It's all pretty cooked. It's honestly stunning to see how these cult-like followers have allowed themselves to be completely oblivious to what's going on.
From an outsiders perspective, it's wild. But at the same time, there were many warnings.
Its cooked everywhere. Thank the Attention Economy. All sides are trapped by in a fight over finite Attention. Its like the world war but instead of land its Views/Clicks/Likes.
Since Attention is a finite non growing pool the trap is set.
One day some one gets all the fish and another its someone else. Anyone who has any sense wouldn't waste any energy being part of such a stupid game cause its eventually lose lose.
So the game is of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
Until all sides agree on a new Attention allocation mechanism everything shall remain cooked.
With all do respect, I dont think so. The unfairness is relative feeling of judgment brought to you directly by the ability to compare yourself to your neighbors via social.
Inflation, and the even hire steady increases in cost of living with wages lagging far behind; people have to spend a much larger percentage of their income just to sleep somewhere at night than people did in the 2000s, 1990s and 1980s.
This trend has been evident in the US since like the 1960s. If you would like to verify, try comparing median income levels and median cost of living levels for some of those year ranges.
Ya sure but whats the way out? We have to go from Observations to Solutions.
Just look at how people's Attention on all sides is being exploited. If no one can remember what they were hysterical about last week, how can they be relied on to solve anything?
People are able to over night get more Attention than Billionaires and then convert that Attention to cash or influence, and its always fleeting as there is someone else around the corner about to capture Attention next.
How can such system do anything useful? I mean people are in la la land that architecture can produce results.
Why do we have central banks that decide what the interest rate is going to be?
Because the govt, banks and the rest of the market is unfit (proven throughout history) to do so.
Social Media/Attention Economy needs a similar mechanism when it comes to Attention.
We can't just go on living in a day dream that Rate at which the population's Attention is switching from one issue to another (thanks to algo's engineering for quarterly profit maximization) can just be left to Fate.
People's Attention both on Demand side and Supply side is being massively squandered more than at any time in history. Its like watching seizures in the brain. And people are like no no the system can function.
It can't. And the choice is to realize is sooner than later.
I don't get why people expect the government to make their lives amazing?
Has this ever happened, where had some amazing QoL thanks to their countries government.
I expect my government to manage public resources, the economy and defense. It can provide social safety nets for worst case scenarios. But if your eating food and have a home and making money what are people actually expecting from the government?
The precise point is that people are _not_ having a home due to a lack of affordability, that they are not having access to health care, and that rights and ascending social mobility of the past is being taken away.
And yes, government policies can definitely help or hinder in all of these.
I think it's a mistake to think people are just oblivious. It's not a majority but there are actually a lot of people aware of these things and celebrating them.
One thing I don't see mentioned a lot but Trump has made being a victim a fairly central part of his politics (him thinking all elections are rigged against him is a simple example of this) so this all makes sense as a sort of retribution. You can see the retribution, often personal, against people conspiring against him in a lot of his speeches and policies (he's even blamed immigrants before for bringing drugs and "poisoning the blood of our country" and implied they are conspiring against the US) and there are people that care about that retribution more than rights or other ideals.
I could write pages more about how you can hear how the idea of victimization and retribution is part of his talks on tariffs, foreign policy, immigration, "DEI", law offices, the judicial system, etc but obviously it would be too long for an internet comment. Once I noticed it I started seeing it everywhere with him.
> One thing I don't see mentioned a lot but Trump has made being a victim a fairly central part of his politics (him thinking all elections are rigged against him is a simple example of this) so this all makes sense as a sort of retribution.
Imagined victimhood and a persecution complex are core, foundational pillars of MAGA. The whole movement is about how they are all the victims of the elite, persecuted by the media, harassed for their beliefs, and that the whole world is against them. Then, the minute they got power, their first priority was griefing others and cruelty to all of their favorite out-groups. There really is nothing more to it than pretend victimhood, leading to retribution.
Trump isn’t the source of that, but a manifestation of it.
People are tired of, eg, systemic discrimination being forced on them by elites (euphemized “DIE”) or courts which have outspoken activists refusing to enforce the law against career criminals.
They want it to stop — and since elites refused to onboard that correction, they rallied behind a strongman to punish them.
He's very very much not the source of this. It's been ascendant literally my whole life, my first foray into really thinking about politics was trying to convince my friends that humans caused climate change and there wasn't a conspiracy of climate scientists trying to trick them so they can get more grant money.
You can see him pretty clearly expanding on and exploiting those existing currents though. One of the ways he got big in American politics is his support of the "birther" movement where he was convinced Obama wasn't born in the US (which, to be clear, was a ridiculous claim and especially galling to me since my birth certificate is from the same hospital and looks almost exactly like his). His political persona gas always been tied to the idea this idea that people are lying and working against America even if he didn't originate the idea.
Edit: also tone is hard to parse on the internet so I'll clarify that this isn't really meant as an argument, it doesn't seem like we really disagree on what Trump's politics is about (even if we have different opinions on those politics). I mainly just wanted to clarify that I saw this long before Trump, even if he's now emblematic of it.
My entire life, professional and otherwise, DEI has ultimately stood for nothing other than "less white people". Of course it's dressed up in definitions that sound beautiful and moral to the supporters of DEI, but at the end of the day whenever someone uses the term "diverse" they are talking about "less white people".
When the company John Lewis was criticized for a lack of diversity [1], it was because they had too many whites.
When the Academy Awards were criticized for a lack of diversity [2], it was because they had too many whites.
When the EU institutions were criticized for a lack of diversity [3], it was because they had too many whites.
When the BAFTAs were criticized for a lack of diversity [4], it was because they had too many whites.
