5 ms·
I think the modern-day conflation of the philosophical notion of diversity with “diversity of skin color” / “racial diversity” is actually harmful. When we spea
by zarathustreal 2y ago
I think the modern-day conflation of the philosophical notion of diversity with “diversity of skin color” / “racial diversity” is actually harmful. When we speak of diversity today we often imply a sort of supposed-deserved reparations toward the “minorities.” Obviously there are so many incorrect aspects of these assumptions, but many people in power, perhaps all, have accumulated guilt that needs an outlet.
Diversity, the platonic form, is about diversity of thought, opinion, and experience. It is about improving our ability as a group to solve the problems we face by introducing alternative perspectives and viewpoints. It has nothing to do with race or gender necessarily but demand for diversity greatly outweighs the supply and as with all measured things, measuring the number of “diverse” hires has ceased to be a meaningful metric. Granted, it never was a meaningful metric as such, but it has become actively harmful in modern day.
- rayiner 2y ago> think the modern-day conflation of the philosophical notion of diversity with “diversity of skin color” / “racial diversity” is actually harmful. I absolutely agree with this. To use myself as an example: as a Bangladeshi who grew up in the American south, I bring a super diverse viewpoint to a group of say white new englanders. But why does that matter in a professional setting? I’d love to hear someone precisely articulate how they think I’d behave differently from a white new englander in the same position, and why that “diversity” would make the team “stronger.”
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoWhen it comes to optimizing a sorting algorithm for some hardware, it probably doesn't matter. Now suppose you're making a user interface design choice. It would be good to have someone who knows how users from a different subculture would interpret it. But things like that often have more to do with culture/geography than race. Someone from Mississippi will have a much different perspective than someone from Massachusetts, even if they're the same race. And a larger difference in perspective than two people who grew up across the street from each other, even if they're different races. But that doesn't show up in the group photo for the brochure.
- rayiner 2y agoIs there evidence that Americans of different ethnicities interpret user interface features differently? If not, isn’t it concerning that in the year 2024 we casually assume that these sorts of differences exist? Isn’t that an example of DEI thinking accentuating the notion of differences? It seems like a new take on this: https://youtu.be/E8PBrhFN35c?si=90DSnwgHubAvJwr8 https://youtu.be/E8PBrhFN35c?si=90DSnwgHubAvJwr8
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoCultural differences exist. For example, colors have different meanings in different cultures: https://blog.grio.com/2020/06/uxui-design-across-cultures-usa-japan.html https://blog.grio.com/2020/06/uxui-design-across-cultures-us... Ethnicity is then being used as a proxy for culture, even though it's a bad one, because it's a visible one. It's basically starting from the premise that cultural diversity is valuable and then applying Goodhart's Law to the thing most easily measured. Whereas traditional racism is more like starting from the premise that cultural homogeneity is valuable and then applying Goodhart's Law to the thing most easily measured. It's applying the same fallacy to the opposite premise, which is an error regardless of which premise is correct.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoUI colors can be racist? This is ideological tea-leaf reading.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoUI colors can have different meanings in different cultures. Suppose you don't care anything for all of this political noise and you just want to make money. Do you want to use the same colors on your website in the countries where red implies danger as the ones where red implies prosperity and vitality? If it will be the same for everyone, might knowing how some large subset of the viewers will interpret it change what you choose?
- TheCleric 2y agoBecause most people in technology have end users. Quite often those end users come from many different backgrounds. Having more people in the room who can think in terms of a larger subset of the user base will always produce a better product. I work in the post secondary education sector. I am the only person on my team who doesn’t have a college degree. I often have to help them see our software through that lense so that we don’t make assumptions that all of our users are college educated or even know what their post-high school options are.
- rayiner 2y agoThe fact that you’re casually comparing differences between users of different races to the different between people with different education levels is remarkable. You think that race is so meaningful?
- TheCleric 2y agoI think your background and experience is meaningful. And, like it or not, people of different races frequently have differing backgrounds and experiences.
- rayiner 2y agoHow's that not just a justification for discriminating against people based on race? Unless you're going to assert that those "meaningful" differences in "background or experiences" are necessarily positive, which is completely illogical.
- TheCleric 2y agoI already described why I think they're positive. You remain unconvinced. Have a nice day.
- metabagel 2y ago[flagged]
- zarathustreal 2y ago[flagged]
- kanbara 2y ago[flagged]
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoOnly around 20% of people killed by police are black. And obviously not all of those are “murder”—some are clearly justified.