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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

#481

Post by rotw »

audessuscest wrote: post #446
proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

Looks like they trade "structure based purely on meritocracy" by "promote diversity". I don't see how this can go well. Meritocracy is important among dev and open source. And they don't care about political diversity. I can only imagine this new "culture of fear" where you can't hire white people (even woman). Skills and experiences should be the only way to choose who you hire, not race or gender. Anyway, looks lik…

The entire point of diversity initiatives is that the meritocracy in theory doest not translate into a meritocracy in practice, due to unconscious bias: https://library.gv.com/unconscious-bias-at-work-22e698e9b2d#... as well as other factors.

You're totally right that skills and experiences should be the only way to choose, but right now, tech firms in this society are fundamentally incapable of actually implementing that without diversity initiatives. True meritocracy can only come through promoting diversity.

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

#482

Post by zzzeek »

proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

> We need to start learning how to simply NOT THINK about race, and NOT MENTION IT. There is simply no excuse at all to mention it.

So when Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about his experience constantly being treated as a shoplifter solely based on his race [1], there's "simply no excuse at all"? I'd counter there's simply no excuse at all to attempt silencing necessary discussion about ongoing mass injustice.

[1] http://parade.com/250591/lynnsherr/cosmos-neil-degrasse-tyso...

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

#483

Post by reitanqild »

mercurial wrote: post #357
fweespeech wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given they are publicly singling out white women, I'm not really sure that is true. You shouldn't be generalizing on race if you want me to believe that.

So, as far as I'm aware, there is "racism-as-defined-in-some-academic-circles", where it's only racism when it's systematic and directed by a privileged ethnic group against an unprivileged ethnic group. Which is (IMHO) different from what non-academic people understand racism. Maybe that's what parent means?

> "when it's systematic and directed by a privileged ethnic group against an unprivileged ethnic group"

Honest question: does it have to be directed by "a privileged ethnic group" or is it valid if it is by any general group or even a single, privileged person?

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

#484

Post by rotw »

wildmusings wrote: post #453
aikah wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has more to do with the current cultural war in USA than anything else. Like all wars it's about power, it's a power grab. "Reverse-racism" is now an acceptable ideology in the media and in the tech community, and all the social-studies crowd now get jobs as "diversity officers" in Tech companies. It isn't going to end well for some companies, that might get "disrupted" from the inside because of people pushing po…

It's a protection racket. If you don't have these worthless diversity officers, if you don't kiss Jesse Jackson's ass when he accuses you of racism, they drag you through the media with the worst implications and associations put next to your name.

That's delusional conspiracy nonsense. Seriously, take a step back and look at what you're saying.

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

#485

Post by b6 »

beatpanda wrote: post #437
malandrew wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elaborate.

"Racism" is a system where a racial group with a monopoly on power in society arranges the rules of that society to continue priveleging their own racial group. "Bigotry" is when you dislike someone because of their race. And the comments that everyone on HN are getting all in their feelings about are neither bigoted nor racist; they are basic, uncontroversial observations from people who have been doing anti-racist…

That's not the standard definition of racism. You're repeating a variation of "racism = prejudice + power", a component of the social justice meme I've been seeing everywhere.

To me it seems like rhetorical sleight of hand, redefining "racism" to depend on a mysterious "power" component which is never adequately demonstrated or explained, or only explained in terms which are themselves actually racist, e.g., "whites have power because most politicians are white".

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

#486

Post by reitanqild »

anotherc wrote: post #432
proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

> Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. You have to be joking. This is sarcasm, right?

Why would it be? Are things really so much different where you live as compared to western Europe?

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

#487

Post by DannyBee »

tosseraccount wrote: post #285
DannyBee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great power != running the company. It specifically mentions he's taken over corpdev and some other functions Also note that Julio is a very technical guy. Note that what you have seen here is nearly identical to what david drummond did at Google (start as legal, take over some other functions like corpdev) in the early years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Drummond_(Google) It's hard to say this didn't work out…

Who's making the assumptions, counsellor(?) ? I didn't write the article which is fingering him as the root of the problem. You say he does "corpdev" and the article clearly points out "development of the corporation" has become a big problem. I'll take your word on Mr. Drummond, though.

