Diversity is not a good thing

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I hear what you're saying but I don't think it's "irrelevant". I believe the more diverse a nation is, the broader the political opinions and as a result there's more option and perspective. No party should monopolise on power and the only way to achieve this goal is to assume a position of diversity.

Again with the assumption that only differing ethnic/religious backgrounds and sex/sexual preference are valid forms of diversity. Remember that woman who said that a room full of white men can still be incredibly diverse, and all of the s**t she got for that? Yeah, she had a point. And on the flip side of that, it's entirely possible to have a room full of people covering the entire spectrum of human skin colours, and yet have complete homogeneity of thought.

Short people probably have life experiences unique to them when compared to people of average height and up. Same for very overweight people. Same for vegans. Left-handed people. Colour-blind people. Do we need quotas along these vectors? I mean, diversity, right?

Honest question: a white person who grew up in, say, an African nation and moved to America or Europe Vs. a person visibly of African heritage born and raised in the west. Which would be more interesting to hire in the name of diversity?

The African heritage raised in the west. Note that I don't at all claim that a white person raised in Africa has no credibility or hasn't suffered poverty or a hard life, but there is a reason to my claim; an African man may have been raised in impoverished conditions in the climate of hostile nations, warring, corruption, etc., and then fled to the west where he had a child. That child was raised in western culture and assumed to have a steady life yet may have suffered reverberating effects of their parents poverty and possible illegal immigration. That child is the product of a rich and scarring background, but is assumed to not be due to their current position.

What's more is that if this were the US in particular, that child could be facing a streak of systemic racism that would be taxing to anybody.

This situation, versus a white man from, let's say, South Africa where white people are usually protected and live rich lives seems like a no brainer to me.

However, if we were to talk strictly about their backgrounds and there were more information on them as people, it would be easier to define.

Ultimately, my point is that just because a black man lives in a rich society, doesn't mean he's rich and doesn't mean he hasn't suffered (or isn't still suffering now) the remnants of the past. Like I stated in my comment, people like this need to have their voices heard and fill positions in political office or else their stories may go forgotten.

So, literally only prejudice and preconcieved notions matter? "This person could, might, maybe, potentially have these experiences because they have this skin colour or the other". And your examples are a little self-serving; suppose the white person grew up in Rwanda as the child of aid workers trying to stop the genocides , while the black person is the child of an emigrated Ethiopian doctor and grew up as the child of a doctor in the west. My Point is that if these were the candidates for some relevant and coveted position, a racial quota would favour the latter with no justification besides optics.

What I'm getting at is that people advocating artificially elevating women and various minorities have this idea that the more boxes people tick on the diversity-scale, the more valuable their contribution will be and the more unique a perspective they must have, but they fail to arrive at the logical end-Point of that, which is individualism. But that's another thing I've heard is just an alt-right, white supremacy code word. Or something.

I think talk of "quotas" usually misses the boat. It's rare to see someone actually talk about quotas for things like recruitment or academic intakes, and indeed I think it's illegal in most countries with any sort of equal opportunities legislation. The exceptions that come to mind are the US and South Africa, which both ended racial segregation relatively recently.

Instead, people talk about things like equal opportunities. In larger organisations, they might assess that by seeing whether they reflect the wider population of the areas where they operate or recruit from. If they're falling short in one area, they may decide to take steps to address that, but this is done in ways like making sure that you're sending out the right signals, examining whether you have any hostile workplace practices, and maybe putting quotas in for interviewees, or accepting interviewees who meet the minimum requirements but wouldn't otherwise make the shortlist.

So why a focus on race, sex, gender, nationality, age, sexual orientation, disability, and so forth, rather than veganism or left-handedness? Well, simply because we know that these categories have a long and continuing history of experiencing discrimination and being denied equal opportunities. There is not the same discrimination against the left handed. However, note that colour blindness would be considered a disability and is protected in most countries with equal opportunities legislation.

Ultimately, as liberals we value both equal opportunities and inclusive institutions, which are the rights of all people and essential for a well-functioning society. If we don't have diversity then in most cases something is failing and that needs to be addressed.

