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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#651
I got a UC Regents Scholarship to UCSD bc my parents are southeast Asian. My grades and SAT score were lower than my Jewish best friend's grades and scores. He did not get a scholarship. I promptly lost my scholarship after failing Physics 2A because I skipped the final to make out with a girl. I didn't think twice about what I squandered until I had to get a job and ask my parents for money to pay for the next quarter.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#652

I 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…

This is true, and unfortunately you can't say this to any colleagues at any of these companies without jeopardizing your future. Even still as the DEI programs are dying, the DEI social norms are still strong in most corporations

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#654
post #257

I 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…

> ... who owned the land ... they didn't use the word "owned", only "occupied". The indigenous groups probably didn't even have anything like our modern concept of land "ownership" and would think of it more like land alienation. As a Georgist, I'm personally very annoyed by these sort of empty indigenous land acknowledgements. I'm more excited about stuff like this Squamish Nation housing development in Vancouver, B…

I have always disliked and told people I disliked land acknowledgements because they are designed to earn the social capital of giving the land back without ever having any intention of doing anything close to that.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It does require lowering standards and quality, by definition, because in the absence of DEI pressure campaigns they'd have been selecting suppliers based on standards and quality by default. Any other criteria inherently trades off against that. And you seem to know that's true because your claim slides smoothly from "getting something of lesser quality" to "lowering standards below acceptable levels" which aren't t…

That’s not necessarily true. In fact, by not having DEI programs, companies could, because of leaders’ own biases, reject better suppliers based on owners or employees being minorities.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely correct and I think it's what drives all the resentment about DEI programs. People aren't dumb, when they see some group only makes up 3% of the population of engineers and they see a program trying to balance senior positions, they're going to feel its unfair bs. What's really interesting is that almost every woman I've worked with professionaly isn't from North America, they're all from India, Ira…

> There's something deeply wrong with the culture Another possibility: Women in poorer countries enrol in CS out of necessity. In wealthy countries, they have more economic freedom and there are more jobs available higher up on Maslow's Hierarchy, so they enrol in what they actually want (which is not CS). On average.

Entirely accurate, in ex-communist eastern europe some sort of math/engineering job was about the only way to live somewhat decent, so anyone remotely ambitious would go into that.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#657
post #311

I am Wasq'u (a tribe in the PNW), I am connected to my tribe, and I am one of a handful of remaining speakers of the language. I am really tired of being caught in the maw of people fighting about my identity, what I am owed, and to some extent what place my identity has in society. To the pro-DEI crowd: I have some hard truths for you. Actual change requires commitment and focus over an extremely long period of time…

> To the anti-DEI crowd: focus on what you can build together The problem with DEI-as-implemented is that it often not only contains overt discrimination against a group (based on a protected class), but also prohibits any criticism of this. When someone is being discriminated against, not subtly or silently but explicitly, intentionally and overtly, and then punished for daring to complain about it, that leads to a…

> that leads to a lot of resentment (both by the people directly affected and by other members of the same class that observe both the discrimination and the silencing).

Agreed. This is the fundamental flaw of a lot of social theories borne out of academia when they land in the real world. They thrive in an academic world where hierarchy is bought into by students eagerly and are transplanted into a world where people must accept hierarchy to survive.

> I'd say that resentment is justified

Resentment never makes anything better, no matter how justified. Unfortunately.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#660
I don't care whether who made the products I use is "diverse". I care about their quality, which has been sacrificed at the altar of DEI for far too long. Not surprising to see this happen once the population realised the truth. Finally a slow return to sanity.
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