Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

[james_s]

Any suggestions on how to successfully avoid being targeted/canceled, say because one chooses not to support current D-E-I efforts because they will not lead to the results and effects their proponents claim?

I have no good suggestions myself.

Dave already mentioned some cancellation attempts; hearing about known working strategies to defend oneself would be encouraging.

IMHO the best you can really do is just smile and nod, go through the motions and write it off as just another useless meeting. Treat everyone with respect and try to avoid interacting any more than absolutely necessary with the ones that have a chip on their shoulder. Staying off of social media helps too, especially Twitter, nothing good comes from posting anything on there. If politics comes up at work, try to just not engage in the discussion.

[Nominal Animal]

Any suggestions on how to successfully avoid being targeted/canceled [..]?

I would be curious to hear about personal experiences of engineers being "canceled" in the workplace.

Me too.  I am a scientist myself, not an engineer, and I quit academia before I could get "canceled".  More because of research funding than any sociopolitical reason; I only needed to be careful of what I said at the cafeteria.  Especially the physics students lounge was quite welcoming towards all kinds of viewpoints (and it was about 50/50 male/female, not a "sausage fest", which surprised me positively).  I volunteered for some Linux help there.

The reason I wrote "targeted/canceled" is that I am not even perfectly sure how to define being "canceled" in the workplace.

Like paulca described, I too have suffered most from being ignored in the workplace, and overlooked by my superiors – even to the point of having coached a cow-orker in some subject matter before a big meeting the next day, only to have the boss introduce that same person to me as "a proper expert you should look up to".  Things like having done some really big projects, with absolutely zero acknowledgement about it afterwards from anyone.

I've also mentioned that in the late 90s, in my early twenties, I maintained a couple of computer labs and the staff workstations in an entire university department (by invite; I did some projects there first, and the IT person there wanted me to take care of things during her maternity leave), with the head of department telling me that because she has an useless son of about my age, no matter what kind of credentials I had or whoever at the uni was ready to vouch for me, she refused to give me a budget and instead insisted I ask her, in writing, for every single replacement mouse and keyboard.
So, I do claim I know perfectly well what sexist and ageist discrimination is, even though I'm ostensibly a white male.  (I'm actually a sort of a pale pink, and really more Nordic than Caucasian, too.  So even my own ethnicity isn't acknowledged, and is just grouped with people I really do not identify with.)

There was a COO at that university who did try to "cancel" me –– stop any department from ever hiring me again, because I accidentally exposed his misuse of uni funds –– but the IT dept. was well aware of what I had achieved there, and how I was always ready to help anybody, so the IT folk just completely ignored that unlawful order.  He did get fired for misuse of resources, though, a couple of years later.  And in typical Finnish fashion, got a PhD chair in consolation at the same uni.  Yeah, no corruption here..

These are things that still affect me, and I'm really envious of those who can just smile and not give a shit.  I'm too conscientious.

I am working for a US company myself, which is encouraging diversity, non-discrimination, awareness of biases etc., on what I consider a reasonable level.

That's good to hear.  (I mean that sincerely, without any undertones.)

There are many companies that have this stuff well in hand.  Like I said, of D-E-I, I only object to equity; I'm definitely for non-discrimination; and I definitely believe diversity is useful and beneficial although I do not believe it more important than skill and knowledge –– that is, I disagree with "extra points", but do accept diversity as a tie breaker; and I definitely disagree performance bonuses and such given to only minority group members, as paulca described.
I, too, have been skipped for reasons I cannot understand ever since high school (9th grade of comprehensive school, at 15 years old).  (When I graduated, I had the highest scores ever, and they made an exception that year, limiting each student to exactly one award per person.)

Even within an university, it can vary enormously between departments, as it depends more on the administration than even individual professors (chairs).
As I mentioned, at U of H, the students at the physics department are quite open-minded, and I mean that in the traditional sense, not excluding any views without giving them some consideration, and it seemed to me that disagreeing on some point was seen as normal and quite acceptable; which I found refreshing.
During my own student days, I did manage to get called a "dirty commie" and a "greedy capitalist" during a single day.

In all, being ignored or my work overlooked, is definitely a sore point for me, and can make me react quite emotionally/explosively.  It's a personal fault I'm working on.  It has also made it clear to me how important fairness in competitive environments is.

[tpowell1830]

Any suggestions on how to successfully avoid being targeted/canceled, say because one chooses not to support current D-E-I efforts because they will not lead to the results and effects their proponents claim?

