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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

#411

Post by harimau777 »

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.

I don't think that necessarily follows. For example, if 20% of some minority are qualified and without quotas only 5% would be hired, then a quota requiring hiring 10% wouldn't result in unqualified candidates.

That being said, I haven't heard virtually any advocates of DEI calling for quotas and they don't seem to be common at all.

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

#412

Post by rayiner »

wredcoll wrote: post #306
leereeves wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the opportunity pipeline that already exists for white people There is no opportunity pipeline for white people. There is an opportunity pipeline for a small number of well connected, wealthy people who can get their kids into elite prep schools starting from kindergarten. It's not open to working class white people. Edit: that doesn't mean no working class white person can succeed. Just that the prep school, elite…

"Small number" is doing a lot of work. Just as an example: https://heller.brandeis.edu/news/items/releases/2023/impact-... Quite a few "white people" got a start at accumulating property this way that was denied to "black people". Is it directly tied to going to college? No. Does it help? Probably.

My wife’s family is from a nearly all white coastal oregon county whose median household income is about the same as the national average household income for black people. Between two individuals with that same income level, the historical reasons why they ended up in that position are irrelevant. Neither person experienced those historical circumstances themselves. And regardless of path dependency, the result of that they’re on the same rung of the economic ladder today. There is no legitimate basis to help one of those people over the other.

And if you’re looking at path dependency, Asians should be the biggest beneficiaries of DEI. My dad was born in a third world village. He’d literally have been far better off going to school in the segregated south than taking a boat to school during monsoon season. I don’t think that should count in how you treat me—I grew up comfortably middle class—but it’s downright bizarre to say I’m somehow more privileged than people whose families have long been in America.

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

#413

Post by freejazz »

rdtsc wrote: post #235
freejazz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Juries are allowed to infer intent. They do not need an explicit statement admitting it. To be honest, I find it very weird that you quoted that part and had the response you did as if you knew what you were talking about. By your logic, intent would essentially be impossible to prove in just about any circumstance. Obviously, that's not true. In reality, there's tons of caselaw about when intent can be inferred by a…

> To be honest, I find it very weird that you quoted that part and had the response you did as if you knew what you were talking about. Well honesty is always key, I find. > Obviously, that's not true. In reality, there's tons of caselaw about when intent can be inferred by a jury for any claim requiring intent. By one juror or two, and if the defense lawyers are dummies and fail to do their job. Corporations like IB…

>By one juror or two, and if the defense lawyers are dummies and fail to do their job. Corporations like IBM have lawyers on retainer and they are not that incompetent.

What do you mean by one juror or two? My point is regarding when juries are legally allowed to make an intent determination. It often does not require a specific expression of intent and instead can be inferred from activities that indicate things like reckless behavior and disregard for the potential that they do the unlawful thing.

>It will be hard to infer intent if the defense can present some evidence of “increased efficiency”, “working together” and “consolidating”. Without a smoking gun piece of evidence proving the contrary it would be an uphill battle, especially for one individual plaintiff.

No, that's just a defense which might not cut against the inference at all.

>Do you speak for all jurors?

No, you seem to be confused about the evidence a court allows a jury to rely on when it makes a state-of-mind determination in civil suits. My reading of your post was that you suggested it required an express claim regarding intent. That is not the case, legally. Maybe you didn't realize that and were just posting layman stuff, which is understandable. It's not just a reflection of legal reality.

I don't think that you appreciate the typical legal procedure is that before any fact-question is presented to the jury, parties move based upon the available evidence, whether or not there is sufficient facts presented to warrant a fact-decider's decision. This occurs prior to trial at the summary judgment stage and after evidence is presented at trial. So there is often a legal boundary as to what evidence a jury can consider when it comes to any fact question (i.e. did this party have intent? did this party do the thing? etc)

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

#414

Post by dude187 »

mcphage wrote: post #388
Izkata wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You're narrowing the pool by only hiring specific races or sexes. Not widening it.

