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Like many left-ish leaning ideas (I'm one myself), it came from ideas about how to improve the world around us, but when the practical implementation of the gre

by aprilthird2021 2y ago

Like many left-ish leaning ideas (I'm one myself), it came from ideas about how to improve the world around us, but when the practical implementation of the great ideas came around they turned out to be far more complicated with unintended negative consequences than most imagined and now we're backtracking from the idea. The same thing was true with the anti-police movement. We can all see problems with policing and envision alternatives, but most practical attempts to implement alternatives (like the now wildly unpopular reformist prosecutors elected in the bay area) had unintended consequences people didn't expect and got walked back.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
The thing that's frustrating to me about these outcomes is that they're so easily foreseeable. Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you start getting these power plays that are light years away from the original goals. With DEI the "flip" for me in my head was when it switched from ensuring that there was no bias in hiring and reaching out to try to give everyone a fair shot to instead seeing that every single instance where the racial/gender outcome doesn't match the population distribution is inherently an issue of discrimination. My favorite example for the HN crowd is when they cancelled ElectronConf years ago after only getting male speakers despite having a fully blinded application process (and explicitly stating that any "ties" would be given in favor to underrepresented groups). The problem with that stance is that it becomes an unfalsifiable position, allowing everything to forever be blamed on discrimination even if there was no evidence. Even the language changed: it was no longer about "minority" representation, it was about "underrepresented minorities", as if the discrimination and struggles of East Asians and Indians no longer counted.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  > Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you start getting these power plays that are light years away from the original goals. It's worse. Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you no longer can question whether the original goals are right, just, moral, fair, reasonable, or achievable.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

The thing that's frustrating to me about these outcomes is that they're so easily foreseeable. Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you start getting these power plays that are light years away from the original goals. With DEI the "flip" for me in my head was when it switched from ensuring that there was no bias in hiring and reaching out to try to give everyone a fair shot to instead seeing that every single instance where the racial/gender outcome doesn't match the population distribution is inherently an issue of discrimination. My favorite example for the HN crowd is when they cancelled ElectronConf years ago after only getting male speakers despite having a fully blinded application process (and explicitly stating that any "ties" would be given in favor to underrepresented groups). The problem with that stance is that it becomes an unfalsifiable position, allowing everything to forever be blamed on discrimination even if there was no evidence. Even the language changed: it was no longer about "minority" representation, it was about "underrepresented minorities", as if the discrimination and struggles of East Asians and Indians no longer counted.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
> Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you start getting these power plays that are light years away from the original goals. It's worse. Whenever things tip over to an "ideology", you no longer can question whether the original goals are right, just, moral, fair, reasonable, or achievable.