I have no good suggestions myself.

Dave already mentioned some cancellation attempts; hearing about known working strategies to defend oneself would be encouraging.

IMHO the best you can really do is just smile and nod, go through the motions and write it off as just another useless meeting. Treat everyone with respect and try to avoid interacting any more than absolutely necessary with the ones that have a chip on their shoulder. Staying off of social media helps too, especially Twitter, nothing good comes from posting anything on there. If politics comes up at work, try to just not engage in the discussion.

This is probably good advice, but the push for more and more conformance is probably likely (1984), where you are compelled to say things that you don't believe.

I don't have anything to add to put up a fight against this, but I think that someone smarter than me could offer some insights. As I mentioned before, leaving a job and citing the reasons may eventually bring the focus back to the center. After all, companies can not function without employees, but surely there is a better way to make this happen?

[james_s]

There are many companies that have this stuff well in hand.  Like I said, of D-E-I, I only object to equity; I'm definitely for non-discrimination; and I definitely believe diversity is useful and beneficial although I do not believe it more important than skill and knowledge –– that is, I disagree with "extra points", but do accept diversity as a tie breaker; and I definitely disagree performance bonuses and such given to only minority group members, as paulca described.

I do agree that diversity is beneficial, but I think diversity of thought, attitude, mindset, whatever you want to call it is more important than other factors and often overlooked. Some well known tech companies talk a lot about diversity and yet they seem to hire the same personality with the same degrees from the same small handful of universities with the diversity being primarily cosmetic traits. I find it interesting that there is a bit of a paradox where a particular group of people touts the inherent advantages of diversity while the same group tends to argue that everything is social constructs and we are all the same. If everyone is the same then there is no inherent benefit to diversity. 

[pcprogrammer]

Diversity brings live to the party, but being introvert, for me there is a line where it becomes to much. And then I reserve the right to not interact. You don't have to befriend every one in life. Private or work. You don't have to be mean and discriminate, but not interacting might be seen as such. Not interacting is as much a right as they have to be acknowledged, in my opinion.

I have worked in the alternative music world so I have seen plenty of different people. Some I liked and some not. That is normal to me.

[paulca]

I would respectfully suggest that perhaps nudging it back towards the impacts on engineering, the workforce/jobs, and related may help to keep it productive and in-range for the site.

The other thing we should, and have in this thread occasionally, consider how we DO attract more women (as an industry).  I believe there will be bias still, but listening to the women in tech movement, or rather speakers for it, from actual women IN tech can reveal topics which impact women that men might not even see.  These could also be things that men are not delibrately doing it and don't even know it irks them.  It might even be things we would happily change and do differently. 

One that struck me, which re-occurred in half a dozen talks from women was in how tech is presented from an early age towards women.  One commented that in high school before a career's fair, her Maths teacher mentioned that she had the aptitude of an engineer and should consider it as a career.  She said her mind went blank thinking of what exactly an "engineer" was and settled on a picture of a old fat man with a beard driving a train.  Thus highlighting an issue of education which has been for one reason or another prevailant for far too long. 

How many women WOULD have been engineers if they had been correctly sold it, correctly offered it and supported towards it, which instead had a malformed skewed limited view of what exactly STEM subjects there are.

Also, we need to be careful as the gender diversity across STEM is pretty close to 50/50.  Only because other areas, such as medicine and healthcare are predominantly female.  I believe it is the T and the E which are the more skewed to male.

What the industry needs to be very careful with however is that engineering and stem in general tend to be disciplines which highly value experience.  As such they tend to have a hierarchy.  While we can certainly keep efforts up to pump women into the lower end as recruits, there is a limited an finite supply of senior female engineers.  We can just materialise them out of nowhere.  So any deficit that engineering disipline roles cannot and should not be "Affirmative actioned".  Doing so could be calculated on man/woman years of experience in higher tiers as a loss of expertise.  moving out to the more extreme, the concept of the "Mass retirement" of 2019 and 2020 are very real potentials for a lot of the 45-67 year old males in the industry.  A lot bailed already when the-virus hit and their pension pot was under threat.  They cashed out and retired.  Put too much undue pressure on that (most warmly welcomed) group, the somewhat-middle-aged, men, statistically white senior engineer and an excidus into early retirement or late career changes could put the digital and electrical infrastructure into genuine risk.

