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The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

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Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#41

Post by crazy_horse »

majormajor wrote: post #40
a1369209993 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected [] racists. Yes, exactly. And assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together helps said racists, as might be expected from their being the ones who originally did so.

That lumping is, again, descriptive. And it's an often-useful description/category in large part because of that historical racism. Getting worked up over that is a huge waste of time, to the point that I now wonder if it's a sideshow. If we waste our time arguing about if this "the diverse hires left and the new hires after them were white" description is bad, we've been successfully distracted. The idea that anyone…

> The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd

It surprises me that you don't see that language like this is the same language used against marginalized groups. Nobody but the person that is offended gets to decide how they feel.

We as people of lots of overlapping concerns have to be empathetic or we'll get more factionalism instead of unity and inclusion.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#42

Post by akiselev »

majormajor wrote: post #28
crazy_horse wrote: post #15

There's something about writing like this that gets at me. It's angry, for a good reason, it has lots of good points, but in trying to get across its main point, which is signaling dissatisfaction with the tech industry, attacks lots of groups, hits lots of unrelated points, and when it gets into historical tidbits overrates single events in order to build a narrative. For example, please stop using terms like cishet…

I find it a reach that you're complaining about grouping when used in this context: > For example, I once worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: they made an inclusion skills rubric, placed ads in “diverse” tech spaces, et cetera. Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cishet white guys. T…

The statement as a whole is equally effective with just "white guys" since most people can draw their connotations from the context and those that can't wouldn't know the word anyway (and researching it throws them into the deep end). Reading between the lines (fairly or not), adding that descriptor implies a value judgement beyond the baseline lack of diversity. It draws attention to the individuals as the problem rather than systemic or emergent issues.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#43

Post by majormajor »

crazy_horse wrote: post #41
majormajor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That lumping is, again, descriptive. And it's an often-useful description/category in large part because of that historical racism. Getting worked up over that is a huge waste of time, to the point that I now wonder if it's a sideshow. If we waste our time arguing about if this "the diverse hires left and the new hires after them were white" description is bad, we've been successfully distracted. The idea that anyone…

> The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd It surprises me that you don't see that language like this is the same language used against marginalized groups. Nobody but the person that is offended gets to decide how they feel. We as people of lots of overlapping concerns have to be empathetic or we'll get more factionalism instead of unity and inclusion.

I don't see it as at all the same thing. People get offended at slurs and insults, and I don't see why I should interpret this usage as either. Do you think the "diverse people" referred to in that paragraph should also be offended?

Someone here is upset about the author "assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together" - I fail to see how they're lumping those people in this story together any more than they are the other group.

Someone here is upset about the author "being prejudiced against a group full of unique people" - I fail to see the prejudice in the quoted paragraph.

Someone here is upset about "cishet white male shaming" - I fail to see the shaming.

I don't see marginalized minority groups getting offended at, e.g. academic studies of the Mexican experience in the US for that same sort of grouping.

That the term wasn't invented ourselves[0] seems to be the only real case being made here, but its an abbreviation of two technical terms, not an obvious slur. We could make an analogy to someone getting upset someone using one of one of "African American" vs "Black" vs another such term, but then we're getting pretty well into niche territory versus talking about something obviously offensive to everyone the term describes.

[0] as far as I know, anyway, though I suppose it could've been.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#44

Post by crazy_horse »

majormajor wrote: post #43
crazy_horse wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd It surprises me that you don't see that language like this is the same language used against marginalized groups. Nobody but the person that is offended gets to decide how they feel. We as people of lots of overlapping concerns have to be empathetic or we'll get more factionalism instead of unity and inclusion.

I don't see it as at all the same thing. People get offended at slurs and insults, and I don't see why I should interpret this usage as either. Do you think the "diverse people" referred to in that paragraph should also be offended? Someone here is upset about the author "assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together" - I fail to see how they're lumping those people in this st…

> I don't see marginalized minority groups getting offended at, e.g. academic studies of the Mexican experience in the US for that same sort of grouping.

