9 ms·

Building a better and more diverse community

49 points by izqui 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > What percentage of hispanics in the US are actually non-white? per the Wikipedia article you cite, 49.7% identify as something other than just White (100% total minus the 50.3% that identify as White.) > According to Wikipedia, less than 3% of hispanics are african american or asian Sure, but what significance do those two specific categories have? Another 1.4% identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 6.0% as multiracial, and 36.7% identify as "Some other race" and are reclassified against their identity as "White" in Census Bureau statistics (given the history of racial identity in Latin America and how race is understood in America, if the the "Some other race" category has to be redistributed to the other categories, it would probably be more reasonably distributed between "multiracial" -- mestizo identity as a distinct racial identity is a latin american phenomenon which is more multiracial than White, but holders of that might well not choose "multiracial" on Census forms -- and "American Indian and Alaskan Native" -- the phrasing of that Census category has exclusive implications that will lead people with identities in indigenous cultures of the Americas outside those of US territories away from choosing it and into "Some other race".
Karunamon 12y ago
That's actually quite clever, wrt. generating everyone who applies a nonsense pseudonym so there's no unconscious bias happening in the pre-selection process.
- incision 12y ago
  It is, but what I've found a bit funny about the entire recent 'diversity' discussion is that such things aren't already done as a matter of course. We're in an industry where modeling, A/B testing, logging, trending and engineering for redundancy is implicit - except when it comes to hiring apparently. If a load balancer assumed to split 50/50 was actually operating at 80/20 someone would notice. If a particular demographic were bouncing from the landing page at disproportionate rates, someone would figure out why. Both problems would be broken down empirically and solved with a thorough post-mortem published on the company blog. To this point, those same sort of issues applied to hiring have been largely addressed with "We've got to do better" and "The problem is upstream" with barely a word about how things managed to creep so far out of whack to begin with. It's really refreshing to see admission of an actual (potential) problem and some of brains being applied to mitigate it directly.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Just about anything when it comes to social equality is about as far divorced from objectivity as it's humanly possible to be. Too many emotions running hot, too many knee-jerk decisions made. It is refreshing to see an actually objective, fact-based, and mostly well thought out approach to solving the problem.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    As an industry, we used to be in favor of approaching meritocracy as a goal. We'd take pride in using github in lieu of a resume, difficult technical tests, and general attempts at objectivity. Strangely, the pushback against meritocracy as a goal and objective measurement as a method doesn't come from the alleged "good old boy" network. http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an...
    - pyrocat 12y ago
      The problem with "meritocracy" is that the judging mechanism is inherently vulnerable to bias.
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        So therefore we shouldn't try? What should our goal be instead?
        pyrocat 12y ago
        http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-myth-of-silicon-valley-meritocracy-destroyed-in-one-1307760029 http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-myth-of-silicon-valley-merit... As for what our goal should be instead: equal pay for equal work.
        12y ago
- davidbalbert 12y ago
  Thanks! I'm actually planning on writing more about what we've learned from anonymizing our applications and from our application process in general in the next few days. I think some of the things we've learned could probably also be applied to hiring at a company with some modification (it's harder to anonymize resumes and emails than it is to anonymize a standard application). Another side effect of anonymized applications is that we get to read a lot of funny application names (Beet Manager, Pastry Magician, Bean Pain).
  - pyrocat 12y ago
    Since there is a well documented hiring[1] bias against people with both female-sounding-names and non-white-sounding names, I think anonymized applications is an amazing idea! So many people never make it to even a phone screen because of insidious biases. [1] seriously, so many examples, https://www.google.com/search?q=research+bias+hiring+names https://www.google.com/search?q=research+bias+hiring+names
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  Honestly, I thought it was embarrassing. The idea that you can't control your feelings enough to judge someone based on merit - even when you're conscious of your own bias - reveals an incredible lack of emotional intelligence. It seems like a gimmick created to soothe the nerves of social justice activists. It was very strange to me that anyone would focus so much on diversity as much as Hacker School has. So I was looking around their site, and I suddenly found the quote that explains their near-obsession: "We make money by helping companies hire our alumni." Suddenly it all makes sense! Companies need to fill diversity quotas, so they turn to Hacker School to get as many women, hispanic/latino and black people as they can.
