- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Foundation says it won’t compromise policy of inclusivity even if that cash would’ve really helped
Foundation says it won’t compromise policy of inclusivity even if that cash would’ve really helped
The PSF was smart to walk away - those grant terms were vague legal landmines that could mean anything from “no diversity goals” to “fire your existing minority staff.” But watching y’all melt down over meritocracy is peak comedy.
I’ve worked with brilliant devs from every background. The good ones succeed because they can solve problems and write clean code, not because of their melanin levels. The whole “systemic racism in hiring” cope ignores that maybe different groups have different interests and aptitudes. Engineering talent isn’t equally distributed across all demographics just because you wish it was.
The historical guilt trip about wealth gaps doesn’t make hiring less qualified people logical. I’m supposed to tank my codebase quality because someone’s great-grandfather got screwed? Merit-based hiring optimizes for results. Everything else is expensive virtue signaling that makes products worse while executives pat themselves on the back for being “inclusive.”
I’m on the fence about this. I think that it’s true the most hiring decisions aren’t merit-based, nor do they necessarily need to be. Most jobs can be sufficiently done by the average-skilled person, it’s only the most skilled positions were you can argue that one person is just simply the best (and sufficiently that it matters). I think DEI practices would be fine in the former case since it’s just another biasing metric like nepotism.
As for highly skilled positions, most people in those positions grow up saturated in the culture from a young age, typically from parents in that field themselves. I think there is arguments to be made that DEI practices now can produce a larger skilled pool in the next generation.
The questions are 1. How much does it help the next generation? 2. Is it worth the cost of lower standards now?
So let me get this straight - we should hire less qualified people TODAY so that maybe their kids will be inspired to enter tech TOMORROW? And somehow this creates a “larger skilled pool”?
The logic is beautiful: “Let’s lower standards now so future generations can… have lower standards too?” How exactly does seeing unqualified people get promoted inspire excellence? If anything, it teaches kids that competence is optional.
That’s just my steelman. You are correct that it would require a readjustment at some point, i.e DEI practices can’t exist forever.
“Unqualified people get promoted inspire excellence”. I think at the very top, advanced work isn’t done to get promotions but rather the work itself. I imagine that people don’t take years of schooling and work with the goal of becoming a senior dev. There’s something about the work and producing good work that motivated them.
Note that I don’t work in tech but rather mathematics research. So our incentives are different, but I think the main ideas hold.
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Yeah, but your code will be culturally one-sided! You need diverse coding practices, like three-space indentation!
My favorite was companies like IBM setting a goal for 50% female engineering representation even though barely 20% of the respective college grads were female. Like, they’re just blatantly picking from a smaller pool, making it statistically inevitable that they’re bypassing more qualified people.
But people here evidently support this sort of gender/race based discrimination. 🤷
Cultural bias for indentation styles, lol. Your math checks out though, statistics say women earn about 20-25% of CS/engineering degrees so if companies set a 50% target then they’re either: