8 ms·

As an outsider in another country, my impression seems to be that the quest for diversity seems to have turned into something of a religion in several cultures.

As an outsider in another country, my impression seems to be that the quest for diversity seems to have turned into something of a religion in several cultures. In principle, as a solution to the problem I am principally all in favor of anonymous, faceless, no alma mater preference etc. interviews and application processes, and/or whatever other measures are suggested to remove the possibility of bias or unconscious bias or anything else that is theorized/proven to exist and affect outcomes. I am also all in favor of organizations taking steps to address the various negative experiences that are somewhat typically encountered in various demographics, e.g. harassment, etc. as well as affirmative action as a way to attempt to correct this. Based on the fervor with which it is pursued (which is admirable in many ways), I seem to be convinced that if these measures have a negligible effect on outcomes, the crusade for diversity will still continue, as if to suggest that equality of outcome is a worthy goal, as opposed to equality of opportunity. The latter is definitely an unjust status quo worthy of fighting, but the former seems to completely throw away the notion of free will. It's almost akin to a scientist who so adamantly wants to prove their theory that they will do anything to ensure the result is consistent with the hypothesis. Then again I could be wrong and people will actually stop pushing for it after these practices are instituted.

wpietri 9y ago
I think perhaps you aren't looking at this through a long enough lens. You can tell America's history in terms of decreasing inequality of opportunity. We started with only well-off white men having the vote; black people were chattel and women were pretty close. We have sporadically worked ever since to repair that. One civil war, assorted constitutional amendments, and 8 civil rights acts so far. We try something, see if that's enough, and then try again when it isn't. Each time people hope that we've done the last thing. The post-Civil War period, the Reconstruction, was supposed to fix things. But then we had the Lilly White Movement. And Jim Crow. And the Nadir, which involved violent ethnic cleansing across the US (mostly but not entirely anti-black). We certainly aren't there yet. Marital rape wasn't fully outlawed in the US until 1992. Redlining wasn't illegal until the 70s, and the effects on wealth distribution persist to this day. Men and women reached parity in law and medicine degrees a decade ago, but as far as people practicing it's still 2:1. Employment discrimination, as documented by a number of studies, still persists. So yeah, if some particular solution doesn't fix the problem, then people will definitely keep pushing. Because that's our 200-year history of fighting discrimination: it keeps not getting fixed.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  Well written, thanks for that. I'm usually on the more conservative end of things but this has definitely helped me think of the issue differently, I love having my opinion changed or at least nudged in a different direction, confirms that I'm not sitting in an echo chamber all day. What would be in your opinion a reasonable way to support the opinion of the poster you replied to? Could you steel man his position? Curious what the counter-arguments would be.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Thanks. I'm dispositionally conservative. In another era would have ended up a Rockefeller Republican; in another timeline, a libertarian. But when I honestly look at America's history in this timeline and the lived experience of a lot of people, I don't think we are yet living up to America's promise. That has made me pretty energetic in pushing against racism and sexism. If you get interested, I'd strongly recommend "Sundown Towns", which looks at a conveniently unexamined phenomenon that a) did a lot to shape America's racial history, and b) helped me to see forces in play today. It's been a giant eye-opener for me. Sorry, but I didn't quite follow your last paragraph. Which particular opinion of the poster were you thinking of?
