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

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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

chimpanzee wrote: post #205
rayiner wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I view DEI and ethnic identity as a personal threat to my mixed kids. Followed closely by the fact that i’m from a third world country, and I know that promoting ethnic identity invariably corrodes and destroys a society. It wrecks every facet of society and governance. Every issue becomes overtaken by ethnic scorekeeping and jockeying. Democracy itself disappears, replaced with ethnic machine politics.

In which “third world” country have you experienced this? How does ethnic identity threaten a mixed person? Being mixed myself, I'd love to know why you think ethnic identity is a threat to me and others like me. In my experience, it has been a tremendous advantage, despite the fact that I have lost friends and opportunities simply because I am not "white enough". And that isn't a guess or misread, I've been told tha…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by HelloMcFly »

freedomben wrote: post #189
HelloMcFly wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critiquing the actions and policies of a political movement—especially when they have clear, documented consequences for marginalized groups—is not attacking the person, it's addressing the substance. There’s ample evidence that recent anti-DEI efforts are not grounded in merit-based reform but in resentment and exclusion. A few examples: * Executive Order 11246, which prohibited discrimination by federal contractors…

Yes I agree almost completely with what you wrote. However, I disagree with your premise that GP was "critiquing the actions and policies of a political movement": > Critiquing the actions and policies of a political movement Here is their entire comment: > No, the anti-DEI stuff is predicated on the idea that civil rights are bad and that white (straight dude) rule is good. There's not really any point in sugar-coat…

How about this: the GP was clearly communicating a all-but-obvious conclusion based on the the demonstrated, highly publicized, and widely available evidence to anyone who has paid a modicum of attention. For Trump and his team: the motives are the substance!

At this point I do not think it is reasonable for an informed participant in this conversation to demand every attack on the motives of the current administration given the overt words, policy and behavioral choices supporting such a conclusion. The GP wasn't speculating or prepping for debate club, they were summarizing a (seemingly) obvious conclusion. That you agree with me tells me you know at least some of this.

This isn't a debate class where we score points on technical merit. Do you disagree with the point being made, or were you just having fun demanding the GP show their homework? But perhaps in fairness, I've moved the goalposts. Yet once again I would say: it seems a distraction from the obvious larger, more important, easily demonstrated point.

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

#213

Post by mdhb »

yes_really wrote: post #207
mdhb wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I

What is your thought process for that? Do you think ethnic conflicts do not exist in developing countries? Do you think nonwhite immigrants to the US would not talk about politics? Do you think nonwhite immigrants to the US are unbothered by a rise in ethnical tensions?

[flagged]

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

#214

Post by rayiner »

chimpanzee wrote: post #203
rayiner wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ethnicity is just one aspect of diversity. In my opinion (in line with gp’s point), it is generally advantageous to increase the diversity of culture and life experiences within a population. As both of these are very difficult to precisely identify or categorize, ethnicity tends to provide a decent, though imperfect, approximation. Anything affecting appearance can shape one’s life experience drastically as others r…

So you make assumptions about peoples' "culture" and "life experiences" based on their ethnicity?

The differences that you posit exist--are these differences necessarily "advantageous" or can the differences be disadvantageous as well?

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

#215

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Timon3 wrote: post #196
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is presented as an argument against objective metrics, but a) the alternative is subjective metrics, which is even worse, b) "disparate impact" is just another metric subject to Goodhart's law, and c) resources aren't the only thing that determines test scores. If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library. The rich kid has their private tutor come to…

> This is presented as an argument against objective metrics No, it's not. It's presented as an argument that measuring objective metrics doesn't mean you're measuring merit. > If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library. The library most likely doesn't have the same specialized learning materials that rich kids can afford, so this doesn't mean the poor…

> No, it's not. It's presented as an argument that measuring objective metrics doesn't mean you're measuring merit.

The goal is to measure merit. Objective metrics are the nearest thing we have to achieving that goal. If there is a better metric, you use that instead. But if the best metric we have isn't perfect, that's no argument for doing something even worse.

> The library most likely doesn't have the same specialized learning materials that rich kids can afford, so this doesn't mean the poor kid has equal opportunity.

And yet this is still more of an opportunity than being locked out by race quotas.

> The poor kid possibly can't reach the library without their guardian, who may or may not have time to drive them there.

Libraries are generally in higher density areas with mass transit, and in the worst case you can walk there. Moreover, primary schools generally have libraries and then the kid is already there for school.

> The poor kid possibly doesn't have anyone to teach them using the learning material there, while the rich kid likely has either their guardians or even specialized tutors for this purpose.

