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[QUOTE=OzyWho;940355]Are we confident that diversity is achieved better by race and sex, rather than by individuals?

Here - [url]https://youtu.be/QCPDByRb4no[/url] - Jordan Peterson claims to have studied differences between people and that individual differences far outweigh the group differences.
It makes sense, yet [MENTION=2230]oops_ur_dead[/MENTION] showed that companies go for that 'diversity by looks' so to speak.[/QUOTE]

He's 100% right about everything he said in this video, though his political bias and attempts to bait are pretty obnoxious.

Individual differences are very obviously larger than intergroup differences. I don't think anyone really denies that. However, social context and associations are very important and an aspect he completely ignores, which makes sense because he's a psychologist.

A black person who grew up in inner city Detroit has a very unique frame of view on how certain groups of people live that other people would find it difficult if not impossible to develop without that type of experience. Women in the workforce have a very different perspective on what they consider to be harassment or sexual abuse, which is why it's such a autist incel thing to say stuff like "someone staring at your tits isn't harassment it's a complement xD xD"

To the original point of your video and how it relates to diversity hiring, Peterson actually brought up something exactly to my point in this video. If you make a bet on a woman vs a man in agreeableness you'll find the woman is more agreeable than the man 60% of the time. A company hiring people might do much better than the 60% if they optimize for the exact person with the best suited traits for the job. But there's two issues with this:

1) The company has to know what they're looking for, which can be extremely difficult. If a company hires that inner city black guy from before in sales he might propose ideas that greatly improve the company's performance to inner city customers, something the company may not have been looking for because they weren't even aware of this segment. The company is not going to have a perfect plan or a perfect perspective on what they need, diversity hiring is a way of collecting a wider range of ideas and experiences together to not only perform a job better but to figure out what the job even is in the first place.

2) Even if the company knows exactly what they need and they're correct about it, they need to be able to identify these differences well and in a cost and time effective manner. To Peterson's example, if you had a bunch of men and women and you had an hour to group them by agreeableness, you'd be better off doing so by just doing it across gender lines, maybe with some simple questioning, rather than thoroughly interviewing each individual person and giving them surveys. Same goes for hiring. There's no guarantee there even is a good way to figure out whether someone is brilliant at marketing towards inner city black customers, so you do it based on race and one's cultural background and hope for the best. Maybe the white guy was actually going to be better. But 75% of the time, they aren't, so you just do the best you can do.

Originally Posted by OzyWho

Are we confident that diversity is achieved better by race and sex, rather than by individuals?

Here - https://youtu.be/QCPDByRb4no - Jordan Peterson claims to have studied differences between people and that individual differences far outweigh the group differences.
It makes sense, yet @oops_ur_dead showed that companies go for that 'diversity by looks' so to speak.

He's 100% right about everything he said in this video, though his political bias and attempts to bait are pretty obnoxious.

Individual differences are very obviously larger than intergroup differences. I don't think anyone really denies that. However, social context and associations are very important and an aspect he completely ignores, which makes sense because he's a psychologist.

A black person who grew up in inner city Detroit has a very unique frame of view on how certain groups of people live that other people would find it difficult if not impossible to develop without that type of experience. Women in the workforce have a very different perspective on what they consider to be harassment or sexual abuse, which is why it's such a autist incel thing to say stuff like "someone staring at your tits isn't harassment it's a complement xD xD"

To the original point of your video and how it relates to diversity hiring, Peterson actually brought up something exactly to my point in this video. If you make a bet on a woman vs a man in agreeableness you'll find the woman is more agreeable than the man 60% of the time. A company hiring people might do much better than the 60% if they optimize for the exact person with the best suited traits for the job. But there's two issues with this:

1) The company has to know what they're looking for, which can be extremely difficult. If a company hires that inner city black guy from before in sales he might propose ideas that greatly improve the company's performance to inner city customers, something the company may not have been looking for because they weren't even aware of this segment. The company is not going to have a perfect plan or a perfect perspective on what they need, diversity hiring is a way of collecting a wider range of ideas and experiences together to not only perform a job better but to figure out what the job even is in the first place.

2) Even if the company knows exactly what they need and they're correct about it, they need to be able to identify these differences well and in a cost and time effective manner. To Peterson's example, if you had a bunch of men and women and you had an hour to group them by agreeableness, you'd be better off doing so by just doing it across gender lines, maybe with some simple questioning, rather than thoroughly interviewing each individual person and giving them surveys. Same goes for hiring. There's no guarantee there even is a good way to figure out whether someone is brilliant at marketing towards inner city black customers, so you do it based on race and one's cultural background and hope for the best. Maybe the white guy was actually going to be better. But 75% of the time, they aren't, so you just do the best you can do.

I think this would be better turned into a discussion on how to properly think critically and how to interpret science versus anecdotal experience. The original topic has been beaten to death, and this discussion won't go anywhere without aligning on what to do when empirical evidence challenges your predetermined opinions.

This actually reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend. She's from a less developed European country (I won't name which country but it might surprise you if I did) and told me that critical thinking is kinda taken for granted in most of the west. She says the first time she was actually, truly exposed to critical thinking was when she started studying for her bachelor's abroad. She told me about many instances in her home country where critical thinking was not only not emphasized or taught, but actively discouraged. There was an assignment she had in high school where they had to write an essay on a famous poet in that country, and her classmate wrote about the poet but also wrote about some things they disagreed with in the poet's writing. Said classmate was actually punished and received a low grade on the assignment solely for that, because the teacher said "how can you think this poet is wrong? He's a cultural icon!"

It's not meant as an insult, but people often take offence to it because they see critical thinking as some sort of innate knowledge like "common sense" or "the sky is blue", when really it's a skill to be learned, and requires a certain amount of humility to accept that you're wrong in the face of evidence. People might get mad at me or accuse me of making ad-hom attacks but I think it needs to be said if we want to get anywhere in any discussion.

I think this would be better turned into a discussion on how to properly think critically and how to interpret science versus anecdotal experience. The original topic has been beaten to death, and this discussion won't go anywhere without aligning on what to do when empirical evidence challenges your predetermined opinions.

