Does this mean we can go back to using "master" as our git repo's default branch?
In my company some repos use `master` and some use `main` so there's definitely some diversity of terminology
Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#572This comment is based upon n two assumptions: 1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance 2) that implosion is due to a removal of moderation I'll try to keep it politically neutral. But this and other Facebook announcements means inexorable collapse is on the medium term horizon, because they mirror what Twitter did These actions could possibly be done with social network circa early to mi…
What is there at this point that is going to stop FB from having the same advertising problems that Twitter has had? You used to have major corporations advertising on Twitter but they bailed out when they realized that their ads were appearing amidst people posting insane bigoted screeds. It would seem like there is now a severe risk of a revenue collapse at Facebook if advertising corporations behave the same way t…
I can't see FB becoming like X. If nothing else FB has a real names policy so everyone can see who said what whereas on X you can be anonymous or set up a million bot accounts or whatever.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#573I wrote about my experience working as a software developer and being black in the industry and I was lucky to have it published on BBC [1]. What immediately followed, every large company reached out to have me work as a consultant for their diversity program. I found it fascinating that they had a team of DEI experts in place already. Like what makes one an expert? In addition to my job, I spent nights developing pr…
Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…
If DEI was only marketing, why has the number and proportion of women in tech been increasing over that time? I'm not trying to challenge you, I'm just curious if you have any insight.
ETA: and do you think that number will increase, stagnate, or decrease with DEI gone, and why?
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#574Coming from a very homogenous country, all these diversity discussions are interesting to say the least
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#575Good to hear. Racism / sexism has no place in hiring practices and was always illegal.
I feel like people who say this haven't read the research about our unconscious biases. My personal "hit me on the head" moment was reading about the Cincinnati Orchestra who started auditioning candidates behind a curtain and suddenly found their ratio of male:female went from 3:1 to 1:1. No one at that organization was consciously discriminating. Everyone thought as you did that they were acting without racism/sexi…
The claims about unconscious bias don't replicate:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/12/iat-behavior-problem...
and the claims about the orchestra also didn't replicate.
Actually DEI promoters hate blind hiring and usually try to kill it because when implemented it always raises the number of white men being hired - there is racism and sexism in society, it's just in the opposite direction to what DEI programmes claim, and it's not unconscious.
An interesting example of this kind of meltdown was the one attempt to organize a conference for Electron developers. They decided to select speakers using blind reviews of abstracts, because they believed the non-replicable pseudo-science you're repeating here. When the results were unveiled it turned out every speaker they had selected was a man (the expected outcome of blind auditions), so they cancelled the entire conference in fit of anger. The whole community lost, because the organizers had believed in these lies told by social studies academics.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#576> Read the memo from Meta in full: That did not seem at all controversial to me. It seems quite sensible, but it alludes to some silly practices that are now being retired. For example "This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses" is, in my opinion at least, a very very silly thing to do. I am much, much, more interested in high quality, affordable, stable products when I buy things. Not the skin co…
> may disadvantage my business by making my own products (build from their components) worse One of the biggest wins for the anti-DEI crowd was convincing people that embracing DEI implicitly meant getting something of lesser quality or value. Here, you assume that focusing on businesses owned by people of color necessitates lowering your standards of your suppliers below acceptable levels.
The optimum outcome comes if there's zero racism, i.e. we only look at the quality of the company. Let's say there's R amount of racism, and D amount of DEI to counter it (super hand-wavy of course). The optimum outcome is if R = D. If R > D, racism skews the outcome away from the optimum. If D > R, DEI skews the outcome away from the optimum.
The anti-DEI (and anti-affirmative action, etc) crowd is claiming that in 2024, D > R. They would probably also claim that in 1960, R > D, i.e. a black doctor is likely to be more qualified than his/her peers.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#577As an elder millennial I have to cheer.
Why?
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#578Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. What too few people realized was that the rollout of DEI was driven by what was trending at the time, designed to win political points with the groups that were politically ascendant. These programs were never a victory for the principles or the people, they were marketing. So it should come as no shock whatsoever that now that another political group is politically ascendant the marketing that is valuable has c…
If DEI was only marketing, why has the number and proportion of women in tech been increasing over that time? I'm not trying to challenge you, I'm just curious if you have any insight. ETA: and do you think that number will increase, stagnate, or decrease with DEI gone, and why?
It can be marketing and somewhat effective. I'm not trying to say that it didn't accomplish anything (though others are), I'm suggesting that it wasn't motivated by a sincere desire to accomplish something real for equity. And since the motivation was external pressure, a change in external pressure immediately triggers a pivot.
Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
#580The really troubling news buried in this to me was the appointment of Dana White to the meta board of directors. Like seriously what purpose does he serve but to appease the new administration?
he beat his wife on video, that is who Zuck likes now, kinda strange