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Comment by twymer | Hacker News Reader

Personally, my bet would be that the extreme amount of effort we put in to promoting diversity in educational institutes and the work place will be something people eventually can't imagine being necessary.

Hopefully.

Edit: I guess I wasn't explicit enough as people took this the wrong way.. What I meant is that diversity will "just happen." I of course realize that it is a very important thing and that our efforts certainly are a good thing.

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You're right that the pressure to actively promote diversity will fade as diversity increases, however I don't really see this as something we'll look back on and say "what were we thinking?"

The kind of diversity being fostered today (at least in education) is really nothing more than racism.

The diversity system today consists of giving preference to those with dark skin, while handicapping asians. But how much diversity are we really getting, when the only criteria is race?

If we were really interested in getting a diverse mixture, we'd be seeking all kinds of dimensions:

  * city people / country people; 
  * protestant / catholic / jewish / muslim / buddhist / hindu / agnostic / atheist; 
  * rich / poor; 
  * lovers of the visual arts / bookworms
  * introverts / extroverts
  * organized / chaotic
  * vegans / carnivores

And so on. As far as I can determine, the race-based diversity really aids nothing, but does serve to preserve enmity between the protected and handicapped races. If we want diversity, we need to look deeper than the skin.

Seriously .. WTF? (You don't believe that diversity will be seen as something that's worthwhile, and you're hoping for this conclusion?)

Or, perhaps I've misread what you're trying to say?

Apologies for downvoting you, I did so based on your original post of just "Seriously .. WTF?". I don't see his post as being WTF-worthy even though I disagree with it, nor do I condone any such posts since they add nothing of value to the discussion.

I interpreted his/her post as not against diversity, but against "diversification" programs like affirmative action as opposed to letting social entropy run its course. I agree with the sentiment somewhat but I don't think it meets the criteria for looking back and asking "what was society thinking?".

That's okay. I saw the post had been downvoted as this led me to assume that the post was promoting a desire for less diversity .. although after re-reading I realised that might not be the case. My mistake.

I believe what he was saying that he hopes it won't be needed in the future. That is he hopes that we will have diversity by default. That doesn't sound like such a bad thing :)

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