Activision Blizzard Appoints Kristen Hines as Chief DEI Officer

[Th3Scourge]

Well if they can write better than Danuser, they are welcome to join. He might be white, normal haired, cisgender and heterosexual, but he is a hack.

He has no hair

[arkanon]

The Ion quote you got linked a while back indicates that there are interested people in other demographics and they are applying for Blizzard, but for whatever reason their applications have been getting filtered out earlier in the process. Ion said in that quote that when they make an effort to change how they're doing the recruitment process they're finding plenty of qualified individuals of other demographics.

That said, yes, education also needs to be overhauled, as do public perceptions of other demographics. Diversity hiring is trying to save a tree's branches when it's been planted in bad soil.

Thats not REALLY what it says - read it again. Read the specific examples it uses, right after it very specifically says that no one is NOT hired because they a poc or female, but that they dont even receive those resumes - not because they are filtered out during the application process, but before that. But i ask you this - even if they were getting "filtered out" during the very early application stages (before shortlisting) do you honestly believe that is because of race, and if so, how would they know? Do you often put your race on your resume? And if so, why?

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In principle, yes. In practice, it's more complicated. Some are easier to implement than others, some are already a lot more diverse than others. The goal is universal equality of opportunity - in theory. In practice it won't ever be more than an approximation, and the short-term goal is simply an INCREASE in equality, iterative and consistent. That's harder in some areas than it is in others, for various reasons.

But yes: we need more female brick layers and garbage collectors just as we need more female lawyers and CEOs. The former, however, is a harder sell than the latter.

So you believe the NFL should be far closer to 50/50 white/poc? Because as it stands, its overwhelmingly African American dominated. At amateur levels, thats fine, but in a professional career, surely it should be more diverse, right?
What about strippers? Prostitutes? Porn? Porn in particular male stars are paid a tiny percentage of their female counterparts, even in the same scene - is that ok?
Army? Do you think aiming for 50/50 male/female front line soldiers is a good target?
What about factory jobs?
What about secretarial work, should they be aiming for 50/50 male/female targets?
What about early childhood teachers, do you think we need more males looking after 5-8 year olds?
Do you think we need more males selling bras to women?

How about midwifery, farming, truck driving, sherpas? Do you see a lot of females complaining that they cant get a job as a sewer maintenance tech?

Yes, whataboutism, and intentionally so, because i see a HUGE discrepancy in the jobs i see all the drama about in regards to diversity, with the huge majority being very desirable jobs, with little to no physical labor involved at all, and extremely low risk to health / life, if any at all.

[Soeroah]

Thats not REALLY what it says - read it again. Read the specific examples it uses, right after it very specifically says that no one is NOT hired because they a poc or female, but that they dont even receive those resumes - not because they are filtered out during the application process, but before that. But i ask you this - even if they were getting "filtered out" during the very early application stages (before shortlisting) do you honestly believe that is because of race, and if so, how would they know? Do you often put your race on your resume? And if so, why?

There have been experiments that show more diverse people get through the process if they use a white-sounding name or fudge other parts of their applications. It doesn't necessarily make the recruiter racist, it doesn't mean they're consciously aware of the fact they're doing it, but it's certainly not a stretch to say humans have biases that can affect their decision-making in situations like recruitment.

So no, I don't put my race on my resume, but having a name that sounds like it comes out of Asia or Africa could affect the chances of me getting through to the interview stage than if I replaced it with Jones or whatever. And the one part where both sides of this debate agree is that companies SHOULD be hiring on merits and there SHOULDN'T be this kind of bias in recruiting, but the most effective short-term, if inelegant, solution we've got right now is to force diversity to give diverse applicants an equitable opportunity. We haven't gotten rid of that unconscious bias yet.

