How do they write this story without mentioning the executive order?
The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award:
(A) A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code; and
(B) A term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws".
Stargate is a funding initiative by Sam Altman and principally backed by Softbank. It was announced at the white house to curry favor. Trump's stated commitment to the project is to wave environmental and possibly labor rules for all the data centers Altman wants to build.
DEI is toxic because it looks at racial and gender/identity bias as opposed to inequality as a class level. If you came from a disadvantaged background, we can quantify that with wealth, which we can actually examine. You can see someone's bank account, parental background, education, etc. If you choose. Or, if you are lazy, you can look at their race and use that as a basis for choosing winners and losers. That's toxic and would only lead to conflicts because a) you're going to get it wrong necessarily. Take for example a poor Ukrainian immigrant (white) versus a second generation Indian (of color, yet in the highest income group statistically, above whites). b) you create a suspicious environment where now there's a quiet suspicion that the person in the cubicle next to you got there not out of merit but for other reasons.
The solution to all of the above, in universities and workplaces, is to get people ahead if they are bright and come from poor backgrounds. And do our best to eliminate friends and cousins and networking buddies from getting in for that reason.
How many companies give referral bonuses and how often are Hackernews suggestions for job hunting simply "network with everyone". Think about it. Is racial and gender bias truly the issue here?
And be suspicious of anyone telling you what your 'unconscious' tells you, unless you're in a therapy session. It's certainly not a computer, an employee handbook or an HR representative who has any right to comment on such a thing.
DEI acknowledges that there is a historical legacy of disenfranchisement that produced certain inequalities at community-scale. For instance, discrimination against some groups was actually codified for the overwhelming majority of U.S. history and, beyond that, the biases, social networks, etc. that arose over that history didn't suddenly end when the laws changed. They exist today.
So, DEI accounts for this reality and is not inherently toxic. It's just been characterized as such to sow division in a cynical, revisionist effort to re-frame attempts to rectify the legacy of discrimination as the actual discrimination.
There are so many historic (and present) inequalities. DEI is toxic because it ignores most sources of inequality and favors a few groups of particular political importance to Democrats.
In fact, sometimes DEI even favors groups who are on the advantaged side of inequality, like women in college, where they are nearly 60% of students.
Even worse - it created a new class that never really existed in the current form, namely 'of color', which includes a vast group of people both that have been historically disenfranchised as well as those who are in the highest tiers of per capita wealth in the U.S. by current statistical measures. People who have a generational claim to U.S. inequal structures, as the person you are replying to might say, as well as recent immigrants who have gone to top tier tech schools in their home countries, raised in the top caste of their home countries. A similar category is 'Hispanic', which within it has some people of extraordinary wealth. I know of one who used a half-Hispanic heritage to get into an undergrad Ivy League school, and proudly said he was gaming the system - extremely wealthy family.
There are so many 'but that's an edge condition' situations one can come up with, that what ends up happening is a random collection of ways that you can 'register' to be in such an oppressed class (it's not hard to do, especially if you are an immigrant with immigrant parents, depending on where they were born, or if you want to be REALLY cynical and claim gender identity differences). And if you don't, you are left out and hence we have a big backlash and massive suspicion in the large corporations where these HR departments are taking a hammer in enforcing DEI in a sweet but firm tone.
Even one who supports DEI efforts should at least understand this backlash.
(This reply isn't geared specifically to the person I'm replying to, who seems to agree, but more broadly)
>DEI is toxic because it ignores most sources of inequality and favors a few groups
Not sure what "most sources of inequality" is supposed to mean. In any case, DEI is not intended to address every "source of inequality". By definition:
"DEI are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination based on identity or disability."
So, it is specifically intended to address historical targets of underrepresentation and discrimination.
>...of particular political importance to Democrats
The corollary is that anti-DEI favors a single group of particular importance to Republicans. Anti-DEI was a thing before there was DEI. That's the point of DEI. It's a response.
>sometimes DEI even favors groups who are on the advantaged side of inequality... nearly 60% of students.
It's easy to pick a statistic that we like. But, of course, this single stat is not dispositive of anything.
Focus on class inequality is another form of identity politics, in my opinion. But the conditions of various people in society is of some concern. We have to balance fairness in terms of equal rights under the law and the right to keep what you earn, and the fact that people naturally have different starting circumstances and different parents (who are well within their rights to take care of their children better than other parents). Just because someone else has more than you does not entitle you to more.
I agree, it's another form of identity politics. Trying to break this down, I think:
Either you believe in increasing equality in American society, or you don't. If you don't, well I think that is sort of the statement you are suggesting, which is, people have every right to be privileged, born or otherwise.
If you do believe in increasing equality, then if you focus on class - let's just all it family wealth to avoid controversial loaded words - if you focus on family wealth and privilege people with less, then at least you're getting to the root of the issue.
However, if you believe in increasing equality and you don't focus on wealth, and you care only about skin color or genital type or gender identity, then I think you're making the problem worse for the reasons I wrote in the parent thread here, the points around privileging the already privileged (i.e. upper class 'of color' people), while creating suspicion around anyone who's a minority ('my cubicle neighbor got here not out of merit'). All of this is toxic.
There are two main causes of this problem. One is general economic stress. When people feel like they don't have enough, they look for ways to get more. For example, blaming people who have more for being "unfair" or something suggests you have a right to their property. The other is more insidious, which is pure greed. Some people, even people getting by just fine in life with minimal work, fantasize about taking down people who have more. They envy people who have more constantly and can't accept that some people actually deserve much more in life by virtue of luck or their hard work.
>Either you believe in increasing equality in American society, or you don't. If you don't, well I think that is sort of the statement you are suggesting, which is, people have every right to be privileged, born or otherwise.
I think privileged is a loaded word here. What I'm saying is that nobody has a right to equal monetary outcomes in general. If some people are colluding to prevent others from getting a fair shake, that should probably be stopped. You should have a right to compete fairly in the world and to accumulate the fruits of your labor. Of course this all gets very complicated when taxes and various other wealth redistribution schemes enter the picture.
>However, if you believe in increasing equality and you don't focus on wealth, and you care only about skin color or genital type or gender identity, then I think you're making the problem worse for the reasons I wrote in the parent thread here, the points around privileging the already privileged (i.e. upper class 'of color' people), while creating suspicion around anyone who's a minority ('my cubicle neighbor got here not out of merit'). All of this is toxic.
