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GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

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Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#541

Post by justinclift »

exolymph wrote: post #440
proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

"We need to start learning how to simply NOT THINK about race, and NOT MENTION IT." We live in a world where this is not remotely possible. Suggesting it is the worst sort of idealism.

Just to point out... the US is the western only country on the planet which cares, or even mentions, people's skin colour/race AT ALL.

Literally every other western country calls people... people. A man is "a man" not "a green/blue/pink/red/etc man". A women is "a women" not "a green/blue/pink/red/etc woman".

Continuously giving skin colour qualifiers in descriptions of people... is (to non-US people) bizarre, and seems to be a large part of the language used to keep racism alive in the US.

That's as far as I've been able to tell so far anyway. :(

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#542

Post by captain_jamira »

alphapapa wrote: post #463
exolymph wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need to start learning how to simply NOT THINK about race, and NOT MENTION IT." We live in a world where this is not remotely possible. Suggesting it is the worst sort of idealism.

Why? Let me apply the principle you claim to be the case in a different, ahistorical way: "'We need to start learning how to simply NOT THINK about denigrating and enslaving blacks, and NOT MENTION IT.' We live in a world where this is not remotely possible. Suggesting it is the worst sort of idealism." --some Southern slave owner, 1859 The same could be applied to historical anti-semitic movements, anti-suffrage gro…

HA! no. What's being advocated by this '...NOT THINK... NOT MENTION...' is essentially racial pacifism. In theory, yes, we shouldn't perpetrate violence or war upon each other. But if those who seek to eliminate violence rely solely on pacifism, it leaves those with no such intentions to perpetuate war uncontested. Should people ignore genocide because they idealize a non-violent future?

The thought promoted by the OP (of this idea) seems to imply that by setting an example behavior based on our ideals, others, with no such ideals, will somehow be compelled to adopt them. I just can't imagine anyone actually thinks that's true.

A German citizen in 1940 doesn't want anyone to see murder in the world, so he sets an example by NOT THINKING and NOT MENTIONING murder. And millions of people get murdered by his fellow countrymen who don't share the same ideals.

Pacifism has it's place and is often respectable. But non-confrontational, silent pacifism is a holey personal journey and has little hope of having any influence outside oneself.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#543

Post by b6 »

mikeash wrote: post #528
b6 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you agree that the goal should be, more or less, to create a world where ethnicity, sex, and other body attributes matter as little as, say, eye color does today? If so, what is the plan to achieve that goal? Don't we achieve it by actually acting that way as much as possible ? That's what makes sense to me. Suppose we, in the name of equality or diversity or fairness, actually elevate the importance of bodily…

It's rarely possible to achieve a goal merely by pretending you've already achieved it. If current problems are driven by subconscious biases then you need to eliminate those. It seems to me that the best way to eliminate them is to forcibly overcome them until people get used to seeing more minorities in these positions and replace their subconscious biases with new ones.

OK, I can readily believe lots of our problems stem from subconscious biases. But what do you think about the questions I posed? Are we trying to create a world where we don't care about body attributes? If so, do you advocate doing the exact opposite behavior (deliberately paying attention to body attributes and factoring them into decisions) for some temporary period and then stopping?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#544

Post by steve-howard »

venomsnake wrote: post #144
morgante wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub has, since the Horvath incident, made it pretty clear what kind of person they want to hire. And, frankly, that's fine. There are plenty of places where I, as a competent white male, can get hired and promoted without difficulty. The fact that Github isn't one of those is not a systematic problem. More power to them.

No it is not. Either we are all allowed to discriminate or none at all. If only some must have power to discriminate - I prefer the status quo. Since I like the white male privilege. I am fine with society without privilege. I will fight tooth and nail against one in which my privilege is transferred to someone else.

Obviously this is a controversial sentiment but it's refreshing to see somebody state it so plainly. The idea that I get special privileges I didn't earn is uncomfortable, but if we're going to try and change that I am scared of a simple reversal in which we punish me for being part of a privileged class.