[arkanon]

That would only be true if there are NO diverse people with qualifications already. Which isn't true. You just want MORE. You can absolutely already hire some, it just takes more work to find them. In some fields it's easier than in others, and it's usually a matter of degrees - but there is no field whatsoever where there are absolutely no diverse graduates available right now. That's simply not true.

So just to be clear, for this to be true, when the shortlisting is done, you are suggesting someone looks at each applicant and says "pretty sure that guy sounds black, lets throw it in the bin" - you are suggesting active racism during the shortlisting process, do you have ANYTHING to back that up?

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There have been experiments that show more diverse people get through the process if they use a white-sounding name or fudge other parts of their applications. It doesn't necessarily make the recruiter racist, it doesn't mean they're consciously aware of the fact they're doing it, but it's certainly not a stretch to say humans have biases that can affect their decision-making in situations like recruitment.

So no, I don't put my race on my resume, but having a name that sounds like it comes out of Asia or Africa could affect the chances of me getting through to the interview stage than if I replaced it with Jones or whatever. And the one part where both sides of this debate agree is that companies SHOULD be hiring on merits and there SHOULDN'T be this kind of bias in recruiting, but the most effective short-term, if inelegant, solution we've got right now is to force diversity to give diverse applicants an equitable opportunity. We haven't gotten rid of that unconscious bias yet.

This i can somewhat believe MIGHT happen, but i would enjoy reading some of these experiments. You got links?

[Wangming]

He has no hair

According to some here, no hair is better than blue hair.

[Caradras]

So to prevent racism and promote inclusivity they hire someone to be specifically racist and uninclusive. What a dumb policy.

[Sialina]

Either stay away from shit like this all together, or use blind hiring, only acceptable solutions. Hiring a racist sexist to counter racism and sexism is frankly dumb beyond measure.

[Soeroah]

So just to be clear, for this to be true, when the shortlisting is done, you are suggesting someone looks at each applicant and says "pretty sure that guy sounds black, lets throw it in the bin" - you are suggesting active racism during the shortlisting process, do you have ANYTHING to back that up?

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This i can somewhat believe MIGHT happen, but i would enjoy reading some of these experiments. You got links?

Sorry I'm not in a position to go digging for the perfect links, but these are the initial ones I could grab in short order

https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestr...male-musicians

https://ftp.iza.org/dp4947.pdf (via https://www.acsa.edu.au/pages/images/ideas_name.pdf)

[Biomega]

So you believe the NFL should be far closer to 50/50 white/poc? Because as it stands, its overwhelmingly African American dominated. At amateur levels, thats fine, but in a professional career, surely it should be more diverse, right?

It's complicated in certain areas, because there's a lot of distorting effects in play. Overrepresentation has a variety of reasons, and the chain of effects leading into it can be long and winding. Part of the reason there's so many African Americans in sports, for example, is that for a lot of African American youth, sports is one of the most accessible ways to a better life. More try to get into that career as a result, and therefore the proportion at the pro level is higher as well. The same incentives are less prevalent in certain other ethnicities.

What about strippers? Prostitutes? Porn? Porn in particular male stars are paid a tiny percentage of their female counterparts, even in the same scene - is that ok?

This, too, is an edge example where the underlying cause isn't bias - it's biology. Male sex drives tend to be higher, therefore they tend to consume more porn, increasing the demand for female performers. That means the market pressure is different, resulting in a pay and representation disparity.

But this is fundamentally different from exclusion based on biases. You can turn this around for some male-dominated fields, too, by the way - construction work, for example, is physically very demanding. On average, males will do better at hard physical labor, and so these areas self-select for this. Not because of biases, but because of other factors.

Those factors aren't in play in many other jobs, though. There are no physical barriers when it comes to mental tasks (at least not to the degree where they would have the same statistical impact) like creative work, management, etc. There the selection process is largely based in subjective biases, not in statistically significant selection criteria that aren't rooted in objective differences like size, strength, physical attributes, etc.

It's a gross mistake to suggest that something like ethnicity is the same kind of selection criterion as e.g. lifting strength. They are fundamentally different categories.

