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The issue that I have is that I've almost never seen an anti-DEI advocate actually engage with the issues. Even if I ultimately disagreed with them, I could res

The issue that I have is that I've almost never seen an anti-DEI advocate actually engage with the issues. Even if I ultimately disagreed with them, I could respect someone who was willing to look at the problems the US is having with inequality and present a reasoned argument for alternatives to DEI. However, what I usually see is people either ignoring the issues people are facing, ignoring the arguments put forth by advocates of DEI, or substituting slogans for arguments.

cynicalpeace 2y ago
The problems the US has with inequality can be laid squarely at the foot of the dollar being the world's reserve currency. It works like this: The world uses dollars in international trade. Who produces the world's dollars? Washington and Wall St. Congress mandates spending, which is funded by the Fed printing money and purchasing bonds. The Fed also controls the money supply via interest rates and fractional reserve banking. This is a very complicated system, but the end result is the same. Washington and Wall St produce dollars that the world very much wants. World needs dollars from Washington and Wall St, but Washington and Wall St. need something in return. This ends up being cheap manufactured goods. The result: dollars and manufacturing jobs get exported abroad, and cheap goods get imported. Washington, Wall St, and their hangers-on (their investments in tech, hollywood, etc) become rich. The average American gets a bunch of junk in their front yard. They don't work at Bath Iron Works like their grandfather, they get everything they "need" simply by working at 7/11 or as a mortgage broker. This is easily demonstrated by a wealth of data and theory. You can check out [WTF Happened](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/) in 1971, see the [Elephant Curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve), and see the [Triffin Dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma). The stuff about taxing the rich, deregulation, DEI, nationalism, etc have been a distraction from this fundamental shift in American society. Always follow the money. Fortunately, the current administration understands this better any previous one.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
I don't like DEI and am willing to engage. The US has a huge disparity of outcomes along racial lines. This is a legacy of slavery as well as social and governmental discrimination following slavery. [Racial biases persist today, but are much better today than the past, and we should focus on elimination of those biases, not adding new ones.] These factors result in real disparity in capabilities and merit today. This is precisely why racism was and is so detrimental. I oppose DEI because I think it is racist, even if good intended. I think our laws and institutions should strive to be race blind and treat people equally, as individuals, based on their individual actions and merit. I don't think that group statistic should be a higher priority than equality for individuals. In my mind, DEI is a myopic obsession with the group statistics, to the detriment of individual equality. If a school enroll someone with a 400 point lower sat over the higher person on the sole basis of their race, that is a major Injustice on the scale of individual humans, even if it moves some group statistic closer to equal. I think countering racism with racism is a very dangerous game, likely to blow up in everyone's face. Instead, equality under law should Ensure equal treatment moving forward. Past wrongs should be addressed by race blind improvements to economic mobility.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  DEI is not a law. I get how this misunderstanding is possible given how wildly the term gets thrown about by conservatives, like it is a boogieman that is the source of everyone's problems. Anyway, everyone is already ostensibly equal under the law, but, like you've recognized, we've still found our way into a system of racism (that goes beyond governmental discrimination). Logically, to recognize systemic racism, that folks are born into a disadvantage, then to say that these disadvantages must be ignored, is to exploit systemic racism. It does nothing to address the system. If anything, by making it an EO, it strengthens the system. You call DEI countering racism with racism, but your only argument for this is getting mad at a hypothetical situation. To add, though, to recognize systemic racism and to then put so much weight on an SAT score, while standardized testing is known as being a component of systemic racism [0], is racist in and of itself. 0 - https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-begin...
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The anti-DEI argument is that modern racial disparities are predominantly caused by economic circumstances, e.g. black people are more likely to be poor and then less likely to have to startup capital to start their own business or be able to afford to attend a high status university. The same applies to white people who don't have affluent parents. "White people who grew up poor" are under-represented at the top of society. So the underlying problem here is economic opportunity, not race. To fix it you need to e.g. make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business by lowering barriers to entry and regulatory overhead on small entities. That allows both poor black people and poor white people to get ahead without discriminating against anyone, but still reduces the racial disparity because black people are disproportionately poor. It's basically Goodhart's law. Because of the existing correlation between race and poverty, continuing racial disparities are a strong proxy for insufficient upward mobility, but you want to solve the actual problem and not just fudge the metric through race quotas etc.
- dlmilli 2y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jensensbutton 2y ago
  This is a simplistic view. E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume? In this case the lower chances to get ahead have nothing to do with economic circumstance.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    https://thefederalist.com/2018/12/07/thomas-sowell-explains-the-economics-of-discrimination/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/12/07/thomas-sowell-explains-... It still has to do with economic circumstance, but here, according to Sowell it's about the cost of employing empirical discrimination (judging each specific case through complete knowledge of the individual) instead of a proxy for empirical discrimination (like likelihoods based on a non-arbitrary characteristic such as income or neighborhood). The solutions that follow from that conclusion are to find ways to make empiricism less costly, or to change the stereotype (such as people from a poor neighborhood are likely to be a bad risk for a loan). Systemic racism tends to apply so much economic drag to the system that any form of capitalism won't allow it to stand. Apartheid in South Africa was systemic racism, and businesses were violating those laws long before they were abolished just out of profit-motive. It became obvious and common-sense for the system to be ended. Thomas Sowell, in that same work, points out that Type II discrimination (discrimination based on arbitrary characteristics like race, ethnicity, belief... etc.) always ends up being economically unfeasible.
disambiguation 2y ago
All social injustice stems from the first law of economics: there isn't enough to go around. DEI will come and go, but so long as we lack the wealth to meet everyones needs (and wants), there will always be inequity. The real question is, does anyone have an idea of what a fair world looks like in the mean time? Why do people disagree on what that fair world looks like? Is it a fools errand to try and make the world fair when there's no clear goal to move towards? How do folks who support DEI think of it in the above context?
- jensensbutton 2y ago
  I think this is a perfect example of gp's comment.
  - disambiguation 2y ago
    GPs comment is a perfect example of GPs comment. The burden of proof is on the person trying to make a point. They gave no arguments or evidence in their favor. I lay out a point that shows they have no ground to stand on.
    - harimau777 2y ago
      It is unfortunately impossible to prove the negative. I did give examples of what I would like to see in a discussion. There's unfortunately no realistic way for me to "provide evidence" that I only rarely see it.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- harimau777 2y ago
  I think it's important not to make things too black and white. Certainly it's difficult to put in place or even define a perfectly fair world. However, that doesn't mean that we can't make things more fair.
milesrout 2y ago
1. If there is an issue it starts much earlier. Trying to solve a problem that happens at school or earlier by giving discriminatory preference to people in university entrance or job applications makes no sense. 2. Inequality of outcome simply doesn't matter anyway. 3. Nobody actually cares about inequality--they care about specific visual types of inequality. Nobody cares about the diversity statistics of poor white people from an underprivileged background, for example. 4. As for substituting slogans for arguments, the DEI argument is just slogans. That is all it is.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cynicalpeace 2y ago