  - techpeace 12y ago
    There's plenty of research pointing to the fact that some racial bias is actually unconscious. Conscious or not, this seem like a perfectly reasonable way to avoid it. Your second conjecture is a bit tin-foil-hat to even address, but here goes: why does it seem strange to you that a prominent organization in the technology community would focus on diversity? Diversity breeds innovation - the more diverse the tech industry, the better it is for all of us (and by all of us, I'm referring to the entirety of the species). Diversity is a worthy goal in and of itself. There doesn't need to be an ulterior motive.
nawitus 12y ago
>The short: We now have need-based living expense grants for black and non-white Latino/a and Hispanic people, as well as people from many other groups traditionally underrepresented in programming. I disagree with this, it's racist.
- Zikes 12y ago
  There's a pretty significant difference between giving everyone that isn't a white male an advantage and putting everyone that is a white male at a disadvantage. I've no idea what that difference is, exactly, but I do know that you're not allowed to question it under any circumstances.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Eeeeyup. The color of their post would seem to concur with that. You disagree or question and you're immediately voted down to #000001 or thereabouts - nevermind your motives, you're an (insult) (insult) for daring to ask. This is a very simple and pretty inoffensive question, IMO. If your goal is diversity and helping the disadvantaged: Why race instead of socioeconomic status? By the way, they're not wrong. Racial discrimination has a pretty black and white objective definition, folks, and clicking the down arrow on my or any other post does nothing to change that definition. It does, however, make this community look bad and knee-jerk-y. Do think before clicking, please.
    - peterwwillis 12y ago
      "Why <race,gender,etc> instead of socioeconomic status?" Their objective is not to target and assist the people who need the most help in getting into hacker school, like the most socioeconomically challenged people in your example. That would pose a number of problems and concerns. First of all, it would require more outreach. It would also be slower and more difficult, for factors like lack of transportation, communication, or english as a second language, just to name a few. Finally, it would be politically unwise to snub certain groups (feminists, black coalitions, etc) that are much louder and more organized than other groups or individuals, regardless of whether they are in more need. Basically: it's both easier and more attractive to support the most vocal minorities, and it's much harder to support the people that are actually in the most need. And yeah, people tend to vote their feelings here. You will get a million more upvotes by supporting someone's misguided cause than you will by calling out the illogical motivation.
ntonozzi 12y ago
Really impressive program! I'm glad that these guys are encouraging diversity, but focusing on keeping the bar for admission the same across all candidates.
nicholasjbs 12y ago
In anticipation of the comments we've gotten in the past: * We hold everyone to the same admissions standard, regardless of race or gender. The grants are our way to create a more diverse applicant pool. * Hacker School is free for everyone * We admit everyone who applies who we think is a good fit. No man has ever been rejected because a woman was accepted, so there's no way in which this harms men. * We auto-generate pseudonyms for applicants, so our initial application review focuses on people's code and what they write, not their race or gender (I'm one of the founders, and I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about Hacker School.)
- dwild 12y ago
  Yeah maybe you hold everyone at the same admissions standard but it's not true for accessibility to the grants. Will we reach a society where we hope to be born from a more "diverse" race? That's racism... it's sad that you use racism while believing that you are solving it. Please don't help based on the race, help based on the needs. Edit: Can anyone debate instead of downvote? That's doesn't seems like an healthy way to change opinions...
  - dethstar 12y ago
    Okay so, not so long ago they were only providing grants to women. Did I think to myself oh that's sexist? No, you know why? Because I'm pretty sure they provide the grants to people with needs (at the end of the applying form you check a box that says you'd need financial aid). Yes, they're using filters like gender and race first. But if you were a white male, you live in a society where you could probably approach any hacker space or anything else without feeling weird about it, unlike many trans*, queer or black/latin@ people. That's the way they're promoting diversity, by creating spaces where people can feel more welcome/safe, they're in no way denying white people or males.
    - dwild 12y ago
      I did find that sexist, maybe you weren't but I was. I was afraid to talk though... this is the sad part I guess. > you live in a society where you could probably approach any hacker space or anything else without feeling weird about it, unlike many trans*, queer or black/latin@ people. That's what need to be fixed. You don't solve that by giving them money. You solve that by showing we accept them, by stopping people from making them feel weird. A strict policy against racism is what's needed and being vocal about it. > they're in no way denying white people or males. That's making the issue here way more complicated to talk about for no reason. You need to draw a line between the school and the grant. I'm not saying they are racist for the school admission, I'm saying they are racist for their school grant. They are denying white people that school grant.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
