Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

[tpowell1830]

Jordan Peterson is very fair and has done his research over his long career. This video is bound to show up in this thread sooner or later, so here it is:

[T3sl4co1l]

Oh yeah, this thread is going to go over well, I can smell it... 

Jordan Peterson, besides generally saying many words with little substance, is widely critiqued and discredited, especially for his association to the alt-right in recent years.  Which tells you all you really need to know about his followers.  Anyway, some salient points here:

[EEVblog]

For those who want to know how deep the rot goes on this topic. Not only have I personally been attempted "cancelled" over this (which I really don't care about, water off a ducks back), but most disturbingly, friends and associates of mine have been attacked and they have tried to ruin their lives over mere association with someone who has the "wrong opinion" on this topic.
It is toxic to the core.

[magic]

This is what happens when people watch TV instead of minding their own business. And TV is privately owned in certain parts of the world, so...

Jordan Peterson, besides generally saying many words with little substance, is widely critiqued and discredited, especially for his association to the alt-right in recent years.  Which tells you all you really need to know about his followers.

You don't understand, he is a hero appointed by God and United Nations to infiltrate the underworld of 4***n and teach those losers to clean their socks instead of shooting up schools and shopping malls.

[james_s]

For those who want to know how deep the rot goes on this topic. Not only have I personally been attempted "cancelled" over this (which I really don't care about, water off a ducks back), but most disturbingly, friends and associates of mine have been attacked and they have tried to ruin their lives over mere association with someone who has the "wrong opinion" on this topic.
It is toxic to the core.

I think your attitude toward it is really the only thing a person can do to push back, practice the art of not giving a shit, and most importantly never, ever apologize, because doing so will not appease the mob in the least, instead it is an admission of guilt and they will pounce all the more ferociously. The whole thing looks a lot like a rebranding of the old witch trials.

[Nominal Animal]

As Jordan Paterson puts it: Men are interested in things and women are interested in people.

Not just "men" and "women", it applies to other primates as well.  BBC Two has a video from a few years back, doing their own experiment with macaques:


Exactly because every individual is different -- that's why we are not representatives of "our group"; every single one of us represents a "group" of exactly one, themselves! –– there are natural, biological, evolutionary differences that makes "equity" (equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity) an utterly unfair proposition.

Fairness is a stronger, deeper thing than any oppression.  An individual can be happy even if they are somewhat oppressed; but almost nobody can be happy in an unfair situation, even if objectively or statistically they have it better than someone else.  Plus, while oppression seems to be a human concept, "fairness" is something that is observed across species:


It is not "the group" that spans the spectrum: it is the individuals.  Anything that promotes a group over individuals is fundamentally unfair, and wrong.

[EEVblog]

I think your attitude toward it is really the only thing a person can do to push back, practice the art of not giving a shit, and most importantly never, ever apologize, because doing so will not appease the mob in the least, instead it is an admission of guilt and they will pounce all the more ferociously. The whole thing looks a lot like a rebranding of the old witch trials.

In my case when they tried to cancel me I just ignored them, but when they went after my friends and tried to destroy them that was when I had to speak out, that crossed the line.
Unfortunately many (most?) people are not in the position I am to be able to ignore this stuff when I speak up about it. These people will go after your job, your sponsors, your funding platforms, and even your banks and other things.
And these attacks are always in the one direction from extreme left to supposed right.

[Zoli]

For those who want to know how deep the rot goes on this topic. Not only have I personally been attempted "cancelled" over this (which I really don't care about, water off a ducks back), but most disturbingly, friends and associates of mine have been attacked and they have tried to ruin their lives over mere association with someone who has the "wrong opinion" on this topic.
It is toxic to the core.

I think your attitude toward it is really the only thing a person can do to push back, practice the art of not giving a shit, and most importantly never, ever apologize, because doing so will not appease the mob in the least, instead it is an admission of guilt and they will pounce all the more ferociously. The whole thing looks a lot like a rebranding of the old witch trials.

Just a reminder what will happen if no one takes position:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

[Zero999]

I'm going to be the one to take what will likely be the unpopular position in this forum...

