of them's a billionaire and one of them is below the poverty line, that's not admirable, because the effect of your equal treatment of them is disproportionate. Equal treatment regardless of any other concern is just as hostile and dystopian as outright racism, sexism or classism.
The opposite of equity (equal outcomes) is not equal treatment; it is equal opportunity.
ETA: This is, among others, one of the things that Critical Race Theory teaches us - real Critical Race Theory and not the other straw boogeyperson that the right complains about - that because of historic and systemic injustices, some people need a bigger slice of the pie than others.
No. Everybody needs equal opportunity.
 
What does that have to do with a person's race or sex? Are you just prejudging people based on their skin hue as to whether to treat them equally? Can you not see the problem with that?
What the actual ◊◊◊◊ are you talking about?
The opposite of equity (equal outcomes) is not equal treatment; it is equal opportunity.

No. Everybody needs equal opportunity.
And to get that, sometimes some people need more help than others.
 
Then why do you think I mean something other than what I say?
How would you operationalize, "To get [equal opportunity], sometimes some people need more help than others"? That is, what would you do to give those people more help to get equal opportunity?
 
Last edited:
So yeah, the way that is phrased using the word "bias" is certainly unfortunate and suspicious, but given the sexual dimorphism of birds, the complete statement, which addresses an actual problem for birders, and concludes with the suggestion that it will make you a sharper birder, does not seem quite relevant to this discussion, except for the amusement factor of noting how language evolves, and how it might give clues to the personality of the writer. I imagine the late Eric Auerbach, or a more modern deconstructionist, would find this interesting, not for its pretty benign content, but for its implication that this is a birder with baggage.
 
As far as I can tell, there are broadly three kinds of things that businesses might do, that fall under the heading of "DEI", at least in the US.

One is basic training in workplace professionalism, respect, and inclusion. In my experience, this training emphasizes being aware of your personal biases, and taking mindful steps to mitigate them. This is mostly useful stuff to think about, in a diverse workplace, and I wouldn't be surprised if it does improve morale, productivity, etc. Diversity is assumed as a starting condition. Respectful, inclusive treatment of your co-workers is the focus. Equity is not really touched upon. This is probably the kind of thing Arth assumes is going on across the board. If only that were true.

Then there's the rarer bird, the "struggle session" DEI. That such programs exist, and have been applied by many employers, is already attested. I have little to add, except that I find struggle sessions to be antisocial, perverse, progressive sociopolitical woo.

And finally there's DEI in hiring and business-to-business relationships. We rank and file don't get this training. This is for upper management, that want or need to signal certain (wooish) virtues, or who sincerely believe this is good practice. It might not even be a formal program, at many businesses. Certainly Joe Biden didn't need a DEI course to understand the value of nominating a black woman VP. Conveniently, that particular case also lampshades the risks of making a "DEI hire".
 
Well it's interesting to me that that's the message you took from it, though I shouldn't be surprised by it.

No, that's a completely ◊◊◊◊◊◊ up interpretation of what you claim to have read, and I do not believe that it's possible to get from the words in the article to what you just typed in a rational fashion, so I conclude that you are blinded by hateful ideology.

If you're treating two people equally, and giving them both $100, but one of them's a billionaire and one of them is below the poverty line, that's not admirable, because the effect of your equal treatment of them is disproportionate. Equal treatment regardless of any other concern is just as hostile and dystopian as outright racism, sexism or classism. Remember the cartoon of the people behind the fence? To be equitable means that you shouldn't treat people as though they were all identical in every way, because people are diverse. Yes, you should go out of your way to be inclusive of some people who if all else were equal wouldn't otherwise be included.

So not are you arguing against a fake "DEI", you're arguing for ongoing injustice. Nice one.

ETA: This is, among others, one of the things that Critical Race Theory teaches us - real Critical Race Theory and not the other straw boogeyperson that the right complains about - that because of historic and systemic injustices, some people need a bigger slice of the pie than others.
Let's try to operationalize this. You have in vote in who is going to get hired. It's down to two candidates:

Candidate A: African American, qualified and so will do a perfectly fine job
Candidate B: white, better qualifications than A - not outrageously so, but still clearly better

Maybe play around with whether this job is professional, trade, or menial.

