I am actually interested in, among other things, whether a lack of diversity is a >functional impairment for a group. I feel strongly that it is, but I can’t back up that >claim with evidence strong enough to match my belief. For a group such as Less >Wrong, I have to ask what we miss due to a lack of diversity.
To little memetic diversity is clearly a bad thing, for the same reason too little genetic variability. However how much and what kind are optimal depends on the environment.
Also have you considered the possibility that diversity for you is not a means to an end but a value in itself? In that case unless it conflicts with more any other values you would perhaps consider more important values you don’t need any justification for it. I’m quite honest with myself that I hope that post-singularity the universe will not be paperclipped by only things I and people like me (or humans in general for that matter) value. I value a diverse universe.
Edit:
Same for being female, black, or most of the groups that we think of as adding to >diversity.
I.. uhm...see.
At first I was very confused by all the far reaching implications of this however thanks to keeping a few things in mind, I’m just going to ascribe this to you being from a different cultural background than me.
Diversity is a value for me, but I’d like to believe that is more than simply an aesthetic value. Of course, if wishes were horses we’d all be eating steak.
Memetic diversity is one of the non-aesthetic arguments I can imagine, and my question is partially related to that. Genetic diversity is superfluous past a certain point, so it seems reasonable that the same might be true of memetic diversity. Where is that point relative to where Less Wrong sits?
Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong. What does that have to do with my cultural background or the typical mind fallacy? What part of that do you disagree with?
Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong. What does that have to do with my cultural background or the typical mind fallacy? What part of that do you disagree with?
Well I will try to elaborate.
Same for being female, black, or most of the groups that we think of as adding to >diversity.
After I read this it struck me that you may value a much smaller space of diversity than I do. And that you probably value the very particular kinds of diversity (race, gender,some types of culture) much more or even perhaps to the exclusion of others (non-neurotypical, ideological and especially values). I’m not saying you don’t (I can’t know this) or that you should. I at first assumed you thought the way you do because you came up with a system more or less similar to my own, a incredibly unlikely event, that is why I scolded myself for employing the mind projection fallacy while providing a link pointing that this particular component is firmly integrated into the whole “stuff White people like” (for lack of a better word) culture that exists in the West so anyone I encounter online with whom I share the desire for certain spaces of diversity is on average overwhelmingly more likely to get it from that memplex.
Also while I’m certainly sympathetic about hoping one’s values are practical, but one needs to learn to live with the possibility one’s values are neutral or even impractical or perhaps conflicting with each other. I overall in principle support efforts to lower unnecessary barriers for people to join Lesswrong.But the OP doesn’t seem to make it explicit that this is about values, and you wanting other Lesswrongers to live by your values but seems to communicate that its about it being the optimal course of improving rationality.
You haven’t done this. Your argument so far has been to simply go from:
“arbitrary designated group/blacks/women are capable of rationality, but are underrepresented on Lesswrong”
to
“Lesswrong needs to divert some (as much as needed?) efforts to correct this.”
Why?
Like I said lowering unnecessary barriers (actually you at this point even have to make the case that they exist and that they aren’t simply the result of the other factors I described in the post) won’t repel the people who already find LW interesting, so it should in principle get a more effective and healthy community.
However what if this should prove to be insufficient? Divert resources to change the preferences of designated under-represented groups? Add elements to Lesswrong that aren’t strictly necessary to reach its stated objectives? Which is not to say we don’t have them now, however the ones we have now probably cater to the largest potential pool of people predisposed to find LW’s goals interesting.
After I read this it struck me that you may value a much smaller space of diversity than I do. And that you probably value the very particular kinds of diversity (race, gender,some types of culture) much more or even perhaps to the exclusion of others (non-neurotypical, ideological and especially values).
There is a fascinating question that I’ve asked many times in many different venues, and never received anything approaching a coherent answer. Namely, among all the possible criteria for categorizing people, which particular ones are supposed to have moral, political, and ideological relevance? In the Western world nowadays, there exists a near-consensus that when it comes to certain ways of categorizing humans, we should be concerned if significant inequality and lack of political and other representation is correlated with these categories, we should condemn discrimination on the basis of them, and we should value diversity as measured by them. But what exact principle determines which categories should be assigned such value, and which not?
