Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs • Hacker News Board

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

#941

Post by rbetts » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #864

lugu wrote: post #626

Coming from another continent, it feels the discourse in the US is poisoned by the word RACE. Back home, no one uses it. The best proxy for inequality is poverty. Make poor people richer with basic support like free education and health care. Tax the richer. That should solve the problem. If you wonder about woman, create support for working mum with after school program and free baby care. Sorry to state the obvious…

I agree all of this talk about equity inequality and race and gender. completely betrayed the fact that the biggest predictor of societal issues is poverty. it almost feels like the elites are pitting us against each other. again. I can’t think of any societal injustice that could not be undone simply by by floating opportunities opportunities to those in poverty.

Median wealth of a US households by race: white $250k; black: $27k; asian: $320k

https://www.pewresearch.org/2023/12/04/wealth-gaps-across-ra...

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

#942

Post by follower » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

I wonder how this page might look if people could only comment in support of policies that wouldn't lead to a direct personal financial benefit.

(Disclosure: In such a situation I would be unable to post this comment--as, in our just world, this comment's insightfulness would undoubtedly lead to me being the beneficiary of significant financial remuneration.)

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

#943

Post by crackercrews » Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #705

eweise wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You might put "they/them" next to your name if you prefer not to be referred to by a gendered pronoun.

Can also be helpful for names that are commonly male or female. Or foreign names. But there's not really a need to list multiple pronouns like "they/them/theirs", is there? Doesn't "they" say it all?

Only would make sense when it's "she/they" or similar. Otherwise it's just redundant.

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

#944

Post by qingcharles » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 12:22 AM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #802

qingcharles wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. Without DEI you end up with products created by white men for white men. DEI means you end up employing some people who potentially aren't as technically qualified, but bring a different viewpoint to the team. Until I spent a long time living with Blacks (as a white) I never knew all the things they go through growing up, I never knew how their communities and families were organized, I never kn…

Why couldn't they build their own products then? Land of opportunity and all...

They can, and we can all live in bubbles, but I would hazard a guess that getting that Sand Hill Road VC money is a lot harder for, say, a Black entrepreneur without a degree, versus a Zuck.

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

#945

Post by wincy » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 12:26 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #932

billy99k wrote: post #899

Almost all big companies are doing this now. It's never a good idea to hire someone based on skin color or gender rather than merit. The predecessor to this was affirmative action in colleges (this is basically affirmative action in the work place). New Jersey is seeing the direct result of this. Applicants couldn't pass a basic reading/writing/math test, so they were forced to get rid of these requirements. The dire…

I mean I'm speaking for me as a straight, white male, not even living in the US but EU. But some observations from my side: - no program will get support/taken seriously if it's just to tick a box - implementing DEI as positive discrimination seems a painfully stupid idea (and yes, large corporations also do that in the EU) - I'm surprised how many comments are celebrating scrapping this effort That being said, I don…

Because the goal isn’t the actual goal. Which is why James Damore lost his job and created an uproar when he suggested very reasonable steps to achieving more diversity.

The engineer problem solving mindset is very vociferously opposed in these circles and shut down aggressively.

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

#946

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 12:37 AM UTC

lugu wrote: post #626

Coming from another continent, it feels the discourse in the US is poisoned by the word RACE. Back home, no one uses it. The best proxy for inequality is poverty. Make poor people richer with basic support like free education and health care. Tax the richer. That should solve the problem. If you wonder about woman, create support for working mum with after school program and free baby care. Sorry to state the obvious…

[deleted]

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

#947

Post by wyclif » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 1:15 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #742

seadan83 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your points. Though with respect lasting change, where is your impression coming from that the gains are in the last 10 to 15 years? Or even that is a widespread belief? According to reporting at the guardian [1], FBs DEI program increased black and brown employees from 8% to 12%. Seems abysmal. My perspective, US society is still fighting for gains that _started_ 160 years ago. Still painstaking…

America is a country where the majority even of “white” people belong to ethnic groups that never had anything to do with African American slavery (German, Italian, Irish, etc.) And the non-black non-white people (Asians, Hispanics) didn’t either. So nobody will do anything that costs themselves anything. The best you can hope for is color blindness and a very slow homogenization and equilibrium. There was a gambit t…

How about the English? I'm a second-generation 'white' American citizen. My grandfather was a Canadian citizen from London, Ontario who migrated to the USA in the mid 1920s as a boy. The English, largely due to the influence of Wilberforce, passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which outlawed slavery in the British Empire and predated the American Civil War.

I mention this only to support the point you make above, not to virtue signal. Anyway, it's nothing my family did, it's just historical circumstance. But to my family, the insane amount of politics and drama around DEI and BLM in America still seems foreign to us, even a few generations later.

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

#948

Post by paulryanrogers » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 1:31 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #489

antics wrote: 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…

Isn't the point of affirmate action and some DEI measures to correct for centuries of systemic injustice? If so I don't see why groups that have benefited and reinforced their advantages for generations are now so easily offended by efforts to rebalance the scales.

I'm a white male who was raised comfortably middle class. The more folks I've met and the more history I've studied, it's pretty clear I was born with a huge number of advantages many of my peers didn't enjoy. I don't mind them getting preferential treatment, even if I'm more qualified once in a while.

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

#949

Post by perdomon » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 1:42 AM UTC

firefoxd wrote: post #184

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…

Why hire a candidate because of their skin color? Shouldn’t employees be hiring for skills and company value fit?

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

#950

Post by danielscrubs » Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 2:34 AM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #948

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Isn't the point of affirmate action and some DEI measures to correct for centuries of systemic injustice? If so I don't see why groups that have benefited and reinforced their advantages for generations are now so easily offended by efforts to rebalance the scales. I'm a white male who was raised comfortably middle class. The more folks I've met and the more history I've studied, it's pretty clear I was born with a h…

So you are born in the middle class, then it is a class issue? Will Smiths son Jaden had it way better than you. The axis for where to look is just bizarre.

To really help, make sure the schools in poor areas are top notch, even better than upper class schools, and you will automatically fix the imbalance, without having to use equipment for darkness, dna samples to check the heritage and other clearly bizarre future paths.