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What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

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Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#851

Post by raxxorraxor »

mikkergp wrote: post #18

Posts like this seem reactionary and equally anti-intellectual. Sure I know that a lot of the DE&I stuff is frustrating for people. But it seems like if you really want to dig into this you need to take broader approach. Can you actually prove that people are in any way capable of measuring merit, especially for leadership decisions, which is pretty squishy to begin with? It seems to me like throwing some extra diver…

DEI is anti-intellectual to the core. Worse, it is codified racism. It creates problems where there were few to solve.

Nobody can measure merit, but that doesn't mean you can hire people based on skin color and that is exactly what DEI did. And not much else, it remains plain racism. Without bias you can see it because racial quotas are the expression. People in the past also thought they had good reason for racial discrimination.

There are real good arguments against DEI hiring practices aside from people disliking them. Although many dislike them because of its racism.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#852

Post by raxxorraxor »

mikkergp wrote: post #557
kardianos wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reactionary, anti-intellectual. "The Cultural Revolution: A people's history" is a good read. Lot's of people got called reactionary and anti- then too. Yes, you can measure merit. But then, I'm not a Communist.

> The Cultural Revolution: A people's history Never read it, have you read "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" or "Mao?" by Jung Chang? Great books on the subject as well, I'll check yours out. Not sure what this has to do with my post though. Maybe the term 'anti-intellectual' was wrong, but I was referring to the fact that the article seemed to say "DE&I Bad, Merit Good" with a superiority complex about it, and…

Merit isn't good per se. DEI is certainly worse though.

Simply because merit approximates fair far better.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#853

Post by MockObject »

Khaine wrote: post #831
nsxwolf wrote: post #456

I shut my mouth at work and go along with this stuff because I have no choice. I have a family to take care of. I've accepted this. But man, why do they always throw in the line about striving to make the workplace a "diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can bring their full and authentic self"? Everyone knows that's a goddamn lie. I almost want to cry when I read that - it makes me so angry. I haven't been a…

I know the feeling. At my work, the leader has started calling us a family, and that we should be a family and treat each other like family and bring our authentic selves to work. I'm not a leader, I'm a mother to 2 children, a daughter to an immigrant blah blah blah. Fuck off with that bullshit. Doesn't anyone know what it means to be a professional any more? I don't care about your beliefs, as long as you come to w…

I wonder if we shouldn't go back to addressing coworkers by their last names, to restore the lost sense of professionalism.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#854

Post by randomdata »

peter422 wrote: post #231
badpun wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, it's basically circular. The selection of who does and who doesn't belong to a "diverse" category is based on how frequent these people happen to be in the population (for example, Asians men are not "diverse", because there's plenty of them in tech - but Asian women are, because they're far less frequent). So, by definition, the "diverse" candidates will always be a minority. It can't be fixed. Even if w…

My CS classes in college were literally 98% male and 98% white and Asian. You are talking about a slippery slope to distract from the obvious existing problem. There might be a slippery slope in the future, I agree, but that doesn't mean there isn't an active problem now!

> My CS classes in college were literally 98% male and 98% white and Asian.

Most certainly. Anyone else will get paid to learn CS on the job so it would be rather silly of them to spend their own dime in college. There is no free lunch here. If you strive for diversity in the workplace it is going to disappear from other places.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#855

Post by raxxorraxor »

psd1 wrote: post #753

_sigh_ The common theme I see in all these happy HN contributors getting their panties in a twist over affirmative action is that transactions exist in America that discriminate against white people: for a given promotion, a black person is advanced over a white person who is better qualified. It's like some idiot plugging away at debugging a single query timing out, while the cluster is down. Just take a step back.…

So it is indeed racial discrimination in your opinion.

I think DEI proponents fail to grasp the whole picture and miss how they are increasing racism. And that picture isn't even that large. Pretty important skill to have as you said too.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#856

Post by PKop »

tanseydavid wrote: post #589
PKop wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ab…

The idea is equality of opportunity. Of course, it is not possible to implement this in any grand, all-encompassing, perfect manner. But that does not mean that it shouldn't be a goal.

Unequal outcomes will produce unequal future opportunities. This fact undermines any of premise from that start. And compelled equalization will commence just the same.

So this is a distinction without much of a difference. Certainly rule of law and various good faith attempts to provide opportunity are understandable. But when the outcomes simply are not equal along various group identity lines or this or that interest group achieves less wealth and power than another, no one is going to give up that game and say "OK, fair play, we lost the outcome."

No, pursuit of human self interest does not ever stop. So there's no endgame to any of this.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#857

Post by Manuel_D »

psd1 wrote: post #753

_sigh_ The common theme I see in all these happy HN contributors getting their panties in a twist over affirmative action is that transactions exist in America that discriminate against white people: for a given promotion, a black person is advanced over a white person who is better qualified. It's like some idiot plugging away at debugging a single query timing out, while the cluster is down. Just take a step back.…

> Are you a Grandmaster if you won all your matches starting with a material advantage?

The irony of saying this while advocating a practice that gives material advantage on the basis of race...

I don't think people are irked by affirmative action on the basis of family income. It's policies that privilege someone of one race over another even with equal income, parental education, etc. that people are opposing. We're not giving chess pieces back to people with limited opportunity, we're giving extra pieces based on race.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#858

Post by colordrops »

topaz0 wrote: post #842
colordrops wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to address anything I said or just carte blanche reject it without rationale?

Most of what you said was irrelevant to what I was saying. I feel no need to address it.

The discussion is on the socially constructed nature of race. My comments directly address this with specific examples. Your final response is nothing more than "no, you are wrong". Not sure what I was expecting on a public forum, as this topic is sensitive and brings out a lot of deep seated irrationality, gaslighting, and binary thinking in people.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#859

Post by MockObject »

rhacker wrote: post #208
purpleblue wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not those with a disadvantage. It's strictly based on skin color. That's the problem. You have no idea if they are disadvantaged or not. There are plenty of middle-class and upper-class Black families these days. Unless you think that all Black people are disadvantaged. To me, it's a "ruinous empathy" form of racism if you think "Oh look at that poor Black person!" without knowing anything about her background.

It's also dangerously creating racism. The more we tow some kind of line of lets end racism by only hiring minorities, the more racist this country will get. Watch it. The moment you step back and let people hire the best candidate, you will find different cultures mixing and moving forward together.

This is such an obvious point that I am now deaf to cries of incompetence and good intentions. Racial division can only be the end goal of such a concerted effort.

Re: What “diversity and inclusion” means at Microsoft

#860

Post by etchalon »

Manuel_D wrote: post #729
etchalon wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, anonymized resumes would not create increased in hiring rates. It might increase the candidate pool through the screen, but behold, racial discrimination is a function at every stage of the interview process. I am not confusing "non-discriminatory" with "equal chances". I have no idea why anyone would. Obviously, a person with 12 years experience coding in a specific language or stack would be preferable to hi…

With Zoom interviews, it's possible to anonymize candidates throughout every stage of the interview process. Anonymous resumes, anonymous interviews. This would entirely eliminate racial, or gender, discrimination.

That would be true if people didn't sound different.
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