MetaFilter posts tagged with Diversity

I say potato, you say...potato!

Gyan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:09 -0800

Would it be inherently evil if there were not 6,000 spoken languages but one?

Standing out in the crowd.

chunking express — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:07:03 -0800

Standing out in the crowd. Kirrily Robert's keynote from OSCON. She discusses diversity in opensource communities and projects. Her follow up post links to some 'interesting' discussions.

Coming to a farmer's market near you

Stynxno — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:50:22 -0800

As Oregon struggles with diversity, one young man from Corvallis takes a cue from Improv Everywhere and invites you to meet a black guy. [via swpl]

The right to do wrong

asok — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:17:37 -0800

Auroville Funded by Governments all over the world, the city of Auroville is an ongoing experiment 'whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity' through yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the 'rule free' society has attracted some of the least welcome of humanity's outliers, namely child sex tourists. Auroville is the biggest employer for the impoverished local Tamil population, which some would argue makes it likely that the local police might not be inclined to investigate abuse claims very thoroughly. Aurovillians pay no tax and benefit from 2/3 of the profit from any commercial enterprise, as well as receiving a maintenance grant from the government which is more than the locals earn by working a full day. Is Auroville simply an extension of the usual colonial european behaviour in Asia, or a bold experiment? It was quite difficult to find any online information about Auroville that was not directly attributable to an Auroville resident. Subsequently, the links are not un-biased. Thanks to hadjiboy for the 'Bizarre Childhood' link.

Diversity counterproductive to "social capital?"

gregb1007 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:40:53 -0800

Diversity counterproductive to "social capital?" James Wilson's article in Commentary magazine talks about Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam's essay recently published in Scandinavian Political Studies. In the essay, Putnam publicizes the findings of his research, conducted in rural districts, towns, and cities, whose conclusion establishes that diverse neighborhoods show less "social capital" because ethnically diverse residents seem to distrust each other. Putnam has discovered that friendship, carpooling, participating in local projects is much lower in ethnically heterogeneous communities than in homogeneous ones. His research reveals that the exception to the tendency of diversity to inhibit "social trust" occurs in ethnically diverse military or religious settings as well as in social circles with intermarried couples. Wilson adds sports teams to the list of these exceptional places where ethnically different people click well. Wilson also ends up rejecting Putnam's idea that increased church presence and the building of additional public athletic facilities would bring ethnically diverse residents together. Instead, he offers up his own rather vague suggestion:"strong families living in neighborhoods made up of families with shared characteristics seem much more likely to bring their members into the associational life Putnam favors." Looks like "strong families" can overcome the lack of social interaction in neighborhoods. But isn't the term of "strong families" reminiscent of GOP's panacea for all problems?

... in keeping with the Reform movement's tradition of liberal positions on human sexuality.

amberglow — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:00:23 -0800

Official transgender blessings -- Kulanu -- the newly-revised manual for LGBT issues and ceremonies put out by the Union for Reform Judaism (1.5 million US Jews are Reform) now includes 2 blessings (written by a Rabbi now male) for those transitioning and who have completed the change, alongside the already existing same sex marriage liturgy and other documents and procedures. A first? (blessings text inside)

The downside of diversity

srboisvert — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:11:21 -0800

The downside of diversity. A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?

Adding voices and viewpoints to the blogosphere

amberglow — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:19:08 -0800

rsspect and AfroSpear -- both bringing more Black voices of the blogosphere to our attention. Rsspect is a growing collection of feeds, and AfroSpear a group blog. The loss of Steve Gilliard of the NewsBlog this week has caused many to rightly question why more minority voices aren't as visible or prominent online.

Homogeneity Of Heroes

amyms — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:49:42 -0800

"I like to think that there'll always be a place in our universe where a kid can look and see reflected in the mirror an idealized form of themselves." Hero Deficit: Comics Books In Decline is an article, by freelance journalist Brad Mackay, exploring the challenges of superhero relevancy in a diverse society. Previous comic book and superhero-related posts on Metafilter. Wikipedia also has a very informative superhero page.

And now--a quick word from our sponsors!

hadjiboy — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:42:32 -0800

Advertising in India (thanks to this post by NickySkye) More ads here and here

guess who comes off as more angry (and more insulting)?

amberglow — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:28:17 -0800

Jewcy asks The Big Question-- Why Are Atheists So Angry? with Sam Harris and Dennis Prager. Email exchanges on the topic--and if you can get past the incredibly loaded and one-sided question, really interesting.

a language in the mind is worth two in the book

Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 09:04:24 -0800

More languages are in danger than ever, but some argue that this is no big deal. Is language extinction only worrisome because it means a loss of diversity?

Just One Victory

tizzie — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 11:20:10 -0800

A Blinding Flash of the Obvious "The city is too beautiful of a city to be known around the world as the capital of exclusion and intolerance." He was right. Now, a 22-minute film documents the successful fight to repeal an anti-gay ordinance in Cincinnati last year. The campaign was successful because it was honest, and because it included people of faith.

