[NCSG-Discuss] On Diversity and Discrimination

[Marc Perkel]

I'm leaning against the idea of diversity/discrimination in decision 
making bodies unless there is a reason to do so. One can not assume that 
discrimination exists by default. I don't know if you are talking about 
this email group or not but I have no idea what color/gender/or sexual 
orientation anyone on this list is. Nor do I care. I see it as a 
distinction without a difference.

I myself am a cybernetic artificial life form from the future. I come 
from the planet Kolob. We are an androgynous species. We reproduce by 
mitosis, which is splitting in half creating 2 individuals. We are 
either invisible or appear to be whatever shape we choose to make you 
puny humans feel comfortable. We are a telepathic race and share a 
singular consciousness. I communicate with you using a subspace 
inter-dimentional modem.

On 1/31/2013 5:51 PM, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
> Dan and Avri's points are both well-made and strong further arguments for
> supporting decent diversity requirements in decision-making bodies.
>
> A further point is that such bodies interact and again we see that same
> dynamic. For small bodies with tens of members it is hard to get
> representation of all groups (and of course individual differences between
> members of groups are as large as the differences between groups on many
> occasions). So, for groups which are relatively small percentages of the
> overall population (LGBT, to the best of my knowledge are only a few
> percentage of the entire population) it is difficult to require a group of
> only ten to always have one LGBT member. Within the broader set of groups,
> however, there should be efforts made to ensure that out of the perhaps few
> hundreds of representatives (and over time, multiples of that) that at least
> some of these representatives are from these small groups. Again, the local
> maximum of one committee and one term should be leavened with understanding
> of the longer term benefits of diversity.
>
> Avri's point about how one measures these things applies across all of these
> broad considerations also provides us with ethical guidance pointing towards
> requiring best efforts in diversity within groups, across groups and over
> time, while maintaining open and transparent definitions of "Minimum
> Competence" required (and providing avenues to gain the necessary competences
> for those in under-represented groups). ICANN's Fellowship Program is, I
> think, a good example of an effort to provide better geographic diversity,
> though there may be room to expand upon it to cover other under- or
> un-represented minority groups rather than simply developed/developing nation
> citizenship/residency.
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