Real diversity. Based on each individual's strengths and experience, not characterized by broad traits like skin color and gender.

Right.

After all it's not like a differing genders or skin colours leads to any diversity in experience . . .

The experience of a white American is much closer to that of a black American than it is to that of a white European. I find a lot of US orgs vocal about diversity (relative to what I'm used to) are quite monocultural. Cultural diversity seems much harder to manage than ethnic diversity.

>The experience of a white American is much closer to that of a black American than it is to that of a white European.

Opinion or fact?

Opinion based on personal experience ? Which is as close to a « fact » as you get in a conversation like this. Demanding scientific standards of proof in a casual setting is just a rhetorical device used in bad faith.

Spot the American ...

Diversion.

That's a false equivalent. Europeans do vary a lot from Americans in culture, but the topic was not culture but societal treatment (e.g. policing, intergenerational poverty, etc.). There, there is the glaring gap for Afro-Americans.

>After all it's not like a differing genders or skin colours leads to any diversity in experience . . .

The actual problem is sacrificing meritocracy and excellence in order to satisfy checklist "diversity".

My mom was at an interview where they were talking about how great it was that she was female, she walked out.

There's probably a balance between meritocracy(because hiring for these parameters) and hiring based on skill no matter where they're from.

Meritocracy does not exist, has never existed and arguably it is good that it doesn't.

The world is chaotic, messy and unfair. Meritocracy is a mirage. We are not sacrificing anything by having non homomorphous workforces. Every study on it shows increased economic output, it really is a no brainer

No method is perfect but tending towards meritocracy or towards scoring political points with "minorities" yields different results.

>Meritocracy does not exist, has never existed and arguably it is good that it doesn't.

This is something meritless people say. For those of us who have been working hard our entire lives to be REALLY good at something, we know that merit absolutely makes a huge difference to the value we bring to our jobs, and that value is usually recognised.

This isn't to say that society is based entirely on merit. Far from it - though some more than others. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for merit; that we shouldn't seek to fill jobs on the basis of merit. Just because something is hard doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

Finally, I would argue against the claim that "every study on it shows increased economic output." There are all kinds of studies on diversity, and they point in many directions. A popular topic is women in senior leadership. [There is no clear evidence that this leads to better performance.](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2696804) I think it more likely that economic performance has everything to do with ability and nothing to do with skin colour or genital configuration.

> This is something meritless people say.

No. I am a staff engineer under 30 with a degree from an Ivy League. I say it because it simply is true. Let me break down the points I made.

1) Does not exist

this is easy to prove. In most industries contacts are a better predictor of success than hours, degrees, or awards. In terms of monetary success, being born rich is the highest predictor of being ahead in life more than any other.

The top forbes list is all topped by Americans, born near California between 1950-1990. The statistical chance of the "most worthy" and merit humans being born in such a small time and geographic boundries is 0.

2) has never existed

Historically goverment was hereditary, which only maximises the point I am making. But most famous artists were friends of rich people, not the most talented. Even great thinkers were all well off before they did the stuff we value from them.

3) arguably it is good that it doesn't

If the world was perfectly meritocratic those above would deserve it, and those below would deserve it too. Treating poor people badly would arguably be ethically correct as they deserve their station. But we inherently know the world is not fair and we could be down at some point therefore meritocracy not being true means ethics and success are divorced and we are all better all for it.

> There are all kinds of studies on diversity, and they point in many directions.

Meta and broad studies don't. Single issue ones with insane variables around, low confidence intervals and admitted low samples do. Like for example studies on Women on leadership positions.

Here is a nice write up on meritocracy from someone who has not drank the kool aid

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilswo...

> I am a staff engineer under 30 with a degree from an Ivy League.

So does this make a difference or not? If not, why do it, and why bring it up? If so, merit exists.

I believe its the kind of relatively meaningless achievements someone like him might count as "merit worthy".

Whenever I say we should increase minimum wage or unemployment benefits I hear its because I must be poor and a moocher. Whenever I say meritocracy doesn't exist someone chimes thats because I have never achieved anything. Whenever you want to help others someone comes out and says its because you want to take advantage of him.

I work really hard, always have, always will. But the truth is that, that same amount of work, effort and knowledge would not be rewarded if I was born somewhere not in the first world. That I got extremely lucky both in birth, location, time and chances and while I worked hard I am not entirely responsible for my success.

Do you acknowledge that there are other people who are not capable of performing your job?

Yes. But there are also people capable who are not doing it, or not being compensated like I am. There are people who could have performed it given my opportunities and people who with less chances would have performed even better than me.

Stephen Jay Gould, a great biologist, once said that "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."

I think your comment shows a profund misunderstanding of what meritocracy means. No one is saying everyone is equally capable. Merit, ability, knowledge, are all true and real. A meritocracy is a system where those who posses them triumph over those that do not. We do not live in a system like that, and as I mentioned its probably good we do not as the ethics of such a system are quite awful.

I just used credentials to defend against the personal attack that was implying the only people against meritocracy are those with nothing to offer.