Women have been actively excluded from the general workforce, but especially STEM disciplines and jobs, for literally thousands of years. The first black woman ever to get a Ph.D. from MIT didn't happen until 1973. MIT has been in existence since 1861:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Ann_Jackson

The first woman to ever get a mechanical engineering Ph.D. in the United States happened in 1959!!! This isn't ancient history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Graham#First_woman_in_US_to_earn_mechanical_engineering_PhD

Say nothing for trans/gay people in which it was literally a crime to be gay within living memory (the USA did not start to even begin decriminalizing it until 1962 starting with Illinois).

Y'all whining so much about 'unfair discrimination...' the fact is that there is a LOT of work to be done to undo thousands of years of holding back human civilization. We've kept at least half our available brainpower away from learning STEM because they have vaginas and kept even more by discriminating against people they are gay, or have the wrong color skin.

I've met a lot of incompetent white men who fail upwards - and met a lot of hyper-competent minorities and women (and I remember them because there are so few in the STEM field in the first place) who are expected to work twice as hard to earn what's been historically awarded to certain demographics by discrimination and even by law.

FYI I'm a straight white male.

That may very well have been true in the past, but it's not been the case for at least the last 20 years.

Correlation doesn't mean causation. The under-representation of a certain demographic in a field is not proof of discrimination. The fact Islamic countries have a greater proportion of women shows this. There will always be more people of a certain demographic doing a specific job or activity. It's not possible to construct a system where every demographic is equally represented in all walks of life, whilst maintaining a fair society.

The problem is, discrimination in the opposite direction, known as positive discrimination in the UK or affirmative action over the pond, is now making things worse. It results in unsuitable candidates being selected and a poorer quality workforce.

[Zero999]

Oh yeah, this thread is going to go over well, I can smell it... 

Jordan Peterson, besides generally saying many words with little substance, is widely critiqued and discredited, especially for his association to the alt-right in recent years.  Which tells you all you really need to know about his followers.  Anyway, some salient points here:

I haven't watched that video yet. I might not agree with everything he says, but he definitely makes more sense than some of the far-left radicals. Matt Walsh is another person on the right who talks a lot of sense.

The person X is bad, so all of what they say is wrong, mob mentality of many people nowadays is grating.  You do know it's possible to agree with someone on one thing, even if you strongly disagree or even despise some of their other views. I think many people forget that.

Would you employ someone who votes for a politician or disagrees with you on something, even though they might be the best person for the role? If not, why not?

Going from our discussions on other threads, it appears you disagree with me on many things, yet I thing you're one of the best engineers here. The fact you might be on a different part of the political spectrum than me wouldn't put me off working with you, just as long as we can agree to disagree and keep politics out of work.

Or you could start "identifying" as woman for work purposes, and chose pronoun accordingly 

Officer thinking.

Moving won't help.  I've been working for one company contracted out to three different companies. Over the past few years and they are all the same.

Straight white male.  Do not apply.  We want diverse people and women.

Look for jobs in smaller organisations, which are less likely to be so woke. In the meantime, pretending to be trans does sound like a good workaround. All you need to do is state you identify as the opposite sex nowadays. No treatment is necessary. You could wear something a bit more feminine at work, just to prove the point.

[EEVblog]

The problem is, discrimination in the opposite direction, known as positive discrimination in the UK or affirmative action over the pond, is now making things worse. It results in unsuitable candidates being selected and a poorer quality workforce.

Literally right up the vice president of the United States who was as great of an example of diversity hire as you'll ever see, and admitted to as such.

[EEVblog]

Look for jobs in smaller organisations, which are less likely to be so woke.

Fortunately all this has happened after I left the corporate work force.
But part of me wishes I was still there to see what my reaction would be if they tried to force me into the training and job selection etc 
But again, I'd have screw-you money to speak up, but many people don't have that luxury and have to protect their jobs.
And yes, far less likley to find this at smaller companies. Not sure how pervasive it is here in Australia? I don't think it's as extreme.
Hard choice for the OP, depends on their circumstances.

[paulca]

And these attacks are always in the one direction from extreme left to supposed right.

It feels like someone connected a very, very left voltage source to that scale and while I thought I was slightly left of centre, I now find myself out on the right apparently.  They shifted the scale under me and now I feel a little unsafe.

[paulca]

Honestly.  I thought my message was simply pointing out an in balance, but on another forum of mostly middle aged bikers, where I thought there might be support, I got called a fascist and the after the admin had called me names he locked the thread.  Then when I started a new thread to ask WT Heck? He did the same things again.

