Your argument is cogent, and yet I find the overwhelming majority of calls for diversity to be somehow underhanded. I suspect that your true motives are invisible to you. Consider this: is your motivation for valuing diversity really a product of your philosopher’s thirst for pure, pristine knowledge, or do you just want every social group you see as important to be loaded with demographics which support your political faction? (Think carefully—the truth might not be obvious from casual introspection; we are masters at self-delusion when politics is at play.)
I say this because I cannot help but notice that the cry of “Diversity!” is invoked exclusively by those who are trying to import to a group those demographics which tend to offer political support to the left. What’s more, the frequency which with this cry is invoked correlates positively with the degree to which that demographic supports the left. Consider the following data from the 2012 presidential election:
Whites voted 39% for Obama, and 59% for Romney.
Blacks voted 93% for Obama, and 6% for Romney.
Hispanics voted 71% for Obama, and 27% for Romney.
Asians voted 73% for Obama, and 26% for Romney.
When I encounter someone singing the praises of diversity, I more often find that they are lobbying for Blacks than Hispanics, rarely for Asians, and never for Whites. Blacks offer overwhelming support to the left, Hispanics are more lukewarm, Asians’ support proportionally resembles that of Hispanics’ (but they are a smaller group overall so it is less important for the left to signal respect for their faction), and Whites support the right. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Now consider gender (same source as above):
Men voted 45% for Obama, 52% for Romney.
Women voted 55% for Obama, 44% for Romney.
Again, women support the left and men do not. Again, the cry of “Diversity!” is invoked for those trying to add women to a group, and rarely for men. I seem to encounter such arguments invoked as often for women as I do for racial minorities. While women do not favor the left as heavily as Hispanics or Blacks do, they are a larger group than all racial minorities combined, and so it is highly important for the left to signal respect for this demographic, and to ensure that they occupy positions of prestige and influence.
The overwhelming majority of people shouting, “Diversity!” are not motivated by epistemology at all. They are subconsciously (sometimes even consciously) making a power grab. That is all. You can tell by who, exactly, they are trying to include and in what they are trying to include them. For one, they are always lobbying for a demographic on the grounds that said demographic will bring additional knowledge to a discussion, but not for someone from a specific field of expertise which would be relevant to said discussion. There is likely to be more intellectual diversity between an exclusively middle class white male group comprising a physicist, a lawyer, a mathematician, a programmer, a chemist, a politician, an economist, and a businessman than there is between a demographically diverse group of eight people randomly selected from the general population. And you regularly see the pro-diversity crowd lobbying for their favored demographics to occupy positions in which being demographically distinct cannot possibly be an advantage, such as in the hard sciences. I find the champions of diversity disingenuous in the extreme.
the cry of “Diversity!” is invoked exclusively by those who are trying to import to a group those demographics which tend to offer political support to the left.
I wouldn’t mind “importing a demographics which tends to support X” assuming that we continue using the existing filters on content, and require rational comments and avoiding mindkilling politics. The difference between 55% and 44% seems unimportant, because we don’t use majority voting in LW anyway. It’s not like a 5% advantage would make someone win or lose an election. Unless we really lose our basic community values, it wouldn’t even mean that the minority group would automatically get negative karma for every comment.
I am more concerned about “importing a subset of a demographics, selected by its support for X”. As a strawman example, by suggesting that we need more Obama-voting women, but we actually don’t care about Romney-voting women. As a more realistic example, by trying to optimize LW for women from the feminist / social justice warrior cluster, instead of for women in general. (Because, you know, there are also women who prefer free speech, and some changes would make LW even less attractive for them.)
Therefore I think new demographics should be invited here, but in a way that does not signal preference for a political group X. Specifically, we should invite women, not feminists. (If some of those women who come happen to be feminists, that’s perfectly okay. As long as they are equally invited if they are libertarian, conservative, neoreactionary, or whatever.) If we want to invite the demographics, let’s really invite a demographics, instead of making a power grab for a political group X in the name of inviting the demographics.
That would allow a “getting out the vote in the white sector of town” sort of abuse, where either
Someone deliberately invites group X because it’s correlated with group Y, which they really want to invite but which they’re not supposed to, or
Someone invites group X without any deliberate intentions of doing so to increase the population of Y, but they happen to be a Y themselves and memetic evolution has led Y to adopt that as a strategy for spreading.
