But the important thing is in both cases, I have the option of running it like that, if security is important to me.
In the case of Slack, Discord or Teams I have to implicitly trust the mothership.
In a world where all these companies are eager to hide clauses that allow them to train on your data, and where controversies pop up where Tesla employees share your in-car camera videos among each other, I'd rather have a product where I can limit who I need to trust, especially if I'm running something as sensitive as a government agency.
> Most of these federal jobs either marginally improve millions of lives or are completely critical for 10k Americans.
Firstly, are you basing this assertion on any sort of reality, or are you just 'sus' about it?
Secondly, marginal improvements for millions of people in many different areas is nothing to scoff at - that is precisely what a government is supposed to do - and will add up to very significant improvements very quickly.
I don't think that they're saying that doing marginal improvements for millions of people is anything to scoff at, I that they are saying that it's a lot more difficult to directly quantify.
more isnt the problem. or its not the first problem.
>predictions suggested only 3% of black applicants would pass.
Thats not '3% of the applicants are black'. It's '3% of black applicants pass the test'
Starting there alone would yield meaningful results - at the end of the day, you gotta pass the test. Changing the test so more people pass is illogical and dangerous.
You offer more and better training for everyone. It's not the job of the organization itself to enable their success - just offer a fair test. Others, like the organization mentioned in this article, can and should focus on specific constituent representation. However, the goal of getting more of a specific group into an organization is NOT more important than the safety and efficacy of the organization.
> An inevitable characteristic of his algorithm is chaos: delete as many constraints and parts as possible. When things break, re-add those necessary parts.
This might work sometimes for companies (surprisingly, often it doesn't) - it has far more significant and wide-reaching consequences when you're doing it to an entire country and its institutions, particularly one as influential as America.
It's interesting that you're willing to accept the anti-DEI crowd's motives on good faith, but not the DEI initiatives'
> the truth in many cases is that it is an excuse to exclude white males.
One might think that the current pushes are an excuse to exclude various minorities. Considering what DEI initiatives were born of just a few decades ago, I don't think that's an unreasonable conclusion either.
I do think there's some truth to listen to from those so opposed to the initiatives - there's some that go too far and should be reigned in - but, as others have pointed out in this thread, drinking the Kool Aid with this push isn't really going to fix anything. It's just swinging back and forth on the political pendulum. Is that really what people want?
There have been enough real examples to know that not every program at every institution and workplace is run completely above board. If it were, hiring proportions would not be so out of whack at certain places. White people make up 85% of the US population. A purely meritocratic system would likely show a similar distribution in most settings. But that’s not what has happened. Further, using words like privilege in a derogatory fashion, and telling people the things they do are by default oppressive aren’t going to win you many friends. It’s an “I’m right, you’re wrong, deal with it” attitude that has turned many Americans off.
I know good programs exist, run by good people who have good intentions, and they may even be the majority, but just like anything else, as I said, I understand where these people are coming from. If you think it’s solely ignorance or hatred, you need to work on your empathy skills. Not every person who disagrees with affirmative action or DEI is hateful.
Out of curiosity, on what are you basing your assertion that "that's not what happened"? Did hiring demographics swing wildly in the other direction when DEI initiatives were introduced?
(I didn't use the word privilege; in fact you seem to be ignoring any consideration of what I actually said.)
The argument is that the previous system wasn't a meritocracy either, and by accounting for the existing biases we gather up the talent that was previously ignored.
You don't stop reading the resume upon hitting <minority group> and hit the hire button. They still need the other required skills too.
The previous system wasn't just not a meritocracy, it was famously discriminatory. And not just against gay or black people - poor and disabled white people were discriminated against too. Not to mention rampant nepotism and favouritism, which the anti-DEI crowd don't seem to care as much about.
> The argument is that the previous system wasn't a meritocracy either, and by accounting for the existing biases we gather up the talent that was previously ignored.
Whether or not that is true (you haven't given evidence for it), this doesn't justify additional anti-meritocratic practices like diversity hiring. Two wrongs don't make a right.
> You don't stop reading the resume upon hitting <minority group> and hit the hire button. They still need the other required skills too.
An analogous argument wouldn't justify e.g. nepotism ("we don't care only about nepotism, we also care partly about merit!") and it doesn't justify diversity hiring either. The argument is that, when deciding who should be hired for doing difficult cancer surgeries, only merit should be considered, and diversity (or nepotism etc) shouldn't play any role at all.
I feel like the vast, vast majority of businesses that are conducting monetary transactions with their customers are storing, at least, their last login time.
Except for the server, which is usually run on a box you don't control.
> Websites are usually hosted on machines the owner controls, running software the owner controls, yet have no trouble talking to the external world.
Most websites are absolutely not ran on machines the owner controls...
reply