This actually reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend. She's from a less developed European country (I won't name which country but it might surprise you if I did) and told me that critical thinking is kinda taken for granted in most of the west. She says the first time she was actually, truly exposed to critical thinking was when she started studying for her bachelor's abroad. She told me about many instances in her home country where critical thinking was not only not emphasized or taught, but actively discouraged. There was an assignment she had in high school where they had to write an essay on a famous poet in that country, and her classmate wrote about the poet but also wrote about some things they disagreed with in the poet's writing. Said classmate was actually punished and received a low grade on the assignment solely for that, because the teacher said "how can you think this poet is wrong? He's a cultural icon!"

It's not meant as an insult, but people often take offence to it because they see critical thinking as some sort of innate knowledge like "common sense" or "the sky is blue", when really it's a skill to be learned, and requires a certain amount of humility to accept that you're wrong in the face of evidence. People might get mad at me or accuse me of making ad-hom attacks but I think it needs to be said if we want to get anywhere in any discussion.

Like clockwork.

I think I've said everything I need to say about the topic, anyone that will ever be willing to change their mind can draw their own conclusions.

Like clockwork.

I think I've said everything I need to say about the topic, anyone that will ever be willing to change their mind can draw their own conclusions.

[QUOTE=yzb25;918531]I know it sounds extreme, but I'm halfway towards believing it's in everyone's benefit for a mod to forcefully cap how many posts you can make in these political threads per, say, 48h. You really don't seem to have any control over your own impulses and knowing you said shit like this must feel really embarassing later. Trying to compare an entire continent to a workplace. Jesus. How did you even measure the diversity of Africa compared to, say, Asia? Man, I'm already thinking too hard about this XD.

You [I]need[/I] to at least attempt to improve your impulse control. And I don't say it with a hint of resentment when I say you might benefit from the community putting concrete controls on what you say in these threads. No actual censorship, just some mechanism that implicitly forces you to think before posting by restricting post count or whatever.[/QUOTE]

I'm going to predict the future and say that now he's going to post some article about how Africa is the most diverse continent by some weird measurement and claim he's actually right.

Originally Posted by yzb25

I know it sounds extreme, but I'm halfway towards believing it's in everyone's benefit for a mod to forcefully cap how many posts you can make in these political threads per, say, 48h. You really don't seem to have any control over your own impulses and knowing you said shit like this must feel really embarassing later. Trying to compare an entire continent to a workplace. Jesus. How did you even measure the diversity of Africa compared to, say, Asia? Man, I'm already thinking too hard about this XD.

You need to at least attempt to improve your impulse control. And I don't say it with a hint of resentment when I say you might benefit from the community putting concrete controls on what you say in these threads. No actual censorship, just some mechanism that implicitly forces you to think before posting by restricting post count or whatever.

I'm going to predict the future and say that now he's going to post some article about how Africa is the most diverse continent by some weird measurement and claim he's actually right.

So you read one paper that I posted, out of like 10, found a couple of issues with it that other people further explained to you (which you ignored ofc), and dismissed the entire concept based on that? Like you read one single paper, which directly stated that they weren't trying to establish a causal relationship, out of several others, of which a couple directly established causal relationships or further explained and showed evidence of ways through which diversity leads to profitability and performance, and then said the WHOLE THING is invalid and that I never attempted to establish causality because that one paper didn't?

Dude, how do you type these words and re-read your posts, and think to yourself "yes, this is an intelligent opinion, and I am completely correct". Seriously man, in this thread you've admitted you're dismissing an argument backed up with scientific evidence solely because you disagree with it, and that you don't even read what other people post and arguments contrary to your opinion, and you still think you're in the right. How the hell do you think yourself into these things?

So you read one paper that I posted, out of like 10, found a couple of issues with it that other people further explained to you (which you ignored ofc), and dismissed the entire concept based on that? Like you read one single paper, which directly stated that they weren't trying to establish a causal relationship, out of several others, of which a couple directly established causal relationships or further explained and showed evidence of ways through which diversity leads to profitability and performance, and then said the WHOLE THING is invalid and that I never attempted to establish causality because that one paper didn't?

Dude, how do you type these words and re-read your posts, and think to yourself "yes, this is an intelligent opinion, and I am completely correct". Seriously man, in this thread you've admitted you're dismissing an argument backed up with scientific evidence solely because you disagree with it, and that you don't even read what other people post and arguments contrary to your opinion, and you still think you're in the right. How the hell do you think yourself into these things?

I also can't comprehend how one can be so arrogant as to barely be through university yet claim to understand what science is to the point of arguing what the fundamentals of scientific philosophy and methods are with published scientists who have masters and PhDs in their field. Go talk to any of your professors about how you can dismiss studies showing a causal link between two things because the conclusion is "obviously stupid" to you and see how many laugh at you.

I also can't comprehend how one can be so arrogant as to barely be through university yet claim to understand what science is to the point of arguing what the fundamentals of scientific philosophy and methods are with published scientists who have masters and PhDs in their field. Go talk to any of your professors about how you can dismiss studies showing a causal link between two things because the conclusion is "obviously stupid" to you and see how many laugh at you.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918509]I disagree, it’s not insignificant. If someone makes a study with 10,000 people purporting to show the benefits of crystal balls on health or whatever the fuck I will literally not give a shit. I could care less if people put the ‘scientific study’ sticker on it; if it’s unreasonable, it doesn’t matter who’s saying it or why - it’s still unreasonable.[/quote]

This shows that you actually don't understand what science is. Science isn't some religion that is formed around "reasonability", it is a framework for building knowledge through testable hypotheses. Yes, if there were numerous studies that showed that crystal balls show benefit in some area of health, you would be unscientific and denying reality to refuse to accept that relationship. I would never make claims that it's due to magic or whatever, unless another scientific study showed that it is. Then magic would become a part of accepted science/physics.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918509]As it stands nobody in this fucking thread has bothered or even tried to explain a causal relationship coupd be between diversity and profit in such a way that diversity -> profit. The five points the authors of the study we investigated were called into question and quite frankly just as I suspected the conclusions they drew look more like their own opinions. You cannot build science on the basis of an opinion! Honestly if there were anything remotely conclusive that proved causality oops would’ve mentioned it - the fact that he didn’t when challenged is evidence enough for me.[/quote]

Are you fucking joking dude? I posted several articles showing both proven methods through which diversity could affect company performance, such as boosting decision making, as well as a study establishing a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP between diversity and performance. Learn to actually read what people are saying.