I am sure that a complete and accurate answer to this question would open a floodgate of insight about the modern society. Yet out of all difficult questions I’ve ever discussed, this seems to be the hardest one to open a rational discussion about; the amount of sanctimoniousness and/or logical incoherence in the answers one typically gets is just staggering. One exception are several discussions I’ve read on Overcoming Bias, which at least asked the right questions, but unfortunately only scratched the surface in answering them.
I’ve spent some time thinking about this, and my conclusion is that, at least personally, what I value about diversity is the variety of worldviews that it leads to.
This does result in some rather interesting issues, though. For example, one of the major factors in the difference in worldview between dark-skinned Americans and light-skinned Americans is the existence of racism, both overt and institutional. Thus, if I consider diversity to be very valuable, it seems that I should support racism. I don’t, though—instead, I consider that the relevant preferences of dark-skinned Americans take precedence over my own preference for diversity. (Similarly, left-handed peoples’ preference for non-abusive writing education appropriately took precedence over the cultural preference for everyone to write with their right hands, and left-handedness is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer a significant source of diversity of worldview.)
That assumes coherence in the relevant group’s preference, though, which isn’t always the case. For example, among people with disabilities, there are two common views that are, given limited resources, significantly conflicting: The view that disabilities should be cured and that people with disabilities should strive to be (or appear to be) as normal as possible, and the view that disabilities should be accepted and that people with disabilities should be free to focus on personal goals rather than being expected to devote a significant amount of effort to mitigating or hiding their disabilities. In such cases, I support the preference that’s more like the latter, though I do prefer to leave the option open for people with the first preference to pursue that on a personal level (meaning I’d support the preference ‘I’d prefer to have my disability cured’, but not ‘I’d prefer for my young teen’s disability to be treated even though they object’, and I’m still thinking about the grey area in the middle where such things as ‘I’d prefer for my baby’s disability to be cured, given that it won’t be able to be cured when they’re older if it’s not cured now, and given that if it’s not cured I’m likely to be obligated to take care of them for the rest of my life’ exist).
I think that’s coherent, anyway, as far as it goes. I’m sure there are issues I haven’t addressed, though.
With your first example, I think you’re on to an important politically incorrect truth, namely that the existence of diverse worldviews requires a certain degree of separation, and “diversity” in the sense of every place and institution containing a representative mix of people can exist only if a uniform worldview is imposed on all of them.
Let me illustrate using a mundane and non-ideological example. I once read a story about a neighborhood populated mostly by blue-collar folks with a strong do-it-yourself ethos, many of whom liked to work on their cars in their driveways. At some point, however, the real estate trends led to an increasing number of white collar yuppie types moving in from a nearby fancier neighborhood, for whom this was a ghastly and disreputable sight. Eventually, they managed to pass a local ordinance banning mechanical work in front yards, to the great chagrin of the older residents.
Therefore, when these two sorts of people lived in separate places, there was on the whole a diversity of worldview with regards to this particular issue, but when they got mixed together, this led to a conflict situation that could only end up with one or another view being imposed on everyone. And since people’s worldviews manifest themselves in all kinds of ways that necessarily create conflict in case of differences, this clearly has implications that give the present notion of “diversity” at least a slight Orwellian whiff.
Yet out of all difficult questions I’ve ever discussed, this seems to be the hardest one to open a rational discussion about; the amount of sanctimoniousness and/or logical incoherence in the answers one typically gets is just staggering.
My experience is similar. Even people that are usually extremely rational go loopy.
One exception are several discussions I’ve read on Overcoming Bias, which at least asked the right questions, but unfortunately only scratched the surface in answering them.
I seem to recall one post there that specifically targeted the issue. But you did ask “what basis should” while Robin was just asserting a controversial is.
But you did ask “what basis should” while Robin was just asserting a controversial is.
I probably didn’t word my above comment very well. I am also asking only for an accurate description of the controversial “is.”
The fact is that nearly all people attach great moral importance to these issues, and what I’d like (at least for start) is for them to state the “shoulds” they believe in clearly, comprehensively, and coherently, and to explain the exact principles with which they justify these “shoulds.” My above stated questions should be understood in these terms.
