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Diversity is also good. There should be a balance There's a huge assumption built into this, about what dimensions of diversity are virtuous. Our society place

Diversity is also good. There should be a balance There's a huge assumption built into this, about what dimensions of diversity are virtuous. Our society places great value on showing diversity on scales of gender and race, and to a lesser extent also on religion and more recently, gender identity. Why are these demographics the ones for which we should be endeavoring to ensure diversity? Why shouldn't we strive to find a balance between, say, people from an urban background versus those from a rural background? Or people with fluency in various languages? Or "morning people" versus "night people", or those who prefer to file things versus those who stack papers on their desk, or left- versus right-handed? Having variations along all these dimensions, and countless others, would also bring greater variation in world view, and thus presumably improve the pool of ideas that could drive their work. So why is it that seeking diversity in race and sex is paramount, while finding someone from out in the countryside is never even thought of?

stared 11y ago
In Soviet Union class background played a role (worker background was a plus). Moreover, many countries had Jewish quota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota) - very often at the percent of the Jews in their population. But what is striking, we now consider such quotas as blatant discrimination, rather than good affirmative actions for the (really or allegedly) underprivileged groups.
tfinniga 11y ago
I think the general principle is that societal decision makers should be roughly representative of the people whose lives are impacted by the decisions. Of course it's possible to take this too far. As for why race and gender are considered important, I think it's probably because they are easy to measure, and there has been a lot of discrimination. Most of the other demographics are probably pretty evenly represented? I've never heard of someone getting passed over for promotion or housing because they were left-handed. The city/country split is a good point. There is some provision for that in many political systems, with different geographical regions being represented based on population, but it's far from a perfect system.

stared 11y ago

In Soviet Union class background played a role (worker background was a plus). Moreover, many countries had Jewish quota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota) - very often at the percent of the Jews in their population. But what is striking, we now consider such quotas as blatant discrimination, rather than good affirmative actions for the (really or allegedly) underprivileged groups.

tfinniga 11y ago

I think the general principle is that societal decision makers should be roughly representative of the people whose lives are impacted by the decisions. Of course it's possible to take this too far. As for why race and gender are considered important, I think it's probably because they are easy to measure, and there has been a lot of discrimination. Most of the other demographics are probably pretty evenly represented? I've never heard of someone getting passed over for promotion or housing because they were left-handed. The city/country split is a good point. There is some provision for that in many political systems, with different geographical regions being represented based on population, but it's far from a perfect system.