Do you believe that hiring currently excludes those races and sexes? Because that's explicitly illegal, and has been for a long time

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

#415

Post by harimau777 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #378
ryanobjc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you said "make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business by lowering barriers to entry and regulatory overhead on small entities" This is a supposition: the cure "lowering barriers, regulatory overhead" may not cause the intended outcome "make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business". Given the primary reason why it's hard to start a business is access to capital, I'm no…

> 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…

While many regulations exist due to regulatory capture, many also exist for good reasons. Notably, with the possible exception of the complicated taxes, the examples you give all have pretty obvious health and safety reasons why they exist.

I agree that we should be careful to avoid overregulation in general and regulatory capture in particular. However, even without that access to capital is likely to be a major barrier to entry to many people starting a business.

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

#416

Post by Izkata »

harimau777 wrote: post #411
Izkata wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think that necessarily follows. For example, if 20% of some minority are qualified and without quotas only 5% would be hired, then a quota requiring hiring 10% wouldn't result in unqualified candidates. That being said, I haven't heard virtually any advocates of DEI calling for quotas and they don't seem to be common at all.

I never said unqualified. I used relative terms like less skilled, for example the 5% in your example that wouldn't have been hired without quotas.

The non-quota'd hires in that example, that the additional 5% displaced, are now also more likely to be of higher average skill (since you need less of them and can drop the bottom of the candidates), making a bigger disparity between the quota'd group and the non-quota'd group. Which, as I said, just reinforces any racism/sexism such quotas attempted to offset.

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

#417

Post by harimau777 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #378
ryanobjc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you said "make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business by lowering barriers to entry and regulatory overhead on small entities" This is a supposition: the cure "lowering barriers, regulatory overhead" may not cause the intended outcome "make it easier for someone without rich parents to start a business". Given the primary reason why it's hard to start a business is access to capital, I'm no…

> 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…

> Why is this "certain groups" instead of providing the same access to everyone trying to start a business?

Because conservatives won't let us. Literally the most famous slogan associated with leftists is wanting regular people to "own the means of production." Most leftists would be THRILLED by programs to help anyone get access to capital.

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

#418

Post by harimau777 »

disambiguation wrote: post #282
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…

All social injustice stems from the first law of economics: there isn't enough to go around. DEI will come and go, but so long as we lack the wealth to meet everyones needs (and wants), there will always be inequity. The real question is, does anyone have an idea of what a fair world looks like in the mean time? Why do people disagree on what that fair world looks like? Is it a fools errand to try and make the world…

I think it's important not to make things too black and white. Certainly it's difficult to put in place or even define a perfectly fair world. However, that doesn't mean that we can't make things more fair.

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

#419

Post by wredcoll »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #399
wredcoll wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. When you have a competitive major university that gets thousands of applicants and you base admission strictly on test scores, you'll end up accepting only 1% black applicants because their test scores are lower for various reasons. If you wanted t…

That seems rather unlikely, you have any data to back that up?

Someone else linked this article https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-chart-illustrates-graphic...

> For the 2015-2016 academic year, the average GPA of all students applying to medical schools was 3.55 and the average MCAT score was 28.3 according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

> The middle set of bars in the top chart above show that for applicants to US medical schools between 2013-2016 with average GPAs (3.40 to 3.59) and average MCAT scores (27 to 29), black applicants were almost 4 times more likely to be accepted to US medical schools than Asians in that applicant pool (81.2% vs. 20.6%), and 2.8 times more likely than white applicants (81.2% vs. 29.0%).

Seems like they're in the same applicant pool.

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

#420

Post by harimau777 »

disambiguation wrote: post #339
jensensbutton wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a perfect example of gp's comment.

GPs comment is a perfect example of GPs comment. The burden of proof is on the person trying to make a point. They gave no arguments or evidence in their favor. I lay out a point that shows they have no ground to stand on.

It is unfortunately impossible to prove the negative. I did give examples of what I would like to see in a discussion. There's unfortunately no realistic way for me to "provide evidence" that I only rarely see it.
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