I see your point but I think you are making really big bunchings of value judgments. I live in a Hispanic community. There are lots and lots of people in that group that are cishet white males, their family members aren't going to call them that, though. Not a small number of them find being cishet as only morally acceptable.

It's similar to latinx. They are terms that are used in very specific groups and mean something important there but when they get used across boundaries different groups are basically talking about different things (it's a freedom fighter/terrorist issue).

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#45

Post by majormajor »

crazy_horse wrote: post #44
majormajor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it as at all the same thing. People get offended at slurs and insults, and I don't see why I should interpret this usage as either. Do you think the "diverse people" referred to in that paragraph should also be offended? Someone here is upset about the author "assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together" - I fail to see how they're lumping those people in this st…

> I don't see marginalized minority groups getting offended at, e.g. academic studies of the Mexican experience in the US for that same sort of grouping. I see your point but I think you are making really big bunchings of value judgments. I live in a Hispanic community. There are lots and lots of people in that group that are cishet white males, their family members aren't going to call them that, though. Not a small…

So would we be having this dicussion if the author had written: "Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cisgender heterosexual white guys."?

My guess from your comments is: probably not, from your perspective? Much of your original post that I disagreed with is about the use of the term itself.

But I don't get that sense from the reactions posted by others, since those other quotes I included don't seem to be justified by this article at all, to me.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#46

Post by valyagolev »

> The company talks a massive game about how inclusive they are. But the messaging app company not only built direct messaging across Slack channels—it was even in production before anybody (anybody being, of course, the entire internet) pointed out that the feature could hardly cater to harassers and stalkers more perfectly.

Can somebody explain this for me? Should’ve slack not have any DMs, is that the point?

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#48

Post by dummy_physicist »

crazy_horse wrote: post #15

There's something about writing like this that gets at me. It's angry, for a good reason, it has lots of good points, but in trying to get across its main point, which is signaling dissatisfaction with the tech industry, attacks lots of groups, hits lots of unrelated points, and when it gets into historical tidbits overrates single events in order to build a narrative. For example, please stop using terms like cishet…

About the cishet thing, I think that's fair use in this context. When discussing diversity, it is normal to name the groups discussed. As the cishet is usually seem as the default, I'd say it is important to address it properly, as not to assume that as universal. Is this divisive language? In some way, yes, but that's the point: we use it to discuss the divisions we observe in society.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#49

Post by Zababa »

majormajor wrote: post #40
a1369209993 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected [] racists. Yes, exactly. And assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together helps said racists, as might be expected from their being the ones who originally did so.

That lumping is, again, descriptive. And it's an often-useful description/category in large part because of that historical racism. Getting worked up over that is a huge waste of time, to the point that I now wonder if it's a sideshow. If we waste our time arguing about if this "the diverse hires left and the new hires after them were white" description is bad, we've been successfully distracted. The idea that anyone…

> could you imagine how such people would feel if they were part of one of the out-groups instead and didn't just get lumped together but also had been attacked by the centuries of racism in the US?

You do realize that the majority of white cis heterosexual people live outside the USA right? This is often a source of frustration for me, as people in the USA don't seem to realize the rest of the world exists. All of these things about whiteness, white cishet and white supremacy don't really translate well outside of that context.

Re: The Oxymoron of “Data-Driven Innovation”

#50

Post by [deleted] »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #34
smolder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no "turnabout" happening in being prejudiced against a group full of unique people, many of whom aren't so prejudiced.

I can't imagine that you are arguing that non-white, non-cis, and non-hetro people haven't been prejudiced against by whitecishetromales. That's where the "turnabout" comes into play. If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. The point I was making is that when it is misapplied, it's potentially helpful (in creating additional awareness in those who are on some spectrum…

[deleted]
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