[NCSG-Discuss] On Diversity and Discrimination

[Dan Krimm]

Not sure how it works on Kolob, but "discrimination" has virtually nothing
to do with this.  I think that's a spurious point.

The point is really about capturing the broad range of ideas that may
apply to policy making.  Regardless of individual talent, there may be a
narrow characteristic to the experience of any individual, and including
other individuals with other experience may allow the group as a whole to
"think" of some ideas or implications that it may not imagine without a
diverse group.  Some of those ideas may be the best ones, in the context
of a particular policy deliberation, or may lead to ideas that no single
participant would have thought of without the collective discourse.

I think this diversity is especially important geographically, but other
demographic variation is important too.

It's not about what is valuable to any individual in the opportunity to
participate.  It's about what is valuable to the group in having diverse
participation.  It's about a better group outcome.

If a sports team doesn't have a good diverse balance of athletic roles
(say, a basketball team with all centers and no guards, or vice versa), it
won't compete very well.  Policy teams have similar dynamics.

Dan



On Thu, January 31, 2013 6:12 pm, Marc Perkel wrote:
> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>