Supplemental Jurisdiction

dios — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:32:21 -0800

28 U.S.C 1367 was a controversial and confusing attempt by Congress to codify and address the issue of Supplemental Jurisdiction established in cases such as United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966), Zahn v. International Paper, Co., 414 U.S. 291 (1973), and Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545 (1989). The Supreme Court tried to clarify some of the confusing issues regarding 1367 in a 2005 opinion. Exxon Mobil Corp v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., (2005) (Kennedy, J., writing for the Court) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The question of whether the Court clarified the issue or made it more complicated remains arguably unanswered.

Defending Family, Faith and Freedom (for most).

Otis — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 10:09:46 -0800

The Family Research Council is claiming victory in their fight to have the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services remove a web site "Celebrating the Pride and Diversity Among and Within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations." [Google Cache Links: 1, 2, 3, 4] But the FRC are not very happy about the "derogatory and even threatening responses to the messages they sent to their own government."

The Complexity of a Controversial Concept

kliuless — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:03:37 -0800

The Logic of Diversity "A new book, The Wisdom of Crowds [..:] by The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which diversity can be beneficial in problem solving." (Three-Toed Sloth)

Harvard Finally Releases Transcript of Lawrence Summers' Remarls

mai — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:12:38 -0800

Harvard has finally released a transcript of Lawrence Summers' remarks at a conference about women in science and engineering. These remarks, which were made without members of the press present about a month ago, caused a lot of controversy. Now we can finally see what he actually said.

Diversity! Tolerance! Free speech!

DWRoelands — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 21:31:34 -0800

Score one for tolerance and diversity. Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Do the smirking people in this photo really feel proud for terrorizing a three-year-old girl?

Human Development Report 2004

mr.marx — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:50:18 -0800

Human Development Report 2004 Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World

All are equal before God. On Earth....

troutfishing — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 12:47:48 -0800

Wages of hate - anti-gay attitudes damage the economy - conversely, Gay-tolerant societies prosper. Will GOP anti-elitism and the US religious right make the U.S. a 3rd world country? Paul Craig Roberts argues that we're on the fast track, and a Carnegie Mellon study (title link) shows that culturally repressive attitudes in America are driving away the "Creative" class. Virginia Postrel defines this class differently (manicurists and stone cutters) but in Richard Florida's "Creative Class War" (recently on Metafilter), "America is no long attracting creative workers from abroad because it is seen as an intolerant society". More than artists and programmers are shunning the US - scientists are staying away too. In the US, meanwhile, a bifurcation - Americans are geographically self-segregating, choosing to live with those who hold similar beliefs and values.

Strange Times

Fat Buddha — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 13:06:40 -0800

I feel like I have stepped through the looking glass.... first, we have the truly surprising but welcome sight of Michael Howard celebrating cultural diversity in Britain, then we have David Goodhart, editor of Prospect, apparently a magazine of the left, suggesting that perhaps we have quite enough immigrants in the UK for the moment, thank you. Goodhart's article is very provocative and very important, it's a debate that needs to be had and which has most certainly and entertainingly been joined by Trevor Phillips. I love a schism!

The congealing pot

rainbaby — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:21:23 -0800

Americans pay lip service to diversity says David Brooks in The Atlantic. Though we talk about the melting pot, we tend to group ourselves with similar people. Do you really care enough about diversity to actively seek it out? Is metafilter a virtual example of this phenomenon?

SCOTUS Split

Dreama — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:12:22 -0800

A split decision from SCOTUS on Affirmative Action -- in cases specifically involving the University of Michigan, the court rules that the law school's AA standard is legal while the undergraduate standard is not. The University president is spinning this as a full out victory because the court has now "given a roadmap" for how Affirmative Action programs can be designed for higher education nationwide. While polls show that Americans want diversity in education but are unsure about Affirmative Action, it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon. And the fundamental question remains: when it comes to education, is being a racial minority four times more important than having held a position of national leadership? Twenty times more important than writing an outstanding admissions essay?

kablam — Thu, 18 Jul 2002 09:33:22 -0800

Is this astoundingly bad timing or what? Big Brothers/Big Sisters "will require that all 500 of its local affiliates include active homosexuals as volunteers and mentors to children", according to this article. On a side note, why hasn't this been widely reported?

owillis — Wed, 24 Apr 2002 23:47:14 -0800

Newspapers fall short of diversity goal : "The people who report for and edit the nation's newspapers look less like the people who make and read the news than a decade ago. If newspapers are a mirror that a community holds up to itself, the reflection is mostly white." Is it unfair to assume that a newspaper writer (or other media outlet) should share some sort of heritage in proportion to the population it covers to get the full feel of their stories? Or should it just be focused solely on merit without a cultural component?