4 ms·

I think a lot of measures are taken out of concern for optics and without consideration as to whether they are addressing the underlying causes or merely the sy

I think a lot of measures are taken out of concern for optics and without consideration as to whether they are addressing the underlying causes or merely the symptoms. First there’s the pressure of “we have to do something now and it has to be externally apparent”, the choice to go with the most outwardly visible change, then other organizations following suit, and soon it becomes mandatory with everyone convinced they are working on resolving the underlying problem. However, even if the underlying causes behind socio-psychological dynamics that fuel discrimination and xenophobia are unlikely to be best addressed through eliminating the symptoms of it by enforcing diversity via the very mechanism of discrimination by external in-born traits, that action may still help address some adjacent core problems (for example, somewhat reducing the income gap correlating with certain such traits).

op03 6y ago
Going from understanding the symptoms of cancer to the causes of cancer and then controlling it takes TIME. In the mean time what do you think happens? Lot of blundering about. If you focus too much on the blundering most cancer hospitals will get shut down.
- goblin89 6y ago
  Suppressing symptoms doesn’t necessarily lead to understanding the root causes, and in fact may do the opposite as relieved symptoms leave the impression of successful treatment. Of course, to reiterate, in this case the ‘treatment’ is likely addressing the root causes of adjacent problems, and in dire circumstances even a temporary relief could be worth it, so I would not call against it. My worry is that as one particular way of addressing discrimination (through applying discrimination, no less) becomes the default, it’s cargo-culted and there is very little incentive to understand and fix the underlying issues that said discrimination is a symptom of—which (underlying issues) may well fester until they manifest themselves as a new, possibly worse symptom.

op03 6y ago

Going from understanding the symptoms of cancer to the causes of cancer and then controlling it takes TIME. In the mean time what do you think happens? Lot of blundering about. If you focus too much on the blundering most cancer hospitals will get shut down.

goblin89 6y ago
Suppressing symptoms doesn’t necessarily lead to understanding the root causes, and in fact may do the opposite as relieved symptoms leave the impression of successful treatment. Of course, to reiterate, in this case the ‘treatment’ is likely addressing the root causes of adjacent problems, and in dire circumstances even a temporary relief could be worth it, so I would not call against it. My worry is that as one particular way of addressing discrimination (through applying discrimination, no less) becomes the default, it’s cargo-culted and there is very little incentive to understand and fix the underlying issues that said discrimination is a symptom of—which (underlying issues) may well fester until they manifest themselves as a new, possibly worse symptom.