GitHub now run by Maoists

[Quasar]

Apparently since meritocracy is out, GitHub's new corporate culture could best be described as Maoist - driven to extreme ends by an ideology taken to its far extremes, ready to burn itself to the ground from the inside out by driving out all the talent.

I am currently considering whether or not I should move all my code off of the site. As someone who doesn't apparently fit their desired demographic of programmer, I don't know why I should support anything they do. You know what I appreciate in a source control platform?

Dedication to its purpose of being a source control platform.

When I want my C++ with a healthy dose of "all sex is rape" and "white women are the problem in the tech industry now", I'll check tumblr instead.

[Tarnsman]

Is this the thing where the guy tweeted out that "teaching white men basic human decency is impossible" or something along those lines?

[thesecondcomingdoom]

Oh fuck.

"all sex is rape"

Oh fuck x2

[Captain Ventris]

I'm confused as to how a code revision site manages to have an agenda. Great job on that, I guess, guys.

[Gothic Box]

Welcome to the "Horseshoe Theory is True" convention, please enjoy your stay.

[Quasar]

Captain Ventris said:

I'm confused as to how a code revision site manages to have an agenda. Great job on that, I guess, guys.

Exactly. It's like, how/why are we having these discussions at all in the first place?

When they called themselves "social coding" I thought they meant professionals acting professional by cooperating with each other on important projects.

Apparently they meant something far different that I never want to be a part of in any way.

[Gothic Box]

Quasar said:

Exactly. It's like, how/why are we having these discussions at all in the first place?

When they called themselves "social coding" I thought they meant professionals acting professional by cooperating with each other on important projects.

Apparently they meant something far different that I never want to be a part of in any way.

What I don't get is why they say that white women are a "problem" in the tech industry. Last time I checked, there was a big program endorsed by President Obama and Malala Yousafzai that trying to get women into the tech industry, and they didn't seem to care what race those women were. And so what if they're white? The majority of people in the US are white, with hispanic/latino people coming in at a close second. It's just racism, that's what it is.

[darknation]

I think I lolled a little in my pants.

[Linguica]

So is there, like, a link or anything to what the hell this thread is talking about.

[Tarnsman]

http://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2

[Csonicgo]

Why is it so difficult for these tech companies to hire talented minorities without alienating the existing workforce? Could it be the ones in charge of that are total assholes?

Given it's usually the 'diversity' officers (who, coincidentally, seem to be cynical shit-stirrers) having issues with their messaging, perhaps its them who need help with fitting in with the existing Github team. You know, real leadership skills, instead of dozens of stern subtweets and PowerPoints...

[Tarnsman]

Csonicgo said:

Why is it so difficult for these tech companies to hire talented minorities without alienating the existing workforce?

Because aggressive identity politics has devolved the modern discussions of diversity into idealistic segregation that allows the most radical and bigoted elements of each group to gain the vocal minority and every single time someone from a disparaged group says some outstandingly bigoted shit, to remind you that being from a marginalized group doesn't prevent someone from being a twat, there is someone on the other end of the spectrum who instantly responds with some equally bigoted shit; endlessly perpetuating a cycle where everyone is a shithead and justified by a vocal minority that seems fully dedicated to reinforcing every negative stereotype their opponents have about them, further exacerbated by an over-reliance on a terrible platform, that limits people to 140 characters, as a primary form of communication and discourse?

[Captain Ventris]

Okay, I read the article. The moment a company decides it is larger than and independent from the service(s) it provides, the social/political ideology of the leadership is going to leak into the service being provided. In the case of something like code-sharing and revision tracking which should be utterly free of social politics (aside from discussions of coding methodology, of course), that almost certainly means a negative impact one way or another on the service being provided. Worst case would be limiting the types of projects permitted on the site due to extremist opinions, or at best a loss in service quality due to company priorities shifting away from simply providing and improving that service, to focus on different initiatives such as expanding forms of brand monetization etc.

TLDR; Yeah, I'd jump ship Quasar. I'll leave it to those more in the know as to where you should take your work.

EDIT: Tarnsman killed it. Excellently and concisely stated!

[Kontra Kommando]

Wow, fuck Github.

[Clonehunter]

I never got the whole "We need to diversify" thing when it comes to somethings. I guess yah, you don't want to appear like a 'X' only institution, but at the same time, just shoeing-in 'people of color' seems kind of whack. Like if a bunch of people of Y aren't working in Field A, then do we need to start forcing them to work in Field A or just arbitrarily hire them so some social justice committee can look at the company in Field A and give them a pat on the back for being diversified?

Aren't we all just Humans and nothing more?

[Linguica]

So what I get out of this article is:

* Github has grown a lot and has implemented a normal big-company hierarchy rather than a loosey-goosey flat structure
* They've hired people to help focus on diversity, and these people concerned with diversity have made shocking claims like "the biggest roadblock to increasing diversity is white people opposed to diversity-increasing efforts"
* An anonymous person claims that due to this reign of terror, white people are now the real oppressed group

Where does the Maoism come in again? I missed that part?

[Jaxxoon R]

I don't get it. The octopus cats are racist now?

[Tarnsman]

Linguica said:

shocking claims like "the biggest roadblock to increasing diversity is white people opposed to diversity-increasing efforts"

I think there is a pretty huge difference between that and "White men lack basic human compassion and empathy" which is what their leading diversity officer actually said.

Clonehunter said:

I never got the whole "We need to diversify" thing

Because bias can get in the way of meritocracy and viewing something as a "X person's club" can discourage people from entering that field.

[fraggle]

Github had a pretty high level sexism scandal about a year ago that culminated with one of the founders of the company leaving. The internal culture of the company received some criticism and it seems they've made a deliberate effort to try to make some changes and improve the diversity of the company.