Which is why it takes longer. But the point is that determination has an effect. It's something you can choose rather than something you can't control. Whereas telling people that it's not a level playing field so therefore they shouldn't even try is how you perpetuate the problem forever, if not actively make it worse.

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

#216

Post by AnthonyMouse »

croes wrote: post #197
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is presented as an argument against objective metrics, but a) the alternative is subjective metrics, which is even worse, b) "disparate impact" is just another metric subject to Goodhart's law, and c) resources aren't the only thing that determines test scores. If you're poor but determined, you can't afford a high cost test prep course, but you can go to the library. The rich kid has their private tutor come to…

That would need some inclusion laws that enforce preferred hires from lower financial backgrounds instead of better prepared candidates with more resources.

So why is that not the proposal instead of DEI?

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

#217

Post by BeetleB »

alabastervlog wrote: post #190
BeetleB wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than literally any other notable chat system, et c. What is better? I hate Teams, but Slack really wasn't much better.

Teams' core problem is that the actual Teams-section is more like a bulletin board than a chat system, almost like it was targeting that weird impulse companies had for a few years to build "company facebooks" or whatever. The real chat part is cordoned off in ad-hoc channels that individual users can sticky, but that aren't "structural" and can't really have order imposed on them, if that makes sense. It's like if S…

No arguments about the crappiness of Teams.

My thing is that while better IM systems exist, none is what I would call "Good" or even "Acceptable". Being better than Teams is not really saying much :-)

I haven't used Slack in years, so I can't speak to it, but it sucked when I used it. Back when our team was all colocated in one building, I intentionally had my IM app turned off and disconnected. Interruptions in person suck, but with Slack et al interruptions were multiplied significantly. Kind of: "If you can't be bothered to get up and walk to my cube, it probably wasn't that important."

What I want from Teams and similar SW:

A way to, with a keystroke, mark all messages as "Read" (even when focus is not on the window).

A way to, with a keystroke, print out all unread messages on my console (or in a popup window, or whatever).

In other words, just give me a damn API I can program these things with. Teams' API lets me get messages, but will not let me see if a message is read or unread.

Any app that forces me to open up the window, click on a dozen channels to read all the latest messages, sucks. Period. I should be able to read it all with one click/keystroke, and have them marked as "Read" when I do it.

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

#218

Post by michtzik »

mdhb wrote: post #213
yes_really wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your thought process for that? Do you think ethnic conflicts do not exist in developing countries? Do you think nonwhite immigrants to the US would not talk about politics? Do you think nonwhite immigrants to the US are unbothered by a rise in ethnical tensions?

[flagged]

Accordingly, it's also very easy to Google a picture of him.

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

#219

Post by rayiner »

chimpanzee wrote: post #205
rayiner wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I view DEI and ethnic identity as a personal threat to my mixed kids. Followed closely by the fact that i’m from a third world country, and I know that promoting ethnic identity invariably corrodes and destroys a society. It wrecks every facet of society and governance. Every issue becomes overtaken by ethnic scorekeeping and jockeying. Democracy itself disappears, replaced with ethnic machine politics.

In which “third world” country have you experienced this? How does ethnic identity threaten a mixed person? Being mixed myself, I'd love to know why you think ethnic identity is a threat to me and others like me. In my experience, it has been a tremendous advantage, despite the fact that I have lost friends and opportunities simply because I am not "white enough". And that isn't a guess or misread, I've been told tha…

> In which “third world” country have you experienced this?

Bangladesh. My uncle fought a war to gain independence from Pakistan and establish a homeland for our ethnic group.

> How does ethnic identity threaten a mixed person?

Because ethnic identity is maladaptive in individualist American society.

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

#220

Post by dfxm12 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #170
harimau777 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Thi…

DEI is not a law. I get how this misunderstanding is possible given how wildly the term gets thrown about by conservatives, like it is a boogieman that is the source of everyone's problems.

Anyway, everyone is already ostensibly equal under the law, but, like you've recognized, we've still found our way into a system of racism (that goes beyond governmental discrimination). Logically, to recognize systemic racism, that folks are born into a disadvantage, then to say that these disadvantages must be ignored, is to exploit systemic racism. It does nothing to address the system. If anything, by making it an EO, it strengthens the system.

You call DEI countering racism with racism, but your only argument for this is getting mad at a hypothetical situation. To add, though, to recognize systemic racism and to then put so much weight on an SAT score, while standardized testing is known as being a component of systemic racism [0], is racist in and of itself.

0 - https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-begin...

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