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Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Monday February 06, 2023 @03:21PM (#34683749)
My impression is that the mechanism is that racial/gender/etc diversity proxies for some amount of viewpoint diversity, and it's the viewpoint diversity which is improving outcomes. Assuming I'm correct on that point, my strong suspicion is that a lot of DEI programs in the US are not resulting in much more diverse hiring than their peer groups while simultaneously limiting viewpoint diversity pretty considerably (or if they're not limiting the viewpoint diversity of the people they hire, they're limiting the willingness of those people to express diverse views--probably a combination of the two).

I'm also vaguely of the impression that at least some research is finding DEI initiatives to be neutral or perhaps even counter-productive, but I'm having a hard time finding those papers--if this is jogging anyone's memory, I would appreciate links.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by SpeedilyDamage on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:10PM (#34687124)
Just… stop. DEI works when well executed. Accept that.

If you want to police SEI initiatives to ensure they’re properly implemented, go for it, but the constant aversion to a so thoroughly researched concept is bordering on flat earther level conspiracy.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by tristor on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:41AM (#34689169)
> thoroughly researched concept

Is this part of the same body of research suffering a replication crisis more broadly?

It is?

Oh. So, having lots of published “research” that can be linked to by consultants paid to believe it isn’t the same thing as replicable hard science?

Nope. Whodathunkit.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by SpeedilyDamage on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @01:35AM (#34689500)
Considering all of science is having a replication crisis, you are going full flat earther, then.

I really cannot overemphasize how detrimental to your argument what you just wrote is to any thinking human being. Blindly claiming all research, from literally every institution in the world, is both inaccurate and rigged somehow on a widely studied topic, is an insane claim only made when you've given up on the entire concept of rationality.

You really would rather throw all of science under the bus before you let black people get an even footing in society, wouldn't you? Incredible.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by tristor on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @01:39AM (#34689518)
STEM fields don’t have a replication crisis in the same way that humanities do.

The issue in STEM fields is that essential elements to replicate (like the code) are not being published, yet the underlying science is solid enough for production technology people rely on every day to be built on it.

In the humanities the replication crisis is that a significant amount of published “research” is essentially made up whole cloth.

One of these things is not like the other.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by SpeedilyDamage on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @05:44AM (#34691092)
Okay so you’re just throwing out all of the humanities rather than let black folks into college? What a choice…

You get called racist for saying racist things; if you don’t like it, stop doing it. DEI works, the outcomes are clear, obvious, insanely well documented, and freely available to literally anyone with access to the Internet and two brain cells to rub together.

Please continue to question what you’re told, but at some point, when the answers are flowing to you in unambiguous and numerous ways, shut the fuck up and take in the knowledge. At some point you have to accept that either you’re a person of reason or you’re a racist asshole who can’t accept that letting minorities into groups helps those groups. You’ve got an ego, that much is clear, but try to disassociate that ego with this problem. Be a student. Learn.

The only person who who should feel shame here is the person who would believe they understand a problem better than every single major research and academic institution in the US. If that’s not you, great, but it’s looking a lot more like you than it’s looking like me.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by tristor on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:59AM (#34692783)
Your response to me is utterly uncalled for, and you continue to double down after I pointed this out. There is no point in having a discussion with you, as you are determined to straw man me, libel me, and otherwise behave in a manner which is inappropriate for HN and civil discourse generally.

You know nothing about me, and your claims about me are not only wrong, they’re laughably so. I hope I never have to work with you or otherwise interact with you off the Internet, you have made it clear by your behavior here that you’re truly a horrid person.

Best of luck in life.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by SpeedilyDamage on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @11:19AM (#34694713)
What's "uncalled for" about what I said? Is this an outrage copypasta you got from somewhere? You could paste what you wrote in reply to nearly any comment on this platform and it'd be about as valid.

And I didn't say I knew anything about you? I said things that are true for any thinking, breathing human.

Honestly, what a weird reaction. You clearly feel attacked, which I guess makes sense if you genuinely are the worst possible parts of what I wrote about (choosing to be a racist asshole rather than a person of reason), but you're opting into those designations for some reason.

The things people will do to justify hatred are wild, thank you for reminding me of that.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @11:34AM (#34694928)
A collection of openly hostile remarks you've made in this thread:

> shut the fuck up and take in the knowledge.

> You get called racist for saying racist things; if you don’t like it, stop doing it

> I really cannot overemphasize how detrimental to your argument what you just wrote is to any thinking human being.

> Blindly claiming all research, from literally every institution in the world, is both inaccurate and rigged somehow on a widely studied topic, is an insane claim only made when you've given up on the entire concept of rationality.

(note that the parent never made this claim, you're falsely imputing it on him)

> You really would rather throw all of science under the bus before you let black people get an even footing in society, wouldn't you? Incredible.

I suspect these comments likely violate even a very narrow reading of the site guidelines. Your account is relatively new, so maybe you aren't aware but you might want to take a look before mods intervene (guidelines are linked at the bottom of the page).