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  That's itself a very biased telling of how things are. The USA along with many other western nations now discriminates against men in favour of women, in many concrete and very specific ways: - Family courts - Rape shield laws - In the private sector, tech sector programmes handing out money but only to women - Laws that mandate gender ratios in certain situations, like bidding on government contracts Society has bent over backwards to try and create equality of outcome for women, thereby simultaneously eliminating equality of opportunity for men. This is not actually progress. Progress would be equal opportunity for all.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Loss of privilege feels like a loss. If you have no historical perspective and are currently favored by discrimination, programs attempting to undo historical discrimination seem like they're biased against you. They aren't. As an example, consider the common practice of scholarships that are awarded based on both merit and economic need. A rich dude could be mad that he is being discriminated against. After all, they won't even consider giving him those scholarships! What jerks people are! He worked hard, and should be eligible for everything! He's wrong, of course. His feelings are real, but his perspective is severely limited. If you're used to things being tilted in your favor, a level playing field is going to seem unfair.
demonshalo 9y ago
> It's almost akin to a scientist who so adamantly wants to prove their theory that they will do anything to ensure the result is consistent with the hypothesis. This. With the only exception being that it is not a science and there is 0 supporting evidence for the myth of diversity.
lutorm 9y ago
The underlying assumption is that, if you average over a large enough population, there should be no underlying consistent difference between subsets selected on gender, race, or class, so a difference of outcome is presumed to be a result of difference of opportunity. The underlying assumption is definitely an assumption, but it seems like a good zeroth-order assumption to me.
- wpietri 9y ago
  An especially good assumption given that assuming otherwise has been proven wrong time and time again. Pretty much every advance for women was argued against on the basis that women were somehow not biologically capable. That argument has been consistently wrong since women's suffrage, but that doesn't stop chowderheads from hauling it out anew, apparently unaware of its rich history of failure.
  - topmonk 9y ago
    Interesting tint on your glasses there...
  - jasonx1e 9y ago
    Except this isn't true; there are many cases where inequality of outcome is not a cause of inequality of opportunity - unless you're telling me the system actively encourages men to die on the job - so much so that 93% of all occupational deaths are male.[0] CollegeBoard testing statistics demonstrate that in high school, 2-3 times as many boys take the AP Calculus BC, AP Physics, AP Computer Science exam than girls.[1][2] And as you probably know, AP exams don't discriminate against gender or race - they just need you to pay the testing fee (or the reduced fee if you qualify). UC Berkeley's EECS major has a department ratio of 4:1 M/F across all 4 class years (CalAnswers - any alumni can check this if they don't believe me), and because of California law the UC system is not allowed to consider gender as part of admissions.[3] Differences in gender makeup of engineering and computer science come down to fewer girls choosing to pursue the field, and not because the system is inherently biased. Given these factors, if we are seeing 50/50 gender outcomes in tech at this moment in time, it is the result of a system that undermines the meritocracy by discriminating against males. [0]https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0006.pdf https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0006.pdf [1]https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2016/Program-Summary-Report-2016.pdf https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/re... [2]http://i.imgur.com/ZalZhtF.png http://i.imgur.com/ZalZhtF.png [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209
arkh 9y ago
And what most call diversity is only about skin color and gender. The exact definition of racism and sexism. You have more diversity of thought and behavior across social classes or countries: a person coming from Chile to work in the USA will add more perspective than most kind of American born person. A person raised in a rural area will add more to a company comprised of city dwellers than most other city person.

