4 ms·

As a white-cis-straight-male I think my opinion on the matter carries little weight. However, the downsides seem pretty minor compared to the opportunities it m

As a white-cis-straight-male I think my opinion on the matter carries little weight. However, the downsides seem pretty minor compared to the opportunities it might open up for the members of those groups. That said, if I was to put myself in the shoes of an entitled white male CEO I suspect it would take me about 5 minutes to realise that installing a puppet female, gay or minority member of the board would cause almost no real change. I might even make them Chief Diversity Officer or something.

nscalf 7y ago
First off, there is this stupid narrative going around where people of certain groups cannot have opinions on topics involved people of other groups. This is utter nonsense. Everyone is entitled to any opinion they have, and they can talk about it as much as they want. Second, the downside in the situation you described is having less meaningful insights from your advisors. The impact that good advice could have is enormous, and as far as advisors go, second best advice could be disastrous. We should be making these decisions entirely devoid of what your gender, ethnicity, or sexuality is. Why is everyone talking about making the outcome more equal instead of making the decision entirely uncoupled from the non-relevant aspects of the individual?
- notacoward 7y ago
  > Why is everyone talking about making the outcome more equal Because unconscious bias is a thing. So is systemic discrimination. Without recognizing that, railing about "equal outcomes" is no more than a dogwhistle. > We should be making these decisions entirely devoid of what your gender, ethnicity, or sexuality is. That would be true in a world where opportunity is already evenly distributed. I look forward to living in that world, but it's not the world any of us live in today. As long as that's the case, requiring "color blindness" (or similar) at each separate point in the process only perpetuates the results of previous discrimination.
  - nscalf 7y ago
    > Without recognizing that, railing about "equal outcomes" is no more than a dogwhistle. This is entirely untrue. There is a push to make sure everyone is hired at the same rates in the same fields, regardless of the ratio of people in those fields, the ratio of people qualified to take certain roles, etc. This is absurd, and clearly cannot succeed. The easiest example is software engineering, where a massive majority of the people in the field are men. You can't hire people who are not qualified or interested in the role just because they're women. A real solution to these issues is to determine why the fields skew to certain demographics, look for and discrimination in that process, and make a change there. This is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Equality of outcome is telling people what they have to do so that things are equal. Equality of opportunity is giving people the choice to follow whatever path they would like to. Equality of outcome is inherently racist/sexist/etc as you bias towards minorities in the sliver of whatever you're looking at.
    - notacoward 7y ago
      > This is equality of opportunity It would be, but it's also an impossible standard. Who's going to fix inequity in health, education, and other factors that start at infancy? Certainly not a hiring company at the very distant other end of the pipeline. It's not only impossible, but it's not their job to such an extent that they'd get sued for devoting too many resources to the attempt. Systemic discrimination can not be fixed without the involvement of employers, providing good jobs to people from under-represented groups and letting those people bring the benefits back to their communities. Waiting until those problems are fixed "elsewhere" before employers are required to do anything but turn a blind eye means waiting forever ... but the people exaggerating concerns about "equal outcome" and tokenism usually know that. After all, they're usually the very same ones opposing any of those "elsewhere" efforts too. "Divide and conquer" is the name of the game.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        > Who's going to fix inequity in health, education, and other factors that start at infancy? Well, with health... Something like Equality of Opportunity would be provided by universal health care. But to get Equality of Outcome? All I can think of (as an actual 'solution') is randomly killing women (or systemically denying them health care) to make sure that the average lifespans of men and women match. (We don't have a way to extend the life expectancy of men by 5 years to match that of women - if we did, we'd already be using it, and it would probably work for women too - so the only way to make things 'equal' is to reduce women's life expectancy by that same amount)
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that opinion carries less weight if they haven't lived the experience. I don't think that is unfair or controversial. What you are in essence arguing for is free marketism. Unfortunately we are all painfully aware of the myrad of ways free markets fail on things which are not directly incentivised towards. The environment, safety and protection of minorities are all things which need special protection.
  - keanzu 7y ago
    > Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that opinion carries less weight if they haven't lived the experience. You don’t want a doctor to treat you for cancer unless he himself has had cancer? - Milton Friedman
    - VBprogrammer 7y ago
      I expect my doctor to treat me based on established medical fact. I don't really care about their opinion.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        So in other words people should talk about social issues based on the facts (statistics) and not their opinions (lived experience), and being a part of the group in question is irrelevant?
        VBprogrammer 7y ago
        Those are completely orthogonal. If I want to know what my chances of survival are having had some horrific treatment I ask my doctor. If I want an opinion on whether the pain of the treatment justifies the upside then I'd be better asking someone experiencing it. Going back to the original point, I said my opinion as a white-cis-straigh-male carry less weight than someone who is part of those groups. I certainly haven't studied the statistics and I haven't lived the experience. I'm not sure why so many people feel I should have more blind faith in my own opinion; I said nothing about the weight of their opinion.