If you are sufficiently curious you could make a post here. People will be somewhat motivated to tone down the hysteria given that you will have pre-emptively shunned it.
I think I’m going to stop responding to this thread, because everyone seems to be assuming I’m meaning or asking something that I’m not. I’m obviously having some problems expressing myself, and I apologize for the confusion that I caused. Let me try once more to clarify my position and intentions:
I don’t really care how diverse Less Wrong is. I was, however, curious how diverse the community is along various axes, and was interested in sparking a conversation along those lines. Vladimir’s comment is exactly the kind of questions I was trying to encourage, but instead I feel like I’ve been asked to defend criticism that I never thought I made in the first place.
I was never trying to say that there was something wrong with the way that Less Wrong is, or that we ought to do things to change our makeup. Maybe it would be good for us to, but that had nothing to do with my question. I was instead (trying to, and apparently badly) asking for people’s opinions about whether or how our makeup along any partition—the ones that I mentioned or others—effect in us an inability to best solve the problems that we are interested in solving.
“Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong. What does that have to do with my cultural background or the typical mind fallacy? What part of that do you disagree with?”
To get back to basics for a moment: we don’t know that women and black people are underrepresented here. Usernames are anonymous. Even if we suspect they’re underrepresented, we don’t know by how much—or whether they’re underrepresented compared to the internet in general, or the geek cluster, or what.
Even assuming you want more demographic diversity on LW, it’s not at all clear that the best way to get it is by doing something differently on LW itself.
Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong.
“Ought”? I say it ‘ought’ to be explained away be the subject matter of less wrong if and only if that is an accurate explanation. Truth isn’t normative.
Is this a language issue? Am I using “ought” incorrectly? I’m claiming that the truth of the matter is that women are capable of rationality, and have a place here, so it would be wrong (in both an absolute and a moral sense) to claim that their lack of presence is due to this being a blog about rationality.
Perhaps I should weaken my statement to say “if women are as capable as men in rationality, their underrepresentation here ought not be explained away by the subject matter”. I’m not sure whether I feel like I should or shouldn’t apologize for taking the premise of that sentence as a given, but I did, hence my statement.
Ahh, ok. That seems reasonable. I had got the impression that you had taken the premise for granted primarily because it would be objectionable if it was not true and the fact of the matter was an afterthought. Probably because that’s the kind of reasoning I usually see from other people of your species.
I’m not going to comment either way about the premise except to say that it is inclination and not capability that is relevant here.
To little memetic diversity is clearly a bad thing, for the same reason too little genetic variability. However how much and what kind are optimal depends on the environment.
Also have you considered the possibility that diversity for you is not a means to an end but a value in itself? In that case unless it conflicts with more any other values you would perhaps consider more important values you don’t need any justification for it. I’m quite honest with myself that I hope that post-singularity the universe will not be paperclipped by only things I and people like me (or humans in general for that matter) value. I value a diverse universe.
Edit:
I.. uhm...see. At first I was very confused by all the far reaching implications of this however thanks to keeping a few things in mind, I’m just going to ascribe this to you being from a different cultural background than me.
Diversity is a value for me, but I’d like to believe that is more than simply an aesthetic value. Of course, if wishes were horses we’d all be eating steak.
Memetic diversity is one of the non-aesthetic arguments I can imagine, and my question is partially related to that. Genetic diversity is superfluous past a certain point, so it seems reasonable that the same might be true of memetic diversity. Where is that point relative to where Less Wrong sits?
Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong. What does that have to do with my cultural background or the typical mind fallacy? What part of that do you disagree with?
Well I will try to elaborate.
After I read this it struck me that you may value a much smaller space of diversity than I do. And that you probably value the very particular kinds of diversity (race, gender,some types of culture) much more or even perhaps to the exclusion of others (non-neurotypical, ideological and especially values). I’m not saying you don’t (I can’t know this) or that you should. I at first assumed you thought the way you do because you came up with a system more or less similar to my own, a incredibly unlikely event, that is why I scolded myself for employing the mind projection fallacy while providing a link pointing that this particular component is firmly integrated into the whole “stuff White people like” (for lack of a better word) culture that exists in the West so anyone I encounter online with whom I share the desire for certain spaces of diversity is on average overwhelmingly more likely to get it from that memplex.
