Hi, yes it is hard to understand. If you are a child and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "Welp, I clearly am not welcome here." then you need mentoring help from an adult to prop up your self-esteem. If you are an adult and you see an example of people of all backgrounds working together to do science, including people that look and behave like you do, and your take away from this is "OOOOH I AM NOW OPPRESSED" then you are either pitiable for how far off the rails you've gone or are now pushing a motive distinct from leading your people out of the inhospitable land where talent and ambition are primary.
> So, hell if I know how to even determine who is right here, though I suspect nobody is or ever will be
Nobody is... nobody is or ever will be right? Listen, here's my motivating principles. I believe in the equality of opportunity. I believe we live and die and have a responsibility to leave the world more just and free than we found it. I believe we're working off partial information and even with the best information any attempt to leave the world more just and free will, inevitably, do a little bit of the opposite. That's why we should leave wiggle room for future generations. Now, access to opportunity in this particular discussion is limited owing to a systematic preference for a subset of humanity, shutting or pushing out the otherwise talented and ambitious from science and mathematics. It is entirely possible, though I argue not probable, that by pushing for a world in which all people from all backgrounds can do science if they have a talent for it is going to somehow have dystopic results. I know for a fact that our current approach of letting in-group dynamics and selective representation act as a filter of otherwise talented and ambitious people is actively dystopic. So, move along the gradient. Move from "absolutely very bad" to "very, very unlikely to be just as bad but also in a different way".
In passing, I will also note that your comment and grandparent weight a hypothetical bad equally with a demonstrable bad. I reject this weighting.
> And neither of you has to be wrong.
Seems like pretty dichotomous positions to me.
> Or fix themselves.
The grandparent should absolutely fix their heart.