I have said nothing of the left promoting the well-being of minorities, and I have said nothing of why minorities support the left. I have said that the left tries to place left-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence (which is not always the same thing as actually helping those demographics, although helping them may be a side effect), and that leftists try to populate their social circles with those same demographics. Obviously, the right tries to place right-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence as well. For that matter, anyone who identifies with faction X tries to place likely X-ists in positions of power and influence. However, an attempt to do such a thing rarely feels like a power grab from the inside, regardless of your political orientation. Inside the mind of a leftist, a power grab of this form feels like promoting the noble cause of diversity.
I hear you saying that women and men are measurably different in their political and social views; and that whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are likewise different in their views.
(I broadly agree, although I think you exaggerate on the political-party issue specifically — and indeed to the point of logical inconsistency. You note that 45% of men voted for a center-left candidate, and then say that “women support the left and men do not”. These statements are logical contraries) and cannot both be true.)
However then I hear you saying that there is more intellectual diversity among “an exclusively middle class white male group” than among a demographically diverse group. This statement is a direct contradiction of your (correct) point that different demographic groups are measurably different in their views.
Of course, you’ve read my above comment and so you already know that I think there is a good reason that reasonable people from different backgrounds can arrive at different views; namely that they are in possession of different information about the world.
There would likely be more intellectual diversity among a demographically diverse group randomly selected from the general population than there would be among a homogenous group randomly selected from one demographic within that population. However, if the demographically homogenous group was comprised of specialists of diverse fields of study, they would likely be more intellectually diverse than the demographically diverse group selected from the general population.
What I said was, “There is likely to be more intellectual diversity between an exclusively middle class white male group comprising a physicist, a lawyer, a mathematician, a programmer, a chemist, a politician, an economist, and a businessman than there is between a demographically diverse group of eight people randomly selected from the general population.” Please pay attention to the bits in bold.
And the qualities of supporting the left or right are not binaries, they are things that come in degrees, like a thing being hot or cold. When I say, “women support the left and men do not,” I mean that more women than men support the left and more men than women support the right. Taken completely out of context, I suppose “women support the left and men do not” could indicate that I meant every woman supports the left and every man supports the right, but that is obvious nonsense. You are twisting my words to fit the most absurd possible interpretation.
Your argument is cogent, and yet I find the overwhelming majority of calls for diversity to be somehow underhanded. I suspect that your true motives are invisible to you. Consider this: is your motivation for valuing diversity really a product of your philosopher’s thirst for pure, pristine knowledge, or do you just want every social group you see as important to be loaded with demographics which support your political faction? (Think carefully—the truth might not be obvious from casual introspection; we are masters at self-delusion when politics is at play.)
I say this because I cannot help but notice that the cry of “Diversity!” is invoked exclusively by those who are trying to import to a group those demographics which tend to offer political support to the left. What’s more, the frequency which with this cry is invoked correlates positively with the degree to which that demographic supports the left. Consider the following data from the 2012 presidential election:
Whites voted 39% for Obama, and 59% for Romney. Blacks voted 93% for Obama, and 6% for Romney. Hispanics voted 71% for Obama, and 27% for Romney. Asians voted 73% for Obama, and 26% for Romney.
Source
When I encounter someone singing the praises of diversity, I more often find that they are lobbying for Blacks than Hispanics, rarely for Asians, and never for Whites. Blacks offer overwhelming support to the left, Hispanics are more lukewarm, Asians’ support proportionally resembles that of Hispanics’ (but they are a smaller group overall so it is less important for the left to signal respect for their faction), and Whites support the right. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Now consider gender (same source as above):
Men voted 45% for Obama, 52% for Romney. Women voted 55% for Obama, 44% for Romney.
Again, women support the left and men do not. Again, the cry of “Diversity!” is invoked for those trying to add women to a group, and rarely for men. I seem to encounter such arguments invoked as often for women as I do for racial minorities. While women do not favor the left as heavily as Hispanics or Blacks do, they are a larger group than all racial minorities combined, and so it is highly important for the left to signal respect for this demographic, and to ensure that they occupy positions of prestige and influence.
The overwhelming majority of people shouting, “Diversity!” are not motivated by epistemology at all. They are subconsciously (sometimes even consciously) making a power grab. That is all. You can tell by who, exactly, they are trying to include and in what they are trying to include them. For one, they are always lobbying for a demographic on the grounds that said demographic will bring additional knowledge to a discussion, but not for someone from a specific field of expertise which would be relevant to said discussion. There is likely to be more intellectual diversity between an exclusively middle class white male group comprising a physicist, a lawyer, a mathematician, a programmer, a chemist, a politician, an economist, and a businessman than there is between a demographically diverse group of eight people randomly selected from the general population. And you regularly see the pro-diversity crowd lobbying for their favored demographics to occupy positions in which being demographically distinct cannot possibly be an advantage, such as in the hard sciences. I find the champions of diversity disingenuous in the extreme.