One inaccuracy in "Idiocracy" is in how the lights stay on, how all the tech stays running.  I don't think the "Idiocracy" of the real future looks that bright and functional in an technology pov anyway.  It's similar to not knowing how WWIII will be fought just knowing the WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.

[pcprogrammer]

You are right that woman should be introduced to engineering or technical professions early on. But I guess early on means just after the cradle. Don't push the stereo type gender specific toys onto kids and see if anything changes.

During my education in technical schools I only saw two woman. Was on mid level electronics school, some 40 years ago. They were a year ahead of me. One white and one black to be specific since it is about different "minorities". The white woman had to redo her last year so we ended up in the same class, so got to know her. Was fun and she was one of us, no looking down on the fact she was a woman. Despite the fact she had to redo the year she was good at most of it. Can't remember which subject she failed on before. But only two woman on 100-120 students over four years time is not very much. No idea what the ratios are today.

About "Idiocracy" it was on TV a while back and I recorded it due to someone stating it was a good comedy. Was not able to watch it to the end Talking about bad acting and nonsense it scored very high. The premise somewhat ok though. The future might steer that way.

[fourfathom]

About "Idiocracy" it was on TV a while back and I recorded it due to someone stating it was a good comedy. Was not able to watch it to the end Talking about bad acting and nonsense it scored very high. The premise somewhat ok though. The future might steer that way.

Idiocracy was largely based on a 1951 short story called "The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth.  I think it has aged pretty well: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm

[paulca]

Now, in spite of STEM programs and DEI, the kids seem to be much less enthusiastic about the tech fields.  I sometimes help out at the local High School STEM center and the student participation is quite low.  Why is this?  So much has changed in the last 50 years that it's hard to identify the main factors.  I do find it a bit troubling that in my experience, STEM focuses more on project management than on the underlying tech.  If it were up to me, I would say to hell with the project, just learn enough to build stuff and see what happens.

This is a good point to bring up.  The number of applicants and graduates from both genders is falling.  The software industry in particular is no longer requiring IT degrees.  We exhausted that pool over a decade ago.

Part of this might be due to something I have felt myself as a "hobbyist" programmer.  ie.  the core personal interest from which I draw my strength and passion for engineering.  He's bored.

Why?  Because the speed of software development and advancement is so vast now that almost any small personal project will appear completely contrived and boring, because every kid in the class can download an app that does just that 100 times better.  Even if they select something that hasn't been done, it will be so complex and by the time a small team of student's writes it, it's old hat and you can get it FREE as an online service with a mobile app.

No longer do they (aspiring engineers) actually need to bother MAKING things better themselves.  They just wait for another app or service to be added to Android/Amazon/Google store.

I feel it myself is different ways.  Hobby projects I'd like to do, by the time I've thought them through white room and I look and do research, it's all been done before, it's already out there by company x, y, and z and most of their implementations, while sub standard are now "standards".  No room for a hobby project here, waste of time.

At one end, the high level coding is becoming so basic the industry of coders writing it (looking at mobile and webui devs) are barely dry behind the ears, make every single UI behave like it's on a mobile phone, completely deny that left and right click exist etc. and tell me to "shut up and deal boomer".  And the quality of these apps is diabolical.  It has a high attrition rate, a lot of them leave when their ideal job of being a snow boarding web designer from the cartoons turns out not to exist, or the miss conception that mobile app devs are all cool, highly regarded software engineers.  They also leave when they discover it's a LOT more complicated than the university project they did.

At the other end, low level coding is so complex it is usually very specific to task and area.  It requires you are a specialist in that field.  Like database programming or network programming, OS programming, graphical programming (games) etc.  This type of person usually knows exactly what they want to do and do it long before anyone even tells them a job exists doing it.

So it's either too simple to bother not just watching someone else do it on YouTube.  (Like a lot of games these days, it's easier to watch someone else play it) OR it's so complex you would need to dedicate years of dedicated hobby study to even getting an embarrassingly newbie project running.

We need to find where exactly the interesting stuff is and lead with it, without setting false expectations. 

They once tried, for a local initiative, to video our floor in work as the lively industry it was.  Everyone sat silently staring into their screens, nobody spoke, nobody moved.  Sadly a lot of engineers are also introverts.   The producer after only 5 minutes of footage, said, "Ok, rap.  It is what is is.  Let's go."

At the same time, having photos of "Work - Sports day" publicly in the press doesn't really help either.  It might show we have a sense of humour and the company lets us out to play in the sun, just like teacher used to, but it doesn't help inspire.

