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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

>This isn't a contest.

Isn't it though? I mean to a certain extent policy and even corporate 'diversity initiatives' are a matter of priority - first we even the ground for women, then minorities, then maybe gender id is next? I don't see the Ivy League rushing to ensure that their campus maintains wealth-diversity in the same way they ensure racial diversity. Maybe we really do need an Oppression Olympics, then we can sort out which group is most in need of help and prioritize them (I'm biased, I think it's going to be the poor.)

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I think the point is to get rid of the hierarchy altogether. If you don't have a system of oppression, you don't need to argue over who to point it at.

You can't get rid of hierarchy. It's a natural part of human relationships and how humans organize themselves into societies. To think otherwise is absurd.

You can certainly avoid building your whole society to perpetuate and amplify inequalities between people. The U.S. constitution was a good step forward but let's not stop challenging inequality where we see it.

I agree partly. Some inequality is certainly immoral, particularly when it's based on a person's race or gender. (And that definitely occurs in the US). But sometimes it comes down to other factors, like intelligence, work ethic, assertiveness, etc. if that's the cause of the inequality and I don't think it's desirable to eliminate it.

Why would those things change who gets paid more for the same work, or who has access to healthcare, or who is going to be hassled on the way to the voting booth, or who gets taken seriously when trying to buy a house, etc.

I never made any of those claims, nor do I endorse any of them. I will say that the concept of "same work" is very hard to define, and I don't think you can do so outside of very specific industries that are mostly low skill.

If your diversity initiative isn't providing all the different types of diversity you're looking for, you either expand it or start new initiatives.

It's worthwhile to push your company (or university)'s race balance closer into alignment with the overall population's, and it's also worthwhile to try and strike a reasonable gender balance, in hopes that you're not locking people out of opportunities based on race or gender. It's also worthwhile to make sure there are opportunities for people from lower-income backgrounds.

The fact that some people are "losers" in this society (by modern capitalism's nature as a contest to see who can accumulate the most wealth at the expense of others) doesn't mean that diversity initiatives have to be a contest. You can run diversity initiatives with the goal of helping people who are otherwise excluded, and one of those can absolutely be aimed at helping people from low-income backgrounds.

Likewise, once someone is in the workplace, they might still need help. Maybe your standard pay scale isn't enough for a single parent with 4 kids, because he doesn't have affordable access to childcare services for his kids. Maybe one of your employees is wheelchair-bound and you could make it a lot easier for her to stay at your company if you adjusted the office floor-plan so it's easier for her to navigate.

Laws and regulations are (at least sometimes) built with this in mind, but the results will be way better if you tackle these issues directly instead of getting forced to do it by government decree.

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