I sent him a Subject Eraser request with a catalogue of entries removed emailed to me as confirmation as they don't provide a "delete account" feature.  He is free to ask me for a reasonable admin fee.  I'm tempted to make his life hell over this and keep going back and asking for individiual entries with my name or a mention be removed also.  It might be fun, but I expect it's not worth it.

Anyway, I think I'll take the advice in here, I was starting to get the idea anyway.

SHUT UP.  It's not worth fighting it and saying anything does really present a risk, not just to your job!  Time to stay quiet for a while longer.  My gut feeling is there will be others behind me soon enough, including some women, who are not happy with wondering if they are a diversity hire or not.  Now is not the time.  Let it simmer for a while yet.

I do fear for the industry though.  I expect this simmering will go on too long.  Software industry is in deep troubles at the moment with over capacity and bottom end quality.  We don't need this right now.  We do need more women and more good people generally, but we do not need this at this time.

[Circlotron]

One way to address all this gender nonsense is when certain people clamour for a female head of state, or for half of the board of directors of a company to be women, or some similar situation, is to ask them would it be an  acceptable solution if those male incumbent people now identified as women? And if that is not acceptable, why not? Would they not actually be women despite identifying as such? A large enough group of people will be divided on this issue and begin fighting among themselves. Then just walk away and leave them to it.

[Nominal Animal]

Which tells you all you really need to know about his followers.

Yes, let's define everyone a follower, because it is impossible for a human being to listen to contradictory opinions and make up their own minds.

Anyone who listens to people I do not like is an enemy, and that tells you all you really need to know about them.

Right?

For those who want to know how deep the rot goes on this topic. Not only have I personally been attempted "cancelled" over this (which I really don't care about, water off a ducks back), but most disturbingly, friends and associates of mine have been attacked and they have tried to ruin their lives over mere association with someone who has the "wrong opinion" on this topic.
It is toxic to the core.

As history shows, the results of this will once again be completely different to what has been touted as the reason for doing this.

Then, we'll have that "But nobody could have predicted this [even though they described this exact outcome time and time again, we could not listen to them because they disagreed with us and therefore were necessarily excluded from interaction]" handwashing and blameshifting, before the cycle repeats once again.

I am tired of this.

[Zero999]

One way to address all this gender nonsense is when certain people clamour for a female head of state, or for half of the board of directors of a company to be women, or some similar situation, is to ask them would it be an  acceptable solution if those male incumbent people now identified as women? And if that is not acceptable, why not? Would they not actually be women despite identifying as such? A large enough group of people will be divided on this issue and begin fighting among themselves. Then just walk away and leave them to it.

The gender stuff is beyond the joke. It's funny how many in favour of standing up for women's rights can't even define what a woman is. 

Honestly.  I thought my message was simply pointing out an in balance, but on another forum of mostly middle aged bikers, where I thought there might be support, I got called a fascist and the after the admin had called me names he locked the thread.  Then when I started a new thread to ask WT Heck? He did the same things again.

I sent him a Subject Eraser request with a catalogue of entries removed emailed to me as confirmation as they don't provide a "delete account" feature.  He is free to ask me for a reasonable admin fee.  I'm tempted to make his life hell over this and keep going back and asking for individiual entries with my name or a mention be removed also.  It might be fun, but I expect it's not worth it.

Anyway, I think I'll take the advice in here, I was starting to get the idea anyway.

SHUT UP.  It's not worth fighting it and saying anything does really present a risk, not just to your job!  Time to stay quiet for a while longer.  My gut feeling is there will be others behind me soon enough, including some women, who are not happy with wondering if they are a diversity hire or not.  Now is not the time.  Let it simmer for a while yet.

I do fear for the industry though.  I expect this simmering will go on too long.  Software industry is in deep troubles at the moment with over capacity and bottom end quality.  We don't need this right now.  We do need more women and more good people generally, but we do not need this at this time.

You'll get called names. Don't take it personally. I got recently called names because I expressed concern over the high rates of immigration to the UK. Of course I don't have a problem with foreigners. I just think this country is full up, the current rate of population growth due to immigration is unsustainable and too many of those who've come here don't share our values of freedom and tolerance.

Which tells you all you really need to know about his followers.

Yes, let's define everyone a follower, because it is impossible for a human being to listen to contradictory opinions and make up their own minds.