Their evidence for lack of bias in their process is pretty weak: "Men and women are invited to interview, advanced to a second interview, and admitted at the same rates." All this means is that the person doing interview #1, interview #2 and admission decision are biased at the same rate. It doesn't mean that rate is zero. The proper test - compare admission rates against a truly objective and unbiased measure like a final exam (particularly if students anonymize their names). If gender information does not leak to the grader, bias is impossible. [edit: Wow, I've clearly made a blatant failure of reasoning - apparently my knowledge of statistics is far less than I thought. I hope someone can explain my error - I'm not afraid of math, so don't skip the details.]
- nicholasjbs 12y ago
  What we mean by "at the same rate" is that these rates are the same as the rates that men and women apply. For example, about 65% of our applications are currently from men, and men are about 65% of the people we invite to interview, advance to the next round, and ultimately admit.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    This is only evidence of lack of bias if you know the quality of both pools is equal. If there was a quality gap between pools, this would be evidence that you are biased. I reiterate - if you truly want to measure bias on factor X, you need to compare to a metric that is blind to X or otherwise known to be unbiased.
    - swampangel 12y ago
      They did point out that the first round selection is done based on anonymized applications. It might not be not perfect, but if round 1 is blind to X, and rounds 2 and 3 admit people in similar ratios to round 1, it sounds pretty good to me.
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
uniclaude 12y ago
Diversity in our field is a hard issue to tackle, and it's great to see people trying to find solutions. This said, I'd like to see the results, as I would believe the diversity problem is not as much with hackerschool as it is with the pool of applicants.
lordsheepy 12y ago
I am so happy to see this program in place. We all talk about how most problems we have with diversity come from upstream, and now a school is directly addressing it. An objective solution to an objective problem.
xienze 12y ago
I really don't understand this obsession with diversity in tech, particularly the oft-repeated mantra of "the team as a whole improves when there's more ethnic/gender diversity", as if being black or genderqueer gives you special insight into distributed computing algorithms. This seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. I certainly don't think you hear a lot about this in India, China, Japan, etc. And yet, their companies still manage to function.
- pyrocat 12y ago
  Diversity can only improve a system. The article specifically addresses that point.
  - xienze 12y ago
    To some extent yes, to some extent no. I would argue that the reason a country like Sweden is considered a model for the rest of the world to follow is largely because the homogeneous population makes it easy to push forward with very progressive policies. Contrast that with the US, where something like nationalized healthcare is basically a pipedream because of so many competing interests (or diversity of viewpoints, if you will).
    - pyrocat 12y ago
      Your counterexample relies on a lot of claims... A) Sweden is considered a model for the rest of the world to follow. B) Sweden has a homogeneous population. C) That homogeneous population is the primary reason for Sweden's success. D) Nationalized healthcare in the US is a pipedream. E) It's a pipedream specifically because of a "diversity of viewpoints". There have been books written on why nationalized heathcare is hard to achieve in the US. It's a very complex issue that is inherently entangled with both the mechanics of the US political system and the US media. Blaming it on a "diversity of viewpoints" does a disservice to the issue.
    - techpeace 12y ago
      Great point! There was this group in Germany after the Great War that had a similar notions about how great it might be to eliminate a tad bit of the diversity in their country. You know, to help make things happen! I suggest you consult Wikipedia for the result of their efforts.
sauere 12y ago
If you are someone that buys in to all this diversity nonsense, please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 I am prepared for the downvotes, keep them coming.
- wismer 12y ago
  oh, please. No one wants to engage with a self-proclaimed martyr.
aclockheart 12y ago
Any '-ISM' CANNOT be a real '-ism' if does not combine prejudice (which is the only thing people think it is) PLUS power (the social, cultural, and political heft which usually underlies the ability of prejudice to keep or enforce -isms in place) http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power Until folks understand this primary principle, most of you arguing for this "anti-white and asian" bias will simply be tools of the status quo. Equality does NOT mean treating all people equally, WHEN ALL PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE SAME FOOTING, and don't have the same political power (which is conferred from our social and political system).