"Who's making the assumptions, counsellor(?) ? "

You are. Let's take what you said "... aren't running a tech company."

Nothing in the article said he's running the company, you are making an assumption here.

Nothing you have provided at all backups up your claim that "It's often not a good sign when the top engineers or star salesmen aren't running a tech company. ". So there's an unproven statement combined again with the assumption that engineers aren't running the place (the article says it's being run by one of the co-founders, who was an engineer - "Prior to founding GitHub he worked as an engineer at CNET Networks on Gamespot and the launch of Chow.")

"You say he does "corpdev" and the article clearly points out "development of the corporation" has become a big problem. "

This badly misunderstands what corpdev does.

It's pretty much not worth continuing this discussion, i'm just pointing out that you are making wildly silly generalizations to how to run companies and what the article actually says. And yeah, you are making a ton of assumptions to do it.

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

#488

Post by StevePerkins »

codyps wrote: post #459
StevePerkins wrote: post #338

Some random thoughts and observations after reading this thread: [1] I'm interested in the differences between reactions to this, versus Brendan Eich's gay marriage scandal at Mozilla a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong... I supported marriage equality then, and I do not support the worst of the statements called out in this story now. However, there are rational arguments that the HN community overreacted in B…

I was interested in your comparison in #1, wrt "HN community overreacted". I've been searching through old HN stories about Eich, but can't seem to find any where the comments generally supported firing him due to supporting Prop 8 (banning gay marriage). Is there a particular thread you had in mind? Or are you stating the overreaction was being angry that he might have been fired over that support?

I don't have a link, and I'll admit that this is subjective and anecdotal.

I just recall there being a LOT of people who found it perfectly reasonable to oust somebody for long-ago political donations, despite there being no indication that he ever actually discriminated against anyone at Mozilla.

Yeah, you can make arguments that the mere existence of a such past donation creates a symbolically hostile environment, etc. But those arguments seemed pretty thin to me. At the time Eich made that donation, every major Democratic presidential candidate (including Clinton and Obama) were ALSO publicly opposed to marriage equality. So it seemed like extreme mental gymnastics to put a "hate speech" label on Eich.

In the GitHub story today, if you were feeling charitable then you could likewise apply some positive spin too. There IS some context to those slideshow bullet-points and that tweet, which has been buried under the outrage. Once again, I disagree with these messages even when that context is considered. But my point is that it seemed like there were a lot more people willing to do mental gymnastics in the Eich case than in this one.

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

#489

Post by verylongaccount »

exolymph wrote: post #454
verylongaccount wrote: post #345

It seems that a large number of posters believe that discriminating against white men is okay because they enjoy "white privilege", whatever that is. Either you believe it is okay to discriminate against someone on the basis of their skin color or you don't. Attempts to redefine the word notwithstanding, those who subscribe to the former philosophy are known as racists. It is hard to distinguish the anti-white vitrio…

I think you're misunderstanding the argument people make about the concept of privilege. Nothing about it is intentional in the standard sense. It's more that people behave to benefit themselves -- which is natural and fine -- and power has slowly accrued over time to white men more than to other types of people. The argument is not that white men are malicious, but that their traits are implicitly favored and promot…

I understand perfectly. This is precisely what was (and is still to an extent) said of Jews.

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

#490

Post by bybjorn »

davesque wrote: post #458
StevePerkins wrote: post #338

Some random thoughts and observations after reading this thread: [1] I'm interested in the differences between reactions to this, versus Brendan Eich's gay marriage scandal at Mozilla a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong... I supported marriage equality then, and I do not support the worst of the statements called out in this story now. However, there are rational arguments that the HN community overreacted in B…

Agreed about Bitbucket. I've used it for a long time and haven't found it to be substantively different from GitHub in either functionality or reliability. The major downside, as I see it, is that it's just not as popular.

bitbucket for private repos, github for public. No downside there :-)
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