Anyone who listens to people I do not like is an enemy, and that tells you all you really need to know about them.

Right?

Thanks for putting what I said above more succinctly. It's not as simple as X is all bad and Y is all good. For example, I agree with Trump on some things, yet he has said and done many foolish and reckless things.

[EEVblog]

And these attacks are always in the one direction from extreme left to supposed right.

It feels like someone connected a very, very left voltage source to that scale and while I thought I was slightly left of centre, I now find myself out on the right apparently.  They shifted the scale under me and now I feel a little unsafe.

That's called a shift in the Overton Window, and it is a much analysed and discussed topic. People (like me) who considered themselves left (even far left in many regards) now find themsleves in the "centre", because the Overton Window has well and truly shifted to the left. But to the new extreme left you are now marked as a right wing nutjob, alt-right, or something to that effect. That's why the new left are eating themselves, with J.K.Rowing being a classic high profile example.

[paulca]

On Peterson.  A lot of people watch the 5 minute click bait excerpts designed to trigger.  A lot of people take sound bites from him out of context.  A lot of what he says is very uncomfortable to discuss or even hear in some cases.

However if you look past the "viral meme" stuff and actually look at what he does as a clinical psychologist, he is pretty renowned in the field and does some really good work.

I came across this last night.  It's always been clear to me that Peterson suffers greatly within, he rarely shows it to the surface, but occasionally it does.

[paulca]

That's called a shift in the Overton Window, and it is a much analysed and discussed topic. People (like me) who considered themselves left (even far left in many regards) now find themsleves in the "centre", because the Overton Window has well and truly shifted to the left. But to the new extreme left you are now marked as a right wing nutjob, alt-right, or something to that effect. That's why the new left are eating themselves, with J.K.Rowing being a classic high profile example.

I can't remember who commented.  It might have been Peterson (of course), but while society has at least got some form of elastic limit on how far right it will go, certain periods in history aside and the always present risk of another real rise of the far right... they is still a common felt limit on the right.

The left however have not found that limit yet and they are hell bent on pushing and pushing and pushing.  I'd expect it's a lot of the younger idealistic generations, but I fear by the time they actually grow up and the world they pushed to be created starts to be handed over to the them, they start to actually be responsible for it... it won't be what they wanted it to be and I'll expect they'll hate it and they will also hate the next new generation coming along and tipping it all back over on it head again.

A friend put it to me as a pendulum.  Things swing back and forward, men have had their patriarchal times and now it's swung in the favour of women and minorities.  The problem is, when the pendulum is swing naturally with the flows of life it only swings so far, so when it swings back, it only swings so far.  At the moment however there is quite a large mass movement pushing the pendulum further and further to the point the whole grandfather clock is tilting precariously.  If, no, when the movement runs out of strength of an uprising happens against it, the momentum it will have swinging back the other way could see us exceed WWII's period of darkness.

[Zero999]

I think much of the shift to the left in the west, comes from the fear of the right, from what happened in Germany. Unfortunately extreme left-wing policies have caused far more death and destruction, but it didn't happen in the west, so we've become complacent.

Many left wing goals are good in theory: giving money to the poor, not discriminating against minorities and those who have been historically marginalized. This is also why many who disagree with left wing organisations are labeled as bad. You think Black Lives Matter are bad, that must mean you hate black people, you hate Stone wall, a pro-LGBT charity, then that must mean you hate gay and trans people.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Feature creep sets in. The original goal of an organisation might've been to combat discrimination against a minority, yet once that has been achieved, even to the point of said group getting legal protection, they need to remain relevant as they have bills to pay, so they push harder. Now rather than simply fighting against discrimination, they push for equal outcome. It's a slippery slope.

[emece67]

5) This is an electronics forum, so try to stay on-topic. We understand that threads drift off-topic, but try not to start deliberately and grossly off-topic stuff.
There are a couple of pet topics that always get out of control on forums, namely, religion, politics, gun and conspiracy theories. They are not welcome here.
Those who come here to mostly only contribute non-electronics related material are not welcome. There are forums for that stuff, this is not one of them.

[Nominal Animal]

On Peterson.

Anyone with an academic background can easily find out for themselves what this Jordan Peterson person has been doing for the last two or three decades in the field of psychology.

