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95 points elsewhen | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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Jonnax ◴[] No.23308027[source]
Hacker news is a really good site for tech discussion.

But when it comes to anything about diversity / harassment in the workplace, it seems like a group of people crop up needing to tell everyone that they're the real victims

There's a signicant subset of people that cry the loudest of censorship only when it comes to communities having a stance against racism, sexism and homophobia.

In any other discussion about Wikipedia, there would be a significant concensus that Wikipedia has a unwelcoming to new editors community.

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Mirioron ◴[] No.23310000[source]
The Wikipedia community is unwelcoming and initiatives like this are part of the reason. That's because these initiatives for "inclusion" are quite often used for something superficial or as a convenient cudgel to hit someone you disagree with.

The way "inclusion" in the US/UK is done is what I would consider racist and sexist. I don't want to see more of it in online services that I use. Giving someone an advantage because of their race or sex and thus discriminating against others for the same reasons is racism/sexism.

Edit: we know Wikipedia has been a battleground for US politics for a long time now. I think this is seen as a step towards one side.

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kabacha ◴[] No.23310485[source]
As much as I agree with you, is "inclusivity" ever used maliciously?

I'm running some coding events and while I'm a firm believer in meritocracy often giving the space to outsiders or unusual folk end up in more interesting and new experiences for the event attendees. In my mind I see it as a meritocratic choice to diversify the floor and honestly I've never seen this "feature" being abused or cause any friction.

To me it seems like this attack vector is only when rewards are high (prize, job position) but for pay less and unappreciated work like wikipedia editing, or in my case coding presentations, I don't really see how this could be abused.

Maybe it's exclusively an American issue?

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belorn ◴[] No.23311333[source]
Take an example from the python founder. He directly said during a talk that he will not mentor any males, with the implied goal of furthering inclusivity.

In my views, refusing to help people because of their gender is maliciously. Making decision about the worthiness of helping a young individual should not be about their gender. Call it a principle.

From reading about the science of discrimination and In-group and out-group thinking, there exist some key finding of human behavior and rationalization. "Us" are individuals and "them" are a homogenic group, and if you treat people like individuals you are automatically treating them as a part of "us". When someone of "us" do something wrong, it is about individual faults and circumstances. When someone of "them" do something wrong, it is a inherent trait of the group and fundamental aspect their kind.

The attack vector can only exist when a set of people are treated as a homogenic group rather than individuals. Inclusivity initiatives should in theory never do this, but defining people as a homogenic group is sadly what most of them end up doing. Maybe it because it easy and quick, or because it makes for good signaling to the in-group. The result is usually the same with the out-group feeling abused and attacked, especially for individuals who been moved from being in-group to out-group and now instinctual feel more vulnerable to attacks.

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1. kabacha ◴[] No.23311923[source]
> The attack vector can only exist when a set of people are treated as a homogenic group rather than individuals. Inclusivity initiatives should in theory never do this, but defining people as a homogenic group is sadly what most of them end up doing

I feel that you've summarized the issue perfectly here with these two sentences.

However I feel that it's not exactly problem of diversity/inclusivity but problem of tribalism itself, though I'm not sure how practical it is to separate these two topics here.

We can hope that tribalism will go away eventually but if anything modern culture seems to be actually encouraging it instead. This in particular really perplexes me. The world is as global as it has ever been and yet people push and actively create tribes — it's this ugly human primitive nature poking it's head out and there really isn't any cultural push against that. In fact every time I try to point this out I get down-voted.

We need more anti-tribalism awareness.