The problems the US has with inequality can be laid squarely at the foot of the dollar being the world's reserve currency. It works like this: The world uses dollars in international trade. Who produces the world's dollars? Washington and Wall St. Congress mandates spending, which is funded by the Fed printing money and purchasing bonds. The Fed also controls the money supply via interest rates and fractional reserve banking. This is a very complicated system, but the end result is the same. Washington and Wall St produce dollars that the world very much wants. World needs dollars from Washington and Wall St, but Washington and Wall St. need something in return. This ends up being cheap manufactured goods. The result: dollars and manufacturing jobs get exported abroad, and cheap goods get imported. Washington, Wall St, and their hangers-on (their investments in tech, hollywood, etc) become rich. The average American gets a bunch of junk in their front yard. They don't work at Bath Iron Works like their grandfather, they get everything they "need" simply by working at 7/11 or as a mortgage broker. This is easily demonstrated by a wealth of data and theory. You can check out [WTF Happened](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/) in 1971, see the [Elephant Curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve), and see the [Triffin Dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma). The stuff about taxing the rich, deregulation, DEI, nationalism, etc have been a distraction from this fundamental shift in American society. Always follow the money. Fortunately, the current administration understands this better any previous one.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

I don't like DEI and am willing to engage. The US has a huge disparity of outcomes along racial lines. This is a legacy of slavery as well as social and governmental discrimination following slavery. [Racial biases persist today, but are much better today than the past, and we should focus on elimination of those biases, not adding new ones.] These factors result in real disparity in capabilities and merit today. This is precisely why racism was and is so detrimental. I oppose DEI because I think it is racist, even if good intended. I think our laws and institutions should strive to be race blind and treat people equally, as individuals, based on their individual actions and merit. I don't think that group statistic should be a higher priority than equality for individuals. In my mind, DEI is a myopic obsession with the group statistics, to the detriment of individual equality. If a school enroll someone with a 400 point lower sat over the higher person on the sole basis of their race, that is a major Injustice on the scale of individual humans, even if it moves some group statistic closer to equal. I think countering racism with racism is a very dangerous game, likely to blow up in everyone's face. Instead, equality under law should Ensure equal treatment moving forward. Past wrongs should be addressed by race blind improvements to economic mobility.

