[NCSG-Discuss] On Diversity and Discrimination

[Marc Perkel]

Hi Andrew,

I understand your point. However although we think we know what 
diversity means, in reality the meaning of diversity is far more complex 
- especially in the context of this group. I'm challenging the notion 
that diversity means race/gender/and sexual orientation. And there's 
religion which is the other invidious class - odd no one mentioned 
religion. btw - my deity can kick you deity's ass.

I think my definitions of diversity are more relevant than the 
traditional one in this context.

On 1/31/2013 10:50 PM, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
> Marc,
>
> You seem to have missed the context of the discussion of diversity. It 
> arose
> because of discussions of the GNSO endorsements of candidates for the 
> ATRT2
> team. While Avri, Dan, myself and others have engaged in a general 
> discussion
> of diversity, the issue I was posting on and that the others taking this
> question seriously seemed to me to be posting on, is the question of 
> required
> diversity in bodies with specific authority or whose outputs are 
> likely to be
> used to strongly and formally influence piolicy-making. Voluntary 
> membership
> organisations such as NCUC/NCSG may also form an echo-chamber and 
> self-aware
> people interested in equality, justice and fairness may seek to put some
> resources into outreach to disproportionately encourage new members from
> under-represented groups.
>
> Your discussion about intelligence levels, US political leanings and US
> sports teams are rather off-the-point and in fact represent a classic
> misdirection argument about any form of attempting to improve 
> diversity of
> representation.
>
> If you haven't already seen it, I heartily recommend John Scalzi's 
> post on
> "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is":
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cngqk4h
>
> On this list we have good gender balance, some reasonable 
> representation from
> developing countries and some other geographic diversity (though I 
> think the
> only Japan-based members of the list are immigrant SWMs from the UK or 
> US,
> but I might be mis-remembering, and I don't recall seeing any 
> Korean-based
> posters - FYI Korea and Japan have some of the highest Internet 
> penetration
> rates in the world, but are very unengaged in Internet governance 
> fora). But
> we're just one constituency in ICANN and many of the others seem far less
> diverse and even with our diversity, it would be easy for the formal 
> bodies
> of ICANN to end up unrepresentative, and therefore producing poorer 
> policies.
>
> Forgive me for being concerned about such issues, but as an information
> ethicist, looking at the mechanisms creating and perpetuating 
> inequality in
> information services is one of my research interests.
>
>
>

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