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by esporx on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @11:44AM (#34695073)
(same person, different account, HN is trying to throttle me)

None of those lines are in any way openly hostile, unless you fall into the worst category of what I wrote, which is the racist who is trying to find any excuse to remove black people from the conversation.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:00PM (#34695348)
You're welcome to litigate your comments with the moderators, I'm just giving you a friendly heads-up that I don't think the mods will agree with you (and the fact that you've been throttled suggests you've probably been warned by the mods before). I'm also not sure they'll take kindly to creating throwaway accounts for the purpose of circumventing the rate limit, but I'll let them speak for themselves.
Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by abbiebe89 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:13PM (#34695537)
(still same person, let's keep it rolling)

I don't care if dang agrees/disagrees in this case. This is too important, and the voices spouting bigotry on this site need to be challenged, even if it's wildly unpopular.

In the past, the bans came from simulating activity on the discussion, which I have made clear this time that all accounts roll up to one person.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:19PM (#34695647)
Criticizing DEI programs (as the parent was clearly doing) isn't "spouting bigotry". You can certainly challenge bigotry on this site without violating the site guidelines (and "challenging bigotry" is hardly unpopular here).
Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by abbiebe89 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:26PM (#34695734)
Criticizing the concept of DEI is spouting bigotry, and it's anti-fact.

And no, you cannot support the concept of DEI and remain on this site without resorting to the tricks I've had to. I'm not perfect, but this site has shown its ugly side these past few days, as a number of anti-DEI posts have been getting traction.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:50PM (#34698374)
> Criticizing the concept of DEI is spouting bigotry, and it's anti-fact.

Not at all. For example, I believe that selecting for viewpoint diversity directly is a better way to achieve viewpoint diversity than via DEI. Moreover, I firmly reject that race or gender confer any special abilities (and frankly this gets me into more hot water with DEI advocates than anyone else). These two positions aren't in conflict in any way. This example constitutes incontrovertible proof that "criticizing the concept of DEI is spouting bigotry" is incorrect.

> And no, you cannot support the concept of DEI and remain on this site without resorting to the tricks I've had to.

This is factually incorrect as well. I debate with lots of people who argue vocally for DEI (even strongly implying personal attacks) who have been on this site for a long time (and have lots of karma!). They just stay within the guidelines or at least they don't flout them as egregiously as you seem to be doing.

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:28AM (#34692440)
Continuously asserting that they are “thoroughly researched” does not make them so. Comparing “criticizing DEI” with “advocating flat earth” is pretty absurd, not least of all because DEI programs are incredibly diverse (of course, you are unhelpfully referring only to the “good ones”).
Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by SpeedilyDamage on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @11:20AM (#34694723)
Criticizing DEI is fine. Acting as if it isn't effective when properly implemented is on the same level as "advocating flat earth" theories, as they both fly in the face of a whole lot of data.

And you're right, claiming something does not make it so. What makes it so is all of the data supporting it, which is readily available to anyone who actually cares about this topic (up to you if that's you).

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by throwaway894345 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @11:56AM (#34695279)
> Acting as if it isn't effective when properly implemented is on the same level as "advocating flat earth" theories

Who is arguing that DEI is ineffective when properly implemented (what does "properly implemented" even mean, concretely?).

> they both fly in the face of a whole lot of data

You keep referencing this data... Where are the metanalyses that show concretely that DEI programs are effective? To be clear, I'm aware of and believe that increased diversity makes organizations more robust, but again that's attributed to viewpoint diversity and it's not at all clear to me that modern DEI programs deliver on that viewpoint diversity. It's not even clear to me that there is widespread consensus that "viewpoint diversity" or "organizational robustness" is a goal of these programs--one definitely gets the impression that the primary goal is diversity of identities with little mind paid to the impact on viewpoint diversity or organizational robustness.

Here's HBR (https://hbr.org/2019/07/does-diversity-training-work-the-way...) talking about whether or not diversity training programs are effective; note that the implication here is that the goal is ideological agreement--they're not even looking for viewpoint diversity:

> What did we find? Let’s start with the good news. The bias-focused trainings had a positive effect on the attitudes of one important group: employees who we believe were the least supportive of women prior to training. We found that after completing training, these employees were more likely to acknowledge discrimination against women, express support for policies designed to help women, and acknowledge their own racial and gender biases, compared to similar employees in the control group. For employees who were already supportive of women, we found no evidence that the training produced a backlash.

Regarding the research into DEI, a lot of the measures of its efficacy (that I'm aware of) hinge on Implicit Association Tests which are a famously plagued with issues (https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/7/14637626/implicit-as...).

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by abbiebe89 on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:18PM (#34695622)
(still same person from before)

> Who is arguing that DEI is ineffective when properly implemented (what does "properly implemented" even mean, concretely?).

Nearly everyone in the comments here, are you blind?

> Where are the metanalyses that show concretely that DEI programs are effective?

Here's one that took all of 5 seconds to Google:

> Results from 65 studies (N = 8465) revealed sizable effects on affective‐based, cognitive‐based, and skill‐based outcomes as well as interesting boundary conditions for these effects on affective‐based outcomes. This study provides practical value to human resources managers and trainers wishing to implement diversity training within organizations as well as interesting theoretical advances for researchers. Practitioners have quantitative evidence that diversity training changes affective‐based, cognitive‐based, and skill‐based trainee outcomes. [0]

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263597048_A_meta-an...

Re:Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC... by matchbok on Sunday February 12, 2023 @10:03PM (#34769683)
Just... stop. It doesn't and is little more than ideology and religion at this point.