When investigative journalism in the US was criticized for a lack of diversity [5], it was because they had too many whites.
When the show "Friends" was criticized for a lack of diversity [6], it was because they had too many whites.
After decades and decades of this blatant animosity against people like me I can honestly say I do not care at all what Trump does to these programs or how he goes about destroying them, as long as they are destroyed and the people that supported them punished.
And here I was talking about consequential stuff, like helping impoverished communities, adding guardrails to prevent old-boys clubs and enable skilled individuals to enter fields without prejudice for “being black” or “being gay”.
Who cares about criticism over inconsequential stuff? Is it that difficult to care about impoverished people?
The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program, and republicans axed it, well done! The repubs are also sending kids to work overtime and during the night, effectively gutting their future, and of course it’s the impoverished kids who will have to do that.
> The meals for kids at schools is a “dei” program
I have never heard of such a thing, can you link to where such a program existed?
Free or reduced cost school lunch is a very common program, but it's based entirely on income, not race, gender or sexuality, which is what everyone means when they talk about "dei programs".
If that’s what they mean it’s because they have been played like a fiddle.
If I were to offer lunches for kids in an impoverished community that happens to be predominantly X race, the sensationalists will say “RACE” “DISCRIMINATION”, while the program is simply addressing one region.
Now the funny thing is that the Democratic Party has repeatedly pushed for universally free lunches to take any potential concerns over race out of the picture and the republic party keeps voting those down.
I have never observed the phenomenon you're describing and would like to learn more.
Can you link me to one of these stories where "sensationalists said race discrimination" about a program to alleviate poverty which was not actually racially biased?
>helping impoverished communities, adding guardrails to prevent old-boys clubs and enable skilled individuals to enter fields without prejudice for “being black” or “being gay”
Exactly, like I said - "it's dressed up in definitions that sound beautiful and moral to the supporters of DEI".
I do not care for theoretical definitions of why your ideology is good and moral, I care about its practical effects on me and the world around me. And somehow, those practical effects always turn out to be "less white people".
And I will NEVER support an ideology that disenfranchises me under the cover of equality!
What I am expressing here is that practical things that all of us can agree are good and useful, such as helping impoverished kids, result in tangle positive consequences, an educated society has less crime, therefore net positive. This is a practical and real world positive consequence.
>And somehow, those practical effects always turn out to be "less white people".
In contrast to your silly and inconsequential examples of just "criticism", I presented examples where DEI has tangible and measurable results which are net positive. What you express, really, just shows confirmation bias, and you remain oblivious to all the positive things that have come out of "DEI" programmes that you have benefited from.
Case in point, women die significantly more in car crashes [1] because law mandates male-sized dummies. Some diversity here in terms of gender would have pointed that out, but until the moment this was written, nothing was done.
DEI programmes exist to avoid discrimination such as that one.
> According to Verity Now, a US-based campaign group striving to achieve equity in vehicle safety, women are 73% more likely to be injured – and 17% more likely to die – in a vehicle crash. Earlier this year, a study of 70,000 patients who had been trapped in vehicles found that women were more frequently trapped than men.
> Part of the problem is that test dummies modeled on the average female body are rarely used in safety tests by car manufacturers – because only “male” dummies are mandated for tests by regulators.
So I don't believe you will ever change or your mind or opinion, and you are discussing in bad faith, rendering this conversation utterly useless. Here's my recommendation, if you are going to try to get me to see your side, instead of emitting strawman arguments, try a steelman one, and avoid sensationalism.
It is not an either-or proposition. It would be hard to find a single thing in this world that is 100% bad or 100% good.
I do agree that the article you posted is a very good implementation of equitable practices and I would think it difficult to find anyone who would disagree with the mandating of female test dummies. Mostly because it's a very simple-to-understand example and the implementation of it doesn't hurt anyone else or take away from one group to give to another.
My problem is the pretending that your example is what DEI actually is and any other examples, like the ones I posted, from a number of mainstream media publications no less, are, for whatever reason, NOT considered DEI or, as you put it, are just "silly and inconsequential examples".
Those "silly and inconsequential examples" are supported by every mainstream DEI proponent, including every single DEI department at every large publicly-traded company. There have been numerous articles posted both here on HN and on the wider web about how these DEI implementations turn out to work in practice when it comes to employment prospects, promotion availability and the issues with general hiring practices (lowering standards to achieve some magic number of "equity" in female/minority representation).
My suggestion - if you truly care about the programs such as the one you listed in your comment, you better make sure that's what DEI actually focuses on. Otherwise, you should not be surprised that it gets swept away along with everything else that people feel falls under the DEI umbrella.
When you have privilege, equality feels like oppression. I don’t know where I saw that quote from but I feel this summarizes your points.
Punish who for what? Can you demonstrably prove white people were harmed by DEIA? White people ran the last administration and this one too. What more do you want? Do you get upset if you see a black person drive a nicer car than you?
This anti-DEIA stuff is just cooked up to distract you from the real problems facing this country.
>Can you demonstrably prove white people were harmed by DEIA?
Sure, here you go. This is just one example, but it's been widely covered in tech circles as well as here on HN and I chose it simply because it's one of the most egregious and shockingly honest account of how DEI works in practice as opposed to nice-sounding social theories
Things like this have been covered and talked about on HN for years, I am surprised you missed it, with a lot of commenters speaking out about their own experience which more often than not paints the same story each time - a company needs to reach a certain quota based on race or gender to avoid potential discrimination lawsuits, their hiring pipeline does not support that quota so the only options they have is to discriminate against the only group it is socially OK to discriminate against - white men. And on some level - asians - as is mentioned directly by the CEO of IBM in the leaked video posted above.
From an outsiders perspective, it's wild. But at the same time, there were many warnings.