At this point it's pretty clear to me you're either being wilfully ignorant, because you can't stand to accept the conclusion of this, or you just don't understand how to think critically. Maybe you just fundamentally misunderstand the concept of science? That's fine if you don't understand it, it can be a hard concept to grasp, but you need to find the humility to recognize your shortcomings.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918509]People need to stop being intimidated by ‘scientific studies’ that purport to show nonsensical causalities. This is intellectual tyranny at its finest.[/quote]

Once again, you're admitting that science doesn't matter if it goes against your pre-formed opinions and feelings.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918509]To continue the line of thought I originally went on, when someone claims something fucking stupid such as culture > personality/education (which in my view basically goes back to the fucking tabula rasa argument), I can dismiss it out of hand with my personal experience because of how fucking obviously stupid it is.[/quote]

Sure, that's just as unscientific as someone dismissing evolution because the bible says that God created all the animals. You're literally dismissing scientific evidence because you think it's "obviously stupid".

Also nobody claimed that culture > personality/education. Stop strawmanning other people's arguments.

Originally Posted by Oberon

I disagree, it’s not insignificant. If someone makes a study with 10,000 people purporting to show the benefits of crystal balls on health or whatever the fuck I will literally not give a shit. I could care less if people put the ‘scientific study’ sticker on it; if it’s unreasonable, it doesn’t matter who’s saying it or why - it’s still unreasonable.

This shows that you actually don't understand what science is. Science isn't some religion that is formed around "reasonability", it is a framework for building knowledge through testable hypotheses. Yes, if there were numerous studies that showed that crystal balls show benefit in some area of health, you would be unscientific and denying reality to refuse to accept that relationship. I would never make claims that it's due to magic or whatever, unless another scientific study showed that it is. Then magic would become a part of accepted science/physics.

Originally Posted by Oberon

As it stands nobody in this fucking thread has bothered or even tried to explain a causal relationship coupd be between diversity and profit in such a way that diversity -> profit. The five points the authors of the study we investigated were called into question and quite frankly just as I suspected the conclusions they drew look more like their own opinions. You cannot build science on the basis of an opinion! Honestly if there were anything remotely conclusive that proved causality oops would’ve mentioned it - the fact that he didn’t when challenged is evidence enough for me.

Are you fucking joking dude? I posted several articles showing both proven methods through which diversity could affect company performance, such as boosting decision making, as well as a study establishing a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP between diversity and performance. Learn to actually read what people are saying.

At this point it's pretty clear to me you're either being wilfully ignorant, because you can't stand to accept the conclusion of this, or you just don't understand how to think critically. Maybe you just fundamentally misunderstand the concept of science? That's fine if you don't understand it, it can be a hard concept to grasp, but you need to find the humility to recognize your shortcomings.

Originally Posted by Oberon

People need to stop being intimidated by ‘scientific studies’ that purport to show nonsensical causalities. This is intellectual tyranny at its finest.

Once again, you're admitting that science doesn't matter if it goes against your pre-formed opinions and feelings.

Originally Posted by Oberon

To continue the line of thought I originally went on, when someone claims something fucking stupid such as culture > personality/education (which in my view basically goes back to the fucking tabula rasa argument), I can dismiss it out of hand with my personal experience because of how fucking obviously stupid it is.

Sure, that's just as unscientific as someone dismissing evolution because the bible says that God created all the animals. You're literally dismissing scientific evidence because you think it's "obviously stupid".

Also nobody claimed that culture > personality/education. Stop strawmanning other people's arguments.

[QUOTE=yzb25;918459]
Intuitively, if you are a hopeless researcher and come up with 100 incorrect correlation conjectures, you expect a p value of 0.05 to dismiss approximately 95 of these conjectures when you go collect data. A lower p value will dismiss even more. Even if only 20% of your conjectures are true, most of the research you publish will still be true. (Imagine coming up with 125 conjectures, 20% of which (25) are true. Assume you find a correlation for the 25 correct ones. So you publish 30 results, only 5 of which are wrong. Only 20% of your conjectures are true, yet 83% of your published results are true).
[/QUOTE]

This is a bit of a nitpick (or maybe just going further into detail) but quite important: the assumption that you'll find a correlation for the 25 correct ones is a very strong assumption, and in many real world scenarios it isn't as clean. In practice, the p-value you choose as the cutoff also affects statistical power, which is kinda the opposite concept: the probability that, given there actually is an effect, that you'll detect it.

That's why the cutoff for significance is set to 95% and not 100%; because if it was set to 100%, then you'd throw out a lot of good results (in fact you'd throw out every single result because a p-value of 0 is impossible to obtain in real experimental setups). At some point it was arbitrarily chosen by some scientists that if 1 in 20 results were entirely due to statistical chance, that's a fine compromise, hence why 95% is commonly used.

In companies they'll often use a lower value such as 80% because when the goal is experimenting for maximizing profit, it's okay if you have a lot of "false positives" as long as overall you still have more wins than losses, and a lower criteria for seeing if an experiment was successful allows you to innovate and push out changes more quickly.

Originally Posted by yzb25

Intuitively, if you are a hopeless researcher and come up with 100 incorrect correlation conjectures, you expect a p value of 0.05 to dismiss approximately 95 of these conjectures when you go collect data. A lower p value will dismiss even more. Even if only 20% of your conjectures are true, most of the research you publish will still be true. (Imagine coming up with 125 conjectures, 20% of which (25) are true. Assume you find a correlation for the 25 correct ones. So you publish 30 results, only 5 of which are wrong. Only 20% of your conjectures are true, yet 83% of your published results are true).

This is a bit of a nitpick (or maybe just going further into detail) but quite important: the assumption that you'll find a correlation for the 25 correct ones is a very strong assumption, and in many real world scenarios it isn't as clean. In practice, the p-value you choose as the cutoff also affects statistical power, which is kinda the opposite concept: the probability that, given there actually is an effect, that you'll detect it.

That's why the cutoff for significance is set to 95% and not 100%; because if it was set to 100%, then you'd throw out a lot of good results (in fact you'd throw out every single result because a p-value of 0 is impossible to obtain in real experimental setups). At some point it was arbitrarily chosen by some scientists that if 1 in 20 results were entirely due to statistical chance, that's a fine compromise, hence why 95% is commonly used.

In companies they'll often use a lower value such as 80% because when the goal is experimenting for maximizing profit, it's okay if you have a lot of "false positives" as long as overall you still have more wins than losses, and a lower criteria for seeing if an experiment was successful allows you to innovate and push out changes more quickly.

