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What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#481

Post by PKop »

Dig1t wrote: post #382

I work at a different FAANG and it seems like more and more the only news that we get from corporate is related to DEI. Also a lot of hiring details are now hidden from ICs. It used to be that you would be apart of the interview panel as an interviewer and then you would get together with your team afterwards and everyone on the team would vote yes/no and that would pretty much be it. Now it’s made by a manager elsew…

>We used to argue for equality, a level playing field, for all

Think of how impossibly naive and utopian this is though, and I don't mean to personally attack just to condemn the idea this is possible in any way whatsoever. Is it possible economically? How about resource wise, or geographically can we all possess equal territory? How about military power? How about physical attributes such as height or beauty? How about intelligence?

On which axes of consequences can we equalize things; how do we do it? Zero sum conflicts are everywhere that demands for equalization exist.

There is only competition over limited resources, power and prestige. There is cooperation amongst allies and friends, but only in so far as feelings are mutual and the efforts of both are in each others interest, which goes with out saying includes in you or your family/tribe/groups interests.

Is anyone trying to take money and power out of you or your children's hands a friend or ally, or are they competing with you for their own interests at your expense?

The propaganda you believed was intended to take advantage of your good nature. As long as someone brow-beats you with moralism over the downtrodden they can convince you of doing anything to dis-empower you, if you believe the nonsense that "privilege" or power are bad things, which those scheming you certainly don't as they pursue both.

It is bad to not have privilege or power. It is good to have them. It is this simple.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#482

Post by cuteboy19 »

outworlder wrote: post #84
TremendousJudge wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider, it's obvious looking in that racial classification in the US is just crazy -- they took some racial stereotypes from 100 years ago, gave them neutral sounding names, and started pretending it's not racist to group everybody south of Texas as "hispanic". And then build official policy on top of these simplistic classes that fail to describe reality in any meaningful way, only serving to reveal to every…

I myself have to mark a checkbox saying "Hispanic OR Latino". I'm Latino, but NOT Hispanic. But I can also check "white". One is a skin color, another is ancestry, and yet another is geographical location...

The fun part is that 60% of world population have to share a single classification whereas a couple of small islands in the pacific somehow get a label for themselves

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#484

Post by hintymad »

colinmhayes wrote: post #422
hintymad wrote: post #117

Maybe the question is why the leftists are so influential that for-profit companies are willing to comply with their ideology. Isn't the best way to increase the representation of minorities is to increase the funnel? Better schools, better teachers, more rigorous curriculum for all instead of for the elite students, a whole new culture that values curiosity and geekiness in general, and eventually a larger number of…

From my view it’s the right that is making education more arduous, especially for teachers at every step of the process. I haven’t seen anyone on the left try to censor teachers or cut their funding. “Girls who code” was huge at my inner city high school. Funded by the left. Democrat politicians fought constantly to make the schools better while republicans campaigned on vouchers that would mean poor students are stu…

I really wish that education is a bipartisan issue. It's really not about left or right. What I was criticizing is not any specific policy but that the elites, whatever parties they belong to, use morality to block legitimate discussion of tough problems. It just so happens that the left love to put people into racists and fascists group, or so when I am being subject to exposure bias.

> vouchers that would mean poor students are stuck in schools with less funding while rich ones get a cheaper private education.

This is the discussion I wish we have more. That is, someone says that voucher is all about giving freedom and forcing teachers to teach better, but in reality it may work just the opposite. And we should really discuss its pros and cons without attacking each other's motives.

> You just seem to have misunderstood them

Maybe so, as I'm subject to exposure bias. I just can list equal number of examples that show how the left pushed their agenda too. Let's start with Gebru. When LeCun said that bias in model was the result of bias in data, Gebru attacked him for being a bigot. When Gebru was fired from Google, how many media spent even a single paragraph to discuss the quality of her paper, which was the root of the whole debacle, while being busy attacking Google for being racist or misogynist? Or search Allison Collins. When she was criticized for her policy, she said "“Many Asian believe they benefit from the ‘model minority’ BS. In fact many Asian Americans actively promote these myths. They use white supremacist thinking to assimilate and get ahead". When school boards lower their academic standards, they cite racism (again, they maybe right, but it's wrong to attack anyone who questions their conclusion). When students performed worse in maths, multiple school boards claimed that maths are racists or there are racisms in maths curriculum. When people were talking about bringing manufacturing back to the US, a pundit said along the line that it was poor white people wishing to bring back their power. When people asked why some Asians get ahead in the us, multiple Opinions and anchors argued that it's because Asians are closer to white. When people are talking about students' reading and maths proficiency were trending downwards, how many articles immediately claimed that the issue was racism? Of if we go back, how many people would call you a racist if you questioned Warren's claim that she was a native American?

