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Comment by exitb | Hacker News Reader

While I don't believe it's really FOSDEM's job to fix - after all speakers for a high profile conference don't appear out of nowhere, it's a fair question to ask - where are all the people different from us?

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Well, there is nothing to fix. As long as the speakers are picked based on their content, everything is fine. But OP suggests we pick speakers based on their skin color... that's fucked up.

Noone is saying that you should pick someone only based on the skin color. The idea is to bring people, that for some reason is being marginalized by the community in general, to speak.

Like the person above mention "where are all the people different from us?". The world is composed roughly by 50% female? Why are not there 50% in CS as well?

You cant balance it. In order to balance it, you already have to put these people into certain boxes, which is already pretty offensive. Then you'll have to descriminate against people in certain boxes in order to balance it. ITS WRONG. Stop grouping people up based on their skin color or sex or whatever. stop it.

> ITS WRONG. Stop grouping people up based on their skin color or sex or whatever. stop it.

You are assuming a lot there. I haven’t done and said none of it. I never advocated for quotas.

> You cant balance it.

You can’t indeed if you deny there may be a problem in the first place.

“Women can’t face widespread harassment which pushes them away from tech conferences, because gender is a social construct, and thus there is no such thing as ‘women’, and thus we don’t have a problem so stop complaining about it”

They have other priorities than hanging out with us.

You can not seriously believe that there is no more diversity in CS just because "they don't want to".

I have seem many arguments to this. I have seem many solution proposed to "fix" this situation. Many which I don't agree with. But you win the price of the most shortsighted take on it.

I do it myself, that's why i believe it also works like that for other folks.

If some dancing school complains about the low amount of men I'd shake my head. Sucks for them, but I'm just not into it. Why should it be different for women?

You assume your personal view as the only true view. You give an example which strips away any nuance to the conversation. It only confirms your shortsightedness.

Its a plausible explanation that requires no form of discrimination or badness to explain the observations.

Also, you could offer a counter-explanation.

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