Also while I’m certainly sympathetic about hoping one’s values are practical, but one needs to learn to live with the possibility one’s values are neutral or even impractical or perhaps conflicting with each other. I overall in principle support efforts to lower unnecessary barriers for people to join Lesswrong.But the OP doesn’t seem to make it explicit that this is about values, and you wanting other Lesswrongers to live by your values but seems to communicate that its about it being the optimal course of improving rationality.
You haven’t done this. Your argument so far has been to simply go from:
“arbitrary designated group/blacks/women are capable of rationality, but are underrepresented on Lesswrong”
to
“Lesswrong needs to divert some (as much as needed?) efforts to correct this.”
Why?
Like I said lowering unnecessary barriers (actually you at this point even have to make the case that they exist and that they aren’t simply the result of the other factors I described in the post) won’t repel the people who already find LW interesting, so it should in principle get a more effective and healthy community.
However what if this should prove to be insufficient? Divert resources to change the preferences of designated under-represented groups? Add elements to Lesswrong that aren’t strictly necessary to reach its stated objectives? Which is not to say we don’t have them now, however the ones we have now probably cater to the largest potential pool of people predisposed to find LW’s goals interesting.
Konkvistador:
There is a fascinating question that I’ve asked many times in many different venues, and never received anything approaching a coherent answer. Namely, among all the possible criteria for categorizing people, which particular ones are supposed to have moral, political, and ideological relevance? In the Western world nowadays, there exists a near-consensus that when it comes to certain ways of categorizing humans, we should be concerned if significant inequality and lack of political and other representation is correlated with these categories, we should condemn discrimination on the basis of them, and we should value diversity as measured by them. But what exact principle determines which categories should be assigned such value, and which not?
I am sure that a complete and accurate answer to this question would open a floodgate of insight about the modern society. Yet out of all difficult questions I’ve ever discussed, this seems to be the hardest one to open a rational discussion about; the amount of sanctimoniousness and/or logical incoherence in the answers one typically gets is just staggering. One exception are several discussions I’ve read on Overcoming Bias, which at least asked the right questions, but unfortunately only scratched the surface in answering them.
That’s intriguing. Would you care to mention some of the sorts of diversity which usually aren’t on the radar?
I’ve spent some time thinking about this, and my conclusion is that, at least personally, what I value about diversity is the variety of worldviews that it leads to.
This does result in some rather interesting issues, though. For example, one of the major factors in the difference in worldview between dark-skinned Americans and light-skinned Americans is the existence of racism, both overt and institutional. Thus, if I consider diversity to be very valuable, it seems that I should support racism. I don’t, though—instead, I consider that the relevant preferences of dark-skinned Americans take precedence over my own preference for diversity. (Similarly, left-handed peoples’ preference for non-abusive writing education appropriately took precedence over the cultural preference for everyone to write with their right hands, and left-handedness is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer a significant source of diversity of worldview.)
That assumes coherence in the relevant group’s preference, though, which isn’t always the case. For example, among people with disabilities, there are two common views that are, given limited resources, significantly conflicting: The view that disabilities should be cured and that people with disabilities should strive to be (or appear to be) as normal as possible, and the view that disabilities should be accepted and that people with disabilities should be free to focus on personal goals rather than being expected to devote a significant amount of effort to mitigating or hiding their disabilities. In such cases, I support the preference that’s more like the latter, though I do prefer to leave the option open for people with the first preference to pursue that on a personal level (meaning I’d support the preference ‘I’d prefer to have my disability cured’, but not ‘I’d prefer for my young teen’s disability to be treated even though they object’, and I’m still thinking about the grey area in the middle where such things as ‘I’d prefer for my baby’s disability to be cured, given that it won’t be able to be cured when they’re older if it’s not cured now, and given that if it’s not cured I’m likely to be obligated to take care of them for the rest of my life’ exist).
I think that’s coherent, anyway, as far as it goes. I’m sure there are issues I haven’t addressed, though.