wpietri 9y ago

I think perhaps you aren't looking at this through a long enough lens. You can tell America's history in terms of decreasing inequality of opportunity. We started with only well-off white men having the vote; black people were chattel and women were pretty close. We have sporadically worked ever since to repair that. One civil war, assorted constitutional amendments, and 8 civil rights acts so far. We try something, see if that's enough, and then try again when it isn't. Each time people hope that we've done the last thing. The post-Civil War period, the Reconstruction, was supposed to fix things. But then we had the Lilly White Movement. And Jim Crow. And the Nadir, which involved violent ethnic cleansing across the US (mostly but not entirely anti-black). We certainly aren't there yet. Marital rape wasn't fully outlawed in the US until 1992. Redlining wasn't illegal until the 70s, and the effects on wealth distribution persist to this day. Men and women reached parity in law and medicine degrees a decade ago, but as far as people practicing it's still 2:1. Employment discrimination, as documented by a number of studies, still persists. So yeah, if some particular solution doesn't fix the problem, then people will definitely keep pushing. Because that's our 200-year history of fighting discrimination: it keeps not getting fixed.

BadassFractal 9y ago
Well written, thanks for that. I'm usually on the more conservative end of things but this has definitely helped me think of the issue differently, I love having my opinion changed or at least nudged in a different direction, confirms that I'm not sitting in an echo chamber all day. What would be in your opinion a reasonable way to support the opinion of the poster you replied to? Could you steel man his position? Curious what the counter-arguments would be.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Thanks. I'm dispositionally conservative. In another era would have ended up a Rockefeller Republican; in another timeline, a libertarian. But when I honestly look at America's history in this timeline and the lived experience of a lot of people, I don't think we are yet living up to America's promise. That has made me pretty energetic in pushing against racism and sexism. If you get interested, I'd strongly recommend "Sundown Towns", which looks at a conveniently unexamined phenomenon that a) did a lot to shape America's racial history, and b) helped me to see forces in play today. It's been a giant eye-opener for me. Sorry, but I didn't quite follow your last paragraph. Which particular opinion of the poster were you thinking of?
peoplewindow 9y ago
That's itself a very biased telling of how things are. The USA along with many other western nations now discriminates against men in favour of women, in many concrete and very specific ways: - Family courts - Rape shield laws - In the private sector, tech sector programmes handing out money but only to women - Laws that mandate gender ratios in certain situations, like bidding on government contracts Society has bent over backwards to try and create equality of outcome for women, thereby simultaneously eliminating equality of opportunity for men. This is not actually progress. Progress would be equal opportunity for all.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Loss of privilege feels like a loss. If you have no historical perspective and are currently favored by discrimination, programs attempting to undo historical discrimination seem like they're biased against you. They aren't. As an example, consider the common practice of scholarships that are awarded based on both merit and economic need. A rich dude could be mad that he is being discriminated against. After all, they won't even consider giving him those scholarships! What jerks people are! He worked hard, and should be eligible for everything! He's wrong, of course. His feelings are real, but his perspective is severely limited. If you're used to things being tilted in your favor, a level playing field is going to seem unfair.

demonshalo 9y ago

> It's almost akin to a scientist who so adamantly wants to prove their theory that they will do anything to ensure the result is consistent with the hypothesis. This. With the only exception being that it is not a science and there is 0 supporting evidence for the myth of diversity.

lutorm 9y ago

The underlying assumption is that, if you average over a large enough population, there should be no underlying consistent difference between subsets selected on gender, race, or class, so a difference of outcome is presumed to be a result of difference of opportunity. The underlying assumption is definitely an assumption, but it seems like a good zeroth-order assumption to me.

wpietri 9y ago
An especially good assumption given that assuming otherwise has been proven wrong time and time again. Pretty much every advance for women was argued against on the basis that women were somehow not biologically capable. That argument has been consistently wrong since women's suffrage, but that doesn't stop chowderheads from hauling it out anew, apparently unaware of its rich history of failure.
- topmonk 9y ago
  Interesting tint on your glasses there...
- jasonx1e 9y ago
  Except this isn't true; there are many cases where inequality of outcome is not a cause of inequality of opportunity - unless you're telling me the system actively encourages men to die on the job - so much so that 93% of all occupational deaths are male.[0] CollegeBoard testing statistics demonstrate that in high school, 2-3 times as many boys take the AP Calculus BC, AP Physics, AP Computer Science exam than girls.[1][2] And as you probably know, AP exams don't discriminate against gender or race - they just need you to pay the testing fee (or the reduced fee if you qualify). UC Berkeley's EECS major has a department ratio of 4:1 M/F across all 4 class years (CalAnswers - any alumni can check this if they don't believe me), and because of California law the UC system is not allowed to consider gender as part of admissions.[3] Differences in gender makeup of engineering and computer science come down to fewer girls choosing to pursue the field, and not because the system is inherently biased. Given these factors, if we are seeing 50/50 gender outcomes in tech at this moment in time, it is the result of a system that undermines the meritocracy by discriminating against males. [0]https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0006.pdf https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0006.pdf [1]https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2016/Program-Summary-Report-2016.pdf https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/re... [2]http://i.imgur.com/ZalZhtF.png http://i.imgur.com/ZalZhtF.png [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_209

arkh 9y ago

And what most call diversity is only about skin color and gender. The exact definition of racism and sexism. You have more diversity of thought and behavior across social classes or countries: a person coming from Chile to work in the USA will add more perspective than most kind of American born person. A person raised in a rural area will add more to a company comprised of city dwellers than most other city person.