Does some people needing a bigger slice of the pie mean that you go with A? If not, then at what point does that come into play, if at all?
 
Let's try to operationalize this. You have in vote in who is going to get hired. It's down to two candidates:

Candidate A: African American, qualified and so will do a perfectly fine job
Candidate B: white, better qualifications than A - not outrageously so, but still clearly better

Maybe play around with whether this job is professional, trade, or menial.

Does some people needing a bigger slice of the pie mean that you go with A? If not, then at what point does that come into play, if at all?
An interesting dilemma indeed. I think many of those arguing here see DEI as a different scenario, in which candidate A is actually unqualified but must be chosen anyway.
 
An interesting dilemma indeed. I think many of those arguing here see DEI as a different scenario, in which candidate A is actually unqualified but must be chosen anyway.
That scenario is easy to reject, which is why I made my scenario the way I did, it clarifies the clash between viewpoints more effectively IMHO.
 
One is basic training in workplace professionalism, respect, and inclusion. In my experience, this training emphasizes being aware of your personal biases, and taking mindful steps to mitigate them. This is mostly useful stuff to think about, in a diverse workplace, and I wouldn't be surprised if it does improve morale, productivity, etc. Diversity is assumed as a starting condition. Respectful, inclusive treatment of your co-workers is the focus.
Okay, so yes, this is generally good stuff. But even this most basic element of diversity can be misapplied.

For example... my company had a corporate-wide recognition of Diwali recently, and of Hanukkah, and of Ramadan, and even a special mention for Kwanza. But all of the managers were sent a reminder to keep our holiday greetings non-denominational and to avoid saying "Merry Christmas" or using christmas-specific imagery so that we weren't offending anyone.

To me, this is nutty - our workforce is about 60% hispanic, and is largely catholic. Even those of us who are atheists still celebrate christmas because it's a cultural tradition that has next-to-nothing to do with christianity at this point.

I'm all for celebrating diversity, I've loved every Diwali celebration I've been to, and I think it's wonderful to learn about different traditions and beliefs. But I don't think that excluding the majority faith from consideration is very inclusive.
 
Okay, so yes, this is generally good stuff. But even this most basic element of diversity can be misapplied.

For example... my company had a corporate-wide recognition of Diwali recently, and of Hanukkah, and of Ramadan, and even a special mention for Kwanza. But all of the managers were sent a reminder to keep our holiday greetings non-denominational and to avoid saying "Merry Christmas" or using christmas-specific imagery so that we weren't offending anyone.

To me, this is nutty - our workforce is about 60% hispanic, and is largely catholic. Even those of us who are atheists still celebrate christmas because it's a cultural tradition that has next-to-nothing to do with christianity at this point.

I'm all for celebrating diversity, I've loved every Diwali celebration I've been to, and I think it's wonderful to learn about different traditions and beliefs. But I don't think that excluding the majority faith from consideration is very inclusive.
I can understand how banning such greetings is petty and unnecessary, but I also can't see how it is excluding the majority faith from consideration either, unless the reminder to "keep our holiday greetings non-denominational" etc. applies only to Christmas. If it means you can say "happy Diwali" but not "Merry Christmas," then yes. If it means you shouldn't mention any specific holiday at all, and just stick to "happy holidays," orthe like, it still seems petty and unnecessary, and likely assumes more offense than is actually there, but it is a different thing.
 
Let's try to operationalize this. You have in vote in who is going to get hired. It's down to two candidates:

Candidate A: African American, qualified and so will do a perfectly fine job
Candidate B: white, better qualifications than A - not outrageously so, but still clearly better

Maybe play around with whether this job is professional, trade, or menial.

Does some people needing a bigger slice of the pie mean that you go with A? If not, then at what point does that come into play, if at all?
Okay, first, I am unqualified to make policy.