I agree with you, and the discrimination based on immutable characteristics is the worst because there's not much that the victim can do about it. Somehow, various minorities have been convinced that discrimination is OK so long as it benefits them, and that's wrong in general. It does make a lot more sense to think in terms of class lines and economic opportunity. But if that goes too far, it can become toxic as well. We don't need communism, we need people of all walks of life to have more compassion for their fellow man.
>that people naturally have different starting circumstances
The point is that it's not "natural". Many people's starting circumstances are the result of generations of systemic and codified discrimination, as well as ongoing biases and networks that persist today. This country had codified racism ~6x longer than not. There are 60 year-olds walking around today who were born under Jim Crow. Please stop and think about that for a moment.
Analysis like yours is all too common and the problem with it is that it moves insidiously between the micro and macro. That is, you acknowledge that entire groups have been systematically disenfranchised, but you effectively discount the effect it had on any individual within those groups.
On the other hand, your focus on efforts to address these historical problems is prioritized on individuals you feel may be negatively impacted. So, it's suddenly a personal versus group matter. Now, in this context, the broader group—including those who benefitted from the oppression—are essentially ignored.
So, in your formulation, one group (and the individuals within it) are protected, even in spite of being on the wrong side of history. And the other group? Well, they just have to figure out how to reckon with their "starting circumstances".
>The point is that it's not "natural". Many people's starting circumstances are the result of generations of systemic and codified discrimination, as well as ongoing biases and networks that persist today. This country had codified racism ~6x longer than not. There are 60 year-olds walking around today who were born under Jim Crow. Please stop and think about that for a moment.
It is completely natural for benefits to accrue unequally to different people according to their behaviors and individual characteristics. This follows some kind of Pareto distribution. Roughly speaking, there are more poor white people than there are black people in total, and always have been up to now. I'm not suggesting that there is no racial discrimination against black people or that it doesn't matter in terms of outcomes, but I propose that as long as there is any measurable difference between groups one can rationalize and blame one group or another for taking from the other. The fact is that the US has less racial discrimination than just about any other place in the world. The collective West has done more for actual equality than any other part of the world. If not for the West, slavery might still be common.
The only fair way to run society is for people to be free to pursue their own interests so long as they aren't actively infringing on the rights of others to do the same. That includes the right to take better care of your own family than some of your neighbors.
>On the other hand, your focus on efforts to address these historical problems is prioritized on individuals you feel may be negatively impacted. So, it's suddenly a personal versus group matter. Now, in this context, the broader group—including those who benefitted from the oppression—are essentially ignored.
What you're describing is a philosophy of envy. I'm not personally responsible for any "group" and I do what I can to uphold fairness in society. It is unfortunate that there is a ready excuse for minorities people who don't succeed in the form of narratives about historical injustices. A white poor person is just as deserving of assistance as a poor person of any other color. If you really want to judge people based on the sins of their "ancestors" or people who happened to look like them, then you must accept that children are responsible for the sins of their parents (and vice versa) because that relation is much more direct. I don't think our society would suffer such a scheme of guilt-shifting, envy, and revenge.
>So, in your formulation, one group (and the individuals within it) are protected, even in spite of being on the wrong side of history. And the other group? Well, they just have to figure out how to reckon with their "starting circumstances".
Here too you blame individuals for offenses they didn't commit to favor people who didn't suffer them. Forgiveness and charity are big in religion because even thousands of years ago some wise people recognized that nobody gets anywhere by holding a grudge. Treat people fairly and don't blame innocent people for shit they didn't do, or for benefitting from their families' hard work. If you do push such an agenda, it doesn't matter how good your intentions are. People who are being vilified and robbed will fight back.
I read and understood what you wrote (not that it is original). I explained why I disagree. If you don't agree with my reasoning that's fine, but don't insult my intelligence by implying I don't understand such simple things. You need to think through the implications of trying to make innocent people pay for the crimes of people in the past whose only connection to the modern innocent "privileged" is a vaguely similar physical characteristic. We don't demand that from families of criminals who are alive today, unless the families have money that is directly linked to a crime. And nobody would tolerate punitive measures against the innocent like that even with a direct familial relationship. How much less should we consider compensating the non-oppressed for dubious victimhood links spanning many decades or even hundreds of years? There are valid reasons for these groups to be distinguished besides "systemic oppression" such as physical and cultural differences that affect behavior.
For instance, I commented that there was nothing "natural" about where some people start out in life, owed to centuries of codified discrimination, and you responded with the Pareto distribution.
You can't do that kind of thing and complain about people dismissing you. You have to choose one. Those are the rules. I didn't make them.
>not that it is original
Not sure what you think the value of originality is here (versus, say, fact or reason), but this seems to be part of a pattern wherein you're distracted by irrelevant details.
But, if it's originality you value, then I feel obliged to inform you that there's not a single original thought in the paragraphs you wrote. And, being wrong by way of poor reasoning doesn't make those unoriginal thoughts any more interesting.
>For instance, I commented that there was nothing "natural" about where some people start out in life, owed to centuries of codified discrimination, and you responded with the Pareto distribution.
What is more natural than people being taken care of by their parents, or defending their own resourced and interests? Even animals do this. Humans and other primates have done it since they've existed. Perhaps you have an alternative definition of "natural" that you'd like to share.
I don't accept the premise that white people today benefit uniquely or unforgivably from centuries of codified discrimination. If anything, they are discriminated against and blamed for everything because of what similar looking people in the past did. Their successes throughout history and even in present day are routinely discounted as merely reaping the benefits of conquest, as if there were no positive cultural differences accounting for their relative success. The West has a uniquely innovative and egalitarian culture compared to the rest of the world. Minorities in basically every other part of the world experience more discrimination on average than our minorities do.
>You can't do that kind of thing and complain about people dismissing you. You have to choose one. Those are the rules. I didn't make them.
You literally just made that up lol.
>Not sure what you think the value of originality is here (versus, say, fact or reason), but this seems to be part of a pattern wherein you're distracted by irrelevant details.