[QUOTE=Helz;918449]I have a pretty shallow level of education in Statistics but one of the things that research study's depend on is 'Statistical significance' which is a quantified measurement strongly suggesting the results are not by chance.[/QUOTE]

I basically work in statistics (not really but it's a big part of my job) and this isn't really accurate, though not bad for a layman's understanding of the subject.

Statistical significance is more of a continuum, where the "significance" of a test (often reported as p-value) is the probability of seeing results at least as extreme as what you observed under the assumption that the null hypothesis (defined as the default assumption, that your difference between groups or means or whatever you're measuring is zero) is true.

There's a bunch of reasons why this could be on a continuum. One of the big ones is within-group variance, if you're comparing IQ between two schools for example, your certainty changes depending on how much variation there is in IQ among each group, because any difference you detect becomes less or more certain based on the overall natural variance in IQ. Another source of error is from uneven splits that come up by chance, this comes up frequently in experimental setup. Say you have a group of kids that you split into two groups to test if some experiment you perform impacts their IQ. There's a possibility that when you do the random split at the beginning, the high IQ kids will happen to be in one group while the low IQ kids happen to be in the other. This is especially apparent with small sample sizes.

So you'll never say that something is "significant" to mean the results are not by chance. You'll say something has a significance level of 95%, which means that there's a less than 5% chance of observing results at least as large as your result if there truly is no difference between groups for the metric you're testing. What you define as significant enough to be notable is completely arbitrary, in academia it's usually defined as 95% simply by convention, in industry it can be lower (if you're optimizing a metric with tests to a confidence of 80%, sure you're wrong 20% of the time, but that's still pretty great in terms of the bottom line).

Sorry for geeking out, I hope you appreciate the lecture though.

Originally Posted by Helz

I have a pretty shallow level of education in Statistics but one of the things that research study's depend on is 'Statistical significance' which is a quantified measurement strongly suggesting the results are not by chance.

I basically work in statistics (not really but it's a big part of my job) and this isn't really accurate, though not bad for a layman's understanding of the subject.

Statistical significance is more of a continuum, where the "significance" of a test (often reported as p-value) is the probability of seeing results at least as extreme as what you observed under the assumption that the null hypothesis (defined as the default assumption, that your difference between groups or means or whatever you're measuring is zero) is true.

There's a bunch of reasons why this could be on a continuum. One of the big ones is within-group variance, if you're comparing IQ between two schools for example, your certainty changes depending on how much variation there is in IQ among each group, because any difference you detect becomes less or more certain based on the overall natural variance in IQ. Another source of error is from uneven splits that come up by chance, this comes up frequently in experimental setup. Say you have a group of kids that you split into two groups to test if some experiment you perform impacts their IQ. There's a possibility that when you do the random split at the beginning, the high IQ kids will happen to be in one group while the low IQ kids happen to be in the other. This is especially apparent with small sample sizes.

So you'll never say that something is "significant" to mean the results are not by chance. You'll say something has a significance level of 95%, which means that there's a less than 5% chance of observing results at least as large as your result if there truly is no difference between groups for the metric you're testing. What you define as significant enough to be notable is completely arbitrary, in academia it's usually defined as 95% simply by convention, in industry it can be lower (if you're optimizing a metric with tests to a confidence of 80%, sure you're wrong 20% of the time, but that's still pretty great in terms of the bottom line).

Sorry for geeking out, I hope you appreciate the lecture though.

Dude, everyone here understands your argument, the problem is that it's not supported by any evidence and any research points to the exact opposite. And you refuse to acknowledge that, instead talking about your friend group as if an single anecdotal datapoint of a tangentially related case somehow proves your point.

Literally everyone knows that correlation does not equal causation. But you've also been provided with multiple studies showing a causal relationship and mechanisms through which diversity improves decision making, that you've uniformly ignored, or nitpicked a handful of sentences that have objectionable wording and dismissed the entire case based on that.

I don't think you'll ever change your mind no matter what evidence anyone shows you, because you've already formed your opinion. You should ask yourself if that's what a rational person should do.

Dude, everyone here understands your argument, the problem is that it's not supported by any evidence and any research points to the exact opposite. And you refuse to acknowledge that, instead talking about your friend group as if an single anecdotal datapoint of a tangentially related case somehow proves your point.

Literally everyone knows that correlation does not equal causation. But you've also been provided with multiple studies showing a causal relationship and mechanisms through which diversity improves decision making, that you've uniformly ignored, or nitpicked a handful of sentences that have objectionable wording and dismissed the entire case based on that.

I don't think you'll ever change your mind no matter what evidence anyone shows you, because you've already formed your opinion. You should ask yourself if that's what a rational person should do.

Clearly, all the correlations that one disagrees with are flukes, while all the correlations one agrees with are actual scientific evidence. QED.

Clearly, all the correlations that one disagrees with are flukes, while all the correlations one agrees with are actual scientific evidence. QED.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918433]You can’t just make an experiment or observation and jump to conclusions without explaining them.[/QUOTE]

Yes you can. This is the norm in science.

Or do you think the field of modern pharmaceuticals and medicine is invalid because people don't know why like half of all drugs work?

Originally Posted by Oberon

You can’t just make an experiment or observation and jump to conclusions without explaining them.

Yes you can. This is the norm in science.

Or do you think the field of modern pharmaceuticals and medicine is invalid because people don't know why like half of all drugs work?

Why do you keep comparing a group of friends to a workplace...

Why do you keep comparing a group of friends to a workplace...

[QUOTE=oops_ur_dead;918395]They took a pretty cool approach in that paper to establish a causal relationship. First they found out that senior partners at VC firms having more daughters is correlated to them hiring more female employees. Clearly there, the relationship must be causal; there's no way that a partner hiring female employees will cause them to have more daughters, hence we can conclude that senior partners having more daughters leads them to hire more female employees. Then, they found a significant correlation between the number of daughters that senior partners at VC firms have and the firm's performance, which is clearly a one-way causal relationship. Pretty cool stuff.

The criticism could be raised, though, that having daughters somehow influences a partner's investment habits for the better. It isn't clear how, if at all, they corrected for that. Even if that is the case, it still kinda points to diversity being a good thing if having daughters turns someone into a better investor.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I meant proportion of daughters, not number of daughters. The former clearly isn't influenced by hiring patterns or firm performance, while the latter could be.

Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

They took a pretty cool approach in that paper to establish a causal relationship. First they found out that senior partners at VC firms having more daughters is correlated to them hiring more female employees. Clearly there, the relationship must be causal; there's no way that a partner hiring female employees will cause them to have more daughters, hence we can conclude that senior partners having more daughters leads them to hire more female employees. Then, they found a significant correlation between the number of daughters that senior partners at VC firms have and the firm's performance, which is clearly a one-way causal relationship. Pretty cool stuff.

The criticism could be raised, though, that having daughters somehow influences a partner's investment habits for the better. It isn't clear how, if at all, they corrected for that. Even if that is the case, it still kinda points to diversity being a good thing if having daughters turns someone into a better investor.

Sorry, I meant proportion of daughters, not number of daughters. The former clearly isn't influenced by hiring patterns or firm performance, while the latter could be.

[QUOTE=OzyWho;918382]Tbh, it gives assertions based on statistics.
Not sure if could ask for something more, based on the topic. But I know that in science "assertions based on statistics" studies are the least credible.
That's not to say they're necessarily wrong, but rather that there's a legitimate reason to question such papers.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=aamirus;918391]i don't think there'd really be a way to get a proper study to prove that the correlation is due to a causation here. You'd have to get two real companies that start out with everything exactly the same except for the level of diversity in their personnel and then you'd also have to do that a decent number of times to ensure there's no statistical bias. But what a couple of the links oops' has given do is they first note the correlation itself, and then they test several hypothesis' for why the correlation exists. [/QUOTE]

They took a pretty cool approach in that paper to establish a causal relationship. First they found out that senior partners at VC firms having more daughters is correlated to them hiring more female employees. Clearly there, the relationship must be causal; there's no way that a partner hiring female employees will cause them to have more daughters, hence we can conclude that senior partners having more daughters leads them to hire more female employees. Then, they found a significant correlation between the number of daughters that senior partners at VC firms have and the firm's performance, which is clearly a one-way causal relationship. Pretty cool stuff.

The criticism could be raised, though, that having daughters somehow influences a partner's investment habits for the better. It isn't clear how, if at all, they corrected for that. Even if that is the case, it still kinda points to diversity being a good thing if having daughters turns someone into a better investor.

Originally Posted by OzyWho

Tbh, it gives assertions based on statistics.
Not sure if could ask for something more, based on the topic. But I know that in science "assertions based on statistics" studies are the least credible.
That's not to say they're necessarily wrong, but rather that there's a legitimate reason to question such papers.

Originally Posted by aamirus

i don't think there'd really be a way to get a proper study to prove that the correlation is due to a causation here. You'd have to get two real companies that start out with everything exactly the same except for the level of diversity in their personnel and then you'd also have to do that a decent number of times to ensure there's no statistical bias. But what a couple of the links oops' has given do is they first note the correlation itself, and then they test several hypothesis' for why the correlation exists.

They took a pretty cool approach in that paper to establish a causal relationship. First they found out that senior partners at VC firms having more daughters is correlated to them hiring more female employees. Clearly there, the relationship must be causal; there's no way that a partner hiring female employees will cause them to have more daughters, hence we can conclude that senior partners having more daughters leads them to hire more female employees. Then, they found a significant correlation between the number of daughters that senior partners at VC firms have and the firm's performance, which is clearly a one-way causal relationship. Pretty cool stuff.

The criticism could be raised, though, that having daughters somehow influences a partner's investment habits for the better. It isn't clear how, if at all, they corrected for that. Even if that is the case, it still kinda points to diversity being a good thing if having daughters turns someone into a better investor.

You've misinterpreted point one. Their greater point is that having diverse teams means the company will be more likely to retain talent from a more diverse pool of people. So if you have a black person who's an absolute genius in their field then the argument is that they would be more likely to work for a more diverse company than a homogeneously (presumably white) company, all other things equal. Hence the company loses out on acquiring great talent due to lack of diversity. That isn't hard to believe for me.

Point three is debatable, sure. Though anecdotally I can say there is more often conflict and resentment when diversity is lacking, especially when it comes to accusations of preferring one's own culture/nationality in hiring and promotions and discrimination due to gender.

The last sentence of point four is a bit unclear, and I can't find the source for it to figure out what they meant. However, it is absolutely the case that diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups in many tasks:
[url]https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter[/url]

You've misinterpreted point one. Their greater point is that having diverse teams means the company will be more likely to retain talent from a more diverse pool of people. So if you have a black person who's an absolute genius in their field then the argument is that they would be more likely to work for a more diverse company than a homogeneously (presumably white) company, all other things equal. Hence the company loses out on acquiring great talent due to lack of diversity. That isn't hard to believe for me.

Point three is debatable, sure. Though anecdotally I can say there is more often conflict and resentment when diversity is lacking, especially when it comes to accusations of preferring one's own culture/nationality in hiring and promotions and discrimination due to gender.

The last sentence of point four is a bit unclear, and I can't find the source for it to figure out what they meant. However, it is absolutely the case that diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups in many tasks:
https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter

Here's another clever paper for you to ignore, where they specifically address the causal relationship between hiring women and improvement in performance of venture capital firms:

[url]https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23454/w23454.pdf[/url]

Here's another clever paper for you to ignore, where they specifically address the causal relationship between hiring women and improvement in performance of venture capital firms:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/wo...454/w23454.pdf

Doesn't really matter to me if you don't change your mind.

It is quite telling though that you explicitly refuse to acknowledge evidence contrary to your viewpoint and instead continue making empirically false statements.

Doesn't really matter to me if you don't change your mind.

It is quite telling though that you explicitly refuse to acknowledge evidence contrary to your viewpoint and instead continue making empirically false statements.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918371]Then @oops please explain the observed effect. It is not enough to observe that companies that make more money are more diverse. I can observe that the speedometer of a car goes up when it goes faster and conclude that the speedometer causes the increase in speed and I would be dead wrong. If you believe that diversity increases profit, i.e. that it causes an increase in profit, I challenge you to explain it. Maybe I didn’t read it the articles and they did explain it; if so I’m giving you the opportunity to prove me wrong and argue that instead diversity does CAUSE an increase in profit.[/QUOTE]

No, I'm not going to read the articles out loud for you. I've already done the research for you, you have to put in your part of the effort.