A few things: Left handed people did face systemic discrimination. Not very long ago they were made to sit on their left hand and write with their right in school, because writing is done with the right hand and that was that. Can't imagine that helped with academic performance. But that's a digression: just another aspect that I don't think we need to artificially boost people in the name of diversity.


As for quotas: I don't think it's quite as small a problem as you're making it out to be. There was an entire chemistry department that had to shut down after it failed to accept enough women (because they had no female applicants). Screw the guys who wanted a degree, right? The BBC had some fairly prestigious (paid, I think) internships that they arbitrarily decided had to go to non-whites. And don't let's forget about the bruhaha that Justin Trudeau made about his 50% women cabinet.


There is a liberal case to be made for not excluding a priori any of these categories of people, and extending equal opportunities to everyone. I'd even support scholarships and similar for people in precarious economic situations. But not on the basis on sex or race on the assumption that they must be disadvantaged. Top-down social engineering based on ideas of adjusting for past injustice with current injustice the other way is not a liberal idea.

You didn't provide enough context for me to develop an accurate analysis. My scenarios are what I believe would be more likely along the lines of reality (I think i can safely assume most African Americans are likely descendants of slaves, so similar situations abound).

I think what it comes down to is that African descent has negative attachment globally, and that issues like systemic racism are automatic issues regardless of wealth or position. For example, black people in America have been reported to police for trying to get into their own houses, mistaken for burglars or something of the like. This isn't really rare, either, and it's something they need to face up to every day. The underlying hot topic for African Americans right now is, "What will happen when I leave my house today?".

To be fair, we all ask these questions (especially us as ASD's), but there's a layer of fear and threat for these kinds of backgrounds. So even if, in your example, this character grew up under rich parents, he would still face problems. More so in the fact that he could be expected to do it independent of his parents' wealth. I don't think any workplaces have quotas like you claim, though. They promote diversity but not absolute enforced by the numbers quotas. I don't see more black people than white in my university, but they still have an equal opportunities act (or something to that tune). It ultimately depends on experience and education, equality or no.

I boiled it down to essentials to demonstrate the principal difference in our thinking, individualism vs. collectivism. I made a case for assessing individuals on their actual merit, and you came back with "yeah, but statistically, the black guy is more likely to come from a less advantaged background, and (assuming that this would be advantageous for the position in question) we should favour him based on his skin colour and regardless of whether or not he individually actually does". Do you see how this "people as groups" analysis doesn't hold up?

If the only good thing that you can say about a company is that it prides itself on its 'diversity' in hiring, retention of personnel, and promotion from within, then you are implying that the products made by the company, or the services that it provides, are not worth mentioning.

People should be hired, retained, and promoted based solely on their willingness and ability to do the job, and NOT on the basis of their Age, Disability, Gender Identity, Genetics, National Origin, Pregnancy (or not), Political Affiliation, Race, Skin Color, Religion, or Sex.

"Affirmative Action" is not "Equal Employment Opportunity".

There was a big hoopla a while ago in New York (I think, one of the big american cities) about a female firefighter who got hired despite not passing one of the crucial physical exams. She got hired anyway, because she was both a woman and an ethnic minority (latin american, I believe). The two people most upset we're the two female firefighters already working in that district, because she got a pass despite not being up to snuff.


Things like affirmative action and deversity hiring makes it so that women and minorities who reach coveted positions always have to second guess themselves and question whether or not they actually earned their position.

In other companies, I've noticed that co-workers will also question the abilities of an "Affirmative-Action Hire", and will be unlikely to accept them as members of the team. While Affirmative Action (AA) may work for the benefit of the individual hired under AA, it often works for the general detriment of employee morale (unless everyone was hired under AA, of course).

Unfortunately, anyone who is not a middle-class white male with a university degree is often perceived as having been hired under AA, whether or not they were actually hired for their education, skills, and willingness to work. This perception is changing, although s-l-o-w-l-y..

"Since customer is always right", what should you do when they mis-gender you and want to talk to someone else about a difficult technical issue? Should it matter if you are the only one with the background to provide a competent answer?

It took a really long time for me to handle this sort of stuff in the work place. But, I can now handle it as well as anyone else in the office.

Stop right there. Anyone who actually works in retail knows this to be a false statement.