Originality entered the conversation because I said that your argument was simple and unoriginal. You wrote it all out as if I'd have never heard or understood that before, when in fact I've heard it for my whole life and it's constantly reiterated in woke pop culture and politics.
I'm not denying the existence of generational wealth or that some people may have accrued financial benefits due to racism. But guess what, people accrue financial benefits due to all kinds of legitimate and illegitimate actions. It is more important for people to not to be blamed for the actions of their families or distant ancestors than for people who feel envious of others over racial animus to be appeased (which I believe is not even possible, as some will keep claiming more and more regardless of any other considerations). If we start accepting that people or groups owe money based on what they look like, based on race relations of the past, you logically have to do that for ALL crimes. There are quite a few white victims of crime who would be owed restitution from families of minority criminals. I know I'm more or less repeating myself but you didn't even attempt to address my points like I did with yours.
>But, if it's originality you value, then I feel obliged to inform you that there's not a single original thought in the paragraphs you wrote. And, being wrong by way of poor reasoning doesn't make those unoriginal thoughts any more interesting.
If you've heard my exact objections to your arguments before and don't agree, I think it is you who is guilty of inferior reasoning (with all due respect). The whole "let's take from group 1 to give to group 2, because group 1 resembles the oppressors of yore" attitude is a symptom of first-order thinking if not malicious intent.
Respectfully, it is impossible to engage in thoughtful discussion with you, for a number of reasons.
1. Your logic breaks down very quickly in simplistic, obvious ways, but you are sure of it. So, anyone seeking genuine, thoughtful discussion is immediately put off, as it's clear they'll spend 80% of the discussion pointing out the flaws in your thinking, where you haven't addressed the salient points, etc. It's equally clear that it won't matter.
2. Your thinking itself is simplistic and child-like. You see in black and white (no pun intended), so are incapable of reasoning about complexity in the world or having a discussion that involves nuance;
3. But your black and white reasoning is laced with bias that you also cannot see. You know nothing of epistemology or self-questioning or challenging beliefs (your own or others').
4. You don't follow humor or irony. It appears to be completely lost on you. I'm sure you'd reply defensively with some commentary on the quality of the humor but, of course, that would miss the point too.
5. You are transparent without being aware of it.
In short, the effect here is that "fairness" for you flows in one direction, which you justify with poor logic, riddled with inconsistencies that are rationalized away by your biases.
Given your initial comments, I didn't expect to change your mind or even slightly nudge the door ajar. I responded with only the hope that my reply might provide something for passersby to quietly consider.
But, your subsequent replies have been of even poorer quality than I could have imagined, and increasingly so. Take care.
Not the original poster you're replying to, but this reads like a frustrated meta-analysis of someone's opinions, dismissed with ad-hominems, and avoidant of possibly uncomfortable counter-points.
It's more of a comparative literature analysis than a debate reply, if I am honest.
You also didn't reply to almost any of the points made against DEI above, sticking to pre-existing talking points.
You write remarkably similarly to OP and your "logic" follows closely, including your commitment to precisely the same fallacies and your complaints that no one wants to waste their time engaging with voluminous talking points, backed by poor reasoning.
Still, my response explained exactly what was wrong with OP's comments and why it was futile to engage. With proper reasoning ability, one could overlay each of my points with OP's, and understand how they were being directly refuted. You also have missing that fact in common with OP, as well as a very specific brand of mental laziness.
Likewise, your underlying beliefs themselves are the same, as expressed here and elsewhere. And, you were impressively quick to reply to my comment, given that the thread is somehat nested and obscure.
If you are not OP, in fact, then you are functionally. So, let's make this quick: consider my prior comments apply to you as well.
It's not me. I've had bouts of suspicion when I've been addressed by multiple people as well but I guess we just underestimate the odds of someone getting interested in an ongoing thread. I still haven't read all the comments yet but I wanted to drop that here, and also suggest that you just disagree with me because you have different values and/or don't understand the logical consequences of what you're agitating for.
By the way:
>Given your initial comments, I didn't expect to change your mind or even slightly nudge the door ajar. I responded with only the hope that my reply might provide something for passersby to quietly consider.
It seems that a passerby did come along as you predicted and they think I'm more in the right than you are.
Respectfully, I think you are deliberately refusing to acknowledge the thoroughly sound logical arguments I've put forward about the true consequences of what you're proposing.
>Your thinking itself is simplistic and child-like. You see in black and white (no pun intended), so are incapable of reasoning about complexity in the world or having a discussion that involves nuance;
I recognize that historical race relations create a complex emotional landscape for people who are similar in appearance to oppressed people in the past. But that is part of life. We need to move forward and not create more problems by taking from the innocent to prop up non-victims.
>You don't follow humor or irony. It appears to be completely lost on you. I'm sure you'd reply defensively with some commentary on the quality of the humor but, of course, that would miss the point too.
I didn't detect any humor in your writing, besides the original snarky comment that started this. And just because it's snarky doesn't mean that you don't mean to actually insinuate awful things about people.
>You are transparent without being aware of it.
As far as I'm concerned, a majority of people blaming white people for everything are hucksters. But there are quite a few misguided souls who truly bought the lie that there's a huge scheme out there to oppress them because of what they look like. There are always a few racists in the world, but at this point I think most of them (even in our "majority white" country) are not white.
>But, your subsequent replies have been of even poorer quality than I could have imagined, and increasingly so. Take care.
I imagine you have been drinking this whole time and you're at the bottom of the bottle now and really losing your grip on reality. Take care.
I look at this types of answers and think "god how selfish Americans can be" not only kill and discriminate group sof people from the entire history, you all still manage to fuck with the only thing trying to revert it
Many commenters in this thread talks about hiring, but the actual fact the page mentioned is not only about hiring, but DEI at a wider sense[0]
> We believe the development of general-purpose artificial intelligence that benefits all of humanity must be carried out with a knowledge of and respect for the different perspectives and experiences that represent the full spectrum of humanity.
>
> Our investment in diversity, equity, and inclusion is ongoing, executed through a wide range of initiatives, owned by everyone across the company, and championed and supported by leadership. We take this work seriously and are committed to continuously improving our work in creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization.