I wouldn’t mind “importing a demographics which tends to support X” assuming that we continue using the existing filters on content, and require rational comments and avoiding mindkilling politics. The difference between 55% and 44% seems unimportant, because we don’t use majority voting in LW anyway. It’s not like a 5% advantage would make someone win or lose an election. Unless we really lose our basic community values, it wouldn’t even mean that the minority group would automatically get negative karma for every comment.
I am more concerned about “importing a subset of a demographics, selected by its support for X”. As a strawman example, by suggesting that we need more Obama-voting women, but we actually don’t care about Romney-voting women. As a more realistic example, by trying to optimize LW for women from the feminist / social justice warrior cluster, instead of for women in general. (Because, you know, there are also women who prefer free speech, and some changes would make LW even less attractive for them.)
Therefore I think new demographics should be invited here, but in a way that does not signal preference for a political group X. Specifically, we should invite women, not feminists. (If some of those women who come happen to be feminists, that’s perfectly okay. As long as they are equally invited if they are libertarian, conservative, neoreactionary, or whatever.) If we want to invite the demographics, let’s really invite a demographics, instead of making a power grab for a political group X in the name of inviting the demographics.
(Reply to old post.)
That would allow a “getting out the vote in the white sector of town” sort of abuse, where either
Someone deliberately invites group X because it’s correlated with group Y, which they really want to invite but which they’re not supposed to, or
Someone invites group X without any deliberate intentions of doing so to increase the population of Y, but they happen to be a Y themselves and memetic evolution has led Y to adopt that as a strategy for spreading.
At first I agreed, but, well...
Consider these two theories:
How would you tell which of these theories is true?
I have said nothing of the left promoting the well-being of minorities, and I have said nothing of why minorities support the left. I have said that the left tries to place left-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence (which is not always the same thing as actually helping those demographics, although helping them may be a side effect), and that leftists try to populate their social circles with those same demographics. Obviously, the right tries to place right-leaning demographics in positions of power and influence as well. For that matter, anyone who identifies with faction X tries to place likely X-ists in positions of power and influence. However, an attempt to do such a thing rarely feels like a power grab from the inside, regardless of your political orientation. Inside the mind of a leftist, a power grab of this form feels like promoting the noble cause of diversity.
in what way are those theories exclusive of each other?
His claim, to my understanding, is that the first theory completely explains the interaction between minorities and liberal politicians.
I hear you saying that women and men are measurably different in their political and social views; and that whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are likewise different in their views.
(I broadly agree, although I think you exaggerate on the political-party issue specifically — and indeed to the point of logical inconsistency. You note that 45% of men voted for a center-left candidate, and then say that “women support the left and men do not”. These statements are logical contraries) and cannot both be true.)
However then I hear you saying that there is more intellectual diversity among “an exclusively middle class white male group” than among a demographically diverse group. This statement is a direct contradiction of your (correct) point that different demographic groups are measurably different in their views.
Of course, you’ve read my above comment and so you already know that I think there is a good reason that reasonable people from different backgrounds can arrive at different views; namely that they are in possession of different information about the world.
With a bit more charitable interpretation, I think what we are talking about here is within-group variability vs between-group differences.
There would likely be more intellectual diversity among a demographically diverse group randomly selected from the general population than there would be among a homogenous group randomly selected from one demographic within that population. However, if the demographically homogenous group was comprised of specialists of diverse fields of study, they would likely be more intellectually diverse than the demographically diverse group selected from the general population.
What I said was, “There is likely to be more intellectual diversity between an exclusively middle class white male group comprising a physicist, a lawyer, a mathematician, a programmer, a chemist, a politician, an economist, and a businessman than there is between a demographically diverse group of eight people randomly selected from the general population.” Please pay attention to the bits in bold.
And the qualities of supporting the left or right are not binaries, they are things that come in degrees, like a thing being hot or cold. When I say, “women support the left and men do not,” I mean that more women than men support the left and more men than women support the right. Taken completely out of context, I suppose “women support the left and men do not” could indicate that I meant every woman supports the left and every man supports the right, but that is obvious nonsense. You are twisting my words to fit the most absurd possible interpretation.
Men are already overrepresented on LW.