That said, I don't think I "prefer" anything about the way the world works now.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#545

Post by untog »

spc476 wrote: post #504

How about George Zimmerman, a Hispanic, who shot Trayvon Martin, a Black. CNN called him "white": " rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/cnn-white-hispanic_... . So did the New York Times: " rel="nofollow">http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-demotes-george-zimmerman-from-... .

...I'm not seeing how this relates to GitHub. Did GitHub hire the authors of those articles..?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#546

Post by joneholland »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #534
obelisk_ wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what are the alternatives? Hosted: Bitbucket, GitLab Self-hosted: GitLab, Gogs None of these come close to GitHub in my experience.

Haven't seen anybody mention Microsoft's Visual Studio Team Services[1]... private repos, reasonably priced for teams, and some pretty sweet extra tools and integration into other services. I've used it for a few projects and prefer some parts of it to github. You don't have to use Visual Studio itself or, really, ANY other Microsoft tools. [1] https://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-team-ser...

Last I checked, git on TFS didn't support certificate based authentication.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#547

Post by blueflow »

knn wrote: post #525
blueflow wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my view, race seems arbitrary. You could also split people into blue-eyed and brown-eyed or something. It still doesn't say anything about that person. Its just that many normal persons act like its a huge difference.

Many people would agree with you that race doesn't say that much about a person. However, it's quite naive to argue that racial issues are not a part of every day life. We live in a world built on racial divides and conflicts. It's obviously venerable to strive towards a non-racist society, but to do so one needs to understand the issues at hand.

I'm refusing to accept the split between "we" and "they" based on appearance or minor biological factors.

Show me a discrete situation where this results in bad decision making on my side, and I'll change my behavior.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#548

Post by reitanqild »

hitekker wrote: post #502

Hey, mods, did the top level comments get resequenced in this thread? Up until an hour ago, iza's comment was the first comment; now it's the fifth. I understand that the post itself may be inflammatory but the resulting discussion actually avoided a lot of the diversity v.s. meritocracy ("it's my side or the highway!") that some of the other comment threads are focusing on.

Votes affect ordering even of top level comments.

As far as I understand it you mostly don't see it because once a thread gets to the top it is receiving a net positive stream of incoming vote and since it is already at the top it will receive more votes that threads further down the page.

Sometimes threads are detached by admins and end up at the bottom of the page. In those cases they are usually (possibly always) clearly marked as such.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#549

Post by dasil003 »

yulaow wrote: post #110
victor9000 wrote: post #72

> While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging How is this even legal? Change 'white' for any other race, and you'd have yourself a workplace discrimination lawsuit.

Well tumblerinas says you can't be racist against white because patriarchy. /s No really, just read reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction and realize wtf people are saying these days shielding behind (false)feminist propaganda and some very confused idea of oppression.

Well to be fair, a white man's opinion on racism or sexism is sort of like a Pacific Islander's idea of how cold it is in Siberia. But on the other hand being ignorant does not make you less-than-human which seems to have become a common opinion in the age of Twitter lynch mobs.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#550

Post by mc32 »

proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

France takes this stance on matters of race. So much so any numbers regarding race in France are simply estimates because there are no official numbers.

In practice so far, it hasn't fared any better, but probably not worse either.

Like in the U.S., one of the biggest hindrances or obstacles to success is segregation (forced or by choice). Wanting success essentially entails assuming the culture and practices of the successful, but for some fraction of people, being malleable and becoming like the mainstream is antithetical as it's interpreted as "giving in" to the larger culture, while simultaneously wanting to be part of the larger culture and to be accepted by the larger culture. So there is that ambivalence.

Personally, if I wanted to succeed in China or Mexico, I'm willing to bet I'd improve my chances by adopting local customs, manners and attitudes, rather than being steadfast about my own. [it's somewhat peculiar some Americans are sheepish about being "too American" while abroad but simultaneously believe that integration into the mainstream isn't all that necessary. It tells me that their brain tells them one thing, but in practice, when given the opportunity, try to be like Romans while in Rome]

Personally, I think people put too much stock in group identity over say, personal identity. But you know, let people do as they wish.

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