This is actually from 2022, but I missed it back in the day. This is quite important research imo, and very relevant lately. Link to the paper itself: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222001637
This is actually from 2022, but I missed it back in the day. This is quite important research imo, and very relevant lately. Link to the paper itself: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563222001637
Wow. Every dog in the tri-state area suddenly started barking. I wonder why…
But yeah. That is some bullshit that comes up every time anyone tries to address the diversity issues. “Well, if there were more intelligent black people, maybe we would hire a black or two” level comments.
In my experience, most first year undergraduate courses for STEM related degrees more or less match the demographics of the university itself. Depending on how rigorous the program that can change drastically as the weeding out courses happen, but it generally is “close enough” by the time they are in the 400s and going to special guest lectures by us industry a-holes.
The problem is what comes after. There is a reason there are Black Engineering and Women in Engineering mailing lists. Because so many companies (and graduate programs) basically want a “diversity hire” and nothing else. So you might have a class that graduates with 40% women entering a workforce that will hire 5%, at best. And… the good groups talk about this and encourage people to have a plan B. Whereas men (at least up until recently) know that if they just keep trying they’ll get hired eventually because 95% of those jobs are for them.
And grad school (less an issue for game dev) has the added problem where so many advisers are complete creeps with tenure. But that is a different mess.
No. Whatever the field, if you actually work towards having a diverse hiring pool and actually hire on merit, you tend to have an employee demographic within a stones throw of the regional breakdown. Because, yes, socioeconomic and institutionalized racism do give certain ethnic groups a serious disadvantage. But when you are hiring for roles with undergrad or graduate degrees? The best of the best are the ones who actually DO tend to find a way to bootstrap themselves up (or have parents who did). And… long term that goes a long way towards fixing things. It isn’t the complete solution but it REALLY helps.
A very good friend of mine who I worked with heavily on doing exactly that at our old company loved to joke about it as “reverse-gentrification of the work force”. The idea that if you get a diverse foothold into a “neighborhood”, it spreads. Those pesky women are more likely to know other pesky women who are a great fit for a role. And the kids of the Walker family are suddenly growing up in Silicon Valley and going to private schools rather than fighting for scraps at PS 118.
Removed by mod
Makes me think why those big tech corporations are suddenly supportive of that regime in DC.
The “good” news is that the vast majority of that has nothing to do with ideology. It is all about staying in fuckface’s good graces so they can get more government contracts or, best case scenario, have some legislature and grants built up specifically to benefit them musk-style.
As you go more towards the startup size of company (O(10) or even O(100) heads, including admin) things get a lot murkier and you have a lot more True Believers. But the zucks and Jensens of the world are pretty much the definition of apolitical in that they only care about what makes them more money in the short term.
I would like to add that why they’re so open for the scumfuck is because they want to ditch what they see as “troublesome” and “costly” progressive programs aka DEI; they would like to restore conservatism in the tech industry like in the 80s, the so-called “natural order of things” that is, white men in top positions while women and minorities clean up the mess.
Again, there are definitely the scumfucks who are true believers. And NOBODY liked “DEI” as a policy since it almost always manifested as all the worst elements of “affirmative action”. It was well intentioned but it was very much a bunch of white liberals behind it. Its why the republicans run on “anti-DEI” platforms so much. Yes, it is a dog whistle but it also is one of those things where it is hard to find anyone who actually wants to defend those poison pill initiatives. What differs is “Why would we want any fucking blacks in our company” versus “Let’s actually focus on making a diverse hiring pool so that our workforce is the best and the brightest and not just hiring the first person we can find so that we can check off a box”. The number of times I had to say the work safe equivalent of “I’m not with that nazi”…
But the thing to understand is that the mega corporations? They don’t give a fuck about white supremacy. Most are global affairs with a fairly diverse upper level management (albeit, with an over-representation of East Asia). They have zero incentive to actually want white supremacy to be a thing. But they DO have a lot of incentives to make token gestures and spend marketing money on placating the white supremacists who are increasingly in power globally.
All they want is maximum profits with the minimum of cost. Even if someone has to die for those techbros.
Which is, if anything, against white supremacy. You want the best bang for your buck which is, funny enough, often an H1-B slave (or outsourcing).
Which is one of those dark secrets of the world. Rampant Capitalism is HORRIBLE for countless reasons but also tends to be the model that creates the most diverse workforces. For the absolute worst reasons but… yeah. Which is why it is hilarious when you have the chuds who think The White Man is going to win when all that matters is profits.
I don’t know anything about other STEM fields or other countries, but where I live, most sw engineering courses don’t have above 5%. (And I guess even fewer men in the medicine field. Some fields just seem to attract specific genders, idk why.)
But yeah, dismiss reality I have seen with my own eyes as “The dog whistles! The dog whistles!” And then act surprised when no one outside your echo chamber takes you seriously.