I'm certainly too long in the tooth and far too jaded to inspire.  I'm going to have to learn for my daughters sake though.  She can't even pronounce "experiment" properly yet, but she's obcessed with them, loves watching "Ryan's World" which is a kid doing kiddie science with his parents.  I hope I do not fail her.

[IanB]

Now, in spite of STEM programs and DEI, the kids seem to be much less enthusiastic about the tech fields.  I sometimes help out at the local High School STEM center and the student participation is quite low.  Why is this?  So much has changed in the last 50 years that it's hard to identify the main factors.  I do find it a bit troubling that in my experience, STEM focuses more on project management than on the underlying tech.  If it were up to me, I would say to hell with the project, just learn enough to build stuff and see what happens.

This is a good point to bring up.  The number of applicants and graduates from both genders is falling.  The software industry in particular is no longer requiring IT degrees.  We exhausted that pool over a decade ago.

Part of this might be due to something I have felt myself as a "hobbyist" programmer.  ie.  the core personal interest from which I draw my strength and passion for engineering.  He's bored.

Why?  Because the speed of software development and advancement is so vast now that almost any small personal project will appear completely contrived and boring, because every kid in the class can download an app that does just that 100 times better.  Even if they select something that hasn't been done, it will be so complex and by the time a small team of student's writes it, it's old hat and you can get it FREE as an online service with a mobile app.

I think you are perhaps doing what many commentators seem to do today, in equating STEM with "Tech" (ugh, horrible term), in other words computers and software.

But the field of science and engineering is so much more than computers. You have mechanics, chemistry, electronics, physics, biology, astronomy, geology, the scope is endless. So much to do and explore, make stuff, go outside and get close to nature, build things that do stuff, make smells and bangs, have fun!

I was lucky when I was growing up in that I didn't get to see a computer until I was about 16, so my whole childhood involved consuming the library and doing as much experimentation as I could think of.

If there is one thing I would suggest when promoting STEM in schools, it is to give the message that STEM is not computers. Just look around you and think of everything you encounter, use, touch or consume, from buildings, furniture, water, transport, infrastructure, fuel, vehicles, paints, plastics, food, anything man-made you can imagine. How did that stuff get designed and made? STEM. All of it, STEM. Wouldn't it be fun to be involved in that?

[Zero999]

For non-important topics, I try not to take a hardline approach.

• As above in thread, I'm 100% fine with stopping calling things "master" and "slave". I never owned a slave; no one I know was ever a slave, but it doesn't offend my engineering sensibilities to call them "leader" and "follower" or "primary" and "replica" or whatever.
• Likewise, it doesn't bother me to put pronouns on my Zoom name. Yes, it's blindingly obvious to anyone who has seen me or heard me speak.

I take your point about choosing your battles wisely, but disagree with you about the above not being important. Those who control language are very powerful and giving into them only makes them stronger.

What does stop calling things "master" and "slave" achieve? How does it help anyone? You do realise those who support this are typically white academics? I could post videos of black people complaining about this sort thing because they think it's patronising. It's also not free: time = money.

How do you feel stating your pronouns helps anyone? I see it as a form of compelled speech. Those who give into it are unwillingly saying they don't have a problem with gender ideology which responsible for killing women's sports and mutilating children. The person who dreamed all of this up, John Money, was a sicko. He did an experiment on Davie Reimer a boy who had been mutilated due to a botched circumcision when he was a baby. Money decided it would be a good idea to perform gender reassignment on him and persuade his parents to raise him as a girl. It went very badly, with Reimer committing suicide when he found out when he was a teenager and his twin brother killed himself soon after.

[paulca]

If there is one thing I would suggest when promoting STEM in schools, it is to give the message that STEM is not computers. Just look around you and think of everything you encounter, use, touch or consume, from buildings, furniture, water, transport, infrastructure, fuel, vehicles, paints, plastics, food, anything man-made you can imagine. How did that stuff get designed and made? STEM. All of it, STEM. Wouldn't it be fun to be involved in that?

But you try and do any of those things today, commercially and effectively, without software.  That applies to many areas/sectors, but is it not very prevalent in STEM?

Anyway, overall STEM, if it's includes the medical and biological sciences is currently around 50/50.  It's subjects like biology etc. which are skewed toward women.  The engineering and tech side of things are struggling.  I feel like I should present a slide, but google it, it should show something similar.