>
> In addition to our dedication to creating an inclusive organization on the human level, OpenAI actively pursues technical work that is aimed at improving our understanding of, and ability to mitigate, harmful biases learned by AI systems, and supports conferences and groups involved in such work in the larger AI community.
The text of course can be interpret in different way. But as an AI company that grok lots of raw data and generate response based on input, it is also VERY important for the AI models to be impartial and not biased toward anything.
---
On hiring, that would be a completely different subjects. Should we strike for equal or fair? I don't think the answer should be 100% equal or 100% fairness.
I am torn about DEI. It's sort of the equivalent for "quote rosa" in Italy.
On one hand, if I need to hire let's say an engineer, and if all the available engineers have specific homogeneous social characteristics, I still want the best engineer possible for the role. And it's up to the policymakers to understand why there is such low heterogeneity, and to address that, not me.
On the other, how else can we guarantee that a minority still has equal representation and opportunities?
I think there is a fairly simple resolution. You can keep the standards strictly equal for all and hire by merit. But you can also, at the same time, help people with fewer opportunities to acquire the required skills and be prepared for that equal standard. IOW, level the playing field without rigging the game.
Note I said "people with fewer opportunities", not "underrepresented groups". Underrepresentation is not a problem, it can have many benign causes. Unequal opportunity is.
But what if there are lots of diverse and good engineers, and somehow you always end up having to choose between a couple homogeneous ones? To me, that's what DEI in hiring tries to solve. It's not the FUD of "ohh, select the non-white". It's more of making sure one actually gets a representative collection to even choose between. Might be as simple as assessing how the interviews are conducted. Are they take-home tests someone with a small child will not be able to have time for? Is it unpaid internships only certain people can afford to do? Etc.
You should have never had them in the first place.
Hire fairly. Avoid [bigoted] bias in your hiring.
That you had to advertise you did that meant you were not doing it in the first place. Meaning you were not treating equally and fairly.
Lots of these corporate efforts, whatever they are, are a money printer for organizations “helping” including those proposing streamlining, time management, equity, X analysis, etc. whether delivered by the big5, individuals or any other entity, they are money pits that make management feel good: they’re doing something.
Did they though? There was a race to declare DEI-friendliness in the wake of Floyd, but I wonder how much was actually done and how impactful it was at most of these companies?
This is precisely the point where the facts no longer matter and it morphs into a faith based initiative:
- not enough blacks at your company? We need to keep running the program and try harder (aka new "programs") to get more diversity.
- Have enough black/women at your company? That's wrongthink, you can never have enough diversity, and don't you dare get rid of the program, only a racist would do such a thing.
I think it was a supreme court judge who said "Where does it end? At what point do you declare victory?". The far left has no answer to that because their political existence depends on being social justice warriors. Either people need to continue suffering, or they need to extend the definition of suffering to make it appear they and their irreversible government programs are the last and only line of defense from a world full of racism.
america is black&white - there is just never gray. affirmative action, dei… all these programs come from “a good place” so-to-speak but america is not capable of making a sensible policy. blame the two-party system who knows nothing more than to kill whatever policies other side puts in place. so each side goes overboard as it knows every policy has a shelf-life. some longer than others but eventually they all die.
and to answer your question, I think these policies were supposed to be impactful for us as society more so than for companies…
>I think these policies were supposed to be impactful for us as society more so than for companies
Well, I believe the idea was two-fold, but it would depend on who you ask. Certainly the societal benefit was a consideration. But there are also those who do genuinely believe that DEI is good for a company.
A third consideration is the PR angle. That is, I don't think it's overly cynical to say that PR was a primary driver for some of these companies, especially given the moment. And that's really what I'm asking: how much actual work was done? How much real change was there versus the headlines?
There is always going to be bias in your hiring, because bias inflects the entirety of a person's life, whether that bias is good (wealthy parents, e.g.) or bad (being born with fetal alcohol syndron, e.g.)
There is no unbiased state.
Being anti-diversity is a bias in favor of existing biases, which in this country tends to mean: white, wealthy, male, able bodied, etc.
Correct, there is no unbiased state. It's also impossible to enforce one. It's impossible to perfectly define the combination of bias wavelengths for an individual or group, so it's impossible to define an inverse wavelength that objectively cancels it out. And in the futile attempt to enforce such a thing, you are going to generate enormous, justified animosity.
Being treated unfairly because of a well-meaning person's unconscious bias (which you can never even know for sure exactly when it's happening to you) is way less hideous than being treated unfairly out in the open by a correcting policy.
Secondarily: It's not a simple concept, and the condescending suggestion is unwelcome.
I see it differently, to wit: being treated unfairly out in the open by a correcting policy is way is wey less heinous than being born--through no fault or one's own--as a member of a historically and currently disadvantaged group, and then being told "nuh uh, get fucked" when someone tries to give you preferential treatment.
To me what is most galling is the way the anti-DEI crowd exudes pure entitlement; sometimes in life things dont go you way. Oh fuckin well. You get up and try again. I taught my kids that lesson when they were like 7 or 8. It's super embarrassing to see grown ass adults be that small and selfish.
What are countries that hire more fairly than the US? I don't think there are many. Not even semi-homogenous countries hire fairly. They'd be biased against age, sex, looks, height, region, accent, baldness, etc.
Japan, China, India, Germany, UK, South Africa? I don't think any of them are better than us at hiring fairly.
What I mean by avoiding bias, is don't use bigoted biases --of course we hire with a bias to further the team or company mission within the bounds of the law. Does that even have to be said?
Brother, you and I must have veey different definitions of bigotry. The bigotry i see is the anti dei folks refusing to address the legacy of historical injustice that they currently benefit from.
They should have never had them in the first place. I have been a strong critic of wokeness, DEI, and all that nonsense. Yet, it is mind-blowing and eye-opening to see how quickly these companies can bend to the will of a powerful autocrat.
It’s no longer a mystery to me why Hugo Boss would make uniforms for the Wehrmacht, and I can now fully imagine such companies willingly collaborating on "streamlining the delivery of people" to gas chambers, should the government ever asked for it.
DEI was never really a genuine endeavor, or it would not be rolled back so quickly by major corporations. If DEI was truly and measurably beneficial to the company, it would not be rolled back so quickly.
I think it’s safe to say that corporations are sensitive to political costs which is both a reason to adopt DEI and a reason to abandon DEI.