Originally Posted by Oberon

Then @oops please explain the observed effect. It is not enough to observe that companies that make more money are more diverse. I can observe that the speedometer of a car goes up when it goes faster and conclude that the speedometer causes the increase in speed and I would be dead wrong. If you believe that diversity increases profit, i.e. that it causes an increase in profit, I challenge you to explain it. Maybe I didn’t read it the articles and they did explain it; if so I’m giving you the opportunity to prove me wrong and argue that instead diversity does CAUSE an increase in profit.

No, I'm not going to read the articles out loud for you. I've already done the research for you, you have to put in your part of the effort.

Oberon irl:

[img]https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/024/196/sign.jpg[/img]

Oberon irl:

[QUOTE=Oberon;918365]I suppose that’s true but it’s just something that shows companies that are more diverse make more money. [U]It does not explain why diversity ‘drives change’ as they put it, merely asserts it.[/U] This is the problem. I don’t want to repeat the clichéd ‘correlation does not equal causation’ but it’s literally true. If they conclude that diversity CAUSES an increase in profit then they need to come up with a really good reason as to why it would do that. It might not be wrong either depending on where it causes an increase in profit; if it’s an HR thing I could see it contributing. On the other hand if they’re just related but a bit more distantly and not in a causal way then you could put it down to a number of factors, such as companies seeking to become more diverse bc of marketing, or bc of seeing that companies that are diverse make more money, kinda like a self fulfilling prophesy. On the other hand it could be completely coincidental: companies that make lots of money can afford to sacrifice competitiveness, and they became diverse after they started making more money. I think this is especially true for IT companies, which make lots of money AND are known for being diverse.[/QUOTE]

Dude at this point you're just wilfully being ignorant lmao. Every single one of those articles goes into why diversity increases profitability and drives innovation.

You've literally not read a single thing I posted.

Originally Posted by Oberon

I suppose that’s true but it’s just something that shows companies that are more diverse make more money. It does not explain why diversity ‘drives change’ as they put it, merely asserts it. This is the problem. I don’t want to repeat the clichéd ‘correlation does not equal causation’ but it’s literally true. If they conclude that diversity CAUSES an increase in profit then they need to come up with a really good reason as to why it would do that. It might not be wrong either depending on where it causes an increase in profit; if it’s an HR thing I could see it contributing. On the other hand if they’re just related but a bit more distantly and not in a causal way then you could put it down to a number of factors, such as companies seeking to become more diverse bc of marketing, or bc of seeing that companies that are diverse make more money, kinda like a self fulfilling prophesy. On the other hand it could be completely coincidental: companies that make lots of money can afford to sacrifice competitiveness, and they became diverse after they started making more money. I think this is especially true for IT companies, which make lots of money AND are known for being diverse.

Dude at this point you're just wilfully being ignorant lmao. Every single one of those articles goes into why diversity increases profitability and drives innovation.

You've literally not read a single thing I posted.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918338]The McKinsey article:
Define inclusion and diversity priorities that are based on the drivers of the business-growth strategy. Top-performing companies invest in internal research to understand which specific strategies best support their business-growth priorities. Such strategies include attracting and retaining the right talent and strengthening decision-making capabilities. Leading companies also identify the mix of inherent traits (such as ethnicity) and acquired traits (such as educational background and experience) that are most relevant for their organization, using advanced business and [URL="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/using-people-analytics-to-drive-business-performance-a-case-study"]people analytics[/URL][COLOR=#333333][FONT="].[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

If that's the paragraph you were referring to, then both your points are extremely reaching.

"Basically they state that companies have to look for the right talent but that is obviously incompatible with putting diversity first before everything else virtually by definition."

First of all, this paragraph is descriptive, not prescriptive. Second, "right talent" is not incompatible with a consideration of diversity (your point about them putting diversity before anything else is a reactionary strawman point and completely invalid). The point here is that what the "right talent" is takes into account diversity. That is the subject of the entire rest of the study.

"The second thing I had a problem with was the implicit claim in the same paragraph that ethnicity contributes to talent in a manner similar or even greater than natural ability."

There is no such implication. They stated that there needs to be a consideration of both.

"They don’t even explain how that occurs and it’s nonsensical."

Yes they did. That is the subject of the entire rest of the paper. They provide multiple hypotheses of how this happens.

I'm going to criticize your method of thinking here, and I know you're gonna call this an ad hom but you should consider it. Are you actually being intellectually honest with this argument, or have you already made up your mind that this being true would offend you and you're just nitpicking tiny little points to try to refute the whole? It's clear you mostly ignored the material, and you just skimmed it to find a couple sentences that you disagree with and now you're refusing to accept the rest of it solely because the conclusion upsets you. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if there is a single piece of evidence that would make you reconsider your stance, and if the answer is "no", then think about whether your stance is as grounded in reality as you think it is.

Otherwise, I challenge you to either refute the core points of "diversity leads to increased profitability and innovation" directly, or their evidence, rather than cherry-picking a couple of sentences in the article that really have no bearing on the conclusion and saying "this is wrong". Or at the very least, find any evidence that supports the opposite claim.

Originally Posted by Oberon

The McKinsey article:
Define inclusion and diversity priorities that are based on the drivers of the business-growth strategy. Top-performing companies invest in internal research to understand which specific strategies best support their business-growth priorities. Such strategies include attracting and retaining the right talent and strengthening decision-making capabilities. Leading companies also identify the mix of inherent traits (such as ethnicity) and acquired traits (such as educational background and experience) that are most relevant for their organization, using advanced business and people analytics.

If that's the paragraph you were referring to, then both your points are extremely reaching.

"Basically they state that companies have to look for the right talent but that is obviously incompatible with putting diversity first before everything else virtually by definition."

First of all, this paragraph is descriptive, not prescriptive. Second, "right talent" is not incompatible with a consideration of diversity (your point about them putting diversity before anything else is a reactionary strawman point and completely invalid). The point here is that what the "right talent" is takes into account diversity. That is the subject of the entire rest of the study.

"The second thing I had a problem with was the implicit claim in the same paragraph that ethnicity contributes to talent in a manner similar or even greater than natural ability."

There is no such implication. They stated that there needs to be a consideration of both.

"They don’t even explain how that occurs and it’s nonsensical."

Yes they did. That is the subject of the entire rest of the paper. They provide multiple hypotheses of how this happens.