[IanB]

If there is one thing I would suggest when promoting STEM in schools, it is to give the message that STEM is not computers. Just look around you and think of everything you encounter, use, touch or consume, from buildings, furniture, water, transport, infrastructure, fuel, vehicles, paints, plastics, food, anything man-made you can imagine. How did that stuff get designed and made? STEM. All of it, STEM. Wouldn't it be fun to be involved in that?

But you try and do any of those things today, commercially and effectively, without software.  That applies to many areas/sectors, but is it not very prevalent in STEM?

Software is a tool. Where in the past, people used slide rules, charts, calculators and notebooks, they now use software to help with the complex calculations. But the computers and software are not the goal, they are merely aids to efficient work, just as slide rules and calculators used to be.

I see every day examples of people looking at the results produced by computers and misinterpreting them because they have not appreciated the fundamental theory behind the calculations. If you enroll in a STEM program at a university, you are going to use computers, but they are only going to be the side dish, or the condiment accompanying the main meal.

[sokoloff]

What does stop calling things "master" and "slave" achieve? How does it help anyone? You do realise those who support this are typically white academics? I could post videos of black people complaining about this sort thing because they think it's patronising. It's also not free: time = money.

Of course you can find such videos. Not everyone (of any race) agrees that this is a major sticking point along the path towards equality of opportunity. We're not proposing abandoning the functional concept of devices who are in control and devices who follow. We're proposing abandoning the use of language that some people claim offense to. Just as giving in could be seen as giving power to those who agitate for the change, adamantly resisting could be seen as giving them even more power. It's a molehill. Don't get goaded into letting someone else make it into a mountain.

How do you feel stating your pronouns helps anyone? I see it as a form of compelled speech.

Stating my pronouns is approximately as helpful (and likewise approximately as harmful) as confirming that my username has three o characters in it.

Those who give into it are unwillingly saying they don't have a problem with gender ideology which responsible for killing women's sports and mutilating children. The person who dreamed all of this up, John Money, was a sicko. He did an experiment on Davie Reimer a boy who had been mutilated due to a botched circumcision when he was a baby. Money decided it would be a good idea to perform gender reassignment on him and persuade his parents to raise him as a girl. It went very badly, with Reimer committing suicide when he found out when he was a teenager and his twin brother killed himself soon after.

See, now you're compelling me to state clearly and for the record that I do have a problem with that chain of events and do not support it, even though I'm willing to voluntarily confirm that I'm a man and that I have three o's in my username.

[Zero999]

What does stop calling things "master" and "slave" achieve? How does it help anyone? You do realise those who support this are typically white academics? I could post videos of black people complaining about this sort thing because they think it's patronising. It's also not free: time = money.

Of course you can find such videos. Not everyone (of any race) agrees that this is a major sticking point along the path towards equality of opportunity. We're not proposing abandoning the functional concept of devices who are in control and devices who follow. We're proposing abandoning the use of language that some people claim offense to. Just as giving in could be seen as giving power to those who agitate for the change, adamantly resisting could be seen as giving them even more power. It's a molehill. Don't get goaded into letting someone else make it into a mountain.

How do you feel stating your pronouns helps anyone? I see it as a form of compelled speech.

Stating my pronouns is approximately as helpful (and likewise approximately as harmful) as confirming that my username has three o characters in it.

Those who give into it are unwillingly saying they don't have a problem with gender ideology which responsible for killing women's sports and mutilating children. The person who dreamed all of this up, John Money, was a sicko. He did an experiment on Davie Reimer a boy who had been mutilated due to a botched circumcision when he was a baby. Money decided it would be a good idea to perform gender reassignment on him and persuade his parents to raise him as a girl. It went very badly, with Reimer committing suicide when he found out when he was a teenager and his twin brother killed himself soon after.

See, now you're compelling me to state clearly and for the record that I do have a problem with that chain of events and do not support it, even though I'm willing to voluntarily confirm that I'm a man and that I have three o's in my username.

My point is it's a slippery slope. Firstly they tell you to stop using "master-slave" terminology, then they make you give your pronouns, what's next? Perhaps the term mother is offensive to some, so you have to use the term "birthing person", maybe the doctor should refer to you as a penis person, rather than man, when you have your prostate checked? Where does it stop?

I accept language changes as a natural process of evolution, but that's not what's happening here. It's forced to keep a tiny minority happy and it's mostly the privileged few sitting in their ivory towers, who are demanding it, rather than those who it's supposed to benefit.