I wish corporations were efficient money making machines, but there is so much agency cost with management having different intensives to stock holders which provides fertile ground for politicking and other such emergent behaviors that needlessly tarnish office life.
I think there's still appeal in the underlying (very) basic ideas of trying to create a workplace that's comfortable for everyone.
It's being rolled back quickly because that's what influential rich people want, and because DEI has become a politically charged term that pretty much invites conflict and toxicity at this point
>because DEI has become a politically charged term that pretty much invites conflict and toxicity at this point
I agree with this on its face, but it seems an incredibly passive tone. DEI didn't just "become a politically charged term". It was deliberately made so.
And the term doesn't just "invite conflict and toxicity". There are toxic people who are using the principles themselves as a point of conflict.
Not being pedantic here. Maybe it's what you meant to say. Or maybe not and you don't agree. Either way, I point it out because it reminds me of the media headlines these days. I find that, among media reporting that purports to be "objective", there's a very odd passive tone, as if these unprecedented things are just happening.
I think I'm mostly in agreement with your points. I think a significant part of the downfall of DEI was deliberate bad-faith behavior from those who actually oppose equality, but there are also things to be learned about how DEI programs were run.
I've been in mandatory corporate DEI seminars that I had high hopes for, only to find that they felt overly prescriptive and ill-equipped for the complexities of trying to be sensitive to every culture. Having to jump in and explain "Well, some Latinos actually find LatinX to be an offensive term, so you might get the stink-eye if you use it" was a bit uncomfortable for me personally, for example. Getting it all right is hard, and getting a few things wrong can leave a really bad taste.
It is hard to get right, and there is definitely work to be done on the approach(es).
Ironically, I think the idea itself that it's all so very sensitive is one of the biggest barriers to progress. People are afraid to be open and honest about biases, beliefs, ignorance, curiosities, etc. So, in an effort to ensure that no one is ever offended, companies tend to fall back to these prescriptive simplifications that rest on things like terminology.
Of course, that just reinforces the fear and the divide.
The irony is that it can also seed resentment to simply lecture people about their vocabulary and other third rails. OTOH, when real interaction is allowed to take place, there is an opportunity for humor and humanity to arise. Mistakes will be made, but progress is more about good faith and extending grace on all sides.
So, it's, using x terminology doesn't mean I hate you. I just didn't know. When you assume that good faith, then your guard goes down. And, if I know that you know that, then I'm not going to be so fearful, and my guard drops too.
Next thing you know, we're having an actual conversation.
Well, you're saying two distinct things there. A thing can certainly be genuine, but not beneficial, on principle or in execution.
But, I think it's more the former for a lot of these companies. I sincerely wonder what the true impact of these "rollbacks" is, beyond removing verbiage from some websites/company literature.
I mean Costco kept theirs, and in a lot of cases federal grant money is now contingent on removing it, so this seems like a hasty conclusion.
That being said I'm sure a lot of companies just threw up a statement, maybe a meaningless committee or whatever with no interest in actually changing anything.
Correct, and companies only ever pretended to care about measures of diversity that didn't hurt their bottom line too much.
How about software diversity, where one doesn't have to use either iOS or Android to function in the modern world? Or have to use Chrome OS at school, etc. We have no real freedom there unless we want to face significant difficulties.
why does it need to be genuine? no one is really expecting corporations to be genuinely decent. regardless of the company's true intent, they were officially declaring a commitment which is then followed up on by action such as policy decisions, and that was done to attract talent and make it easier to do business in general.
What changed now is white supremacists took over the US government and the cost of doing business is higher when you support DEI.
Of course, everyone knows "DEI" really wasn't the point, "DEI" just means people who look different than those in power right now. Removal of DEI sends a message just as it's inclusion did.
> no one is really expecting corporations to be genuinely decent
Speak for yourself. I do expect publicly-owned corporations to be decent, otherwise they do not deserve to be publicly owned. Unfortunately, it seems money gets in the way of that every day.
publicly owned typically means owned by wealthy investors. it is silly to expect people who hoard billions of dollars they can't ever use to be decent people, although I'm sure there are exceptions. But even if I am wrong, the purpose of a business is to make profit at all costs, people tend to compartmentalize their morally conformant selves so that they can give to charity or say nice things when they are not their work-self, and be all about business when they turn on their work mode.
that's what I'm trying to say, it does not mean that. you're just spreading false white-supremacist propaganda. If you have multiple well qualified applicants (you get to decide what the qualifications are) and time after time you establish a preference based on protected group criteria like race or sex, then under the civil rights acts the EEO can sue you. that has been the case since the 60's, that is not DEI! There is no "DEI" government policy or law. DEI is something citizens developed to ensure everyone is made to feel welcome in different organizations. You can call it b.s. or performative and you would be right, but it isn't what you claim it is.
Sorry, but I work in the real world, and I see it first hand. I agree it is illegal. But someone with the power to prosecute has to care first.
Look at the bloomberg report from 2023[1]. You really think 94% hiring of non-whites was organic? Literally impossible. Calling any of this white supremacy is laughable.
so, let me get this straight. You think it's better to illeminate DEI instead of people using it as an excuse to break the law? You know there is a pattern here I think. With illegal migration, they go after migrants instead of employers breaking the law to hire them. It is indeed white supremacy because you're using DEI as an excuse to go after marginalized people instead of law breakers.
I too have seen managers hire people based on things like race, why is no one going after them? They're not breaking the law because they're being coerced by DEI, they're breaking the law to appease each other and to do business illegally.
Just like DEI was abused to further racism against white people, anti-DEI is being abused by the same people to harm the people DEI was designed to include. But the actual law breakers, no one is touching. You can keep DEI as it is and go after equal opportunity violators just fine, but that isn't happening because that isn't their goal. Racism is their goal.
Why? The Democrats are on track to not see the inside of the executive office for the next 12 years. If the Trump term is moderately popular and he anoints a successor like Vance, it will be pretty unlikely the Democrats will win for 12 years. Democrats are really unmoored here and they have an insanely weak platform. I also generally think DEI, race based stack ranking and identity politics are widely unpopular. So I don't think you will see these pages come back broadly.
