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Comment by deanputney | Hacker News Reader

The purpose of these changes is to hurt those who are vulnerable to them. It's shocking to see how quickly people were willing to trade that support for some perceived short term gain. I suspect a lot of people are about to find out they're vulnerable too.

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No, the purpose of these is to progress a nationalist agenda that advances a political goal. This is achieved by repeating the lie that these policies are harmful to members that aren't in these groups. Harming the people involved is a second order effect of these changes and not the primary goal (at least for some / most people). Most people that are aligned with these objectives are either ignorant of the harm or at best indifferent to it compared to the harm they perceive DEI policies do to those not in the minority groups.

To be clear I believe those perspectives are abhorrent, but they have an understandable genesis that's based on a real fear that has been stoked for political gain.

While the intent of DEI policies could've been good, the result was virtually the opposite of the intent:

- disabled people were kept completely out of discussion. The only time I've worked with a disabled developer was in a company that did not have any DEI

- lots of policies boil down to "what skin color are you", which is pure racism, except you're not allowed to point that out

- "it's okay to be anyone you want to be, unless you're a white straight man, we don't like those"

- lots of annoying surface-level events related to LGBT groups without addressing any actual issues these people face

- "affirmative action" aka "discrimination is good when we do it"

- laser focus on women's issues, and then surprised Pikachu face that men listen to Andrew Tate because nobody else tells them they're valuable

- language police and forcing phrases that would've belonged to a comedy sketch 10 years prior. Expressions like "what are your pronouns" and "uterus-bodied people" just don't resonate with the general public

- nail in the coffin: bully attitude. "Either you accept our viewpoint or we'll bully you into doing so". This completely shut down the societal discussion about equality. Democrats thoughts that the discussion about equality was done because the problem was solved, while in reality people were afraid of speaking up, and secretly voted for Trump

This is exactly it. The goal is noble, but the execution doesn't measure up. People don't buy into and support systems that are forced on them.

As a white straight male, the only inkling that I may have been discriminated against in the workplace my entire life has come 100% from right wing media outlets and conservative politics. I have never been on the receiving end of any decisions that I felt that I was unfairly judged based on the color of my skin. I'm a single data point of course, but it would surprise me if this was not more common. But of course reporting the absence of discrimination isn't really newsworthy. Maybe we the un-oppressed need to stop being so beige about it or something?

I've seen in larger companies there's a lot of career growth initiatives focused around the typical groups that DEI have been deemed oppressed. So if you're not in those groups you're left out.

Now whether it's right to have those or not to "balance" any sense of perceived structural inequity is a different question altogether. But I can totally see how a white straight male would feel discriminated against.

I think the stated purpose is the purpose: to cut waste. DEI based on race or sex is corruption. Helping the blind be maximally comfortable with maximal opportunity is just a plain decent thing and that should be law (for those people and orgs who unfortunately need the compulsion). The conversation about DEI is not about the blind.

Unfortunately (for those impacted) accessibility has been rolled into DEI and called DEIA and the executive orders included accessibility in their revocation. See https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi... for an example. You'll see revocation for both DEI and DEIA, where the A stands for accessibility.

If they wanted to, they could have focused on DEI, but they intentionally and explicitly added accessibility to the conversation and are impacting those programs directly.

It references DEIA because some DEI programs did a sneaky rebranding effort, using disabled people as a political shield. Where in the EO does it reference eliminating services for disabled people?

What short term gain? The calculation of (made up short term gain) - (people hurt by these resentful executive orders) can only be net positive if you minimize the (un)intended consequences out of some flavour/blend of isms.

Agreed. Folks just don't understand that hiring based on ethnicity is a great thing.

Yea but people’s RSUs are up, that’s all that matters to the Silicon Valley voter. Screw the weak.

Not quite sure what you're referring to here - Silicon Valley voted heavily against the current president. 68% margin the other way in Santa Clara county and 73% in San Mateo.

The tech owners seem to have gone the other way with their votes (few) and money (big).

Some did, others didn't. That's how it normally goes; there were plenty of Romney, McCain, and Bush voters in tech. The only reason it went differently during the last Trump presidency is that he went out of his way to antagonize tech leaders while promising to end the H1B program their businesses heavily rely on.

The silicon valley voter?

More the SV tech-bro cabal. As I predicted this submission (1 hour old and ~70 upvotes, reached #1 10 minutes ago) has been removed from the front page. In fact I can't find how far it's been throttled. Even if it used to be, Silicon Valley is no longer the friend of anyone who holds a conscience.

You're right... I can't find it by scrolling. I thought this site was all algorithmically ranked? Are there people throttling material critical of SV and/or other topics?

By the by, is it possible to see where a post is (or isn't) in the numbered list from within the post?

Nope. It's not the first time I've seen this happen. And I think it might even be against the guidelines to imply it ever does. If it was flagged the normal way, there would at least have been a 'flagged' designation on the post, whereas this one was done silently, but by who?

Edit: Oh wait. It has since been flagged. Must have been too political or something, because we all know the tech scene is especially apolitical right now.

You have been using HN for over 10 years but don't know about the flamewar filter? There is some magic comment to upvote ratio that bumps posts down once reached.

The post hadn't been ratioed by the time the throttle happened, so it wasn't that mate. It's since been ratioed by people coming back to reply to comments.

Edit: Including this troll that only emerged well after the post was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BroFrFrNoCap

Or maybe it's your alt? Couldn't downvote this post though could you?

> And I think it might even be against the guidelines to imply it ever does

I was not aware of this. Thanks.

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