It may be true that meritocracy mostly pays off at extremely high levels of merit. The organizations doing affirmative-action hires are hand-wringing about the fairest way to pick from a huge pool of middling candidates. I don't think that's necessarily bad--not every job needs to be done by a rock-star, as much as companies hate to admit it, and working-to-live is fine. The people who say they've always had a burning passion for customer service are either Spongebob or lying.

Different races and genders may lead to diversity but isn't definite

It may have affected their strengths and experiences, it may not. They may have very similar aptitudes as the rest of the workforce.

So hiring based on race is less racist than hiring based on experience?

>After all it's not like a differing genders or skin colours leads to any diversity in experience . . .

Sure, but just like every other rule of thumb the internet peddles as gospel it's wrong often enough to be barely better than worthless in practice.

Ah, the old argument for fighting racial discrimination with more racial discrimination.

I'm sure having a government department to manage the optimal demographic balance will go well.

How would you define "real diversity", as opposed to "fake diversity"?

With the following context: "Diversity" as a variable input to some bodies ability to problem solve.

"Real" diversity are the dimensions that can vary and affect the above context. Different mental models/modes + patterns of human thought can be used to tackle problems in >diverse< and potentially unique ways.

"Fake" diversity are the dimensions that can vary and not affect the above context. Superficial characteristics of a human person will not affect problem solving.

"Fake" diversity can be used as a statistical measure for "real" diversity. A man and a women likely have different life experiences, resulting in different mental models ("real" diversity). A black person and a white person will likely have different life experiences, resulting in different mental models.

Where this all goes awry is when you optimize for superficial diversity. You end up selecting against diversity of thought/character/non-superficial things over time. This sentence is based on conclusions around game theoretic optimization drawn from SSC Meditations on Moloch (https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/).

Based on your definitions, would you agree that real diversity is immeasurable, and that the only way to foster real diversity is to allow "fake" diversity to thrive?

Viewing diversity as a means to an end, which is productivity, will never work without a wider context. Humans are ends to themselves, and trying to optimize for "productive" diversity will always backfire. Diversity leads to both beauty and ugliness, productivity and stagnation, [thing-you-like] and [thing-you-don't-like] - you can't have one without the other.

I don’t know if diversity of thought/character/perspective is quantifiably measurable, but I can absolutely detect it by talking to someone for a few minutes.

Perhaps you can. Perhaps your detection rate is close to 100%, too.

But still, there's only one of you, so the method isn't scalable.

I think this is an excellent example of why trying to create KPIs based on diversity is asinine. People should be promoted and hired on the basis of ability. That's it.

If your environment doesn't allow for diversity of such traits, you won't get diversity of experience either.

Speaking of diversity, I wonder how many people from Mexico are working in management of Google? I mean cultural background, not ethnicity / DNA.

I would be surprised to find there’s at least one. I don’t think they would have named their new programming language “carbon”, too similar to “cabrón”.

It's even closer to the word "carbón" which means "carbon".

Ridiculous comment. As if Mexicans are the only ones who speak Spanish and As if Google doesn't have a huge office in mexico city and employees tons of amazing executives from Mexico around the world.

AFAIK in European Spanish the word is neutral, just an animal, nothing particularly wrong with the resemblance.

Google’s HQ is in California. The state has a land border with Mexico and almost 40% of Hispanic and Latin population, predominantly Mexicans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_and_Latinos_in_Calif...

I recently saw a poster for a Teachers' Union campaign, saying that "unity is our strength". Obviously both cannot be true.

Surely they’re orthogonal traits. A diverse group can unify. An example might even be the military.

"United in diversity" is literally the official motto of the European Union.

To anyone who believes that in practice, I recommend Yanis Veroufakis's book "Adults in the Room"

officially: "In Varietate Concordia"

Right. You can't have both at the same time.

I'm not sure I follow. I mean orthogonal as in along different axes.

Why do you think diversity and unity are mutually exclusive?

From your example - how does the military "unify" a diverse group of people? By aligning their thought processes and decision making. That is, by removing that very diversity.

The two words also mean literally the opposite thing. You can be along a spectrum from one to the other, but you can't have both at once.

What a bizarre thought process. Unification towards a common goal isn't homogenisation. Neither is common training or experience.

Talking of bizarre thought processes - how can you unify, and/or receive common training or experience, without losing some form of diversity?

We all love to say how true diversity is diversity of experience. You are literally taking about unified, shared experiences.

I just don't follow your reasoning here. Is it your contention that a new experience deletes or diminishes previous experiences? Or that newly learnt knowledge diminishes that previously learnt?

Surely a new set of common experiences increases the diversity of thought of all the participants? Nothing's lost.

>Surely a new set of common experiences increases the diversity of thought of all the participants?

This statement is absurd on its face. The entire premise of the benefits of diversity (of thought and experience) is predicated on the subjects in question having had unique experiences.

>Is it your contention that a new experience deletes or diminishes previous experiences?

Somewhat, yes. When I went to university, the shared experiences there hugely overshadowed what I had experienced in my prior education.

Interesting slogan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_is_Strength