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ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

electronconf.com

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Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#71
post #43

The message is very cryptic, one possible interpretation would be that TOPICS presented by those speakers wouldn't be diverse enough to make the conference interesting. Why interpret this in gender/racial terms?

>Why interpret this in gender/racial terms?

Because this stems from a SV tech company in 2017.

You don't actually think they meant "diversity of ideas" ... did you?

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#72

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

Come now. What would you say to an academic who didn't want to go to the whole of Europe, just because he saw some scary news about something that happened in Prague once?

The US is a huge, multifaceted place, and like anywhere so large, you will find things both awful and wonderful. But life is a lot less chaotic than the news agencies claim. And the histrionic folks, while loud, are a lot fewer in number than the amount of airtime their doings get would have you believe.

tl;dr- Come on over, the water's fine. You'll probably make some friends. Everybody wins.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#73

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

> All this without ... people that police every word you say.

Is that a joke? There are literally laws, with actual prosecutions, in the Netherlands designed to police every word you say.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#74

I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…

> but if I heard my talk was delayed so the conference can be rebalanced / less of a white sausage party, I'd be glad

Maybe the solution is to stop being racist and sexist.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#75
Did they just assume race of the presenters? Sounds like they use race-based discrimination if they just look at the picture and classify people belonging to a race.

Perhaps they identify-as other race than they appear-as. After all, race is just a social construct: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-...

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#76
post #49

Is this financial mismanagement being covered up?

Looking at the Twitter evidence[0], it seems to be just a new chapter of social justice in tech saga. I honestly thought people calmed down and got reasonable over the past year, but it seems not.

--

[0] - what times we live in...

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#77
post #67
post #39

I don't buy the meritocracy BS that's so popular around here, but I do agree this seems insane, at least based on the small amount of information we have. The organizers have the right to do whatever they please, but I don't understand what they hope to accomplish by calling off the entire conference. It seems like that just hurts everyone. (I'm a white dude, just for full disclosure.) P.S.: Does anyone else wonder i…

You can follow the chain of events here: https://twitter.com/fox/status/870761439094489088 This seems more like poor planning than anything else to me. Github's culture is such that they have no problems with abruptly cancelling the event after they are called out. However, if that's their culture, you would think some diversity plan would have been baked into the speaker selection process. At the very least, they co…

Very interesting. This makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the context.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#79

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

Come now. What would you say to an academic who didn't want to go to the whole of Europe, just because he saw some scary news about something that happened in Prague once? The US is a huge, multifaceted place, and like anywhere so large, you will find things both awful and wonderful. But life is a lot less chaotic than the news agencies claim. And the histrionic folks, while loud, are a lot fewer in number than the a…

That is probably the reality over there. But the perception from Here is definitely different.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're pushing to have unqualified people on your board simply because they're women, your company will die. Aside from that, why strive if I know I have a good chance of getting a position even without any kind of merit? Fucking hell, I want to be seen as more than just a disabled trans woman, I want people to look at the shit I've done and say "Wow, she's really awesome, let's hire her/accept her into our colleg…

a) I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. b) Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today. And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of the board and encouraging more diverse people to join the SLTs. c) Not sure what that rant at the end has to do with anything.

Your virtue signaling feat has apparently failed
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