49 points by izqui 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 12y ago
> What percentage of hispanics in the US are actually non-white? per the Wikipedia article you cite, 49.7% identify as something other than just White (100% total minus the 50.3% that identify as White.) > According to Wikipedia, less than 3% of hispanics are african american or asian Sure, but what significance do those two specific categories have? Another 1.4% identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 6.0% as multiracial, and 36.7% identify as "Some other race" and are reclassified against their identity as "White" in Census Bureau statistics (given the history of racial identity in Latin America and how race is understood in America, if the the "Some other race" category has to be redistributed to the other categories, it would probably be more reasonably distributed between "multiracial" -- mestizo identity as a distinct racial identity is a latin american phenomenon which is more multiracial than White, but holders of that might well not choose "multiracial" on Census forms -- and "American Indian and Alaskan Native" -- the phrasing of that Census category has exclusive implications that will lead people with identities in indigenous cultures of the Americas outside those of US territories away from choosing it and into "Some other race".

Karunamon 12y ago

That's actually quite clever, wrt. generating everyone who applies a nonsense pseudonym so there's no unconscious bias happening in the pre-selection process.

incision 12y ago
It is, but what I've found a bit funny about the entire recent 'diversity' discussion is that such things aren't already done as a matter of course. We're in an industry where modeling, A/B testing, logging, trending and engineering for redundancy is implicit - except when it comes to hiring apparently. If a load balancer assumed to split 50/50 was actually operating at 80/20 someone would notice. If a particular demographic were bouncing from the landing page at disproportionate rates, someone would figure out why. Both problems would be broken down empirically and solved with a thorough post-mortem published on the company blog. To this point, those same sort of issues applied to hiring have been largely addressed with "We've got to do better" and "The problem is upstream" with barely a word about how things managed to creep so far out of whack to begin with. It's really refreshing to see admission of an actual (potential) problem and some of brains being applied to mitigate it directly.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Just about anything when it comes to social equality is about as far divorced from objectivity as it's humanly possible to be. Too many emotions running hot, too many knee-jerk decisions made. It is refreshing to see an actually objective, fact-based, and mostly well thought out approach to solving the problem.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  As an industry, we used to be in favor of approaching meritocracy as a goal. We'd take pride in using github in lieu of a resume, difficult technical tests, and general attempts at objectivity. Strangely, the pushback against meritocracy as a goal and objective measurement as a method doesn't come from the alleged "good old boy" network. http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-an...
  - pyrocat 12y ago
    The problem with "meritocracy" is that the judging mechanism is inherently vulnerable to bias.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      So therefore we shouldn't try? What should our goal be instead?
      - pyrocat 12y ago
        http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-myth-of-silicon-valley-meritocracy-destroyed-in-one-1307760029 http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-myth-of-silicon-valley-merit... As for what our goal should be instead: equal pay for equal work.
        12y ago
davidbalbert 12y ago
Thanks! I'm actually planning on writing more about what we've learned from anonymizing our applications and from our application process in general in the next few days. I think some of the things we've learned could probably also be applied to hiring at a company with some modification (it's harder to anonymize resumes and emails than it is to anonymize a standard application). Another side effect of anonymized applications is that we get to read a lot of funny application names (Beet Manager, Pastry Magician, Bean Pain).
- pyrocat 12y ago
  Since there is a well documented hiring[1] bias against people with both female-sounding-names and non-white-sounding names, I think anonymized applications is an amazing idea! So many people never make it to even a phone screen because of insidious biases. [1] seriously, so many examples, https://www.google.com/search?q=research+bias+hiring+names https://www.google.com/search?q=research+bias+hiring+names
peterwwillis 12y ago
Honestly, I thought it was embarrassing. The idea that you can't control your feelings enough to judge someone based on merit - even when you're conscious of your own bias - reveals an incredible lack of emotional intelligence. It seems like a gimmick created to soothe the nerves of social justice activists. It was very strange to me that anyone would focus so much on diversity as much as Hacker School has. So I was looking around their site, and I suddenly found the quote that explains their near-obsession: "We make money by helping companies hire our alumni." Suddenly it all makes sense! Companies need to fill diversity quotas, so they turn to Hacker School to get as many women, hispanic/latino and black people as they can.
- techpeace 12y ago
  There's plenty of research pointing to the fact that some racial bias is actually unconscious. Conscious or not, this seem like a perfectly reasonable way to avoid it. Your second conjecture is a bit tin-foil-hat to even address, but here goes: why does it seem strange to you that a prominent organization in the technology community would focus on diversity? Diversity breeds innovation - the more diverse the tech industry, the better it is for all of us (and by all of us, I'm referring to the entirety of the species). Diversity is a worthy goal in and of itself. There doesn't need to be an ulterior motive.

