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IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

theregister.com

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Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#161

Post by text0404 »

rayiner wrote: post #142
jmward01 wrote: post #100

The anit-DEI stuff is predicated on an idea that there is a clear known 'best fit' for a position and it shouldn't take into account X, whatever X is. The problem is always this, nobody actually knows what a best fit really is. Nature shows us that one trait leads to longer term survival, diversity. When you think you know the traits that pick most suitable and exclude other traits then you are getting rid of the cha…

No, the anti-DEI stuff is based on the principle that race is a superficial characteristic that doesn’t change how someone would do the job. So, ipso facto, diversity itself can’t improve the performance of a workforce.

but DEI isn't just about race, nor is the idea behind it that a superficial characteristic makes someone more qualified for a job. DEI addresses the systemic barriers that have historically disadvantaged certain populations (like race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc). DEI aims to give them the same opportunities as their counterparts.

for example, DEI is meant to provide opportunities to impoverished white individuals as well, if they have not been able to afford higher education or have been passed on for various jobs because they didn't have the same internships or experiences that their wealthier counterparts had (which may have hindered their professional development).

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#162

Post by huhkerrf »

dboreham wrote: post #141
pjc50 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current example is Target vs Costco. (Because of a black pastor-led boycott of Target for dropping their DEI policy)

Personal experience is that Costco foot traffic has been visibly increased in recent weeks. Our Costco has a few colorful members of staff, which I personally find makes my visits there more pleasant.

> Our Costco has a few colorful members of staff, which I personally find makes my visits there more pleasant.

Is this a poor choice of words, or one of those "I've gone so far left, I'm now also racist" things?

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#163

Post by diogoadrados »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #79
andsoitis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CEO class loves their own freedom to move about at will but hates the idea that workers have the right to just NOT be in the office. I don’t know that that is a reasonable take. More appropriate would be to acknowledge that different roles have different needs, depending on who you collaborate with, etc.

> different roles have different needs, depending on who you collaborate with, etc. At one FAANG company where the CEO is pushing for RTO, it's mandatory regardless of whether all of the people you collaborate with are in other offices across the country, and your manager has no power to offer an exemption even when they fully agree that there's no reason for you to be at the office.

out of a handful of the largest companies in the world, in a thread about the specific company IBM and its policies, why do you avoid naming the company and CEO?

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#164

Post by ghaff »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #115
throwaway382736 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've observed the people who are very anti-DEI will change their talking points when they are competing with Asians and Indians. Suddenly they start espousing DEI principles and emphasize how it's important to find a more "well rounded" individual.

I’ve seen people who say that, but what’s much more common in my experience is people who note that thinking seriously about Asians and Indians in tech isn’t very compatible with “DEI” as commonly construed. To me it seems clear that IBM promoting a dark-skinned immigrant to CEO proves their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; I know this position is controversial but for the life of me I can’t understand…

Well I have no reason to think the IBM board had any reason to think Arvind wasn’t supremely well qualified and, if anything, Microsoft’s decision to go with Satya has proven an amazingly good choice.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#165

Post by fazeirony »

BurningFrog wrote: post #36
givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

The general reasoning given by a lot of these companies is that WFH did not work. Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I think they are looking for scapegoats for some cost cutting. Officially force people back and hopefully some will quit. In practice, many will continue to operate as before.

Non conspiracy explanation: It seemed to work at first, but over time it became clear it didn't.

> but over time it became clear it didn't.

are profits spiralling downward? are these businesses, overall, making less profit? because of remote workers?

or is it closer to the truth to say that no amount of profit - or asserting authority over workers - is ever enough and since companies are in a position of power to squeeze blood from a stone, they will?

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#166

Post by currency »

freedomben wrote: post #158
rbetts wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh. > U.S. State Department hire Darren Beattie wrote on X: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-darren-beattie-state...

Yes, to be clear I'm not suggesting they have pure motives, nor am I suggesting they don't deserve the criticism. You are reading into my statement things that aren't there. What I'm saying is that's irrelevant to the claim they are making. It is an ad hominem, which is a formal logical fallacy and has been for a very long time (going back well over 2,000 years)[1]. It didn't used to be controversial to say that ad h…

> Wouldn't it be much better to just refute the claim instead of attack the person's motives?