I hope you realise you're making many people feel uncomfortable when you put your pronouns in your email. I've discussed this with others at work. The worry is anyone who is woke enough to do this, won't hesitate reporting someone to HR for saying anything un-PC. By all means state your pronouns, I believe in free speech and you shouldn't be censored because it makes people uncomfortable, just beware of the fact not everyone will take kindly to it.

[SiliconWizard]

There was a recent ad from "family planning" over here which stated that "Men too can get pregnant", with two stylized characters, one allegedly pregnant, the two being seemingly "women" with beards.
Oh, and they took it very seriously that it became polemic, too. Yeah.

[paulca]

I accept language changes as a natural process of evolution, but that's not what's happening here. It's forced to keep a tiny minority happy and it's mostly the privileged few sitting in their ivory towers, who are demanding it, rather than those who it's supposed to benefit.

My experience is it's not the minority in question actually doing the complaining.  It's the cloud of virtue signalling students/hang wringers/do-gooders/exploitational media/exploitation companies who think it's the latest "Up YOU!" to "the man" to support and broadcast, it's popular, it gets views, it creates interactions, positive and negative interactions sell adverts. 

In universities, in fringe groups, fine.  But it's leaked out somehow (social media) and needs to be re-contained.  These young minds in University are opened in many ways and often run amock with fantastical ideologies or re-inventing old ideologies.  This should not be discouraged.  But it should be contained.  Social media has allowed these radical views of a small subset of students to become a mainstream global public debate.  If it was my day we would all be forcing people to be socialists and demand policies to legalise all the drugs, if the student union got it's political say.  No, real violence came from it in my day, because it was CONTAINED in university to be discussed with other "opening" intelligent people, in class, in the pub, in the common room, discussion was open.  Heated, but open.  The world, the world's media and social media should not be exposed to that raw emerging intellect.  Somehow that got missed.  So now rampant, fringe, student ideologies are being spread and enforced as a kind of "ploughing of all established comprehension of humanity", turning it over. 

Easiest option isn't available really, or maybe it's coming and that is to wipe that smug little smile off their face and give them something a LITTLE more important to think about such as a world war.  But that might mess up the rest of us a bit too.  Something to make them realise they take for granted so much in the world and to stump on it ALL and criticise it, en-mass, without any academic credit or rigour or understanding of what it even means.... to reject all established understanding of gender, sex, etc.

Replace Gender and Sex with "Flat Earth and Science deniers".... except these people have got POWER and that is the FRIGHTENING thing.

In my day it was resistance to "the machine", "the system", refusal to be labelled, stamped, filed, categorised, classified or numbered!  The fear that credit card companies would start tracking us.  That forces unseen would start to try and control our birth rate and control fertility.  Lots of heavy metal and lots of SciFi from the 70s, 80s, 90s touches on this.  How that (or those points) aged.

The absurdity is that a lot of the transphobic comments are coming from trans people, who themselves are being counter invalidated by more modern ideologies.  I think we stand back and wait on it eating itself and hope it happens before we lose an entire generation of inspiring young adults to life long regret caused by a fad.  I know a lot of kids who got tatoo'd young, who have them surgically removed in their 20s.  What ARE we doing?

I have ended up watching far too much "actual" right wing content in my research these past few days, and a lot of far left content too.  I'm please to come back reporting that while I agree and can follow their points, there is smoke where there is fire, I can still smell bullshit off bullshit.  Sky New Australia in particular, present stories more "default left" media wouldn't, but they also post a load of utter garbage in the same light.  Unfortunately, nobody is going to take people seriously, when their line up is "Child gender mutilation, anti-science BS, anti-medicine BS, anti-vaxx BS.   However, I found BBC Newsnight and other documentaries, so I'm comfortable it is surfacing and might get heard by the remaining sane.

[Zero999]

There was a recent ad from "family planning" over here which stated that "Men too can get pregnant", with two stylized characters, one allegedly pregnant, the two being seemingly "women" with beards.
Oh, and they took it very seriously that it became polemic, too. Yeah.

It's true. Some women have penises, some men have vaginas, according to someone who gets paid more than me. 

The idea is gender is a social construct, not related to DNA or sexual organs, so a female can transition to a man, then get pregnant.

There was a scandal in the NHS awhile ago which involved training midwives to care for males, including catheterisation. There were a few videos and articles which went viral.

[Zero999]

I accept language changes as a natural process of evolution, but that's not what's happening here. It's forced to keep a tiny minority happy and it's mostly the privileged few sitting in their ivory towers, who are demanding it, rather than those who it's supposed to benefit.

