[ARIN-consult] Reminder: Consultation on Increasing the size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

[Scott Leibrand]

Are you arguing against the subject of this email thread and consultation? Or against some other proposal (for quotas or similar) that has been discussed as a counter-proposal to just increasing the Board size?

Scott

> On Jun 10, 2017, at 6:37 AM, Mike Burns <mike at sum.net> wrote:
> 
> Re the self-evidence that diversity is good, from the seminal work Bowling Alone, written by Harvard professor Richard Putnam:
> 
> "The follow-up (2007) US study to Bowling Alone has also stimulated debate. The first findings from the study found that, in the short run, immigration and ethnic diversity tended to reduce social solidarity and social capital. In ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’.   
> Diversity does not produce ‘bad race relations’ or ethnically-defined group hostility, rather, inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to watch more television.  Diversity, at least in the short run, seems to bring out the turtle in all of us."
> 
> Mr. Putnam, after much research, came to the conclusion that greater diversity leads to lower levels of civic trust, and lower levels of social interaction, volunteering, money-lending, and civic participation, the salient point here.
> He delayed publishing his book for several years as he took time to "develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity".
> In other words, he sought to find a way out of the plain facts of his research, but the facts were not really disputable.
> 
> Mr. Putnam's research spanned decades, and included thousands of interviews and  years of data collection from an array of sources, and he did not reach the (self-evident?!) conclusion that diversity is good, although his conclusions pained him.
> 
> This proposal seems to rest on the "fact" that gender, regional, and other group diversity is BY DEFINITION a good thing, or the lack of group diversity is BY DEFINITION a bad thing.
> 
> I oppose the proposal because it seeks a rupture in foundational governmental principles that could be a BAD THING and we have no evidence of any problems with Board decisions that should lead us to take that risk.
> Pace Mr. Springer, I am not saying diversity is bad until proven good, that is a red herring. I am saying diversity in general might be good, and it might be bad, but  there is no reason for stewards to move in that direction via quotas or other voter restrictions, unless there is a problem.
> I have asked for evidence that lack of diversity has caused problems, and have heard no evidenced proffered, nor even a hypothetical situation in which the lack of diversity is a problem, or where more diversity would be a solution.
> That is because we are constrained to the world of number registration, and I find it hard to see where a different gender or racial perspective on this small context will yield a change in decision.
> 
> Putting on my engineers hat, again, I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
> 
> Regards,
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------- Original Message -------
> From : John Springer[mailto:3johnl at gmail.com]
> Sent : 6/9/2017 6:45:49 PM
> To : arin-consult at arin.net
> Cc : 
> Subject : RE: Re: [ARIN-consult] Reminder: Consultation on Increasing the size of the ARIN Board of Trustees
> 
> Enough of the objections to the proposal rely on the notion that diversity is bad until proven good that I feel I can avoid much reduction in detail simply by disagreeing with that.
> 
> I hope the BoT won't be distracted by this notion. I feel that diversity's worth is self evident. I think this proposal is a step in the right direction. I understand that not all feel the same.
> 
> John Springer
> 
> On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 11:50 AM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
>>> 
>>> > whomever it wants to meet that need.
>>> 
>>> > I don’t know what could be “assured” to be “fairer” than that.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> It's called "the tyranny of the majority."
>>> 
>>> Even weirder than that, although I couldn't find a breakdown of members by country, I wonder whether Canada is disproportionately represented: 3 of 6 elected Board Members are Canadian. 
>>> 
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Not sure if it's Mike or Lee talking there, but on your way to that query you made a classic ass-u-me. ARIN members by country? Members? Does ARIN manage IP addresses in trust for the members? Why not the general population of the region served? Or the Internet-connected device owners within the region served? Or the ARIN registrants?
>> 
>> I'm here to tell you that the diversity among ARIN's membership is much smaller than the diversity among ARIN registrants which in turn is much smaller than the diversity among owners of Internet-connected devices. Which diversity would you have the board reflect?
>> 
>> By the general population measure, Canada is grossly overrepresented on the Board. They have nearly an order of magnitude more representation than they should have.
>> 
>> The whole concept of diversity here is fraught with pitfalls. That's OK, if we decide diversity is valuable we can hash it out. But we're talking about expanding the board as a specific measure in support of a diversity we haven't successfully defined. IMO that puts the cart so far ahead of the horse that it can't even see the horse any more.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bill Herrin
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> William Herrin ............... herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
>> Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>
> 
> 
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