To be clear, I am talking about the approval rating. Yes, the actions are aberrational, but they're cheap pandering to the base so that so far have not materialized much.
They will soon (in next few weeks) become far more material, and you’ll see approvals fall.
And yet if you stop watching the news nothing has really changed at all.
80% of “most consequential president” is just media nonsense.
Stop following the news and suddenly things don’t seem that bad. Because in reality all the media (all media not just the media one disagrees with) does is fuck with your brain and intentionally divide people and piss everyone off.
Has anyone done these kinds of audits ever? Prices are shockingly higher than they have ever been because of the OBVIOUS AND BLATANT CORRUPTION of politicians funneling TRILLIONS of our tax dollars out all sort of various back doors.
Yes, USAID was successfully audited by an independent 3rd party financial auditor literally in November, for example.
And that was using actual GAAP accounting auditing methods!
So I guess if the “like this” you mean an ideological Cmd+F “audit” done by people with apparently zero financial experience, never mind public sector auditing, then no.
Can you share a specific instance of fraud that has been found?
Incredible lack of perspective. It's more than USAID. FBI, CIA, IRS, DOD, EVERYONE is being FULLY audited. This has never happened, ever. If you're not stunned about the corruption being revealed and eliminated by now, I'd suggest you've fully bought the narratives that the USAID media has pumped you. You are a target and a victim.
The US Treasury can't track $4.7 trillion in payments.
Medicare sent $2.7 trillion overseas to people that weren't eligible.
Pentagon lost track $2.5 trillion.
Social Security sends $100 billion a year to people with no identity.
Department of Education spends $50 billion a year to make your kids gay.
USAID spends $50 billion a year to make everybody else gay.
And you think all of that is 'not fraud'? IDGAF what it's called, people should go to prison and no other president has even tried to get in touch with this filth.
This is basically what democratic strategist James Carville has been telling people. I think this is the likely outcome - if Trump does not crash and burn, which is a big if, there will be at least 12 years of a reactionary government which is plenty of time to change the culture. In general most people believe what they’re told to believe, tell them to believe something else and they will.
How much of that benefit was mixing up cause and effect? As in, one might hypothesize that having a visually diverse company is a luxury. But we don’t say that wearing a Rolex causes you to be successful.
Second, diversity in e.g. race/gender may be a proxy for some other kind of more functional diversity. In fact, for diversity to matter at all there must be some functional element which can be decoupled from the labels people apply to themselves. The fact that we just assume this latent variable is there without measuring it seemed very unscientific to me.
>for diversity to matter at all there must be some functional element
>without measuring it seemed very unscientific to me.
Well, I think it's accepted that there were "unscientific" elements here. I'm not saying everyone agreed on their value, but they were stated as benefits.
For instance, diversity in viewpoints based on varied experiences would theoretically bring about more interesting solutions. I'm not sure how one would objectively measure that purported effect.
Likewise, helping a company to understand cultural sensitivities among different customer populations, so they don't blunder in language or otherwise.
And, to whatever degree we consider it beneficial for companies to be considered "good corporate citizens" in general, I suppose that would apply here as well—though, again, hard to measure.
So, I agree that say, race/gender are proxies for deeper cultural diversity. I don't know that you would define that diversity as "functional", or that you would need to in order for there to be some benefit.
Of course the purpose of DEI was not to benefit companies but to encourage equitable and fair treatment of disadvantaged and minority groups within an otherwise systemically white supremacist capitalist framework.
Also, of course, companies were never taking it seriously, and everyone knew this. But if companies were left entirely to their own devices they would still be paying in company scrip and shooting unionists in the head. Even forcing them to pretend to have ethics is better for society as a whole than nothing.
It's interesting to see comments like this that sound like they were written by someone who recently went through a social justice course at university.
Of course, I understand the impetus to piggyback a grievance on phrases like "white supremacist", which used to mean something. But these days their non-ironic use really tells us something about the person using it.
I mean, it should tell you that not everyone here is irony-poisoned and redpilled and only ever using this language in bad faith.
Not that it matters, because of course to treat "woke" subjects with any seriousness is thoughtcrime on HN, and good faith only guarantees bad faith in kind. I get that. And I also don't care.
I mean on the big scale, yes of course. Why would the ones in power organize themself out of the equation. But it started as a good willed thing of course.
I think it’s important to have a distinction between the concept and the organized bit
Yeah pretty much. It's seems like it was the same people who were behind ESG/DEI who are now most keen to dismantle it.
The 360 degrees turnaround was very noticeable. It coincided with Elon's purchase of Twitter and the start of Israel/Palestine conflict which highlighted some deep divides.
All these wars, conflicts and social movements feel orchestrated but obviously there is no full or genuine consensus so it's bound to keep falling apart in spectacular ways which finance people use to extract profits... The real winners here.
It leaves the more ideologically minded feeling confused and betrayed... Then business and political leaders keep talking about rebuilding trust. Just as they keep constructing new schemes. But how do you rebuild trust without trustworthiness?
Felt like massive PsyOps. I'm not surprised at all that Trump got elected. It's like the overarching social narrative had literally gone insane and we were expected to follow along? We're approaching a point where only insane people CAN keep up with the 'current thing' at this stage... Or you need a very short memory...
That is how many US corporations are run, at least in the software space. There are always "new" initiatives and mass movements, 180° turns, new billing platforms or HR software every month etc.
It is to identify the faithful and true believers who tell the CEO that all this is a sign of genius. Also to identify those who can lie best and are therefore promoted.
And just like in corporations pointing it out is flagged here.
Yep I can definitely sense this. It's not ambiguous anymore. Also, a lot of corporate employees I spoke/chat with tend to portray their situation as being paid big salaries just to suffer by playing this game. As if their suffering creates any value for society. It's a twisted social contract. I'm sure it's harmful mentally.
Imagine this is the best way to make money nowadays; what will the next generation of elites look like after decades of abusing themselves mentally in this way? The future looks grim. Common sense has gone out the window.
It already doesn't make sense to me why people with a lot of money would choose to shape society in this cynical way. What more could they want from society? They literally have the best it can offer and yet they approach life with with intense self-destructive cynicism. I understand why people are giving into conspiracy theories. The motivations of the elite don't add up unless you assume twisted hidden/secret elements. The rich, in all their abundance, seem to act like desperate people.
