6 ms·

This sounds like the kind of thing you say when you are annoyed but cant find a good argument against the points being made.

tptacek 4y ago
Did this feel like a compelling argument when you wrote it? You thought to yourself, huh, maybe this person can't possibly come up with an argument for diversity that doesn't run aground of an appeal for "viewpoint diversity"?
throwawaymaroon 4y ago
This sounds like the kind of thing you say when you are annoyed but cant find a good argument against the points being made.
thethimble 4y ago
It’s level 3 on pg’s hierarchy of disagreement - the whole concept of which I find interesting: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- SR2Z 4y ago
  The implication is that somehow being correct in an argument matters more than tone, which is... childish. If you want to have a productive argument (as opposed to just being an asshole screaming at passerby) you need to convince people that you are worth engaging. This means showing good faith and not being overly dismissive (i.e. tone).
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    You think tone matters more then being correct?
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      If you're talking about purely conveying information, tone is largely immaterial. If you're talking about convincing people, proper tone is a prerequisite to conveying information. For most communication, tone starts out being infinitely more important that anything you're saying. Once you reach an inflection point, tone is sufficient and correctness can take priority. The inflection point varies based on your audience.
      - lazyeye 4y ago
        I take your point. And I guess tone becomes particularly important when you're trying to communicate an unpalatable truth.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      If you want to convince someone of something, absolutely it does.
    - TremendousJudge 4y ago
      Most people do, which is why this site will ban a user for being an asshole, but not for being incorrect.
    - dllthomas 4y ago
      If my tone is such that no one engages constructively, then it's not going to be useful whether or not I'm correct. If my tone is such that many people engage constructively, then it may well be useful whether or not I'm correct, as either people learn from my contribution or people (including me) learn from corrections to my contribution. It's more than a little context dependent and YMMV, of course.
opmelogy 4y ago
I'm trying to actually figure out what his points are. None of it is making much sense because he just seems so far off in his own thinking that it's not connected to DEI at all. Still trying to untangle it, but here's my lol as I work through what he's saying. 1.1 When did we start pretending to care about diversity? He says 1978. What? He's fabricating a story to prop up his flawed belief system. 1.2 Diversity is intellectual? It's good because it promotes a good education. What? It's far more about that: representation, opportunities for historically marginalized groups, challenging the status quo with ideas of how things should be done, etc. 2.1 The argument for affirmative action How did we get to affirmative action? Are we back in the 1980's view of how we are supposed to level the playing field? > by diversifying the racial composition of the student body, we will be indirectly producing intellectual diversity. Yikes. He's totally missing the point around opportunities, exposure to diverse backgrounds that force you break out of your own stereotypical thinking... 2.2 Idealogy > The most “woke” people are the ones who aggressively try to silence all dissent and to exclude conservatives, libertarians, etc., from the Academy. This is a myth. Conservatives tend to get excluded because their whole goal is to exclude others based on their religion, their desire to prevent others from being able to become self actualized (ex against same sex marriage), their support for laws and institutions that maintain the status quo... 2.3 Other countries > the most diverse people would naturally be those from other countries. Yikes. He's totally gone off the rails now. Completely misses the point of what DEI is about. 2.4 Other races > Affirmative action would also apply more strongly to, say, immigrants from Iran, or Korea, or Israel, than to black people (or anyone else) from our own society. face palm that is just so painful to read. Yes, on the surface it's true, but not what DEI is actually trying to address in the US. 2.5 social class > rural white people would get more affirmative action points than middle class suburban blacks. lol this guy doesn't understand racism very well. 2.6 Proportionality His point: you don't need a proportional representation for diversity. And...? Not sure why this is even here. Seems pretty obvious. 2.7. Non of this is happening > Conclusion: By and large, they don’t care about diversity. They’re just lying, in a really transparent way, because they think it gives them a patina of legal legitimacy. lol my god how did we land here? 3. Conclusion > “Diversity, inclusion, and equity” refers to ideological uniformity, exclusion, and discrimination. Sigh. He really has no clue what he's writing about or how this works outside of his world view. I can't shake the feeling how sad I from having slogged through this. I'll chalk this up to being useless noise that's out of touch on what's going on in the larger world.
blakesley 4y ago
I agree, but it can also be true that there are so many things wrong with the points being made that it's hard to construct a response.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  I would have thought this would make it easy to construct a response.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    No, it doesn't! It famously doesn't! There's a whole discipline of creating arguments that are deliberately difficult to engage with or respond to: it's called "college debate".
    - lazyeye 4y ago
      See it alot on HN too then.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    See the "bullshit asymmetry principle": refuting bullshit takes far more time and effort than producing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tptacek 4y ago

