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GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

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Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub has, since the Horvath incident, made it pretty clear what kind of person they want to hire. And, frankly, that's fine. There are plenty of places where I, as a competent white male, can get hired and promoted without difficulty. The fact that Github isn't one of those is not a systematic problem. More power to them.

At what point does it become a systemic problem, though? Github is a major software company, and there are similar signs at other major companies, most of whom are starting down a similar path.

The problem will self-correct at some point once the lawsuits are filed and the cost of such efforts is visible to executive leadership and investors. Even if they settle the suits early on, it'll still be a very expensive lesson. Workplaces with problems like Github is apparently developing rarely get better on their own without first experiencing the consequences.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...you should have a similar objection to an Asian person. Not having that mentioned can't help but seem racist against white people." It's not purely about representation, although that is important too. It's about centuries of white dominance. A couple decades of people of Asian descent having a strong presence in an industry isn't enough. How many of those overrepresented Asians are holding positions of senior le…

Getting quickly down-voted for a thoughtful comment. White fragility is real.

I agree your previous comment shouldn't be downvoted, but now you just wrote a racist one, so I guess it should.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#413
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware of this history. One thing to note is the sentence that precedes 'reverse'-ism: >Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’ Coded language for sanctioned discrimination.

I'm okay with it, because I can get a job elsewhere. Some minorities can't. I don't need to be able to get a job at GitHub, because for some stupid reason, society has a general bias in favor of me. I can work anywhere, but the folks they're giving a shot are folks who don't have it as good as I do.

Every human being should be judged for the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

The law disagrees with you. I can very easily see Github on the losing side of workplace racial discrimination claim here.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#414
post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

The problem with hard pushes in the aftermath of really bad PR is that it's very easy to over-correct and wind up creating a new problem for yourself. It seems like Github is well on their way to just that with how they've implemented their diversity efforts. A lot of those quotes are truly scary, and are priming the pump for some very nasty lawsuits over hostile work environments that will only wind up creating new…

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Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have on my Facebook lots of feminist friends. One thing they frequently claim, is that they are NOT censoring anything, people are free to do whatever they want. Yet they keep pushing for this behaviour (black listing people that disagree with feminism, nagging companies until they decide to not launch products in some markets because fear of feminist backlash, and so on). I honestly don't see how they don't notice…

>> I honestly don't see how they don't notice how illogical their position are. I have a friend on Twitter who's a raging feminist. I asked her if she was concerned about Carly Fiorina being excluded from the GOP debate since she was the only woman and actually had more votes in the Iowa caucus than two other male candidates who they kept in the debate. Her response was that she never cared about any GOP candidate. I…

> If you're for women's rights, then it shouldn't matter what race, religion or political party someone is, in order to support them - they're women, and should be supported regardless.

WTH are you talking about? If you're for women's rights you support people who are also for women's rights, regardless of race, religion or gender they are.

I don't know who Carly Fiorina is, but I know Margaret Thatcher, and she did nothing for women. By your logic though, just because she was a woman, feminists should have supported her over men in the opposing (socialist) party that supported women's rights?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#416
post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

It's... quite heartening, to see HN call out the blatantly anti-equality messaging highlighted in this article, and to not have it buried at the bottom of the page. Lots of unsourced speculation as to what's going on behind the scenes, but I wonder if a few years from now, we'll all look back at the day they decided to throw out meritocracy (symbolically, as the rug, and realistically, as the reorganization) as the b…

people don't like meritocracy /sarcasm

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#417
post #15

> "We’re trying to build a new kind of enterprise company where the playbooks of old won’t always work" By replacing flat meritocracy and remote work with traditional top-down management? > "don't think we'll succeed teaching white, male middle managers empathy and compassion anytime soon, so let's limit their scope of damage" So the technical director and member of the social-impact team is a blatant racist.

Yep. This has solidified my opinion. I'm moving all my code off Github.

Sorry, as a white male, I don't have to take this kind of blatant racism, abuse, and shaming when it comes to hosting my code. BitBucket does a good job without the uppity diversity attitude.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#418
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but like 63% of the U.S consists of whites. If it were an even distribution it would be disproportionate. Whites are somewhat over represented based on your numbers, but not as much as you seem to imply.

It sounds small when you put it that way, but try looking at the same stats from the other side: 37% of Americans aren't white, but only 21% of editors aren't. Or to put it another way, white people are twice as likely to become editors as non-white people. That's not a small difference.

> 37% of Americans aren't white, but only 21% of editors aren't.

how many chinese restaurants are run by non-chinese?

these stats don't make any sense, if you just look at them that way. maybe whites like being editors more… if you don't find the reason, you won't find the solution.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't see what the big deal is. The slide refers to spearheading a diversity program, not the company itself. Seems intuitive to me that such a program with only white, male managers might be problematic.

This thread illustrates nicely the sentiment that participation in the program is meaningless if a white person can't lead it.

Inaccurate.

What this thread shows is the sentiment that, if you claim diversity is important, leaving out a group specifically to increase diversity (as opposed to, say, merely reducing their proportion in the cohort) is in fact not being intellectually consistent or honest.

Don't fall into the flippant "Oh ho ho if white's aren't involved I guess it can't ever be legit" sarcastic dismissal. That's neither fair nor accurate.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been profoundly confused by people/groups who choose to fight racism with racism. I'm not quite sure that's the best corrective path for this problem. But everyone lets it slide, at least here in the US. Are we just scared?

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." It's an inherent problem that as you fight something, you tend to mirror it. You almost have to do so in order to be effective. The problem is that at some point, it just feeds the cycle.

I've also found this to be true. It's horseshoe theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
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