The desperation to achieve specific goals doesn't mesh well with abundance. Abundance should mean stepping off the accelerator.
DEI doesn't affect who gets hired at all. If someone hires based on race, sex,etc... that's a blatant violation of the law. DEI just means making people who are not in the majority group of the country feel welcome and included in the organization. It would be ridiculous to hire or keep employed someone based on their biological characteristics instead of value to the business.
What I suspect everyone already knows is that the anti-DEI initiative is designed to do the opposite of what DEI was intended to do, make those same people feel unwelcome in society altogether. Look at musk's track record and racism lawsuits against him.
Personally, I found DEI stuff very boring and performative, I don't enjoy it at all. However, I would have to be naive and ignorant to pretend that it didn't actually make people feel welcome and included.
Think about the society these people are trying to create. in 1-2 decades, minorities will become the majority, short of a genocide this trend cannot be reversed. Now imagine a country where the majority of the population is explicitly disenfranchised and excluded from government and any decent job. This really scary stuff guys, there are now several different paths the country is most likely to take that all lead to a social collapse and a civil war. Not a fun time to be young at all.
I'm just going to assume anyone in a position of power (talking about CEO's and founders that lurk here!!) that isn't actively speaking out against the white supremacists in power is in bed with them.
What's more confusing is musk claiming americans aren't smart enough for tech jobs and wants more H1B hires but they're against making those minorities (immigrants or not) welcome (which is all DEI does).
I'll even go further than that. I expect everyone to be welcome in the workplace and government. if these white supremacists feel like white people are not being included then I really think they should implement affirmative action like policies benefiting white people that are legitimately being left out of schools,jobs,etc.. No problem with that at all. But please pay attention to this, they are not doing things to benefit white americans but rather to harm non-white americans. They are not acting to benefit their group but to harm other groups. There are plenty of impoverished mostly white places in America that need colleges, better schools, better infrastructure and social safety-nets. There are programs that pay people to immigrate to places like south dakota and the rust belt to be employed as doctors and even factory workers (the later, because of rampant illegal drug usage which could be solved by treatment focused approaches).
I mean this seems objectively good. All of the early issues with OpenAI were the AI refusing to respond to a prompt for political reasons. Generic models should be as politically neutral as possible.
What does "politically neutral" mean? I see a roughly equal amount of pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine content on my Facebook lately, is that what you mean?
It generally means unopinionated. You should be able to access all the research on vaccines that exists and draw your own opinions.
At some point, there is a gray area where opinions and facts are hard to differentiate, but we haven’t reached it yet. We’re still at a stage where ChatGPT won’t answer questions if they’re critical of unions (or at least that was the case, I haven’t checked recently).
Right, that's the goal. If you're right, our collection of knowledge will defend you. There's no need to fill it with fake info or hide legitimate research.
Like for example, if you're a drunkard weekend network news talking head domestic abuser this obviously qualifies you to run the world's largest military and the largest single organization that is part of the US government.
Or if you've somehow managed to make decisions about your own health that led to having part of your brain eaten by a pork tapeworm in AD 2010 this clearly qualifies you to be responsible for the health initiatives of an entire nation.
Or if you've killed a homeless black person on the subway this obviously qualifies you as the sort of "move fast and break things" go-getter needed at a venture capital firm.
Looks like you're unable to refute the premise that its ridiculous that they talk about how bad DEI is and then consistently nominate cabinet members whose only qualification is fealty.
The idea that RFK is somehow an outsider trying to tear down monied interests is ludicrous.
Who do you think makes ivermectin!? How many gazillions of dollars is the supplement industry worth? RFK is out here saying that he is the only person saying people should exercise when every doctor on the goddamn planet is already saying that.
The cool thing about hiring a baker to replace my car's transmission is i didnt have to give any money to BIG AUTO. Of course, my car still doesnt drive, but I got to stick it to BIG AUTO!
To further feed these tortured analogies, your car is rusted and has no wheels. Replacing the transmission is pointless and it's time to send it to the wreckers and get a new car.
... yet you've been living out of your car as your only shelter, and didn't think of where you're going to go before you gleefully called the wreckers.
Also the car is actually a bus, there's a bunch of other passengers also living there, who are furious you're trying to get their perfectly suitable if not perfect bus sent to the wreckers because you think you can build a better bus out of the cardboard boxes on the corner.
Is it considered a sockpuppet when it's the worms themselves posting?
The Department of Health has indeed done a profound amount of damage to the worm community, as well as the wider infectious disease community, over the past thirty years.
I have mixed feelings on trans issues (dont think trans women should participate in women's sports, i do think parents should be able to choose medical treatment for thier trans kids, i think both those things merit a lot more research), however, the last admin was not pushing anything transgender. You fell for propaganda!
As for covid vax efficacy: there is lots of non government research showing its efficacy.
So we should put believers in obviously crackpot theories in charge of physics departments? Would that re-ignite progress in physics?
The current system has a lot of problems, but it can get much worse. We could end up with everything that's wrong with the current system plus more acceptance of crackpot bullshit.
One of the key problems with populism is that while discontent with the establishment is often justified, populists overestimate how easy things are to fix and lack the expertise to judge alternatives. If you look around the world at revolutions, most of the time they result in things getting worse not better. It's much easier to break things than fix them.
> So we should put believers in obviously crackpot theories in charge of physics departments?
Quantum mechanics didn't really gain ascendancy until the old guard of physicists died off. There are examples in every field. Like hand washing for surgeons. Like digital cameras vs film. Like personal computers vs mainframes. Automobiles vs horses. Democracy vs monarchy. Aircraft carriers vs battleships.
I don't know much about RFK. But disruption now and then in conventional ways of doing things is often for the better.
No physicians needed dying off for handwashing to become mainstream. We just said "Physicians: wash your fuckin hands or you don't get to be physicians anymore." and the problem largely went away.
Was there a lot of grumbling, whining, and bitching? Yeah probably. Who cares?
> But disruption now and then in conventional ways of doing things is often for the better.
"We need some disruption!" shout the people who (believe that they) will not suffer the consequences of disruption.
> No physicians needed dying off for handwashing to become mainstream. We just said "Physicians: wash your fuckin hands or you don't get to be physicians anymore." and the problem largely went away.