The key reason he is vilified by certain people, is that in 2007, Peterson was one of the authors of a highly respected and widely cited article, Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five, which showed that based on purely numerical analysis of 481 personality assessments, the Big Five personality traits have internal structure (that can be an useful tool in using these traits for clinical purposes), but more importantly, that they may have a biological basis.

In other words, that "personality" and "gender-associated personality facets" may not be just a purely social construct, and instead may have a significant biological basis.  This is why he is the enemy of those who believe everything is just a social construct.

(The Big Five is in psychology a very important tool in psychological assessment.  Sure, being squishy human stuff, it has its flaws and valid counterarguments against, definitely, but it is the best tool in its class that we currently have.  As an analytical/scientific/rational type, I personally had to delve into this stuff when repeated burnout and recurrent depression took me down.  There is a lot of fluff in psychology, but a surprising amount of robust statistics-based stuff too.)

While the number of citations is not really something anyone should use as a metric, the articles that do refer to this does help understand the context and value of said work.  See pibmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov for the list of articles that cite that one.  Take a glance for yourself.  After all, this is not just someones opinion, this is peer-reviewed work; and we still haven't found anything better for furthering our understanding than that.

I do not "follow" him (as in watch his videos on Youtube – except when there is a discussion among people that have differing views), but I have read and listened enough to know he is not "alt-right": what he is suggesting, is just advice based on human psychology (and his clinical psychology experience in practical psychotherapy) to those who need help with life management and personal growth.  Telling young men and women to clean up their own act before they try and go out to change the world is not "alt-right", it is just practical, functional advice based on human psychology.  Telling them that being responsible for oneself and others carrying the heaviest social burden you can seems to be one of the most fulfilling ways to live, is not "radical" – or anything anyone should object to, because statistically it does work.  Not for everyone, but for so many it is worth giving as advice.  I did really like it when I saw him telling how therapy is not about "fixing" people, but to make them stronger, mentally strong enough to overcome their problems, because that's how I see it too. He himself is a flawed person, and freely admits it too.  If he didn't, I would really dislike him.  Even his biblical series and similar talks are about how one can treat them as the distilled understanding/realizations across tens if not hundreds of generations, in the form of archetypes.

All very straighforward, and in a normal society, uncontroversial stuff: it draws young people, especially young men, back from the edges and fringes from society, instead of pushing them further out.  Apparently, a lot of people really don't like that.  I wonder why?

5) This is an electronics forum, so try to stay on-topic.

This affects our workplace and livelihood.  Thing-oriented people (like engineers and scientists, as opposed to more human/social-oriented people) have the greatest difficulties dealing with this stuff.  If we cannot discuss this here, among other engineers, scientists and hobbyists with similar mindsets, we cannot discuss this anywhere anymore.

I know I definitely cannot discuss any of this in public.  Even in an University cafeteria, you risk getting dunked by water or other beverage by a politically and socially conscious activist students, just because they overheard you mention a name in a tone they didn't like.

There used to be a time when universities were the bastions of new thought, thought experiments, and working over even unpleasant concepts, but no more.

[EEVblog]

Worth mentioning the UTS engineering thing as it's very on-topic.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200308074440/https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/excruciatingly-generous-uts-atar-discount-for-women-so-patronising-20190831-p52mpr.html

[tszaboo]

If you think that we can just walk away from the issue, and let it blow over, than you are in for a surprise.
There is something called ESG credit score: https://esg.moodys.io/esg-credit It's a scoring system, where the S social and G Governance score is given based on your company's willingness to subscribe to these radical left ideas. I gave you a Moodys link, where they clearly state that they are incorporating this score into your company's credit rating. Black Rock and other huge institutions follow this.
What does this mean? If your company is not compliant, doesn't want equity over equality, doesn't want to implement CRT, or deals with other companies with low ESG score, you will not get funded. You will not get the necessary credits to expand, to grow, or to avoid a bankruptcy. As time goes on, there will be less and less companies surviving on the long term, who are not radical leftist.
Every single time, the radical left was left unchecked, millions of people died who disagreed, or were in the way.
So we cannot be complacent and leave them to just bark on their own turf. They are coming to your independent companies, and your movies and your social media posts and then they just cancel you. In their book it is not enough to not have an opinion about this. Why do you think companies are organizing brainwashing sessions about social justice?