Okay with that out of the way, it very much depends on circumstances. If Candidate A comes from an underprivileged background, poor neighbourhood, struggle town, then yes, it might make sense for that to factor into the calculation. Framing the question as a simple naïve binary is disingenuous.
 
Okay, first, I am unqualified to make policy.

Okay with that out of the way, it very much depends on circumstances. If Candidate A comes from an underprivileged background, poor neighbourhood, struggle town, then yes, it might make sense for that to factor into the calculation. Framing the question as a simple naïve binary is disingenuous.
How would you factor that in, though? Who would you give the job to?
 
I can understand how banning such greetings is petty and unnecessary, but I also can't see how it is excluding the majority faith from consideration either,
unless the reminder to "keep our holiday greetings non-denominational" etc. applies only to Christmas. If it means you can say "happy Diwali" but not "Merry Christmas," then yes. If it means you shouldn't mention any specific holiday at all, and just stick to "happy holidays," orthe like, it still seems petty and unnecessary, and likely assumes more offense than is actually there, but it is a different thing.
It literally means that the company had a Diwali celebration, and sent out a corporate wide "Happy Diwali" email, and put up Diwali screen savers for the entire company while simultaneously ONLY asking that we be "non-denominational" about christian holidays.
 
I don't have enough information to answer that question.
This is a dodge, arthwollipot - and it's one you tend to use a lot. You make a very big assertion, with an element of moral righteousness involved.

When your assertion is challenged, and you're asked to justify your stance, you link to something really, really big but provide no synopsis or quotes from that link as evidence. When your link is challenged, you insist that the other person either hasn't read it or has read it wrongly... even if they have provided quotes in support of their position.

When your premise is challenged, you insist that you're not an expert. You decline to support your premise by providing your own rational or thought process in any fashion, but you continue to demand that other people must accept your premise as being correct.

When the application of your assertion is challenged, you find some quibble that makes each challenge somehow not applicable - you No True Scotsman each situation.

In all seriousness, and with as much respect as I can convey... do you even understand what your own positions are, and why you hold them? Do you actually grok what you're asking for and what the application is, and whether or not it has any chance in hell of being successful at addressing whatever problem you think it's targeting?
 
Sport is also inherently sexist, as demonstrated by that discussion that we will not go into in this thread.
Oh FFS.

Expecting strip clubs to hire fat ugly male dancers seems like it should be EXACTLY how you go about addressing the sexism (and fatphobia and pretty privilege) of strip clubs. That's EXACTLY what the entire premise of DEI is supposed to do - address the inherent bigotry of existing business by expecting those businesses to hire people who don't fit the prior mold in order to *create* diversity - because diversity is an inherently good thing that is supposed to be an end in and of itself.
 
You're all missing the point. The strippers are the product. The basketball players are the product. DEI would be about the management and staff.

Will a basketball franchise perform better with a more diverse back office? A more diverse scouting department?

Will a strip club be more profitable if management makes sure to include radfem and fundy viewpoints?

These are the DEI questions to ask.
 
You're all missing the point. The strippers are the product. The basketball players are the product. DEI would be about the management and staff.

Will a basketball franchise perform better with a more diverse back office? A more diverse scouting department?

Will a strip club be more profitable if management makes sure to include exclude radfem and fundy viewpoints?

These are the DEI questions to ask.
FTFY...
 
This is a dodge, arthwollipot - and it's one you tend to use a lot.
No it's not. Hiring someone requires an application, and an interview, and assessment against hiring criteria, probably background checks depending on what kind of job they are going for. I do not know enough about Paul2's candidates to make a snap assessment of who they should hire, and anyone that thinks they do is, at best, wrong.

This is why the Hypothetical Game is always fallacious. Real world decisions are more complex than the simple ones that people try to push as hypotheticals.
 
You're all missing the point. The strippers are the product. The basketball players are the product. DEI would be about the management and staff.