I'm going to criticize your method of thinking here, and I know you're gonna call this an ad hom but you should consider it. Are you actually being intellectually honest with this argument, or have you already made up your mind that this being true would offend you and you're just nitpicking tiny little points to try to refute the whole? It's clear you mostly ignored the material, and you just skimmed it to find a couple sentences that you disagree with and now you're refusing to accept the rest of it solely because the conclusion upsets you. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if there is a single piece of evidence that would make you reconsider your stance, and if the answer is "no", then think about whether your stance is as grounded in reality as you think it is.

Otherwise, I challenge you to either refute the core points of "diversity leads to increased profitability and innovation" directly, or their evidence, rather than cherry-picking a couple of sentences in the article that really have no bearing on the conclusion and saying "this is wrong". Or at the very least, find any evidence that supports the opposite claim.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918332]I’m pretty sure that if anything if the emphasis were put on meritocracy and not on diversity you’d have lots of Ashkenazim and Asians in major managerial positions and positions of influence, moreso than whites, but whatever. :P[/QUOTE]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who argue that companies should be meritocracies above all would take offence to that as well.

I also definitely don't think that there are many companies at all that aim for both meritocracies or optimal business strategy. I think in reality, most gravitate more towards being old boys' clubs.

Originally Posted by Oberon

I’m pretty sure that if anything if the emphasis were put on meritocracy and not on diversity you’d have lots of Ashkenazim and Asians in major managerial positions and positions of influence, moreso than whites, but whatever. :P

I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who argue that companies should be meritocracies above all would take offence to that as well.

I also definitely don't think that there are many companies at all that aim for both meritocracies or optimal business strategy. I think in reality, most gravitate more towards being old boys' clubs.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918331]Omg. I posted a post on one of the paragraphs in one of the studies and it fucking disappeared bc I accidentally clicked on the countdown button and erased it all -_-. I am too lazy to go back and find it again so I’ll just do it from memory. Basically they state that companies have to look for the right talent but that is obviously incompatible with putting diversity first before everything else virtually by definition. The second thing I had a problem with was the implicit claim in the same paragraph that ethnicity contributes to talent in a manner similar or even greater than natural ability. They don’t even explain how that occurs and it’s nonsensical. Honestly I feel like this is going back to the tabula rasa argument, which I thought was discredited years ago?

I do agree ethnicity (culture!) likely influences talent but it pales in comparison to natural ability.[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what study you're even referring to, or what points you're countering. I also couldn't find any statements even resembling the ones you are claiming to counter, so I legitimately have no idea what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by Oberon

Omg. I posted a post on one of the paragraphs in one of the studies and it fucking disappeared bc I accidentally clicked on the countdown button and erased it all . I am too lazy to go back and find it again so I’ll just do it from memory. Basically they state that companies have to look for the right talent but that is obviously incompatible with putting diversity first before everything else virtually by definition. The second thing I had a problem with was the implicit claim in the same paragraph that ethnicity contributes to talent in a manner similar or even greater than natural ability. They don’t even explain how that occurs and it’s nonsensical. Honestly I feel like this is going back to the tabula rasa argument, which I thought was discredited years ago?

I do agree ethnicity (culture!) likely influences talent but it pales in comparison to natural ability.

I have no idea what study you're even referring to, or what points you're countering. I also couldn't find any statements even resembling the ones you are claiming to counter, so I legitimately have no idea what you're talking about.

[QUOTE=aamirus;918320]Actually the objective according to Oops’ post is to make more money and until someone refutes his sources you might as well close the thread lmao[/QUOTE]

Lmao I feel like people don't want to outwardly say "I want to restrict the free market by forcing companies to hire less black people and women and hire more white men" so the only thing left is to deny reality.

Originally Posted by aamirus

Actually the objective according to Oops’ post is to make more money and until someone refutes his sources you might as well close the thread lmao

Lmao I feel like people don't want to outwardly say "I want to restrict the free market by forcing companies to hire less black people and women and hire more white men" so the only thing left is to deny reality.

[QUOTE=Marshmallow Marshall;918314]Saying that promoting [I]diversity[/I] is an objective in itself is too short-sighted. The actual objective is to promote and ensure [I]equality[/I], because that is the fundamental principle; diversity only is a natural consequence of equality. Therefore, promoting diversity at the expense of equality is a perversion of the ideal, and while it can appear to help pursue the equality ideal on the short-term, it in fact demolishes its foundations, severely hurting it. To take an extreme example, say black people in country X earn 10k/year less than white people (yes, this is oversimplified, but the principle still applies). Giving 10k/year to every black person to "create" equality does not actually establish equality, but causes further inequality to fight inequality. [B]The solution is to fix the causes of inequality, not to force an equality of outcome.[/B] This is the point many, many left-wingers are missing, and it seems to be the cause of most of the ridiculous "new leftist stances" that discredit the Left so much.

To address the thread's topic more specifically, I'll say that to create equality in businesses [I]in general[/I], you have to ensure everyone can get the necessary education to work in businesses (equality of education possibilities), that discrimination based on unreasonable factors (such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) is strictly forbidden and punished, that everyone gets the same salary for the same work, etc. But forcing equality with quotas and the like is fighting inequality with inequality, and considering [I]diversity[/I] as the objective while it is only a consequence of the objective.[/QUOTE]

The point I've made in this thread is that diversity often can be a goal that companies are incentivized to directly pursue for it's own sake, because it increases profit/innovation. I'm very, very skeptical that companies are promoting diversity for any other reason. Do you think anyone at all, including the shareholders, customers, or whatever, cares whether a company is diverse or the board has x% of women or whatever? Would you even know if a company you're a customer of has any such diversity quotas or policies or whatever? I certainly don't, and it doesn't influence my actions in any way.

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Saying that promoting diversity is an objective in itself is too short-sighted. The actual objective is to promote and ensure equality, because that is the fundamental principle; diversity only is a natural consequence of equality. Therefore, promoting diversity at the expense of equality is a perversion of the ideal, and while it can appear to help pursue the equality ideal on the short-term, it in fact demolishes its foundations, severely hurting it. To take an extreme example, say black people in country X earn 10k/year less than white people (yes, this is oversimplified, but the principle still applies). Giving 10k/year to every black person to "create" equality does not actually establish equality, but causes further inequality to fight inequality. The solution is to fix the causes of inequality, not to force an equality of outcome. This is the point many, many left-wingers are missing, and it seems to be the cause of most of the ridiculous "new leftist stances" that discredit the Left so much.