My experience is it's not the minority in question actually doing the complaining.  It's the cloud of virtue signalling students/hang wringers/do-gooders/exploitational media/exploitation companies who think it's the latest "Up YOU!" to "the man" to support and broadcast, it's popular, it gets views, it creates interactions, positive and negative interactions sell adverts. 

In universities, in fringe groups, fine.  But it's leaked out somehow (social media) and needs to be re-contained.  These young minds in University are opened in many ways and often run amock with fantastical ideologies or re-inventing old ideologies.  This should not be discouraged.  But it should be contained.  Social media has allowed these radical views of a small subset of students to become a mainstream global public debate.  If it was my day we would all be forcing people to be socialists and demand policies to legalise all the drugs, if the student union got it's political say.  No, real violence came from it in my day, because it was CONTAINED in university to be discussed with other "opening" intelligent people, in class, in the pub, in the common room, discussion was open.  Heated, but open.  The world, the world's media and social media should not be exposed to that raw emerging intellect.  Somehow that got missed.  So now rampant, fringe, student ideologies are being spread and enforced as a kind of "ploughing of all established comprehension of humanity", turning it over. 

Easiest option isn't available really, or maybe it's coming and that is to wipe that smug little smile off their face and give them something a LITTLE more important to think about such as a world war.  But that might mess up the rest of us a bit too.  Something to make them realise they take for granted so much in the world and to stump on it ALL and criticise it, en-mass, without any academic credit or rigour or understanding of what it even means.... to reject all established understanding of gender, sex, etc.

Replace Gender and Sex with "Flat Earth and Science deniers".... except these people have got POWER and that is the FRIGHTENING thing.

In my day it was resistance to "the machine", "the system", refusal to be labelled, stamped, filed, categorised, classified or numbered!  The fear that credit card companies would start tracking us.  That forces unseen would start to try and control our birth rate and control fertility.  Lots of heavy metal and lots of SciFi from the 70s, 80s, 90s touches on this.  How that (or those points) aged.

The absurdity is that a lot of the transphobic comments are coming from trans people, who themselves are being counter invalidated by more modern ideologies.  I think we stand back and wait on it eating itself and hope it happens before we lose an entire generation of inspiring young adults to life long regret caused by a fad.  I know a lot of kids who got tatoo'd young, who have them surgically removed in their 20s.  What ARE we doing?

I have ended up watching far too much "actual" right wing content in my research these past few days, and a lot of far left content too.  I'm please to come back reporting that while I agree and can follow their points, there is smoke where there is fire, I can still smell bullshit off bullshit.  Sky New Australia in particular, present stories more "default left" media wouldn't, but they also post a load of utter garbage in the same light.  Unfortunately, nobody is going to take people seriously, when their line up is "Child gender mutilation, anti-science BS, anti-medicine BS, anti-vaxx BS.   However, I found BBC Newsnight and other documentaries, so I'm comfortable it is surfacing and might get heard by the remaining sane.

Were there any right wingers at university, or was it all a left wing echo chamber? I didn't go to university. I did an apprenticeship so wouldn't know. We didn't discuss politics at college much but most people seemed fairly centrist, probably a little right leaning, if anything.

It does seem somewhat paradoxical, that those who are in favour of extreme left wing policies, are also the most wealthy and have the most to lose if they were ever implemented.

Both the far left and right are anti-science.

This last 2 years has taught me to be more questioning of the mainstream narrative. I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I do smell a rat when doctors and scientists get cancelled for saying things which run counter to the accepted version of the truth. I know there's a lot of anti-vax BS, but there are genuine reasons to be sceptical about the most recently developed vaccines, especially repeat doses and in those who are at low risk. I think a big problem is being anti-anti-vax, as well as the large sums of money changing hands. Now I try to not dismiss someone as a quack for having a different point of view. I listen to what they have to say and why the believe it's true. Is there any evidence? Is it because they feel downtrodden? I try to give them the benefit for the doubt.

[SiliconWizard]

There was a recent ad from "family planning" over here which stated that "Men too can get pregnant", with two stylized characters, one allegedly pregnant, the two being seemingly "women" with beards.
Oh, and they took it very seriously that it became polemic, too. Yeah.

It's true. Some women have penises, some men have vaginas, according to someone who gets paid more than me. 

The idea is gender is a social construct, not related to DNA or sexual organs, so a female can transition to a man, then get pregnant.

