Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

whyevolutionistrue.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 807 posts

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#691

Post by Dylan16807 »

jimbokun wrote: post #659
Dylan16807 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The over riding DEI principle is that every profession, every organization, every role, must somehow have exactly the demographic breakdown of the society as a whole. No it's not. That's a dumb strawman. "The over riding DEI principle" is not some guy that doesn't understand statistical variance, and doesn't accept any reason at all for fields to differ. But we should have a starting position of being extremely ske…

You start out disputing my claim…and end by reinforcing it.

You don't see the difference between "x must be y always everywhere even in tiny groups" and "start skeptical if x isn't y in big groups"?

I don't know how much simpler I can make this. Those statements are not the same.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#692

Post by sobriquet9 »

skissane wrote: post #471
sobriquet9 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In USSR, nobody was rich.

> In USSR, nobody was rich. Despite Soviet propaganda to the contrary, social class continued to exist in the USSR. At the top of the class hierarchy, were senior party officials and their families. Next rung down were university-educated professionals (doctors, engineers, scientists, etc) Then came skilled factory workers, etc Unskilled labourers were near the bottom of the Soviet class hierarchy

Those distinctions are irrelevant. Education was free in USSR. Access to math circles and specialized math schools was also free. It was not necessary to hire a tutor or pay for advanced classes to get admitted, unless we’re talking about the Conservatory or MGIMO.

Source: I was born and received education in USSR, so can tell Soviet propaganda from reality.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#693

Post by naasking »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #689
naasking wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/175240399517425272... https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/178678872412412757... You can debate him there if this is your hobby horse.

A huge fraction of humans don't have gametes. That definition only works for describing a species, not individuals. That doesn't need debating, he's off in his own corner talking about a completely different metric.

He addresses that in one of the links.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#694

Post by jballer »

hilux wrote: post #678
jballer wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Taking a turn” means I think I understand where you’re going, but then you take your point someplace else. I agree with most of what you’re saying. The casual racial stereotyping is where you lose me.

> The casual racial stereotyping is where you lose me. Nothing "casual" about it. Very deliberate. White people completely unwilling to see blatant racism (e.g. in hiring) when it stares them in the face.

You are a parody of your own point and you don’t even see it. Truly remarkable.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#695

Post by dang »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #634
dang wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40270596 .

You think it's off topic? What would be an example of a reason land acknowledgments are a bad idea in Israel that wouldn't also make them a bad idea somewhere else?

We already had one flamewar going about Israel.

I know it's annoying when these things get declared offtopic because of course they're connected by a sequence of associations—and you're right, it doesn't take that long of a sequence—but if you think about it from the overall topic of the thread, hopefully it makes more sense.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#696

Post by dang »

davidgerard wrote: post #615
dang wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm assuming that https://unherd.com/newsroom/mit-becomes-first-elite-universi... is true because otherwise they'd be fabricating quotes and that seems unlikely, although the site does have an ideological slant. It's a little surprising that more publications haven't reported on it yet though.

I am assuming that there is vastly less to this than this particular cluster of publications, and too many of the commenters here, are getting themselves worked up about.

I'm not sure if you're questioning whether the story was true or whether it was important or whether it was offtopic for HN.

If it was untrue, then we will have made a bad moderation call and should have waited. However, today has brought more 3rd party reports on the story, albeit still from ideologically slanted publications (e.g. https://nypost.com/2024/05/06/us-news/mit-bans-controversial...), so I think the odds of it being true are getting a bit higher.

If you mean it wasn't important, that's a matter of preference. There's no story on the front page that everyone thinks is important. It's enough if enough do.

If you mean it was offtopic for HN, I've addressed that in a bunch of other places.

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#698

Post by charlieyu1 »

userbinator wrote: post #286
porknubbins wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN tends to avoid politics, but when it does show up, there is a definite bias if you look at the pattern of up and down votes. What's more interesting is seeing how that bias has changed over time.

Is it really possible to talk about DEI without politics eventually? Seems like we are ignoring the elephant of the room

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#699

Post by jballer »

kristopolous wrote: post #573
juunpp wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

have any citations or specific examples?

How about the replies to my other comment here, accusing me of being white, and white people of being the problem?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40269870

Re: MIT abandons requirement of DEI statements for hiring and promotions

#700

Post by EricE »

rr808 wrote: post #458
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81

In the spirit of trying to learn something from the community: while I can certainly understand the rationale and goals behind DEI programs (many of which I agree with, others not), I honestly can't understand these "DEI statements" at all. They always seemed very "1984" to me, and almost designed to engender resentment in a way that would ultimately backfire. So perhaps I'm in a like-minded echo chamber, but is ther…

I dont like the DEI industry, but affirmative action is good. Slavery ended 150 years ago and its disgraceful that so many African-Americans still live zero wealth, poor jobs, with second rate schools and healthcare. Many/most corporate jobs really dont require a lot of unique skills, its good that employers have a preference to hire under represented minorities, hopefully it'll help improve society for all of us.

Ah, the old argument that to end racism we must embrace noble bigotry. How about ignoring immutable characteristics, period, and picking solely on merit? I love other commenters mentioning removing personal characteristics such as name, gender and race from resumes - spot on.
Post reply on HN