I present to you Ignaz Semmelweis, the physician who introduced hand washing.
> Despite his research, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum, he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating.
I wanted to post a comment about how he was ostracized by the community, but turns out, he literally died for handwashing to become mainstream.
And which handwashing are we targeting with vaccine-denying, ADHD-non-believing, brain-worm-having, RFK junior? Is he going to wrangle the insurance industry out of practicing medicine without a license, and end their rampant profiteering over literally essential-to-life services? Oh no he's just going to make it illegal to treat illnesses he doesn't think are real, which basically the entire legitimate medical profession disagrees on. Oh, and make sure that the <100 trans athletes in the entire United States can't compete. Awesome, great.
ADHD denial enrages me. I know people with it who got treatment and it was life changing. The symptoms are obvious and the treatments are among the best studied with the strongest and most consistent results.
Every institution is built of people and therefore inherits their faults. The notion of so called “outsiders” is the intellectual equivalent of shrugging your shoulders and giving up because solving human problems is complicated, and let’s be very clear here: what has been done already and is planned by these outsiders to be done is almost universally terrible. If you want to argue that point, you’re not only arguing with every credible expert in a variety of fields, you’re arguing with the outsiders themselves, who advertise the fact that they want to crash the plane into the river because the pilots have grown too out of touch with regular passengers like you and them, whatever the hell that means. It’s a phrase that means nothing and therefore invites the listener to fill in whatever boogeymen they imagine are causing the problems, and while change will come, I’m highly skeptical that much if any will be good.
It doesn’t help that as I outline elsewhere, such outsiders are the preferred actors by people who feel they won’t have to deal with the fallout. People on private insurance aren’t afraid of the government cratering Medicare, because they don’t need it. Let’s be super clear about something else; if you’re okay with unqualified idiots fucking about with systems neither they or you understand simply because you won’t lose anything, you are not pro-disruption. You’re just selfish.
I mean, it’s already personal for you. Your Medicare being defunded and you not being able to use it feels like it would be the epitome of personal, but whatever. Good luck.
You're assuming it's possible to incrementally improve the situation, but maybe a "crackpot" is the best we can manage. If we could put someone truly, brilliantly competent and uncaptured in charge it would have happened already. Sometimes things need to get worse before they can be improved.
There's a simple mathematical or logical concept that solves the problem: For absolute value of differences between X and Y, there is no difference between an advantage or a disadvantage.
The formula for people who care about 'liberty and justice for all' is to say, 'we agree about eliminating racial or other biases in hiring and promotion' and then also identify and eliminate programs and processes biased in favor of, e.g., white males (the bias varies by situation, of course, but generally - almost by definition - favors the status quo).
For example, in college admissions eliminate legacies, wealthy donor's kids, and other things are biased toward white men and women. And then in OpenAI hiring, look beyond elite universities that have biased results, and beyond personal networks that are biased. In internal hiring and programs, eliminate or change those that advantage any groups, not just those that advantage vulnerable groups.
Another way of saying the same thing is that the standard hiring practices are DEI / affirmative action for the status quo (usually white males, possibly Asian males in SV) - that's what they always have been.
I'm serious. We can all then agree: Eliminate affirmative action and DEI for all. Could civil rights advocates use anti-DEI laws to sue on behalf of vulnerable minorities, saying that hiring practices are DEI for the status quo?
Or imagine Congress passing a law requiring merit-based advancement; imagine how that could be used to provide true 'liberty and justice for all.' (I don't know how that would work practically - how it's defined, how enforced, etc. Maybe you just have to quantitatively prove bias.)
>Your justification for discrimination against white guys is that a very tiny percent of them are legacy admissions and/or from wealthy families?
"Between 2014 and 2019, Harvard University accepted legacy students at a rate of 33%. This was more than five times the overall acceptance rate of 6% during that period." [0]
In 2022, the overall acceptance rate was 3.2%. The legacy acceptance rate was 42%.
There is a case for legacy admits - continuity of the culture in a university. The culture of a university is what makes it attractive for the next generation of students.
There are proven benefits from increased diversity. My point above is that if we are going to do it purely on merit, let's eliminate all biases and not just the ones in DEI.
Having received degrees from two ivys, and also being part of a legacy that dates back to 1709 at one of those two, i can definitely say that legacy admits dont provide cultural continuity more than the average non legacy student. The cultural transmission gradient is from older to younger students.
That said, i support legacies because these private universities at just that--private institutions, and the first amendment gives you the right to associate with whom you wish.
The First Amendment says the government can’t arrest you for peacefully assembling. It doesn’t say that taxpayers have to give funding to old money private schools. Maybe if there were financial consequences for discrimination they would take a more skeptical look at the value of this “cultural transmission gradient”.
There is generally considered rights held by (among other things) highly selective organizations to not have to follow public accommodation laws (which might harm their selectivity).
Certainly, profs/faculty do being continuity, but I was considering the student experience of the university. (It seemed to me that was what op was asking about with their assumption that said culture was legacy driven)
Professors of course contribute to the student culture too, but by no means as much as the students themselves.
> Could civil rights advocates use anti-DEI laws to sue on behalf of vulnerable minorities
I am with you that morally you can either say that discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics is either always wrong or not always wrong. I also tend to believe that wealth is now a more salient determinant of social outcome than race, and using race as a proxy for class is a missed opportunity.
On the narrow point you brought up, though, DEI discrimination isn’t commutative. It explicitly discriminates against the majority group. Of course, where the sausage gets made is what groups are selected against and how they are defined.
> I also tend to believe that wealth is now a more salient determinant of social outcome than race, and using race as a proxy for class is a missed opportunity.
People make all kinds of arguments and we can chase our tails forever, which is why they are pointless without evidence. There are mountains of evidence of discrimination based on race. And now the current US administration and many in the GOP openly embrace many white nationalists and their claims, including replacement theory, etc.
> DEI discrimination isn’t commutative. It explicitly discriminates against the majority group
There is far more discrimination in favor of the majority group. The point of DEI was to address that, but there are other strategies. Do you want discrimination or not?
The Stargate initiative will invest at least $500B. Whoever wouldn't scrub their website for a chunk of that is unusually principled.