131–140 of 926 posts
If I understand the document correctly, she wants HR to be biased against hiring "privileged" people (I think that means white, possibly male too, not sure) and wants to get politicians to force the company to report to create pressure for the same.
I think this is actually the better link to be discussing, rather than the twitter threads shared before. The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this: > A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it ha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unions have historically been some of the most racist and discriminatory organizations in the USA.
This is so unhelpful and dumb. The US has historically been one of the most racist and discriminatory organizations in North America. Does that mean we shouldn’t engage the US? Does that mean the US can’t be less racist? Does that mean the US isn’t a tool we can try to use to make the world a better place? Unions provide countervailing power to corporate power. Racist people are racist. Sometimes these can overlap.
I'm not sure this makes much sense. "Racism" (I'm guessing you mean things like slavery or de jure discrimination) were practiced concurrently in the US and elsewhere in North America, not to mention many other countries. The US was one of the first countries to have major movements to end slavery (Britain was the first global power to do so, and they preceded the US). I think it would be most accurate to say that the US has historically been both among the most racist and least racist countries, just depending on how you measure.
> Unions provide countervailing power to corporate power. Racist people are racist. Sometimes these can overlap.
Unions, on the other hand... Unions are a monopoly on labor. Monopolies reduce the amount of a good they supply and drive up prices. This means unions depend on certain people leaving the labor market that a union has captured. When a bunch of unions formed in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, which people did the unions choose to exclude? More or less across the board, they excluded women, immigrants and black people. This was extra convenient, as members of those groups would typically work voluntarily for less pay, so the unions had double incentives to get rid of them. Many early Progressives were quite proud of this and other policies like a minimum wage forcing "inferior" groups to have to work harder to catch up to the white man.
The question we should be asking is why unions, minimum wage, hours restrictions, etc. were useful in eliminating "undesirables" from the labor force 100 years ago but help these same groups today.
It is surprising she was not fired long ago. I suppose Timnit was usually rewarded for such an attitude, chock full of victim based language. "after all the micro and macro aggressions and harassments I received" "does it just happen to people like me who are constantly dehumanized?" "Silencing marginalized voices like this is the opposite of the NAUWU principles which we discussed" "the next day I get some random “i…
These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…
Companies hire activists because they want to look good without actually changing things. Activists go to work for companies because they want to change things. So, naturally, the company has to lie to the activist about their function to do this, and the activist has to be naive about it. If the activist starts doing what they want to do, and not what the company wants them to do, then the company will fire them, and the activist will reach for an explanation.
I think this is actually the better link to be discussing, rather than the twitter threads shared before. The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this: > A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it ha…
These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…
>Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to any of these companies. I mean, yes. It's an unfortunate reality that ethics are often at direct odds with the unrelenting pursuit of business value. For a big tech like Google, by caring about people and the impact of your technologies, you will almost surely sacrifice profits in the short term. So then the question is: pe…
These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…
These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…
Her research work is well-known and has had an impact, whether you like it or not: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Timnit+gebru Edit: And to be clear, her most cited paper (> 1000 citations) had an impact on what some companies did: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21284683/ibm-no-longer-gen... What is disturbing here, from a researcher's point of view (even within a company!), is the lack of transparency on wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unions historically in America have been massive front organizations for mobsters and mafia. Check out the Teamsters - there are many many other examples. Does that make them racist? Of course not. But they have absolutely been discriminatory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brotherhood_of_T...
And cars are frequently used to smuggle illegal goods. All sorts of legitimate and useful things get used illegitimately.