Army? Do you think aiming for 50/50 male/female front line soldiers is a good target?

This is even more complicated, because there's a mix here between physically demanding and mentally demanding tasks. I do think we need a LOT more female soldiers, in general - especially considering the likely shift towards more technical expertise and less physical strength in future combat roles.

What about factory jobs?

A lot of those are tied to physical strength, which explains the gender bias; or to extraneous factors like economic or immigration status, which explains a lot of racial bias - i.e. they're not hiring more e.g. Hispanic people because of a racial bias, but because they're more likely to accept lower pay and/or illegal employment.

Also: "factory jobs" is a very broad field, there's plenty of factories with majority female employees for example.

What about secretarial work, should they be aiming for 50/50 male/female targets?

Yes.

What about early childhood teachers, do you think we need more males looking after 5-8 year olds?

Also yes.

Do you think we need more males selling bras to women?

This is another edge case, as gender DOES play an active role in the profession here - I think what you should go with is "sales people", to make it less deliberately gender-biased as an example.

How about midwifery

This, too, is already an inherently gender-biased profession for specific reasons.

farming, truck driving, sherpas?

The usual caveats about physical strength apply somewhat, but where they don't, sure, quota away.

Do you see a lot of females complaining that they cant get a job as a sewer maintenance tech?

No, but you also don't see a lot of females apply for that and get turned away BECAUSE they're female. But you're not wrong - more diversity in such positions (the usual caveats aside, see above) would indeed be desirable.

Yes, whataboutism, and intentionally so, because i see a HUGE discrepancy in the jobs i see all the drama about in regards to diversity, with the huge majority being very desirable jobs, with little to no physical labor involved at all, and extremely low risk to health / life, if any at all.

This is simply a category error on your part. Jobs people don't want is a very different scenario from a job people DO want but CAN'T get. There's some interconnection between the two, and there is absolutely a reason to strive for equality in those areas, too - but there are fundamental differences at work here that can't simply be equated. To do so is a gross misrepresentation of the underlying mechanisms, and obscures a lot of examples you already mentioned: for every woman who doesn't want to crawl through a sewer 8 hours a day, there's also a man who doesn't want to let people have sex with them for 8 hours a day. And so on. And neither of those are the same as someone applying for a job they want and getting turned away for a reason having nothing to do with their suitability for that job. Those are two different things in the larger scope of equality.

[Relapses]

So you are totally fine with a fully qualified white male with equal or greater experience missing out on a job purely because of his skin colour and gender? There is absolutely nothing stopping them (poc / female) getting the job right now, and the quote that keeps getting linked even says that.

...why do you keep arguing as if there's some unknown white guy sitting on the sidelines bummed out he didn't get a job he never applied for?

[Djaye]

my company has one of these. she does nothing but cruise around talking to people all day. she teaches no one, she doesnt hold meetings, classes or seminars. my wifes company has one too, same thing. this is a joke of a position and doesnt have any weight in the real world outside of PR BS., they get paid royal bank to simply exist. its crazy the amount of money some companies spend on people who dont do anything but fill a checklist.

[Th3Scourge]

According to some here, no hair is better than blue hair.

Hard to disagree with that

[Biomega]

So just to be clear, for this to be true, when the shortlisting is done, you are suggesting someone looks at each applicant and says "pretty sure that guy sounds black, lets throw it in the bin" - you are suggesting active racism during the shortlisting process, do you have ANYTHING to back that up?

I'm not sure where you're getting all this from. I'm simply saying "we need to work on both sides of the equation - more diverse hiring, and more diversity in education. Both of those feed into each other".