Did this feel like a compelling argument when you wrote it? You thought to yourself, huh, maybe this person can't possibly come up with an argument for diversity that doesn't run aground of an appeal for "viewpoint diversity"?

throwawaymaroon 4y ago

This sounds like the kind of thing you say when you are annoyed but cant find a good argument against the points being made.

thethimble 4y ago

It’s level 3 on pg’s hierarchy of disagreement - the whole concept of which I find interesting: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

SR2Z 4y ago
The implication is that somehow being correct in an argument matters more than tone, which is... childish. If you want to have a productive argument (as opposed to just being an asshole screaming at passerby) you need to convince people that you are worth engaging. This means showing good faith and not being overly dismissive (i.e. tone).
- lazyeye 4y ago
  You think tone matters more then being correct?
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    If you're talking about purely conveying information, tone is largely immaterial. If you're talking about convincing people, proper tone is a prerequisite to conveying information. For most communication, tone starts out being infinitely more important that anything you're saying. Once you reach an inflection point, tone is sufficient and correctness can take priority. The inflection point varies based on your audience.
    - lazyeye 4y ago
      I take your point. And I guess tone becomes particularly important when you're trying to communicate an unpalatable truth.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    If you want to convince someone of something, absolutely it does.
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    Most people do, which is why this site will ban a user for being an asshole, but not for being incorrect.
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    If my tone is such that no one engages constructively, then it's not going to be useful whether or not I'm correct. If my tone is such that many people engage constructively, then it may well be useful whether or not I'm correct, as either people learn from my contribution or people (including me) learn from corrections to my contribution. It's more than a little context dependent and YMMV, of course.

opmelogy 4y ago

I'm trying to actually figure out what his points are. None of it is making much sense because he just seems so far off in his own thinking that it's not connected to DEI at all. Still trying to untangle it, but here's my lol as I work through what he's saying. 1.1 When did we start pretending to care about diversity? He says 1978. What? He's fabricating a story to prop up his flawed belief system. 1.2 Diversity is intellectual? It's good because it promotes a good education. What? It's far more about that: representation, opportunities for historically marginalized groups, challenging the status quo with ideas of how things should be done, etc. 2.1 The argument for affirmative action How did we get to affirmative action? Are we back in the 1980's view of how we are supposed to level the playing field? > by diversifying the racial composition of the student body, we will be indirectly producing intellectual diversity. Yikes. He's totally missing the point around opportunities, exposure to diverse backgrounds that force you break out of your own stereotypical thinking... 2.2 Idealogy > The most “woke” people are the ones who aggressively try to silence all dissent and to exclude conservatives, libertarians, etc., from the Academy. This is a myth. Conservatives tend to get excluded because their whole goal is to exclude others based on their religion, their desire to prevent others from being able to become self actualized (ex against same sex marriage), their support for laws and institutions that maintain the status quo... 2.3 Other countries > the most diverse people would naturally be those from other countries. Yikes. He's totally gone off the rails now. Completely misses the point of what DEI is about. 2.4 Other races > Affirmative action would also apply more strongly to, say, immigrants from Iran, or Korea, or Israel, than to black people (or anyone else) from our own society. face palm that is just so painful to read. Yes, on the surface it's true, but not what DEI is actually trying to address in the US. 2.5 social class > rural white people would get more affirmative action points than middle class suburban blacks. lol this guy doesn't understand racism very well. 2.6 Proportionality His point: you don't need a proportional representation for diversity. And...? Not sure why this is even here. Seems pretty obvious. 2.7. Non of this is happening > Conclusion: By and large, they don’t care about diversity. They’re just lying, in a really transparent way, because they think it gives them a patina of legal legitimacy. lol my god how did we land here? 3. Conclusion > “Diversity, inclusion, and equity” refers to ideological uniformity, exclusion, and discrimination. Sigh. He really has no clue what he's writing about or how this works outside of his world view. I can't shake the feeling how sad I from having slogged through this. I'll chalk this up to being useless noise that's out of touch on what's going on in the larger world.

blakesley 4y ago

I agree, but it can also be true that there are so many things wrong with the points being made that it's hard to construct a response.

lazyeye 4y ago
I would have thought this would make it easy to construct a response.
- tptacek 4y ago
  No, it doesn't! It famously doesn't! There's a whole discipline of creating arguments that are deliberately difficult to engage with or respond to: it's called "college debate".
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    See it alot on HN too then.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  See the "bullshit asymmetry principle": refuting bullshit takes far more time and effort than producing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]