dfxm12 2y ago
DEI is not a law. I get how this misunderstanding is possible given how wildly the term gets thrown about by conservatives, like it is a boogieman that is the source of everyone's problems. Anyway, everyone is already ostensibly equal under the law, but, like you've recognized, we've still found our way into a system of racism (that goes beyond governmental discrimination). Logically, to recognize systemic racism, that folks are born into a disadvantage, then to say that these disadvantages must be ignored, is to exploit systemic racism. It does nothing to address the system. If anything, by making it an EO, it strengthens the system. You call DEI countering racism with racism, but your only argument for this is getting mad at a hypothetical situation. To add, though, to recognize systemic racism and to then put so much weight on an SAT score, while standardized testing is known as being a component of systemic racism [0], is racist in and of itself. 0 - https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-begin...

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

The anti-DEI argument is that modern racial disparities are predominantly caused by economic circumstances, e.g. black people are more likely to be poor and then less likely to have to startup capital to start their own business or be able to afford to attend a high status university. The same applies to white people who don't have affluent parents. "White people who grew up poor" are under-represented at the top of society. So the underlying problem here is economic opportunity, not race. To fix it you need to e.g. make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business by lowering barriers to entry and regulatory overhead on small entities. That allows both poor black people and poor white people to get ahead without discriminating against anyone, but still reduces the racial disparity because black people are disproportionately poor. It's basically Goodhart's law. Because of the existing correlation between race and poverty, continuing racial disparities are a strong proxy for insufficient upward mobility, but you want to solve the actual problem and not just fudge the metric through race quotas etc.

dlmilli 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jensensbutton 2y ago
This is a simplistic view. E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume? In this case the lower chances to get ahead have nothing to do with economic circumstance.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  https://thefederalist.com/2018/12/07/thomas-sowell-explains-the-economics-of-discrimination/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/12/07/thomas-sowell-explains-... It still has to do with economic circumstance, but here, according to Sowell it's about the cost of employing empirical discrimination (judging each specific case through complete knowledge of the individual) instead of a proxy for empirical discrimination (like likelihoods based on a non-arbitrary characteristic such as income or neighborhood). The solutions that follow from that conclusion are to find ways to make empiricism less costly, or to change the stereotype (such as people from a poor neighborhood are likely to be a bad risk for a loan). Systemic racism tends to apply so much economic drag to the system that any form of capitalism won't allow it to stand. Apartheid in South Africa was systemic racism, and businesses were violating those laws long before they were abolished just out of profit-motive. It became obvious and common-sense for the system to be ended. Thomas Sowell, in that same work, points out that Type II discrimination (discrimination based on arbitrary characteristics like race, ethnicity, belief... etc.) always ends up being economically unfeasible.

disambiguation 2y ago

All social injustice stems from the first law of economics: there isn't enough to go around. DEI will come and go, but so long as we lack the wealth to meet everyones needs (and wants), there will always be inequity. The real question is, does anyone have an idea of what a fair world looks like in the mean time? Why do people disagree on what that fair world looks like? Is it a fools errand to try and make the world fair when there's no clear goal to move towards? How do folks who support DEI think of it in the above context?

jensensbutton 2y ago
I think this is a perfect example of gp's comment.
- disambiguation 2y ago
  GPs comment is a perfect example of GPs comment. The burden of proof is on the person trying to make a point. They gave no arguments or evidence in their favor. I lay out a point that shows they have no ground to stand on.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    It is unfortunately impossible to prove the negative. I did give examples of what I would like to see in a discussion. There's unfortunately no realistic way for me to "provide evidence" that I only rarely see it.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
harimau777 2y ago
I think it's important not to make things too black and white. Certainly it's difficult to put in place or even define a perfectly fair world. However, that doesn't mean that we can't make things more fair.

milesrout 2y ago

1. If there is an issue it starts much earlier. Trying to solve a problem that happens at school or earlier by giving discriminatory preference to people in university entrance or job applications makes no sense. 2. Inequality of outcome simply doesn't matter anyway. 3. Nobody actually cares about inequality--they care about specific visual types of inequality. Nobody cares about the diversity statistics of poor white people from an underprivileged background, for example. 4. As for substituting slogans for arguments, the DEI argument is just slogans. That is all it is.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]