nawitus 12y ago

>The short: We now have need-based living expense grants for black and non-white Latino/a and Hispanic people, as well as people from many other groups traditionally underrepresented in programming. I disagree with this, it's racist.

Zikes 12y ago
There's a pretty significant difference between giving everyone that isn't a white male an advantage and putting everyone that is a white male at a disadvantage. I've no idea what that difference is, exactly, but I do know that you're not allowed to question it under any circumstances.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Eeeeyup. The color of their post would seem to concur with that. You disagree or question and you're immediately voted down to #000001 or thereabouts - nevermind your motives, you're an (insult) (insult) for daring to ask. This is a very simple and pretty inoffensive question, IMO. If your goal is diversity and helping the disadvantaged: Why race instead of socioeconomic status? By the way, they're not wrong. Racial discrimination has a pretty black and white objective definition, folks, and clicking the down arrow on my or any other post does nothing to change that definition. It does, however, make this community look bad and knee-jerk-y. Do think before clicking, please.
  - peterwwillis 12y ago
    "Why <race,gender,etc> instead of socioeconomic status?" Their objective is not to target and assist the people who need the most help in getting into hacker school, like the most socioeconomically challenged people in your example. That would pose a number of problems and concerns. First of all, it would require more outreach. It would also be slower and more difficult, for factors like lack of transportation, communication, or english as a second language, just to name a few. Finally, it would be politically unwise to snub certain groups (feminists, black coalitions, etc) that are much louder and more organized than other groups or individuals, regardless of whether they are in more need. Basically: it's both easier and more attractive to support the most vocal minorities, and it's much harder to support the people that are actually in the most need. And yeah, people tend to vote their feelings here. You will get a million more upvotes by supporting someone's misguided cause than you will by calling out the illogical motivation.

ntonozzi 12y ago

Really impressive program! I'm glad that these guys are encouraging diversity, but focusing on keeping the bar for admission the same across all candidates.

nicholasjbs 12y ago

In anticipation of the comments we've gotten in the past: * We hold everyone to the same admissions standard, regardless of race or gender. The grants are our way to create a more diverse applicant pool. * Hacker School is free for everyone * We admit everyone who applies who we think is a good fit. No man has ever been rejected because a woman was accepted, so there's no way in which this harms men. * We auto-generate pseudonyms for applicants, so our initial application review focuses on people's code and what they write, not their race or gender (I'm one of the founders, and I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about Hacker School.)

dwild 12y ago
Yeah maybe you hold everyone at the same admissions standard but it's not true for accessibility to the grants. Will we reach a society where we hope to be born from a more "diverse" race? That's racism... it's sad that you use racism while believing that you are solving it. Please don't help based on the race, help based on the needs. Edit: Can anyone debate instead of downvote? That's doesn't seems like an healthy way to change opinions...
- dethstar 12y ago
  Okay so, not so long ago they were only providing grants to women. Did I think to myself oh that's sexist? No, you know why? Because I'm pretty sure they provide the grants to people with needs (at the end of the applying form you check a box that says you'd need financial aid). Yes, they're using filters like gender and race first. But if you were a white male, you live in a society where you could probably approach any hacker space or anything else without feeling weird about it, unlike many trans*, queer or black/latin@ people. That's the way they're promoting diversity, by creating spaces where people can feel more welcome/safe, they're in no way denying white people or males.
  - dwild 12y ago
    I did find that sexist, maybe you weren't but I was. I was afraid to talk though... this is the sad part I guess. > you live in a society where you could probably approach any hacker space or anything else without feeling weird about it, unlike many trans*, queer or black/latin@ people. That's what need to be fixed. You don't solve that by giving them money. You solve that by showing we accept them, by stopping people from making them feel weird. A strict policy against racism is what's needed and being vocal about it. > they're in no way denying white people or males. That's making the issue here way more complicated to talk about for no reason. You need to draw a line between the school and the grant. I'm not saying they are racist for the school admission, I'm saying they are racist for their school grant. They are denying white people that school grant.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