nscalf 7y ago

First off, there is this stupid narrative going around where people of certain groups cannot have opinions on topics involved people of other groups. This is utter nonsense. Everyone is entitled to any opinion they have, and they can talk about it as much as they want. Second, the downside in the situation you described is having less meaningful insights from your advisors. The impact that good advice could have is enormous, and as far as advisors go, second best advice could be disastrous. We should be making these decisions entirely devoid of what your gender, ethnicity, or sexuality is. Why is everyone talking about making the outcome more equal instead of making the decision entirely uncoupled from the non-relevant aspects of the individual?

notacoward 7y ago
> Why is everyone talking about making the outcome more equal Because unconscious bias is a thing. So is systemic discrimination. Without recognizing that, railing about "equal outcomes" is no more than a dogwhistle. > We should be making these decisions entirely devoid of what your gender, ethnicity, or sexuality is. That would be true in a world where opportunity is already evenly distributed. I look forward to living in that world, but it's not the world any of us live in today. As long as that's the case, requiring "color blindness" (or similar) at each separate point in the process only perpetuates the results of previous discrimination.
- nscalf 7y ago
  > Without recognizing that, railing about "equal outcomes" is no more than a dogwhistle. This is entirely untrue. There is a push to make sure everyone is hired at the same rates in the same fields, regardless of the ratio of people in those fields, the ratio of people qualified to take certain roles, etc. This is absurd, and clearly cannot succeed. The easiest example is software engineering, where a massive majority of the people in the field are men. You can't hire people who are not qualified or interested in the role just because they're women. A real solution to these issues is to determine why the fields skew to certain demographics, look for and discrimination in that process, and make a change there. This is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Equality of outcome is telling people what they have to do so that things are equal. Equality of opportunity is giving people the choice to follow whatever path they would like to. Equality of outcome is inherently racist/sexist/etc as you bias towards minorities in the sliver of whatever you're looking at.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    > This is equality of opportunity It would be, but it's also an impossible standard. Who's going to fix inequity in health, education, and other factors that start at infancy? Certainly not a hiring company at the very distant other end of the pipeline. It's not only impossible, but it's not their job to such an extent that they'd get sued for devoting too many resources to the attempt. Systemic discrimination can not be fixed without the involvement of employers, providing good jobs to people from under-represented groups and letting those people bring the benefits back to their communities. Waiting until those problems are fixed "elsewhere" before employers are required to do anything but turn a blind eye means waiting forever ... but the people exaggerating concerns about "equal outcome" and tokenism usually know that. After all, they're usually the very same ones opposing any of those "elsewhere" efforts too. "Divide and conquer" is the name of the game.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      > Who's going to fix inequity in health, education, and other factors that start at infancy? Well, with health... Something like Equality of Opportunity would be provided by universal health care. But to get Equality of Outcome? All I can think of (as an actual 'solution') is randomly killing women (or systemically denying them health care) to make sure that the average lifespans of men and women match. (We don't have a way to extend the life expectancy of men by 5 years to match that of women - if we did, we'd already be using it, and it would probably work for women too - so the only way to make things 'equal' is to reduce women's life expectancy by that same amount)
VBprogrammer 7y ago
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that opinion carries less weight if they haven't lived the experience. I don't think that is unfair or controversial. What you are in essence arguing for is free marketism. Unfortunately we are all painfully aware of the myrad of ways free markets fail on things which are not directly incentivised towards. The environment, safety and protection of minorities are all things which need special protection.
- keanzu 7y ago
  > Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that opinion carries less weight if they haven't lived the experience. You don’t want a doctor to treat you for cancer unless he himself has had cancer? - Milton Friedman
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
    I expect my doctor to treat me based on established medical fact. I don't really care about their opinion.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      So in other words people should talk about social issues based on the facts (statistics) and not their opinions (lived experience), and being a part of the group in question is irrelevant?
      - VBprogrammer 7y ago
        Those are completely orthogonal. If I want to know what my chances of survival are having had some horrific treatment I ask my doctor. If I want an opinion on whether the pain of the treatment justifies the upside then I'd be better asking someone experiencing it. Going back to the original point, I said my opinion as a white-cis-straigh-male carry less weight than someone who is part of those groups. I certainly haven't studied the statistics and I haven't lived the experience. I'm not sure why so many people feel I should have more blind faith in my own opinion; I said nothing about the weight of their opinion.