HOWEVER, every corporate entity also knows that satisfied customers are the lifeblood of business. So, with that in mind, individuals who want to keep their jobs will often cite this homily as a means of placating their urge to beat the living snot out of someone who really deserves it.

If you are being snubbed for your gender, then obviously the customer is wrong and you have every reason to speak up about it; HOWEVER, if you want to keep your job, you will smile, say 'yes', and call in the manager to service the customer.

It sucks, but that's the reality.

Am well aware. That's deep in the past now, unlike, for example, sexism and racism.



I tried to find this online, but all I found were dozens of examples of chemistry departments shutting down due to general lack of interest and rising costs, particularly in the mid-00s.

Not arbitrarily at all, it's a deliberate attempt to counteract the indirectly racist cultural processes that make it much harder for ethnic minorities to get a job at the BBC by providing them with extra training and a foot in the door.

OK, I find it rather hard to take claims of "liberal principles" seriously once someone complains about a liberal leader achieving a representative gender balance. A 50% women cabinet is exactly what we should be expecting from all our leaders and is a sign of meritocracy.



It's neither an assumption, nor "past" injustice, nor current "injustice" the other way.

I can only speak for Britain here, but in this country ethnic minorities experience less social mobility despite better educational achievement. Ethnic minorities are hugely under-represented throughout the upper echelons of British society. Amongst judges, and the police, the [ur=https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/ethnicity-civil-service]Senior Civil Service[/url] (there has never been an ethnic minority Permanent Secretary, and the only department where the SCS reflects the nation is the Department for Health), in boardrooms and classrooms (particularly headteachers, where only 1% are BAME!) and newsrooms (both BBC and ITN), and of course in Parliament, where current representation in the Commons is half what you'd expect in a meritocracy and that's despite David Cameron taking active steps to diversify the Parliamentary Conservative Party.

Similar story in America - racial gaps remain pervasive, even accounting for class.

Too true.

Decent employers will support their employees when they stand up for themselves and throw out the odd bigot - a happy employee is worth much more than a horrible customer. Poor employers might not. Even at good employers, I've known colleagues for whom sexual harassment from customers was effectively a fact of the job, and it was only if it crossed certain lines that they could do anything about it.

Trudeau isn't a liberal. This is another case of that whole "in america, everything between Republican and Communist is called Liberal". Trudeau is a Progressive. Not in the sense of a person who believes in progress, but rather in the sense that he has a preconcieved notion of what the future should look like, and wants to heavy-handedly reshape the present into becoming that future.

And also, no, it's not what you should expect, and no, it isn't a sign of a meritocracy. Women are the majority of voters, but the minority of politicians. The more you remove obstacles for people, the more they will follow their natural inclinations (the "Norweigan Gender Paradox"), and I'd like to think Canada is modern enough that there are no more obstacles for a woman to get into politics than there is for a man, yet on average fewer women choose to do so. Now, maybe there are some details I'm missing; maybe Trudeau had an unusually large pool of female politicians to draw from and already knew he could make it work and just decided to PR the hell out of that fact. But what it looked like from here was that he a priori stated that he would make his cabinet 50% women with all other factors being secondary. Now, I couldn't find a figure for Canada, but in the US 19% of politicians are female. Assuming Canada is a bit higher isn't much of a stretch, so I'll make a guess at 25%. So if Trudeau has a pool of 200 people to draw from to make a cabinet of 100 (I don't know how big these numbers are supposed to be, it's just an illustration) then 50 women are guaranteed a seat and the men have to compete to be in the top third for a chance to be a part of the other 50.

This isn't something these women achieved, this is something he bestowed upon them like a benevolent monarch. For someone who calls himself a feminist, it's curiously...patriarchal.

And it's rich that you call me on talking about liberal principles when this is the second time you express support for top-down social engineering.


And British politics is messy and weird, with slightly disturbing remnants from times of aristocracy and churchly influence. I know all to well that I don't understand it, and there may well be sh***y attitudes pervasive there. But I find the assertion that Britain is just racist on all the levels, and that explains all of these things, somewhat hard to believe . For instance, is it possible that ethnic minorities travel to Britain to study at one of a multitude of world-famous institutions of higher learning, and then return to where they come from and experience loads more social mobility than they would have experienced had they stayed in Britain?