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knb comments on Go Forth and Create the Art! - Less Wrong
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Comments (104)
The issue of racial imbalance on Less Wrong has gotten considerably less attention than gender imbalance. Is this because race is largely socially constructed, and thus not considered a meaningful division? Or is the issue of racial imbalance in this community simply too sensitive to touch?
It's also less visible. Some people are sensitive to each, but the people looking for gender differences can claim that any commenter who has a gender neutral name and stance is adding to the apparent dominance of male viewpoints. Only a few have visibly female names. (There aren't many visibly male names, but it's enough given our priors about the on-line population.)
It's harder to argue that race-neutral names and viewpoints make the racial or ethnic minorities more clearly minorities, since there aren't enough self-identified of any race or ethnicity to form groupings.
Or have I missed a significant discussion of this in some comment thread?
I doubt we have good stats on race. Maybe via the Facebook group...?
Yes I was referring to the Facebook group. I suppose its possible that the racial division is actually in the Facebook group and not in Less Wrong.
I'm guessing it's this, yes.
That seems to be a false dichotomy. The first option implicitly condones disconcern for racial balance and implies that gender is not a social construct, the latter assumes that there is widespread sensitivity over the issue of racial balance.
More likely, issues of gender interaction are more salient for members of the community than issues of racial interaction, leading us to focus on the former and overlook the latter.
I certainly wasn't generating a dichotomy. I was merely offering two suggestions. I never said that I was certain that it was one of those two.
Apologies for the misunderstanding.
Often, when someone says, "Is it because A? or is the issue B?" they intend to be suggesting that the explanation is either A or B.
I realize this is not always the case, but I (apparently incorrectly) assumed that you were suggesting those as the possible explanations.
I should note, this explanation for why there is a disparity between how much we attend to the two issues does not make any assumptions about the degree to which we should be attending to either issue, which is a different question entirely.
Wow. I wonder why this comment was voted down, yet generated so many comments. Is it considered off-topic?
It's because you're right about issues of race being super-sensitive.