Scandal aside though this is really just a microcosm of a wider industry that is trying to improve its diversity. Most large tech companies are doing this, but if you work at a small company you might not have realised this. It's ultimately a good thing.

I saw an article yesterday about Github's internal changes - it seems part of their changes are simply down to the fact that they're growing very rapidly as a company. However, the article I read included some sensationalist claims about their diversity work that included some presentation slides that were quoted out of context. I'd encourage you to investigate this with a more open mind rather than jumping to conclusions.

[Linguica]

Tarnsman said:

I think there is a pretty huge difference between that and "White men lack basic human compassion and empathy" which is what their leading diversity officer actually said.

That guy is "Technical Director for Social Impact" whatever the hell that means. The lady mentioned in the article seems to be in charge of that stuff, or at least she's "Vice President of Social Impact" whatever the hell that means.

Here's the whole tweet context, which the article inexplicably does not actually link:

https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/690592962783252480/photo/1 (retweet immediately preceding)
https://twitter.com/_danilo/status/690602381449510924

The context was about the social safety net in general. Not sure why "white middle managers" was relevant exactly though. It seems to me he uses "white, male, middle manager meritocracy" as a sort of synecdoche for "American capitalism" which is unfortunate.

[Tarnsman]

Linguica said:

Here's the whole tweet context, which the article inexplicably does not actually link:

https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/690592962783252480/photo/1 (retweet immediately preceding)
https://twitter.com/_danilo/status/690602381449510924

The context was about the social safety net in general. Not sure why "white middle managers" was relevant exactly though. The guy looks to be big into Social Justice Twitter in general though, so it's probably a pretty standard refrain.

The article doesn't need to link it because that context doesn't do anything to make him not saying directly saying "X group of people lack empathy". He's not even implying it he's flat out saying it. In fact the context honestly makes the statement worse because it is only marginally attached to what he was talking about.

[Linguica]

Tarnsman said:

The article doesn't need to link it because that context doesn't do anything to make him not saying directly saying "X group of people lack empathy". He's not even implying it he's flat out saying it. In fact the context honestly makes the statement worse because it is only marginally attached to what he was talking about.

Yes, it was weird and out of place and an dumb thing to say. In any event it's largely irrelevant. A tech guy who has worked at Github for six whole months said something on his personal Twitter account about white men, and an article about the corporate culture at Github places it front-and-center in an obvious bid to poison the well. Obviously this guy is not in charge of any policy or hiring decisions or whatever, but his tweet is being framed as the context for everything happening at Github, because it serves the shit-stirring narrative the article is presenting.

[Bucket]

Sounds like this is the best time ever to be involved, as people are jumping ship. I don't know how their future career prospects are, going into interviews saying "my previous job was racist against white people", but best of luck to them.

[Tarnsman]

Linguica said:

Obviously this guy is not in charge of any policy or hiring decisions or whatever, but his tweet is being framed as the context for everything happening at Github, because it serves the shit-stirring narrative the article is presenting.

Well he was a director so obviously in was in charge of something and in the same way that if a male manager makes a off-color remark about the role of women it's fair to have a problem about that and wonder how it impacts the culture and direction of a company in regards to its treatment of women, it's fair to be perturbed by someone making a similar comment about a different group of people.

https://twitter.com/_danilo/status/696016726786494464

Especially when he links the article smearing him and barely has a passing objection to anything mentioned in it. Most people respond to that with "this is wrong because X Y and Z".

[printz]

How is this gonna affect my ability to upload stuff to their website? Until they establish paywalls or remove features, I will consider these issues (whatever I can get off this disjointed thread) internal problems that should have remained confidential.

[Ribbiks]

printz said:

How is this gonna affect my ability to upload stuff to their website? Until they establish paywalls or remove features, I will consider these issues (whatever I can get off this disjointed thread) internal problems that should have remained confidential.

+1

[Quasar]

Yes probably taking a wait and see approach is best. My concerns are just that these issues in their internal organization are going to leech through into the services they offer, more than they have in the past.

[fraggle]

Clonehunter said:

I never got the whole "We need to diversify" thing when it comes to somethings. I guess yah, you don't want to appear like a 'X' only institution, but at the same time, just shoeing-in 'people of color' seems kind of whack. [...]
Aren't we all just Humans and nothing more?

It's a good question. I'll answer it in a couple of ways.

Firstly it's not about "shoeing people in" but really about giving people an equal chance when hiring, etc. As a society we're at a point where the majority of us agree that we shouldn't be discriminating based on race, gender, etc. The few people still advocating for that kind of thing are usually obvious wackadoodles.

The problems that remain now are subtler and more insidious, and require some careful thought to pick apart. A lot of the effort at (tech company where I work) has been focused around examining unconscious biases - for example, even if you consider the idea of sexism to be abhorrent, you can still harbour unconscious sexism which affects the way you act (and potentially influence things like hiring if you're involved in doing interviews). Maybe this all sounds fluffy and far-fetched; if so then I'd recommend trying the Harvard unconscious bias tests, which for me really brought it down to earth and helped make a strong case for me that these things are real and really do affect the way we behave.

Another way of answering your question is to interpret it as "why is diversity a good thing?". One answer is that from a simple economic point of view, more diverse companies tend to perform better. If you take it as a given that diversity of gender, race, etc. equate to different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, it's not hard to see how a variety of perspectives can lead to a better product. Monocultures in general don't tend to be a good thing since they tend to lock you into a particular way of thinking.

[VGA]

Seems our modern western culture has (d)evolved to a point where being aggressively against white people is considered pro-diversity and anti-racist. Pretty amazing :D

That's why I am a shitlord in these matters and don't give a fuck! Yay!

[YukiHerz]

This is gonna go worse than Sweden's anti-racists racists...