With your first example, I think you’re on to an important politically incorrect truth, namely that the existence of diverse worldviews requires a certain degree of separation, and “diversity” in the sense of every place and institution containing a representative mix of people can exist only if a uniform worldview is imposed on all of them.
Let me illustrate using a mundane and non-ideological example. I once read a story about a neighborhood populated mostly by blue-collar folks with a strong do-it-yourself ethos, many of whom liked to work on their cars in their driveways. At some point, however, the real estate trends led to an increasing number of white collar yuppie types moving in from a nearby fancier neighborhood, for whom this was a ghastly and disreputable sight. Eventually, they managed to pass a local ordinance banning mechanical work in front yards, to the great chagrin of the older residents.
Therefore, when these two sorts of people lived in separate places, there was on the whole a diversity of worldview with regards to this particular issue, but when they got mixed together, this led to a conflict situation that could only end up with one or another view being imposed on everyone. And since people’s worldviews manifest themselves in all kinds of ways that necessarily create conflict in case of differences, this clearly has implications that give the present notion of “diversity” at least a slight Orwellian whiff.
My experience is similar. Even people that are usually extremely rational go loopy.
I seem to recall one post there that specifically targeted the issue. But you did ask “what basis should” while Robin was just asserting a controversial is.
wedrifid:
I probably didn’t word my above comment very well. I am also asking only for an accurate description of the controversial “is.”
The fact is that nearly all people attach great moral importance to these issues, and what I’d like (at least for start) is for them to state the “shoulds” they believe in clearly, comprehensively, and coherently, and to explain the exact principles with which they justify these “shoulds.” My above stated questions should be understood in these terms.
If you are sufficiently curious you could make a post here. People will be somewhat motivated to tone down the hysteria given that you will have pre-emptively shunned it.
I think I’m going to stop responding to this thread, because everyone seems to be assuming I’m meaning or asking something that I’m not. I’m obviously having some problems expressing myself, and I apologize for the confusion that I caused. Let me try once more to clarify my position and intentions:
I don’t really care how diverse Less Wrong is. I was, however, curious how diverse the community is along various axes, and was interested in sparking a conversation along those lines. Vladimir’s comment is exactly the kind of questions I was trying to encourage, but instead I feel like I’ve been asked to defend criticism that I never thought I made in the first place.
I was never trying to say that there was something wrong with the way that Less Wrong is, or that we ought to do things to change our makeup. Maybe it would be good for us to, but that had nothing to do with my question. I was instead (trying to, and apparently badly) asking for people’s opinions about whether or how our makeup along any partition—the ones that I mentioned or others—effect in us an inability to best solve the problems that we are interested in solving.
“Um, all I was saying was that women and black people are underrepresented here, but that ought not be explained away by the subject matter of Less Wrong. What does that have to do with my cultural background or the typical mind fallacy? What part of that do you disagree with?”
To get back to basics for a moment: we don’t know that women and black people are underrepresented here. Usernames are anonymous. Even if we suspect they’re underrepresented, we don’t know by how much—or whether they’re underrepresented compared to the internet in general, or the geek cluster, or what.
Even assuming you want more demographic diversity on LW, it’s not at all clear that the best way to get it is by doing something differently on LW itself.
You highlighted this point much better than I did.
“Ought”? I say it ‘ought’ to be explained away be the subject matter of less wrong if and only if that is an accurate explanation. Truth isn’t normative.
Is this a language issue? Am I using “ought” incorrectly? I’m claiming that the truth of the matter is that women are capable of rationality, and have a place here, so it would be wrong (in both an absolute and a moral sense) to claim that their lack of presence is due to this being a blog about rationality.
Perhaps I should weaken my statement to say “if women are as capable as men in rationality, their underrepresentation here ought not be explained away by the subject matter”. I’m not sure whether I feel like I should or shouldn’t apologize for taking the premise of that sentence as a given, but I did, hence my statement.
Ahh, ok. That seems reasonable. I had got the impression that you had taken the premise for granted primarily because it would be objectionable if it was not true and the fact of the matter was an afterthought. Probably because that’s the kind of reasoning I usually see from other people of your species.
I’m not going to comment either way about the premise except to say that it is inclination and not capability that is relevant here.