To address the thread's topic more specifically, I'll say that to create equality in businesses in general, you have to ensure everyone can get the necessary education to work in businesses (equality of education possibilities), that discrimination based on unreasonable factors (such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) is strictly forbidden and punished, that everyone gets the same salary for the same work, etc. But forcing equality with quotas and the like is fighting inequality with inequality, and considering diversity as the objective while it is only a consequence of the objective.

The point I've made in this thread is that diversity often can be a goal that companies are incentivized to directly pursue for it's own sake, because it increases profit/innovation. I'm very, very skeptical that companies are promoting diversity for any other reason. Do you think anyone at all, including the shareholders, customers, or whatever, cares whether a company is diverse or the board has x% of women or whatever? Would you even know if a company you're a customer of has any such diversity quotas or policies or whatever? I certainly don't, and it doesn't influence my actions in any way.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918305]To be clear, I’m not saying diversity is bad. I’m saying that pursuing diversity at the cost of everything else is. My own circle of friends is very diverse but not one second did I pursue friendships with them because of their ethnicity or race lol.[/QUOTE]

And yet it's clear that pursuing diversity for a company doesn't have a "cost", rather the opposite. Why else do you think investment firms specifically target companies with diverse boards nowadays?

Your group of friends does not have the same goals as a company seeking profit.

Originally Posted by Oberon

To be clear, I’m not saying diversity is bad. I’m saying that pursuing diversity at the cost of everything else is. My own circle of friends is very diverse but not one second did I pursue friendships with them because of their ethnicity or race lol.

And yet it's clear that pursuing diversity for a company doesn't have a "cost", rather the opposite. Why else do you think investment firms specifically target companies with diverse boards nowadays?

Your group of friends does not have the same goals as a company seeking profit.

[QUOTE=Oberon;918303]Well I’m not sure I trust those studies. Lets take gender diversity as an example. If you have a company of all men, but half of them are more feminine - is that diverse? Would they have the same viewpoints as women? But let’s take yet another example. What if you have a company filled with half transgender men and actual men. Is that diverse? Does diversity come from having a vagina?

Now let’s say maybe we trust the study and say yeah companies that are more diverse make more money. But that does not mean they make money because they are diverse. Because then you have to ask yourself the question - how does diversity increase profit? I’ve been in diverse friendships or university groups before and I did not witness any of the said benefits of diversity. The only difference I could see that could be attributed to external variation between different groups of people was in prior education. And again lets put an example forward. Lets say you have a company of white men but half of them were raised in Africa to black families. Is that diverse?[/QUOTE]

I mean it's easy to counter any argument with "I disagree, therefore those studies are invalid" lmao. You can read the studies yourself and figure out how they did everything, and what their definitions of "diverse" are, and then feel free to refute the claims.

As for your second point: dude, you really need to learn to read what people post before you respond to them. The mechanisms behind how diversity lead to increased profitability are explained in every single article and study I posted. Go back and read them before making knee-jerk responses.

Originally Posted by Oberon

Well I’m not sure I trust those studies. Lets take gender diversity as an example. If you have a company of all men, but half of them are more feminine - is that diverse? Would they have the same viewpoints as women? But let’s take yet another example. What if you have a company filled with half transgender men and actual men. Is that diverse? Does diversity come from having a vagina?

Now let’s say maybe we trust the study and say yeah companies that are more diverse make more money. But that does not mean they make money because they are diverse. Because then you have to ask yourself the question - how does diversity increase profit? I’ve been in diverse friendships or university groups before and I did not witness any of the said benefits of diversity. The only difference I could see that could be attributed to external variation between different groups of people was in prior education. And again lets put an example forward. Lets say you have a company of white men but half of them were raised in Africa to black families. Is that diverse?

I mean it's easy to counter any argument with "I disagree, therefore those studies are invalid" lmao. You can read the studies yourself and figure out how they did everything, and what their definitions of "diverse" are, and then feel free to refute the claims.

As for your second point: dude, you really need to learn to read what people post before you respond to them. The mechanisms behind how diversity lead to increased profitability are explained in every single article and study I posted. Go back and read them before making knee-jerk responses.

[QUOTE=OzyWho;918295]Love this post.[/QUOTE]

Thanks man, I really try.

Originally Posted by OzyWho

Love this post.

Thanks man, I really try.

Also jesus christ, I'd rather hire some diversity than being stuck in a room filled with Cambridge and Oxford students. That sounds absolutely insufferable.

Also jesus christ, I'd rather hire some diversity than being stuck in a room filled with Cambridge and Oxford students. That sounds absolutely insufferable.

Funny thing this argument. If you look at research done by consulting companies and venture capital firms, it's largely and consistently found that companies that have more diverse management perform better.

This shows that diversity drives innovation and innovation revenue:
[url]https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation[/url]

This shows that gender and ethnic diversity drives company profitability:
[url]https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity[/url]

This review shows that companies with a more diverse workforce are more likely to grow in market share and successfully capture new markets:
[url]https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation[/url]

There are also many VC firms that take diversity heavily into account when deciding which companies to invest in. Do you think they actually care about diversity for diversity's sake?

The idea that companies force diversity over merit is misleading and very short-sighted. There's no grand conspiracy to replace muh white people, that's fucking stupid. They just want more profit, and diversity is a proven method of accomplishing that.

Often times the "best man for the job" is whatever makes the board more diverse than another old white dude. Or do you think companies shouldn't be allowed to do what helps them attain the most profitability and success?

Though maybe I'm overthinking a dumb joke.

Funny thing this argument. If you look at research done by consulting companies and venture capital firms, it's largely and consistently found that companies that have more diverse management perform better.

This shows that diversity drives innovation and innovation revenue:
https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publicatio...ost-innovation

This shows that gender and ethnic diversity drives company profitability:
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-fu...ough-diversity

This review shows that companies with a more diverse workforce are more likely to grow in market share and successfully capture new markets:
https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversit...ive-innovation

There are also many VC firms that take diversity heavily into account when deciding which companies to invest in. Do you think they actually care about diversity for diversity's sake?

The idea that companies force diversity over merit is misleading and very short-sighted. There's no grand conspiracy to replace muh white people, that's fucking stupid. They just want more profit, and diversity is a proven method of accomplishing that.

Often times the "best man for the job" is whatever makes the board more diverse than another old white dude. Or do you think companies shouldn't be allowed to do what helps them attain the most profitability and success?

Though maybe I'm overthinking a dumb joke.