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I find it fascinating that this new wave of post-modernist "equalism" demands segmenting and dissecting every group into ever smaller minorities. Black, Asian,

by FD3SA 12y ago

I find it fascinating that this new wave of post-modernist "equalism" demands segmenting and dissecting every group into ever smaller minorities. Black, Asian, Latino, Gay Asian, Lesbian Latino, Hetero Black Woman, etc. Ignoring for a minute that post-modernism is an absurd philosophy based on the denial of empirical science, how is this in any way productive? Would it not make more sense to focus on an employee's skills and experience, rather than their genetic and ethnic backgrounds? It is increasingly obvious due to the irrationality of these initiatives that this is indeed a form of political posturing, and nothing more. Ironically, a community of entrepreneurs such as HN would pay the highest price for ignoring empirical evidence in favor of political posturing. Small companies can't trade political posturing for special treatment by the government. That practice is firmly reserved for established monopolies such as Amazon.

throwaway5752 12y ago
Ignoring for a minute that you're the one that inexplicably brought post-modernism into the discussion (and even more inexplicably tie it to anti-empiricism)... What empirically shows diversity is bad? Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science. Empirically speaking, intelligence differences between those groups is somewhere between highly disputed and nonexistent. Therefore, a well-managed company would seek to exploit that arbitrage opportunity. edit: Empirically, good working environments improve business results. Most decent people see the benefit in a diverse workforce in furthering that goal. And it would be beneficial if it just weeded out the types of personalities that are strongly averse to diversity.
- FD3SA 12y ago
  Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science. And this is wrong, why? Post-modernism is at the heart of the entire "equalist" movement precisely because it ignores the scientific process of modernism. It begins with an a-priori assumption: racial and sexual representation in all disciplines must be in proportion to the population. If the representations are even slightly off, there is discrimination, racism and sexism. Proponents of this line of thought then look for statistics and conjure up conspiracy theories to explain these deviations from their own asserted optimum. This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific reasoning. Unfortunately, scientific literacy is a rarity in the modern world which was built by it.
  - waps 12y ago
    > This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific reasoning. Not at all. You're only giving part of the story ... racial/sexual imbalances -> racism -> laws -> money transfers into specific (small) ethnic groups. (and lots of things that come down to money transfers) So how exactly is this line of thinking absurd ? It provides a clear advantage to minorities to fight for these kinds of "absurdities".
- Torgo 12y ago
  >What empirically shows diversity is bad? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and_trust_within_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and... Lower trust, lower cooperation, lower confidence in government, fewer friends, lower reported happiness.
emotionalcode 12y ago
I agree absolutely. Categories like these imply discretely definable differences across something uniform. That which initially begins as a uniform definition (human beings, mammals, things that have consciousness, individuals, individual life) is then examined for 'properties', in which a collection of 'properties' define not only a label, but implicitly defined, correlative associations to that label (cultural assumptions). I think that society might eventually find itself moving past linguistic categorization to process absolute information about reality, if the computational calculation of lots and lots of data about the individual becomes so individually defined, so complex, and so multidimensional, that words can not express meaningful information - both generally and specifically, because it is derived from abstracted layers of object data points [data] and the abstract relations that structure and organize them [composition of theory]. Generally speaking, we need the ability to compose correlations from data in order to infer information about day to day things. This is generally called common sense, or rational knowledge. Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it's totally irrational. As a ---, I don't see the point in companies pointing out how diverse they are. All I care about is how much I'm going to learn about code, math, and computer science. I want the assurance that I will be treated equally. Otherwise, it's like trying to get a pendulum to stop swinging by pushing it equally hard, the opposing way.

by FD3SA 12y ago

throwaway5752 12y ago

Ignoring for a minute that you're the one that inexplicably brought post-modernism into the discussion (and even more inexplicably tie it to anti-empiricism)... What empirically shows diversity is bad? Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science. Empirically speaking, intelligence differences between those groups is somewhere between highly disputed and nonexistent. Therefore, a well-managed company would seek to exploit that arbitrage opportunity. edit: Empirically, good working environments improve business results. Most decent people see the benefit in a diverse workforce in furthering that goal. And it would be beneficial if it just weeded out the types of personalities that are strongly averse to diversity.

FD3SA 12y ago
Empirically speaking, certain groups are underrepresented in hard science. And this is wrong, why? Post-modernism is at the heart of the entire "equalist" movement precisely because it ignores the scientific process of modernism. It begins with an a-priori assumption: racial and sexual representation in all disciplines must be in proportion to the population. If the representations are even slightly off, there is discrimination, racism and sexism. Proponents of this line of thought then look for statistics and conjure up conspiracy theories to explain these deviations from their own asserted optimum. This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific reasoning. Unfortunately, scientific literacy is a rarity in the modern world which was built by it.
- waps 12y ago
  > This line of thought is absurd to anyone with basic training in scientific reasoning. Not at all. You're only giving part of the story ... racial/sexual imbalances -> racism -> laws -> money transfers into specific (small) ethnic groups. (and lots of things that come down to money transfers) So how exactly is this line of thinking absurd ? It provides a clear advantage to minorities to fight for these kinds of "absurdities".
Torgo 12y ago
>What empirically shows diversity is bad? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and_trust_within_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and... Lower trust, lower cooperation, lower confidence in government, fewer friends, lower reported happiness.

emotionalcode 12y ago

I agree absolutely. Categories like these imply discretely definable differences across something uniform. That which initially begins as a uniform definition (human beings, mammals, things that have consciousness, individuals, individual life) is then examined for 'properties', in which a collection of 'properties' define not only a label, but implicitly defined, correlative associations to that label (cultural assumptions). I think that society might eventually find itself moving past linguistic categorization to process absolute information about reality, if the computational calculation of lots and lots of data about the individual becomes so individually defined, so complex, and so multidimensional, that words can not express meaningful information - both generally and specifically, because it is derived from abstracted layers of object data points [data] and the abstract relations that structure and organize them [composition of theory]. Generally speaking, we need the ability to compose correlations from data in order to infer information about day to day things. This is generally called common sense, or rational knowledge. Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it's totally irrational. As a ---, I don't see the point in companies pointing out how diverse they are. All I care about is how much I'm going to learn about code, math, and computer science. I want the assurance that I will be treated equally. Otherwise, it's like trying to get a pendulum to stop swinging by pushing it equally hard, the opposing way.