4 ms·

It's not "garden variety" nepotism, it's woke nepotism, and it's why so many people have issues with diversity initiatives.

tptacek 4y ago
The word "woke" here is just doing the job of establishing it at "the kind of nepotism I find threatening", right? Later (The score on this is absolutely my fault for being much too casual about the point I was trying to make.)
- exolymph 4y ago
  Seems like the word "woke" is doing the job of establishing "the kind of critique of nepotism that I find threatening" in your own case...
- colpabar 4y ago
  Another reason people don't like diversity initiatives is that whenever you try to have an honest conversation about its problems, you get accused of ridiculous things, like being racist/sexist/etc or thinking nepotism is good.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Nobody thinks nepotism is good (or at least, nobody on this thread does). But there are more- and less- threatening versions of it.
    - colpabar 4y ago
      I don't understand what your point is. A company hiring a woman with no relevant experience because she's the niece of the CTO is bad. A company hiring a woman with no relevant experience because she's the niece of the CTO but it's ok this time because she's a woman also seems bad. The former is "garden variety" nepotism, and we all agree it's bad. The latter is the new "woke" nepotism, but it's really the same as the former, with the "woke" part being used as an excuse. How does that benefit anyone other than the people doing the nepotism?
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      I don't think anyone is contesting that, but the point seems to be that the people who push these initiatives undeniably think nepotism is, in fact, good because that's what their actions tell us.
notahacker 4y ago
It is garden variety nepotism. If it was the CTO's wife's nephew, the CTO's allies wouldn't have argued for a "woker" candidate instead, they'd have pushed very hard on some other basis like the "intellectual diversity" of his different experience or his solid-but-irrelevant academic track record or his supposed credentials as a self-taught programmer or his "leadership potential" or his "strong recommendation from a colleague". The difference is that if the under qualified relative was justified for one of those reasons people would be less likely to insist the solution to this very obvious nepotism was not to broaden the hiring pool beyond the CTO's relatives, but to chuck all the company's initiatives aimed at attracting career changers, academic-high achievers, autodidacts, leaders or referrals in the bin...
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  If it was his nephew, then he'd put down nonbinary or some LGBTQ2S flavor. It's not garden variety nepotism because the executives CAN and DO use HR to attack critics of his relatives or allies.

tptacek 4y ago

The word "woke" here is just doing the job of establishing it at "the kind of nepotism I find threatening", right? Later (The score on this is absolutely my fault for being much too casual about the point I was trying to make.)

exolymph 4y ago
Seems like the word "woke" is doing the job of establishing "the kind of critique of nepotism that I find threatening" in your own case...
colpabar 4y ago
Another reason people don't like diversity initiatives is that whenever you try to have an honest conversation about its problems, you get accused of ridiculous things, like being racist/sexist/etc or thinking nepotism is good.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Nobody thinks nepotism is good (or at least, nobody on this thread does). But there are more- and less- threatening versions of it.
  - colpabar 4y ago
    I don't understand what your point is. A company hiring a woman with no relevant experience because she's the niece of the CTO is bad. A company hiring a woman with no relevant experience because she's the niece of the CTO but it's ok this time because she's a woman also seems bad. The former is "garden variety" nepotism, and we all agree it's bad. The latter is the new "woke" nepotism, but it's really the same as the former, with the "woke" part being used as an excuse. How does that benefit anyone other than the people doing the nepotism?
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    I don't think anyone is contesting that, but the point seems to be that the people who push these initiatives undeniably think nepotism is, in fact, good because that's what their actions tell us.

notahacker 4y ago

It is garden variety nepotism. If it was the CTO's wife's nephew, the CTO's allies wouldn't have argued for a "woker" candidate instead, they'd have pushed very hard on some other basis like the "intellectual diversity" of his different experience or his solid-but-irrelevant academic track record or his supposed credentials as a self-taught programmer or his "leadership potential" or his "strong recommendation from a colleague". The difference is that if the under qualified relative was justified for one of those reasons people would be less likely to insist the solution to this very obvious nepotism was not to broaden the hiring pool beyond the CTO's relatives, but to chuck all the company's initiatives aimed at attracting career changers, academic-high achievers, autodidacts, leaders or referrals in the bin...

stuckinhell 4y ago
If it was his nephew, then he'd put down nonbinary or some LGBTQ2S flavor. It's not garden variety nepotism because the executives CAN and DO use HR to attack critics of his relatives or allies.