There was a scandal in the NHS awhile ago which involved training midwives to care for males, including catheterisation. There were a few videos and articles which went viral.

There was also this fun event: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/14/two-inmates-impregnated-transgender-inmate-all-wom/

And getting a bit far into the transformation: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-transgender-woman-could-get-pregnant/

[fourfathom]

I think you are perhaps doing what many commentators seem to do today, in equating STEM with "Tech" (ugh, horrible term), in other words computers and software

I've only got a datapoint comprising a few days helping the High School STEM kids debug their projects, but computers and software weren't the primary focus. 

The class was building submersible ROVs, using mostly off-the-shelf Arduino-compatible stuff for the motor controllers and grappling gear.  They had video cameras too, but I don't know what the interface was.  The programming was quite basic, mostly cookbook stuff reading joystick positions. Much of their work was in the mechanical area, waterproofing, etc.  So I felt pretty good about the technology mix there...  I volunteered when they were having hardware problems -- turned out they didn't know how to solder properly, and had not a clue about proper grounding -- the ground for the joystick potentiometers has the motor current running through it, and stuff like that. I did my best to help them figure it out, but since a deadline was looming I ended up saying "OK, here's what's going on, pay attention to how I fix it." a lot.

So I ended up having mixed feelings about it. 

• I am thrilled that these kids are at least doing *something* and are getting their hands dirty with real hardware and low-level software.
• I am a bit disappointed that Ohm's Law wasn't even mentioned, but I suppose if we're trying to get kids "hooked on tech" then this can come later.
• The emphasis on project management, including assigned management roles, seems out of place at this early stage.  I can accept that this isn't "Learning Electricity / Electronics / Software", but it shouldn't be "Project Management 101" either
• I believe the goal is to interest and prepare kids for STEM.  Some of the kids I saw seemed to be interested, but there were so few of them!

[IanB]

The class was building submersible ROVs, using mostly off-the-shelf Arduino-compatible stuff for the motor controllers and grappling gear.

That's good to hear they were doing fun stuff with real hardware.

The emphasis on project management, including assigned management roles, seems out of place at this early stage.

I would agree. It is appropriate when working on the capstone project of an engineering degree, for example, but not at the introductory level when getting children interested.

[tszaboo]

In universities, in fringe groups, fine.  But it's leaked out somehow (social media) and needs to be re-contained.  These young minds in University are opened in many ways and often run amock with fantastical ideologies or re-inventing old ideologies.  This should not be discouraged.  But it should be contained.  Social media has allowed these radical views of a small subset of students to become a mainstream global public debate. 

Really, the issue is that it got out of those small social circles. Now majority of Hollywood is putting up this woke garbage, where message first is the importance for a movie. Disney executives have talked about this on zoom meetings that got leaked to the public. At this point it is social engineering, not entertainment.
And big tech also got a huge issue with extreme leftism.

Now, I don't give a damn about American politics. What I care about is these people are in decision making positions, where a small fraction of them is going to make their decision based on political ideology, and not merit. I don't have to tell you that if FB or Google wants to hide something, just a tiny tweak of the algorithm is going to affect things on the long term. But they are not doing these tiny tweaks, they are waging an all out war on "offensive content" and "misinformation". The Stasi and the KGB wasn't this good at manipulating the masses. Humanity invents AI and the first thing we do with it is to program it to manipulate people to rig elections?
I want political checks and balances to continue. In the entire free world.

[ebastler]

And big tech also got a huge issue with extreme leftism.

If you equate donations to the Democrats with "extreme leftism", then there is either something wrong with U.S. politics or with your understanding thereof. 

By the way -- how can that chart list "employee donations" by company?! Do individuals who donate to a party have to declare which company they work for?!

Edit: Oh look, there's also a chart in the same study which shows what the companies donated. These are the donations which corporate can control, via the political action committees, in my understanding. Nicely balanced between the parties. Why didn't you include that in your post?

[tszaboo]

And big tech also got a huge issue with extreme leftism.

If you equate donations to the Democrats with "extreme leftism", then there is either something wrong with U.S. politics or with your understanding thereof. 

By the way -- how can that chart list "employee donations" by company?! Do individuals who donate to a party have to declare which company they work for?!

Yes, there is something seriously wrong with US politics.

And that's 2014, if you would take that image from today  And the republicans now an extreme right wing party.
I'm against all radicalization, since I was born in a communist country, which then turned into a failed state, I know too damn well, that you have to keep the politicians in check. But the public in the US is asking for even more radicalization from the parties.