Is it technically "racism" to consider things like ethnicity in the hiring process? Yes. But here's the secret: RACISM IS HAPPENING ALREADY ANYWAY. That's why we miraculously find PoC get hired less than their qualifications would suggest (as can be proven with blind application tests intentionally marked by racial indicators like "black" names). That's racism, too. Quotas try to correct this; often they overcorrect, which is a necessary short-term measure in order to reduce racial bias in the long term. It's not a perfect situation, but this is a workable solution (in parallel and in concert with others) that can help get us to where we want.

What do YOU propose as a workable short-term solution? Is your answer just "well, let's hope things work out eventually and in the meantime we just continue with the racism we have rather than trying to combat it with racism of a different kind"? Because that's a tough sell to people who suffer from that kind of status quo - ESPECIALLY if the ones selling it are the ones who aren't affected.

[Aleksej89]

ah yes, more of that favoring a skin color and gender.

two wrongs do not make a right.

[arkanon]

Sorry I'm not in a position to go digging for the perfect links, but these are the initial ones I could grab in short order

https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestr...male-musicians

https://ftp.iza.org/dp4947.pdf (via https://www.acsa.edu.au/pages/images/ideas_name.pdf)

You know you linked me a "study" from 2010 and one from...............1970......right?

You also need to READ the things you link, because the 2010 study was inconclusive at best, and even shows anglo-saxons falling behind in some categories. It also states that the HILDA survey does NOT align with their results....

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Is it technically "racism" to consider things like ethnicity in the hiring process? Yes.

Im glad you came around and have accepted that hiring ANYONE based on their race, be it white, or otherwise, is racism. Im quite amused that you put racism in quotation marks when speaking about racism towards white people, I had a good chuckle.

[Overlordd]

In America, prejudice against white people is normalised more and more every single year, and Americans want to export this culture to Europe aswell.

[arkanon]

snip

You keep saying gender....like, a LOT. Are you confusing gender with sex? Or you think they are the same thing? Are you not instantly discriminating against trans people?

[kamuimac]

so when we are getting new dungeons ? in 2 years time ? amazing

until lthen we can all not play wow and just observe her twitter to see what new level of wokeness she brings to the company

i would rather they hire interns to work on assets for game then waste time on this bs

[ClassicPeon]

Ion's VentureBeat interview laid this out pretty well:

Recognizing that the game industry has had certain skews — male-dominated is one obvious one, especially in design — we need to work harder to build and find the qualified candidates who are out there. We can’t just open up a position, take the first couple dozen resumes, look through them, and pick someone out of that pile, because we may just get a couple dozen white male resumes. And it’s not that we wouldn’t hire someone who’s qualified for the job. We will. But we’ll be limiting the range of perspectives that come to our team. Again, this is not about any preferential decisions in the hiring process itself. It’s about working harder to understand how our job descriptions, the way we’re sourcing candidates, the way referrals work, and all the rest are filtering out qualified candidates of other backgrounds before they even make it to us. And then once we’re interviewing people, we’re going to pick the best person for the job at the time, but doing that extra work up front, we have found and continue and find, leads to a more diverse team that is more reflective of the country that we’re in and the player base that plays our game globally.

You are conflating two different things here.

The net being to narrow refers to avoiding specific people on purpose. What Ion is talking about is just regular inclusion for the sake of inclusion.

When 90% of the people applying for a job at a company are white males, 90% of the people in the company should statistically be white males.

its the same problem Hollywood is facing atm. "Oscars so white". Well.. i mean wtf? The entire west is so white bro

[Osperand]

so when we are getting new dungeons ? in 2 years time ? amazing

until lthen we can all not play wow and just observe her twitter to see what new level of wokeness she brings to the company

i would rather they hire interns to work on assets for game then waste time on this bs

Agree, Majority of people are fed up of wokeness and are starting to push back. What these ultra liberals don't realise is that this just pushes voters to vote in people further from the right wing. If you read their arguments for it they cannot see how one sided they are, there is only one viewpoint (theirs).

Sick to death of it, i don't think it will be long before people get voted in that will get rid of a lot of this woke crap.