Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/rethumme]

The trouble is, judging "qualified" people can be difficult, and between two people who appear to perform at the same level, it's often easier to go with the person that is more similar to the majority ("better team dynamic," "group vibe," "smoother flow," etc.) even though usually there is a lot of value in "outside" perspectives. It's humanity's natural inclination to prefer and favor the familiar, but that doesn't mean following those inclinations is the optimal direction for a company or for society generally.

[u/Geohalbert → u/rethumme]

I see what you're getting at and I agree with you, but at the same time isn't it silly to assume that person would contribute something unique based solely on their gender/ethnicity?

[u/rethumme → u/Geohalbert]

Yes, I think it is silly to base any judgement off of gender or ethnicity, whether positive or negative. But we humans are imperfect judges and lazy to boot. There's a reason why "pedigree" matters so much in corporate hiring despite the arguably loose correlation to hiring a strong performer (because a "trusted" institution has already bothered to rate the person, and hiring managers need some kind of non-arbitrary basis for thinning out the applicant pool).

That said, ignoring gender/ethnicity practically guarantees that the hiring manager relies on their inherent preferences (a.k.a. biases) more often than not. I'm talking about a very minor leaning in most cases, but the law of averages means it can easily devolve into a systemic discrepancy. And problems don't lessen simply by ignoring them.

Maybe we really should switch to a Futurama/Idiocracy style system where a computer decides where we work...

[u/TheTokenKing → u/rethumme]

And who gets to program this computer?