Will a basketball franchise perform better with a more diverse back office? A more diverse scouting department?

Will a strip club be more profitable if management makes sure to include radfem and fundy viewpoints?

These are the DEI questions to ask.
No, I wouldn't ask those questions, though they are better questions than some of the others.

Something like a basketball team, yeah, a bit of diversity there probably wouldn't hurt. I'm not an expert in the sportsballs. But as I said the entire purpose of strip clubs is sexual, and therefore inherently gender dependent. And just for the record, male strippers do exist.

Also, "radfem" and "fundy"? Poisoning the well much?
 
No it's not. Hiring someone requires an application, and an interview, and assessment against hiring criteria, probably background checks depending on what kind of job they are going for. I do not know enough about Paul2's candidates to make a snap assessment of who they should hire, and anyone that thinks they do is, at best, wrong.

This is why the Hypothetical Game is always fallacious. Real world decisions are more complex than the simple ones that people try to push as hypotheticals.
You could just make all those other factors the same for the two candidates (hiring criteria met equally for each candidate, background checks come up the same - clean, to make things easy - for each candidate, etc.), as well as being in the middle of a bell curve that plots where certain values for those factors could lie (years of relevant experience, graduated from the same school, etc.).

ETA: There are real life situations in which, considering ALL the factors that conceivably could come into play when making a hiring decision, at the end of the day, the decision operationally and functionally comes down to the factors in my original scenario because the others equal out or are so minimally different as to be irrelevant. *That's* the type of situation in which we can discover where certain values are.
 
Last edited:
You could just make all those other factors the same for the two candidates (hiring criteria met equally for each candidate, background checks come up the same - clean, to make things easy - for each candidate, etc.), as well as being in the middle of a bell curve that plots where certain values for those factors could lie (years of relevant experience, graduated from the same school, etc.).

ETA: There are real life situations in which, considering ALL the factors that conceivably could come into play when making a hiring decision, at the end of the day, the decision operationally and functionally comes down to the factors in my original scenario because the others equal out or are so minimally different as to be irrelevant. *That's* the type of situation in which we can discover where certain values are.
That seems a reasonable possibility. Certainly in other areas it's possible to study matched pairs in which a single variable is prominent, and though that degree of ducumentable equality is unlikely in a real world situation, it's possible to think about it. But I think in the real world, where people are complex, the decision would likely be a difficult one and always a bit of a gamble, as it likely is even without the DEI issue. What constitutes true equality involves many unknowns and a certain degree of subjective judgment. I think too many people on both sides confuse a principle and a rule.
 
No, I wouldn't ask those questions, though they are better questions than some of the others.

Something like a basketball team, yeah, a bit of diversity there probably wouldn't hurt. I'm not an expert in the sportsballs. But as I said the entire purpose of strip clubs is sexual, and therefore inherently gender dependent. And just for the record, male strippers do exist.
I think you're still missing the point. Strippers are the product. Diversity in the product line isn't the issue. A successful product line is based entirely on what your target customers actually want. "The customer is always right", and all that. Diversity in management is what DEI is aimed at, at least in the US.
Also, "radfem" and "fundy"? Poisoning the well much?
Tongue in cheek. I think we can all agree that there is such a thing as excessive diversity of opinion, in a group.
 
You could just make all those other factors the same for the two candidates (hiring criteria met equally for each candidate, background checks come up the same - clean, to make things easy - for each candidate, etc.), as well as being in the middle of a bell curve that plots where certain values for those factors could lie (years of relevant experience, graduated from the same school, etc.).

ETA: There are real life situations in which, considering ALL the factors that conceivably could come into play when making a hiring decision, at the end of the day, the decision operationally and functionally comes down to the factors in my original scenario because the others equal out or are so minimally different as to be irrelevant. *That's* the type of situation in which we can discover where certain values are.
Now you're talking about a spherical cow in a vacuum, which is fine for theoretical physics, but people are different from each other. You can't just arbitrarily control for those variables.
 
Back
Top Bottom