The reason promoting diversity (e.g. in tech) is good is because there is a shortage of qualified people. If we have certain populations that could work in the field, but don't, for whatever reason, then we want to find those causes and stop them. And if those causes are historical (e.g. past discrimination), we might even go so far as to take that into account.
E.g. take affirmative action for African Americans (in America). Yes, it's partially there to have equal opportunity. But (perhaps more) importantly, we know that because of past diversity, most African Americans have a harder time in education growing up. This probably shows up as people have e.g. lower scores on tests. But what we should be thinking is: "If they got slightly lower scores, but we know that it was harder for them, then imagine what they could do if we help them out with better education!".
One could argue (and other commenters do so) that we should care more about the moral "everyone should have equal opportunities" argument. I agree, but I much prefer to show why diversity tends to be a win-win, not a "you lose so we can win" situation.
Are you implying that for some reason we don't hire qualified women if there are no men to fill in the roles? Would love to see your sources.
> If we have certain populations that could work in the field
Why not look to see how can we get more white men to work in the field?
> , but don't, for whatever reason, then we want to find those causes and stop them.
What if it's cheaper to just get more men instead?
> Yes, it's partially there to have equal opportunity.
It's not equal opportunity, white people won't get it.
> But (perhaps more) importantly, we know that because of past diversity, most African Americans have a harder time in education growing up.
I've heard it's because of socialism, can you prove that that's not the case?
> This probably shows up as people have e.g. lower scores on tests.
Me having a lower score on a test, doesn't mean that it's because I was historically oppressed.
> imagine what they could do if we help them out with better education!
Imagine if education would be just be better in general for all, I wouldn't leave out the uneducated white men.
> I agree, but I much prefer to show why diversity tends to be a win-win, not a "you lose so we can win" situation.
I have yet to see any solid evidence why having a majority white male tech population is a bad thing(and I'm not even going to get into the are Asians white or not argument).
Overall my issue with your point of view is that I have yet to see any proof for anything that it's based on. Most people with your point of view will point to some statistics that are convenient to them (earnings of all women vs. men) and ignore inconvenient ones(male vs. female mortality rate) and interpret it the way they want it (we less women in tech, must be because of sexism).
What is the natural level and how did you find it?
I think a better argument for diversity is that people who are underrepresented in a job deserve the same opportunities as everyone else, not because they bring wise insights not otherwise attainable.
1) every last big company fires people until everyone "believes" this to be true, because not doing so would incite rebellion internally. Are you not a team player ?
It is also what every product manager always goes for, mostly because it allows them to deflect responsibility for the inevitably mediocre (at best) product that comes out of it. Usually, they also succeed in angering "small" subgroups of users while doing this at an absolutely enormous cost in bad PR.
2) it is most definitely not true at all. A vision by a single mind that really works at it (and is thus by necessity someone who is both technical, knows the code AND uses the software AND talks to the users) will blast any consensus product out of the water.
The thing is, small failures by a single person's vision will have an outsize impact on their career. Total failure in a consensus product is not just not punished, it is actually rewarded : Aside from the obvious "you don't need maintenance for a failure" there is the fact that there aren't any users to actually criticize the failure. Therefore the internal feedback for participants is going to be about how they "successfully" organized a large effort by a large group and fought heroically to keep it going. Promote this failure NOW !
It's essentially a moral argument: women and minorities deserve equal treatment and opportunity, but due to stereotyping and social inertia (i.e. girls don't grow up seeing many women in technical fields, so they aren't compelled or don't even think to join them), they don't currently get it.
To answer the question:
> Still, if women, men and people of different ethnicities and races all have such fundamentally different backgrounds, why would you expect them all to choose the same fields in the same proportion?
I think we'd like to assume that everyone can essentially do whatever they want, but just choose not to, but we simply can't because we've never had an equal starting position to begin with.
The "but we want to hire on merit" argument is clearly fucking bullshit if you've ever had any involvement in recruitment and seen how flawed it is.
It's much harder for white men to preferentially hire white men if as much of the interview process as possible is blinded.