General > General Technical Chat

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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james_s:

--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 23, 2022, 10:49:44 am ---And that's 2014, if you would take that image from today  :palm: And the republicans now an extreme right wing party.
I'm against all radicalization, since I was born in a communist country, which then turned into a failed state, I know too damn well, that you have to keep the politicians in check. But the public in the US is asking for even more radicalization from the parties.

--- End quote ---

I largely blame social media for this. The algorithms create huge ideologically aligned echo chambers and the net effect of this is a positive feedback loop where any ideology gets more and more extreme and people get less and less exposed to dissenting views. Unfortunately short of somehow killing social media I don't see a way to change this.

james_s:

--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on August 22, 2022, 05:16:31 pm ---You are right that woman should be introduced to engineering or technical professions early on. But I guess early on means just after the cradle. Don't push the stereo type gender specific toys onto kids and see if anything changes.

--- End quote ---

Nobody pushed gender specific toys on me as a kid. I wasn't interested in most toys, instead I was fascinated by lightbulbs and electricity since my earliest memories, in fact my first word was "light" and I still to this day tend to look up and see what sort of lights are in a room. I also naturally gravitated toward machines, cars, trains, airplanes, engines, I think it's obvious that some people are hardwired to have an interest in some things over others.

IanB:

--- Quote from: james_s on August 23, 2022, 04:28:13 pm ---I largely blame social media for this. The algorithms create huge ideologically aligned echo chambers and the net effect of this is a positive feedback loop where any ideology gets more and more extreme and people get less and less exposed to dissenting views. Unfortunately short of somehow killing social media I don't see a way to change this.

--- End quote ---

It's also weirdly contradictory, since from most perspectives the Democratic party seems to be an alternative Republican party with an identity crisis.

tom66:
I guess a really good question is while it is pleasant to believe a meritocracy exists, we have to accept a huge amount of where people get in life is just damn luck.

And I'm not just talking about the initial luck of e.g. having good parents or the right genetics or the right teachers, I mean throughout life, you will always have people where probabilities have lined up just right to produce the best outcomes.

For instance, I think it's difficult to believe that e.g. Bill Gates was a particularly skilled programmer, and that's why he became, at one point, the world's richest man.  No, it's more likely that he was just in the right place at the right time many, many times over.  He won the life-lottery, multiple times. 

That being said, I do not think this disposes of the idea of a meritocracy existing; it is reasonably obvious that those who are most successful did not achieve that by *just luck*, merely it is what accelerated their outcome from good to excellent.  Though, to counter this, you have individuals who have earned their position through nothing but luck.  To use an apolitical example, the Queen of England cannot have been particularly skilled to end up as monarch, she was just born into the right family.  There are plenty of other examples of meritless positions.

Can we ever claim to have a true meritocracy when meritless positions exist?

IanB:

--- Quote from: tom66 on August 23, 2022, 04:35:57 pm ---Though, to counter this, you have individuals who have earned their position through nothing but luck.  To use an apolitical example, the Queen of England cannot have been particularly skilled to end up as monarch, she was just born into the right family.  There are plenty of other examples of meritless positions.
--- End quote ---

This is true, but if you look at history, many monarchs have been bad at the job and have been failures with a short tenure. It might be argued that if kings and queens had been selected on merit rather than on right of succession there might have been fewer bad ones.

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