| > That's a straw man, nobody suggests that. Not directly, but one of the main attempts to address a lack of diversity in tech seems to be diversity quotas, or companies actively looking to hire more women or POC. Diversity quotas directly cause the exact issue I quoted, where the ratios of allowed hires by social group does not match the ratio of applicants. Statistically speaking, that's equivalent to agreeing to hire less-qualified individuals. Attempts to specifically hire more women or POC through outreach might help an individual company, but it's a zero-sum game of multiple companies competing for the existing small pool of candidates. > I think this is a recurring problem with these kinds of discussions, people tend to put forward very extreme views of reality where what'd be useful is to seek the middle ground, understand the problem, and then nudge a bit in the right direction. I think part of the issue is that you immediately devolved into hyperbole about hiring "idiots". Hiring slightly-less-than-the-top-candidate developers is in no way comparable to hiring "idiots" and your suggestion that it is is only muddying the topic further. > Additionally, even the basic premise that we currently hire for merit is questionable. Of course everyone tries to hover the best and brightest, but it's easy to see see how a very homogeneous group like SV software devs might mistake group conformity for competence. Of course suggesting that hires are always for merit is questionable - it's more of an ideal to aim for than an actually achievable goal. |
[citation required]. I haven't ever seen that.
> I think part of the issue is that you immediately devolved into hyperbole about hiring "idiots".
I did not, please check who you're quoting. Regardless, I think that's overphrasing it, but it's essentially the straw man you put out.