Comment by Hnrobert42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Hnrobert42 | Hacker News Reader

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Hmm. I see what you are saying, but it totally discounts the value of diversity of thought.

For example, there is an optical illusion where people see the top line as shorter:

   <——>

   >—-<

However, they are the same length. (The illusion is more pronounced with hand drawn lines.)

Everyone falls for this illusion across all countries and cultures, so much so that folks hypothesized it is affected by our biology. Well, until some anthropologist showed it to some African tribesman. It turns out they were not susceptible to that form of illusion at all. It is unclear why.

My point is that if something as simple estimates of a length of line can benefit from diversity of thought, imagine how many other “obvious” yet wrong assumptions people make. And that is why it is valuable to include people of different genders, races, abilities.

Just like it is okay to pass on a yet another Python developer, maybe it is okay to pass on yet another person who assumes the top line is shorter.

Look, I don’t like the idea of quotas, either. But I also don’t like working at place where everyone is the same.

The illusion you refer to is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCller-Lyer_illusion but the "Variations in perception" section mentions the African tribesmen finding that you are using to support your point was contradicted by later research.

(This sort of thing is why I distrust many statements asserted as fact without citations by posters on HN; too often they turn out to be incorrect, incomplete, or out of date.)

I appreciate that link. It seems subsequent research did not contradict it. I am open to changing my mind, but in the section about perception, it lists numerous studies that found differences between populations. It does not appear the differences have been definitively explained. I’m not sure how you concluded that either the research or my point were contradicted, but again, I’m open to the being wrong. I often am.

The real problem is the assumption race or gender are not only accurate proxies for diversity of thought (they’re not), but that they’re actually better proxies than just looking for diversity of thought directly.

You want more people from poor backgrounds so that you can take into account lower socioeconomic viewpoints? Well, the modern DEI answer to that is hire a black person. The correct answer is to hire someone that grew up poor.

Yes. You make a good point. I would fully support a system that account for diversity of thought directly. That’s hard to do. Your suggestion of means testing applicants is interesting. Do you have others?

>Everyone falls for this illusion across all countries and cultures, so much so that folks hypothesized it is affected by our biology. Well, until some anthropologist showed it to some African tribesman. It turns out they were not susceptible to that form of illusion at all. It is unclear why.

That was disproven. This is scientific racism/bio-essentialism. Let's not go there, it's an evil path.

Ah. I don’t see where it was disproven. The Wikipedia article about it seems to indicate the difference in perception between various populations was further substantiated.

My contention nor original researchers, so far as I can tell, claimed the difference was based on race or biology. It looks like they thought it had to do with the presence of rectilinear buildings, thus cultural.

Some subsequent research did hypothesize eye pigmentation played a role and that was disproven. However, as far as I can tell, different groups of people have differing abilities to perceive illusions.

Moreover, my fundamental point was that culture affects thought, and a variety of thought is valuable. Do you dispute either of those points?

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