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Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#41
post #31
post #4

Yes he's a chameleon and yes he's a turncoat and so on, but it's interesting that he's gone all in on this. There's some debate whether wokism is finished for good or if it's merely gone dormant. He seems to be betting that it's gone for good.

That's exactly what confuses me. Yes, I would expect some easing on that, but it's so 180° that I find myself wondering, what exactly is that force that defines the direction. Like, who dictates the agenda. I mean, I would always assume that any 4chan-level explanations that have an actual person making the order of how this will go are not exactly true and things must be a little more complicated than that . But how…

It would take a LOT of explaining about the context and political climate as to why this is the case. Im on mobile so I'll give a very reductive take, the political guard rails have been removed. Billionaire after billionaire, politician after politician has gone to Maralago to meet with Trump and kiss the ring, they've been making donations of millions to his inauguration fund. Trump specifically threatened Zuckerberg with prison, so he fell in line, and that is the "right" thing to do in his eyes because he stands to gain a lot by getting on his good side, he could even get tiktok. On the other hand, his other option is prison or endless harassment from the government. This is the same deal with Bill Gates and many others. It's all performative bs and these corporations have never had any convictions other than to make the most money possible and to accrue power by taking the path of least resistance.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look up URM https://diversity.ucsf.edu/programs-resources/urm-definition

Thanks for the link. A bit of clarification: in this context Asian was not in the category of URM since Asians are overrepresented in tech roles at Meta. So URM meant Black, Latin, and American native.

Can’t wait for other physical characteristics like height and weight to join the fray, or other markers of attractiveness/power.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should expect 50% men in elementary schools? How about lumberjacks? Should those be 50% women too? A non discriminatory hiring process should reflect the demographics of the workers in the given field (other factors like geography matter too). Why would we expect, say, pediatricians (80% female) to have 50% men? Achieving a 50/50 split between men and women in a field that's 80% one gender requires hiring one g…

One question we should ask ourselves is why a field would be dominated by men and not evenly split, or mostly women, etc. Does one feel as if they would face an uphill battle trying to get hired in a field that is 80% their other?

What should the split be?

Take a step back on the supply side. CS education isn't a requirement, though only 20% of CS undergrads are female.[0]

I'm curious what your stance is on the swathe of asians who got negatively handicapped for checking "asian" on their college applications.

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#44

Wow. Who was the boss? This is contemptible stuff.

He always has been (literally, due to the share structure of Meta and how much Zuckerberg owns), he is just trying to throw someone under the bus for the change in political winds.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#45
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue if you're looking to achieve DEI goals in the short-term rather than over decades, you're going to fail because the backlash and other consequences will destroy any progress you think you made. And I think that's what we're seeing. You can work towards DEI goals without achieving them in the short-term and still look to make good changes over the long run. But it requires a systems view of everything, inclu…

This is sort of no-true-scotsman argument. Sure, there is "DEI" that doesn't amount to a dog whistle for discrimination. That was the case at 1 out of the 4 companies I've worked at. But it's the exception to the norm in my experience, and in that of my peers. It sounds like Meta has reached the same conclusion.

Fallacy aside, nobody has successfully proven that holding a few spots at Harvard each year is enough to bring the likes of American Blacks back to socioeconomic parity.

It's a flawed means to an end.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NNNNNNNNNNNNDNNNNNNNNNNND If the pattern resembles this for a group that represents over 50% of the broader population (women and some subset of males), I'd argue that it's highly possible there are other, possibly discriminatory, factors at play.

So we should expect 50% men in elementary schools? How about lumberjacks? Should those be 50% women too? A non discriminatory hiring process should reflect the demographics of the workers in the given field (other factors like geography matter too). Why would we expect, say, pediatricians (80% female) to have 50% men? Achieving a 50/50 split between men and women in a field that's 80% one gender requires hiring one g…

Women didn't become the majority of pediatricians until the 2000s, so up until quite recently yes we did expect pediatricians to be 50% or more men.

I get why the majority of jobs that require a lot of upper body strength (lumberjacks as you mentioned) would continue to be majority male, but in other jobs to me it seems like it's mainly networks and socialization that causes gender imbalances. There's no reason more men can't become pediatricians or school teachers. They can obviously do the job, and did in the past!

For tech jobs, I often see people saying that men are more interested in numbers and things, so it's biological that men would gravitate towards tech. I used to think that sounded like a plausible explanation, but then I read that women make up 60% of accountants, and other examples like that. Seems like accounting was just more socially accepting of women, otherwise by that argument accounting would be majority male too.

One example that I thought was quite interesting was that 65% of realtors are women, but in commercial real estate it's only 35% women. It would be quite a stretch to come up with a biological argument for the real estate example.

In my view, a non-discriminatory hiring process is one that accounts for the very real human behaviours that 1) people feel more comfortable with people who are similar to them, and 2) when jobs skew dramatically towards one gender/race it creates a social barrier to people from outside that group getting hired and accepted by the team. If we just completely ignore how humans actually behave, we accidentally end up with a discriminatory hiring process without anyone wanting do anything bad. I have no doubt that some implementations of affirmative action are terrible and discriminatory. But I think ignoring human tendency to feel drawn to people similar to themselves, and thus inadvertently discriminate is a mistake as well.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#48
This level of political engagement seems kind of out of character for him

Is he just kissing ass, or is there genuine frustration on decaying business culture? It feels like both he and Musk are idealizing some kind of past version of SV where WLB was less of a concern

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should expect 50% men in elementary schools? How about lumberjacks? Should those be 50% women too? A non discriminatory hiring process should reflect the demographics of the workers in the given field (other factors like geography matter too). Why would we expect, say, pediatricians (80% female) to have 50% men? Achieving a 50/50 split between men and women in a field that's 80% one gender requires hiring one g…

Women didn't become the majority of pediatricians until the 2000s, so up until quite recently yes we did expect pediatricians to be 50% or more men. I get why the majority of jobs that require a lot of upper body strength (lumberjacks as you mentioned) would continue to be majority male, but in other jobs to me it seems like it's mainly networks and socialization that causes gender imbalances. There's no reason more…

I'd be more than happy to have an anonymized hiring process. If you're right that in-group preference is what drives the gender disparity, we should expect an anonymized hiring process to produce an employee base that's closer to gender parity. Some companies have experimented with this [1]. But interesting no tech DEI advocate I've met in real life has been supportive of anonymized hiring. More than a few have actively disapproved, saying that anonymization tends to make the representation worse.

1. https://interviewing.io/blog/voice-modulation-gender-technic...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg for Meta 'inclusivity' push: report

#50
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School integration was woke. Women voting was woke. Interracial marriage was woke. Gay marriage was woke. Over the long run, progress only goes in the right direction. There's no debate, just noise. The year to year skirmishes aren't terribly important in the big picture.

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