So, yes, I'm not happy with what I saw, but I saw the aforementioned examples and more from WaPo, from NYT, from The Atlantic, from Reuters, from MSNBC, from school boards, and from politicians. So, I don't know what kind of misunderstanding I can avoid.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#485

Post by cuteboy19 »

outworlder wrote: post #39
throwawaysleep wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asian parents give a shit whether their kids show up for school.

'asian' parents from which country? They are not all the same. It's a huge chunk of the planet.

But it is true. Chinese and Indian people have nothing else in common but their parenting styles are the same. Historical accident maybe, but it's true

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#486

Post by genrilz »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #221
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also support a policy that supports at least considering disabled or impoverished candidates.

I'm interested in the question of who decides which attributes are relevant, and which values of those attributes shall be favored. I think there's the potential for self-contradiction / hypocrisy by those persons, depending on the particular logic they use.

The people who decide which attributes are relevant are the higher ups in the company. These people are making their decisions based off traits that they believe unfairly disadvantage people. The reason for that belief is the political advocacy of people who have those traits.

Ideally, I would hope that everyone who has such a trait also has a group to advocate for them, and thus the hiring managers would be making perfect decisions. I do not think this is at all the case though. Regardless, I think it is better to correct for the traits that do have advocacy behind them rather than just not doing any correction at all.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#487

Post by zozbot234 »

thegrimmest wrote: post #430
lordleft wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty. This is false. But let me charitably engage your argument and ask you the following -- if your premise is correct, that means that lower access to education and economic attainment among under represented people of color has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with...some…

> What is that thing? The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). The main difference seems to be cultural values that prioritize the nuclear family and educational attainment. The SAT…

> The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against. ...It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with.

This might actually be the best plausible argument in favor of affirmative action and D&I policies targeted towards these folks. By making it easier for them to enter especially high-skilled industry sectors such as tech we strengthen their incentive for adopting more effective cultural norms, which has significant benefits in the longer run.

(Unfortunately, this won't do any good if the educational system as a whole is not up to reasonable standards - if you're uneducated, you're still practically barred from the most productive and lucrative careers. And U.S. K-12 public education sucks.)

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#488

Post by PKop »

nonethewiser wrote: post #414
Dig1t wrote: post #382

I work at a different FAANG and it seems like more and more the only news that we get from corporate is related to DEI. Also a lot of hiring details are now hidden from ICs. It used to be that you would be apart of the interview panel as an interviewer and then you would get together with your team afterwards and everyone on the team would vote yes/no and that would pretty much be it. Now it’s made by a manager elsew…

> I do worry that my kids won’t be diverse enough to be able to get into a decent school or get a good job like I was able to when they’re older. 1. A single person cannot be diverse or not diverse. 2. There is nothing wrong with your kids being in a majority demographic. It sounds like you're more worried about the world discriminating based off race and other traits. I suspect you agree with all of this but it's a…

It is always useful and prudent to see things from the perspective of those attacking you. "Know your enemy.."

You can argue over definitions and terms as much as you want, but the uniform you wear is often defined by your opposition. In other words, it may not be completely relevant what you or OP think diverse is or isn't. It is very relevant what the power structures and people implementing these policies think it means, no?

If someone has a kid that potentially is going to be quota'ed out of jobs or education, why wouldn't they worry about it?

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#489

Post by Cyberdog »

sascha_sl wrote: post #338
Cyberdog wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice that you only use the word “group” above and not “people” or some older word acknowledging that that’s what these groups are made of. Why judge people by the groups that were born into when we could be judging them as individuals instead?

Have you ever been involved with hiring? The first stage - reading CVs - is not exactly the greatest point in time to judge people as individuals, if they're even read beyond a short skim. It is the biggest opportunity for unconscious bias to reject a candidate.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that we shouldn't consider people as individuals when reading their CV because that's when unconscious bias may lead to their rejection? If the latter is true, then shouldn't we do the former all the more?

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#490

Post by Terretta »

max51 wrote: post #384
DebtDeflation wrote: post #292

This is how literally everything in corporate America works. You start with a good idea. It gets turned into a metric. Targets for this metric are assigned at various levels in the management hierarchy. Bonuses are made dependent upon meeting the target for the metric. Eventually everyone forgets the initial objective and just focuses on managing the metric. I work in consulting, client satisfaction is obviously very…

You missed the part where after a few years of cheating the metric, getting "above average" satisfaction (4 out of 5) from a client is considered a failure and a manager 3 levels above you will personally come asking what went wrong with this client.

If you don't give 5 of 5 in any gig economy app (from cars to delivery to AirBnB), it's like you're scalping babies.
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