No, at some point, and we have absolutely passed it in the US, you can be overwhelmed by the lies and bad faith arguments if you try to respond to them individually, and it's necessary to try to derail the source.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#167

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

CharlesW wrote: post #160
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to go back 80 years to find something to complain about, I'd say it's not worth complaining about.

"That One Time It Powered a Genocide" is just an older example of how IBM is happy to put profit over principles. They have a long history that includes happily selling to authoritarian regimes¹, knowingly selling technology that doesn't work², commercializing biometric data without consent³, age discrimination, and more. ¹ http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.co... ² https://www.healthcaredive.c…

Thank you.

I don't have a dog in this fight and if there are recent examples of this kind of crap going on, by all means publicize them. My issue is with people who drag up shit from 100 years ago and they go "see how bad they are?"

Go back far enough and everyone's had a skeleton in their closet.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#168

Post by tbrownaw »

Filligree wrote: post #58
easterncalculus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They’re not wrong. The tension is that on average, dark-skinned folk have lower merit — because of racism in the past that limited their educational opportunities, and also because it’s hard for a child to lever themselves into a higher socioeconomic group than their parents. Among a number of other reasons. Equity vs. equal opportunities; I’m sympathetic to the latter, but what do you do when the opportunities were…

> limited their educational opportunities, and also because it’s hard for a child to lever themselves into a higher socioeconomic group than their parents.

Is this not what universal state-funded schooling is for. (And please don't forget that state-level funding is anti-correlated with local funding, so the standard "but property taxes!" thing is a red herring.)

> Equity vs. equal opportunities; I’m sympathetic to the latter, but what do you do when the opportunities were unequal in the past, and that causes inequitable results in the present?

I am not aware of anti-dei people having problems with need-based (as opposed to demographics-based) scholarships and such.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#169

Post by rayiner »

text0404 wrote: post #161
rayiner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the anti-DEI stuff is based on the principle that race is a superficial characteristic that doesn’t change how someone would do the job. So, ipso facto, diversity itself can’t improve the performance of a workforce.

but DEI isn't just about race, nor is the idea behind it that a superficial characteristic makes someone more qualified for a job. DEI addresses the systemic barriers that have historically disadvantaged certain populations (like race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc). DEI aims to give them the same opportunities as their counterparts. for example, DEI is meant to provide opportunities to impoverished white individ…

That’s the motte. But the bailey is anti-white discrimination through the application of different standards to different races: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-chart-illustrates-graphic...

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#170

Post by s1artibartfast »

harimau777 wrote: post #97
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

I am curious if anyone can find the text for "IBM's Policy Letter #4" written by IBM's chairman in 1953, which is referenced in this article. I did some searching but all the links I found to the full text were broken. I ask because I think it shows what a Rorschach test the arguments over DEI have become. I at least found one quote from the Policy Letter #4 which stated "It is the policy of this organization to hire…

The issue that I have is that I've almost never seen an anti-DEI advocate actually engage with the issues. Even if I ultimately disagreed with them, I could respect someone who was willing to look at the problems the US is having with inequality and present a reasoned argument for alternatives to DEI. However, what I usually see is people either ignoring the issues people are facing, ignoring the arguments put forth…

I don't like DEI and am willing to engage. The US has a huge disparity of outcomes along racial lines. This is a legacy of slavery as well as social and governmental discrimination following slavery. [Racial biases persist today, but are much better today than the past, and we should focus on elimination of those biases, not adding new ones.]

These factors result in real disparity in capabilities and merit today. This is precisely why racism was and is so detrimental.

I oppose DEI because I think it is racist, even if good intended. I think our laws and institutions should strive to be race blind and treat people equally, as individuals, based on their individual actions and merit. I don't think that group statistic should be a higher priority than equality for individuals.

In my mind, DEI is a myopic obsession with the group statistics, to the detriment of individual equality.

If a school enroll someone with a 400 point lower sat over the higher person on the sole basis of their race, that is a major Injustice on the scale of individual humans, even if it moves some group statistic closer to equal.

I think countering racism with racism is a very dangerous game, likely to blow up in everyone's face.

Instead, equality under law should Ensure equal treatment moving forward. Past wrongs should be addressed by race blind improvements to economic mobility.

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