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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

#381

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#382

Post by AnthonyMouse »

croes wrote: post #321
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is that not the proposal instead of DEI?

That’s still DEI. Poor have less chances? Enforce hiring of the poor. Non-white habe less chances? Enforce hiring of non-whites. Non-male have less chances? Enforce hiring of non-males. Disabled have less chances? Enforce hiring of disabled. If you have less chances because of a attribute you aren’t responsible for, enforce hiring of people with such an attribute to normalize the attribute in the workspace is DEI.

The premise of that proposal is that the test scores are inaccurate as a result of the economic disparity, because people with less income have less resources to prepare for the test. That would apply in the case of an economic disparity because having more resources allows you to artificially receive a higher score. It's not about accepting someone with less merit out of charity but rather about adjusting for a measurement error.

But the economic disparity is the reason for the racial disparity, because otherwise we expect people of different races are equally intelligent, right? So the economic disparity is the real one and accounting for that inherently accounts for the racial disparity as well, and you don't need both.

Which is the reason doing the latter is controversial.

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

#383

Post by s1artibartfast »

jaredhallen wrote: post #362
s1artibartfast wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we don't agree what DEI is. I'm against different criteria for people based on race. This is most apparent in school admissions and affirmative action. I think it is a clear violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to have dual standards based on race. Also, I don't appreciate you blatant racism putting all white people into a single stereotype, not do I think it is accurate

This seems to be mostly a discussion in good faith, so I'm going to engage. There is definitely some ambiguity around the definition, and that's because DEI isn't law. Particularly in the context of this discussion, different companies implement different policies. So when asking if it's essentially affirmative action, the answer is "it depends". But to shift gears, I've seen good arguments on both sides here. It see…

I think you are describing the situation well. I would put myself in the bucket of equal opportunity. I prefer addressing the causes, and think poverty is a better proxy for the core issue than skin color, and doesn't have the collateral damage.

A black and a white children of dirt poor single mothers are both going to have major headwinds in life.

A black and white children of married techies and doctors are both going to start with a good hand.

Addressing the problem at the college admission stage is just juicing the numbers in a way that says our University is care more about your skin color than what you can do.

It would be far better to look at what we can do to keep kids in school, stabilize their home lives, and make them into competitive college applicants.

This is the route to address equal outcome that doesn't result in unfair circumstances at the individual level. It's slower to show results, but I think it's the only thing they'll actually get there in the end.

If all we care about is the numbers, we could just give honorary diplomas to kids that can't even read and make the numbers work.

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

#384

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #379
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the primary reason why it's hard to start a business is access to capital, I'm not really sure what "lowering barriers" (which barriers exactly? how?) and "regulatory overhead" (which ones specifically?) will meaningfully do to improve the outcomes of black people. Suppose you want to start a restaurant. You already have a kitchen at home, so can you put a sign out front and start serving customers without ha…

> "My opponents are lying racists" would be the ad hominem fallacy even if it was true. No, if it were true, standing on its own, it would be an accurate statement of fact. It is only be the ad hominem fallacy if it forms part of an argument with this logical structure: 1. My opponents argue X, but 2. My opponents are lying racists, therefore 3. X is false.

That is the structure of the argument. X is that DEI is a bad policy.

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

#385

Post by wredcoll »

rayiner wrote: post #334
wredcoll wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All else being equal, it’s not possible for a “racially diverse” team to function differently than a racially homogenous one. And if all horses are perfectly spherical, they'd be awfully hard to ride. The plain fact is that people are discriminated, for and against, based solely on their appearance. It happens today and it sure happened 100 years ago.

> The plain fact is that people are discriminated, for and against, based solely on their appearance. It happens today and it sure happened 100 years ago. What does that have to do with how someone does their job?

The subject is preferential admission to harvard, what do you mean who does a job?

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

#386

Post by mcphage »

trogdor wrote: post #371
scoofy wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a conflation in the idea behind this comment that drives me crazy. This version of equity based on race is using race as a proxy for outcomes in life that are actually based on a wide variety of factors. Equality based on race is treating peoples race as equal. The idea that we care about equity is important , but using race as a proxy means we need to care especially about the proxy and making sure the prox…

> Equity is important As I understand it, “equity” in this content generally refers to equality of outcomes between groups. I don’t see why that is desirable, important, or even possible. Would you explain why you believe that equity is important?

> I don’t see why that is desirable, important, or even possible.

Are you okay with being in one of the groups where the outcomes are worse?

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

#387

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#388

Post by mcphage »

Izkata wrote: post #303
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-DEI argument is that modern racial disparities are predominantly caused by economic circumstances, e.g. black people are more likely to be poor and then less likely to have to startup capital to start their own business or be able to afford to attend a high status university. The same applies to white people who don't have affluent parents. "White people who grew up poor" are under-represented at the top of…

> and not just fudge the metric through race quotas etc. It goes further than just fudging the metrics: By relying on quotas you have to dig deeper into the minority pool of candidates, and are more likely to get someone less skilled than if you hadn't used quotas. This combined with the overall focus on DEI just ends up reinforcing racism/sexism when the quota-hires are more inept than the non-quota hires.

> By relying on quotas you have to dig deeper into the minority pool of candidates, and are more likely to get someone less skilled than if you hadn't used quotas.

What? By pulling from a larger pool of candidates, you’re more likely to get someone more skilled.

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

#389

Post by wredcoll »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #361
wredcoll wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I appreciate your merit. Starting the race 100 meters ahead of the other runners probably doesn't get you a very accurate measure of who is the fastest.

The issue is that it's not an athletic competition. If someone is better at heart surgery, it doesn't matter if it's because their parents could afford books and someone else's couldn't, that's still the person you want doing heart surgery. If you then want to buy books for people who can't afford them, that's an entirely different proposal than giving the job to someone who isn't as qualified.

> The issue is that it's not an athletic competition. If someone is better at heart surgery, it doesn't matter if it's because their parents could afford books and someone else's couldn't, that's still the person you want doing heart surgery.

Well, an athletic competition would make more sense because that actually determines whose the best. We don't test heart surgeons to see who the best is, we test to see if they can do the job.

That's what people tend to... conveniently overlook... in these conversations. No one is hiring "the best" or only accepting "the best" into their college or whatever else. They pick a good one from the pool of candidates they have available.

Trying to pretend that "using race to pick between two equally qualified candidates" is the same thing as "picking unqualified candidates" is, well, damn close to a lie.

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

#390

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jensensbutton wrote: post #295
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-DEI argument is that modern racial disparities are predominantly caused by economic circumstances, e.g. black people are more likely to be poor and then less likely to have to startup capital to start their own business or be able to afford to attend a high status university. The same applies to white people who don't have affluent parents. "White people who grew up poor" are under-represented at the top of…

This is a simplistic view. E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume? In this case the lower chances to get ahead have nothing to do with economic circumstance.

> E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume?

You're referring to a decades-old study that failed to replicate:

https://datacolada.org/51

(This is extremely common in social sciences.)

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