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Promoting diverse individuals who merit promotion is great. Promoting diverse individuals who do not merit promotion is harmful to the diverse individuals who d

by natrius 15y ago

Promoting diverse individuals who merit promotion is great. Promoting diverse individuals who do not merit promotion is harmful to the diverse individuals who do merit promotion because people will assume that they're being promoted for diversity instead of merit. That is a very bad thing and worth criticizing. Again, Arrington didn't actually do this since the person in question is objectively impressive, but saying that he would promote someone for diversity's sake is unquestionably bad.

vidarh 15y ago
The purpose of putting people on stage is not always to showcase just the best, but often to showcase different viewpoints and different ideas. Promoting just the "best" from the viewpoint of a single background - now that is arrogant and harmful because it assumes you actually know best. If Mike always knew who was best to promote, he'd be a billionaire and every company he invested on would have people everywhere throwing money at them. As such, especially for something like Techcrunch Disrupt, it is valuable to promote a diverse group - whether based on race, socioeconomics, geography, gender - especially if a group is severely underrepresented - to get a wider view and perhaps learn something from it. If anything, a great deal of hidden racism is a direct result of people insisting on picking what they think is "best" without taking into account the hidden biases brought by their upbringing, school background etc. and never being exposed to a more diverse set of views.
- natrius 15y ago
  I buy that argument for a conference of ideas, but not for a business competition. The former is about exposing people to new ideas; the latter is about exposing promising companies and investors to each other. Getting people with diverse backgrounds to speak at a conference of ideas is doing the audience a favor, but this whole conversation has been about doing underrepresented minorities a favor. Promoting underrepresented minorities based on their status does not help underrepresented minorities. It hurts. It might help the people who are blessed to be in their presence, but the assumption of pro-minority bias makes people think less of minorities when that becomes a common practice. It should be discouraged.

by natrius 15y ago

vidarh 15y ago

The purpose of putting people on stage is not always to showcase just the best, but often to showcase different viewpoints and different ideas. Promoting just the "best" from the viewpoint of a single background - now that is arrogant and harmful because it assumes you actually know best. If Mike always knew who was best to promote, he'd be a billionaire and every company he invested on would have people everywhere throwing money at them. As such, especially for something like Techcrunch Disrupt, it is valuable to promote a diverse group - whether based on race, socioeconomics, geography, gender - especially if a group is severely underrepresented - to get a wider view and perhaps learn something from it. If anything, a great deal of hidden racism is a direct result of people insisting on picking what they think is "best" without taking into account the hidden biases brought by their upbringing, school background etc. and never being exposed to a more diverse set of views.

natrius 15y ago
I buy that argument for a conference of ideas, but not for a business competition. The former is about exposing people to new ideas; the latter is about exposing promising companies and investors to each other. Getting people with diverse backgrounds to speak at a conference of ideas is doing the audience a favor, but this whole conversation has been about doing underrepresented minorities a favor. Promoting underrepresented minorities based on their status does not help underrepresented minorities. It hurts. It might help the people who are blessed to be in their presence, but the assumption of pro-minority bias makes people think less of minorities when that becomes a common practice. It should be discouraged.