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Leave DIE to the humanities and arts majors please.

by poorbutdebtfree 3y ago

MattRix 3y ago
Why? It seems like something more CS students could learn about.
- mattanimal 3y ago
  [flagged]
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  The should learn about it in the same way that they should learn about other ideologies: not to make them their own but to be aware of their existence and their goals. History is there to be learnt from so as to avoid making the same mistake twice or more often so it is important for anyone to realise that DEI [1,2,3] is another term for critical social justice which is derived from critical theory [4] which is an expansion of Marxism meant to address the "faults" of the ideology which had kept the predicted revolutions from occurring in the early 1900's. Learn about it by all means, the more people learn about it the better they will be prepared when they are confronted by one if its many offshoots. [1] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-diversity/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-diversity/ [2] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/ [3] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-inclusion/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-inclusion/ [4] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-theory/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-theory/
josephg 3y ago
Ethics isn’t part of DEI. Ethics is a subject that humanity has been pondering over for thousands of years - it’s way older than the modern trends of focusing on diversity and inclusion. At my university ethics was a required subject for all engineering students. (And this is long before DEI was a thing). We had a special ethics course with a CS focus and CS TAs. The content included looking at lots of ethical frameworks (eg Kant, rule utilitarianism, etc) and analysing different choices or actions through those lenses. There’s lots of examples from CS history where software (intentionally or otherwise) has caused human suffering or deaths. We talked about them, not prescriptively but to help decide for ourselves what we would want to do if we are ever placed in a similar situation as those engineers. It’s good stuff. I’m not sure if it’s a direct result of that course, but I’ve been horrified over the years by some of the opinions I’ve seen here on HN when ethics comes up. Stuff like “well yes lying directly to your customers and chronically underinvesting in information security is unfortunate, but would you really want to risk your job over it? They’d fire you and get someone else!”. Argh yes! Kick up a fuss! You probably won’t lose your job. You will probably get more respect in your organisation, from the right people. In my opinion, you are responsible for the outcomes of your work. As a software engineer on the ground, the computer is literally doing your bidding. Would you personally lie to the face of thousands of your customers? If no, why are ok with telling the computer to do it on your behalf? We have power in society as engineers. Ethics asks us the question of how we want to wield that power. It’s much deeper question than preachy DEI stuff.
- chjj 3y ago
  Not sure what you're on about. The linked page specifically references another page which mentions DEI by name: https://identity.cs.duke.edu/ https://identity.cs.duke.edu/ "Both computing departments and tech organizations have long struggled with issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion." It looks to me like you're using ethics as the motte.
  - cxr 3y ago
    DEI concerns comprise a subset of ethics, not the other way around. This isn't hard.
  - josephg 3y ago
    > It looks to me like you're using ethics as the motte My goal in talking about ethics isn’t to protect DEI. It’s to have it be subsumed by something which I believe is bigger, broader, more mature and more relevant to engineering work. The study of ethical theory is all of those things. Concretely, as engineers I think we need to be thinking and talking a lot more about the harm caused to society by security breaches, dark patterns, social media addiction in teens, loneliness and depression amongst the video game community, dystopian pervasive workplace tracking and monitoring, online gambling and I’m sure other problems. This stuff causes real harm. But what do people campaign for instead? Oh, renaming git’s “master” branch to “main” and changing “blacklist” to “deny list”. And adding trigger warnings all over the place, despite increasing evidence showing it does more harm than good to victims of trauma. If DEI is important, let’s give people the language and skills to engage in ethical arguments, as people have been doing for thousands of years. An honest, informed debate makes us all smarter. The modern finger wagging moralising that happens with DEI stuff is an embarrassment. Someone who really understands a topic should be able to argue convincingly for or against their own position. The whole point of the academy is to teach these skills.

Leave DIE to the humanities and arts majors please.

MattRix 3y ago

Why? It seems like something more CS students could learn about.

mattanimal 3y ago
[flagged]
the_third_wave 3y ago
The should learn about it in the same way that they should learn about other ideologies: not to make them their own but to be aware of their existence and their goals. History is there to be learnt from so as to avoid making the same mistake twice or more often so it is important for anyone to realise that DEI [1,2,3] is another term for critical social justice which is derived from critical theory [4] which is an expansion of Marxism meant to address the "faults" of the ideology which had kept the predicted revolutions from occurring in the early 1900's. Learn about it by all means, the more people learn about it the better they will be prepared when they are confronted by one if its many offshoots. [1] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-diversity/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-diversity/ [2] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/ [3] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-inclusion/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-inclusion/ [4] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-theory/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-theory/

josephg 3y ago

Ethics isn’t part of DEI. Ethics is a subject that humanity has been pondering over for thousands of years - it’s way older than the modern trends of focusing on diversity and inclusion. At my university ethics was a required subject for all engineering students. (And this is long before DEI was a thing). We had a special ethics course with a CS focus and CS TAs. The content included looking at lots of ethical frameworks (eg Kant, rule utilitarianism, etc) and analysing different choices or actions through those lenses. There’s lots of examples from CS history where software (intentionally or otherwise) has caused human suffering or deaths. We talked about them, not prescriptively but to help decide for ourselves what we would want to do if we are ever placed in a similar situation as those engineers. It’s good stuff. I’m not sure if it’s a direct result of that course, but I’ve been horrified over the years by some of the opinions I’ve seen here on HN when ethics comes up. Stuff like “well yes lying directly to your customers and chronically underinvesting in information security is unfortunate, but would you really want to risk your job over it? They’d fire you and get someone else!”. Argh yes! Kick up a fuss! You probably won’t lose your job. You will probably get more respect in your organisation, from the right people. In my opinion, you are responsible for the outcomes of your work. As a software engineer on the ground, the computer is literally doing your bidding. Would you personally lie to the face of thousands of your customers? If no, why are ok with telling the computer to do it on your behalf? We have power in society as engineers. Ethics asks us the question of how we want to wield that power. It’s much deeper question than preachy DEI stuff.

chjj 3y ago
Not sure what you're on about. The linked page specifically references another page which mentions DEI by name: https://identity.cs.duke.edu/ https://identity.cs.duke.edu/ "Both computing departments and tech organizations have long struggled with issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion." It looks to me like you're using ethics as the motte.
- cxr 3y ago
  DEI concerns comprise a subset of ethics, not the other way around. This isn't hard.
- josephg 3y ago
  > It looks to me like you're using ethics as the motte My goal in talking about ethics isn’t to protect DEI. It’s to have it be subsumed by something which I believe is bigger, broader, more mature and more relevant to engineering work. The study of ethical theory is all of those things. Concretely, as engineers I think we need to be thinking and talking a lot more about the harm caused to society by security breaches, dark patterns, social media addiction in teens, loneliness and depression amongst the video game community, dystopian pervasive workplace tracking and monitoring, online gambling and I’m sure other problems. This stuff causes real harm. But what do people campaign for instead? Oh, renaming git’s “master” branch to “main” and changing “blacklist” to “deny list”. And adding trigger warnings all over the place, despite increasing evidence showing it does more harm than good to victims of trauma. If DEI is important, let’s give people the language and skills to engage in ethical arguments, as people have been doing for thousands of years. An honest, informed debate makes us all smarter. The modern finger wagging moralising that happens with DEI stuff is an embarrassment. Someone who really understands a topic should be able to argue convincingly for or against their own position. The whole point of the academy is to teach these skills.