Their evidence for lack of bias in their process is pretty weak: "Men and women are invited to interview, advanced to a second interview, and admitted at the same rates." All this means is that the person doing interview #1, interview #2 and admission decision are biased at the same rate. It doesn't mean that rate is zero. The proper test - compare admission rates against a truly objective and unbiased measure like a final exam (particularly if students anonymize their names). If gender information does not leak to the grader, bias is impossible. [edit: Wow, I've clearly made a blatant failure of reasoning - apparently my knowledge of statistics is far less than I thought. I hope someone can explain my error - I'm not afraid of math, so don't skip the details.]

nicholasjbs 12y ago
What we mean by "at the same rate" is that these rates are the same as the rates that men and women apply. For example, about 65% of our applications are currently from men, and men are about 65% of the people we invite to interview, advance to the next round, and ultimately admit.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  This is only evidence of lack of bias if you know the quality of both pools is equal. If there was a quality gap between pools, this would be evidence that you are biased. I reiterate - if you truly want to measure bias on factor X, you need to compare to a metric that is blind to X or otherwise known to be unbiased.
  - swampangel 12y ago
    They did point out that the first round selection is done based on anonymized applications. It might not be not perfect, but if round 1 is blind to X, and rounds 2 and 3 admit people in similar ratios to round 1, it sounds pretty good to me.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago

uniclaude 12y ago

Diversity in our field is a hard issue to tackle, and it's great to see people trying to find solutions. This said, I'd like to see the results, as I would believe the diversity problem is not as much with hackerschool as it is with the pool of applicants.

lordsheepy 12y ago

I am so happy to see this program in place. We all talk about how most problems we have with diversity come from upstream, and now a school is directly addressing it. An objective solution to an objective problem.

xienze 12y ago

I really don't understand this obsession with diversity in tech, particularly the oft-repeated mantra of "the team as a whole improves when there's more ethnic/gender diversity", as if being black or genderqueer gives you special insight into distributed computing algorithms. This seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. I certainly don't think you hear a lot about this in India, China, Japan, etc. And yet, their companies still manage to function.

pyrocat 12y ago
Diversity can only improve a system. The article specifically addresses that point.
- xienze 12y ago
  To some extent yes, to some extent no. I would argue that the reason a country like Sweden is considered a model for the rest of the world to follow is largely because the homogeneous population makes it easy to push forward with very progressive policies. Contrast that with the US, where something like nationalized healthcare is basically a pipedream because of so many competing interests (or diversity of viewpoints, if you will).
  - pyrocat 12y ago
    Your counterexample relies on a lot of claims... A) Sweden is considered a model for the rest of the world to follow. B) Sweden has a homogeneous population. C) That homogeneous population is the primary reason for Sweden's success. D) Nationalized healthcare in the US is a pipedream. E) It's a pipedream specifically because of a "diversity of viewpoints". There have been books written on why nationalized heathcare is hard to achieve in the US. It's a very complex issue that is inherently entangled with both the mechanics of the US political system and the US media. Blaming it on a "diversity of viewpoints" does a disservice to the issue.
  - techpeace 12y ago
    Great point! There was this group in Germany after the Great War that had a similar notions about how great it might be to eliminate a tad bit of the diversity in their country. You know, to help make things happen! I suggest you consult Wikipedia for the result of their efforts.

sauere 12y ago

If you are someone that buys in to all this diversity nonsense, please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dRt00ufp4 I am prepared for the downvotes, keep them coming.

wismer 12y ago
oh, please. No one wants to engage with a self-proclaimed martyr.

aclockheart 12y ago

Any '-ISM' CANNOT be a real '-ism' if does not combine prejudice (which is the only thing people think it is) PLUS power (the social, cultural, and political heft which usually underlies the ability of prejudice to keep or enforce -isms in place) http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power Until folks understand this primary principle, most of you arguing for this "anti-white and asian" bias will simply be tools of the status quo. Equality does NOT mean treating all people equally, WHEN ALL PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE SAME FOOTING, and don't have the same political power (which is conferred from our social and political system).