Tag: Social Justice Warrior

Digital Clean Up & Net Zero Sustainability

Several years ago, my employer was constantly talking about Net Zero/Carbon Neutral so was talking about reducing energy costs and planting trees. I think part of it is just “smoke and mirrors” as they were shutting down some data centres but then moving it to the Cloud, so the servers are still there, it’s just someone else’s problem.

The other aspect of why it’s all nonsense is how they always talk about using AI for everything but this is notorious for increasing energy usage.

I think it’s just the usual virtue-signalling propaganda.

We should all be aware that sustainability is high on our agenda! Living in an increasingly digitised world and working in the technology industry, I feel we should all be mindful of how much of an impact our digital activity has on the world we live in. 

Did you know that a typical year of incoming emails adds 136 kg of emissions to a person’s carbon footprint, or the equivalent of driving 320 kms in an average car. Digital pollution is the greenhouse gases that come from building, delivering, and using digital technology. It makes up 4 per cent of the world’s global greenhouse emissions – double that of the global aviation industry – and this number is growing exponentially as our way of working and living becomes increasingly digital. 

from UNICEF: Five tips for reducing your digital footprint. 

 Topics we have been exploring: 

  • Reduce energy consumption of devices – Energy is the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for around 60 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
    • Do we all shut down our laptops when not in use for long periods of time? 
    • Should we make sure we close programs that we aren’t using?  
    • Could we consider reducing the screen brightness?  
    • Do we always leave devices plugged in at full charge? It might be better instead to charge for short and regular intervals as this also increases the battery life. 
  • Reduce our use of email – As the above quote highlights emails contribute massively to digital waste.
    • We shared tips of how to reduce emails –
      • Do we need to ‘reply all’?  
      • Do we need to send an email at all? Could internal conversations be held on Teams instead? 
      • Could we make use of emoji reactions for internal responses?  
      • Does the email need an attachment, or could we use a link to a shared online file instead? 
  • We looked at ways to reduce emails in our inbox and make it easier to tidy up.
    • Do we have lots of emails that could be deleted? It’s possible to set filters to sort specific types of emails into folders and use auto-archiving settings to delete them at specific time intervals. This is particularly useful for our team where we have lots of automated emails which we don’t need to store for long periods of time. Creating rules to automatically delete these would make it easier for us to manage.  
    • If emails need to be kept, could these be archived? This may be useful if they don’t need to be accessed often. Storing them elsewhere may mean less energy is used when loading Outlook and searching through emails. There are auto-archiving features to make this simple and less time consuming too.  
    • Do we always unsubscribe from any emails we don’t need or want? The safest way to do this is to log in and adjust notification settings on your account e.g. unwanted reminders and adjusting Teams settings. When discussing this topic, it is worth reminding everyone to always be vigilant of the potential for any email to be a phishing attempt and not to risk clicking on any links from unknown senders.  
  • Clean up old files – Data that are stored online take space on servers that require energy to be active 24/7.  

“Whether it’s meeting our net zero targets, creating an inclusive working environment, or having strong and ethical governance practices – sustainability in all its forms helps drive us forward as a business and forms a key part of our strategy.”

We were encouraged to set a personal objective for the year based on Sustainability.
Suggestions include:    

  • reducing your carbon footprint (through e.g. reducing your business travel or digital footprint) 
  • volunteering with your local community using your paid volunteering days
  • championing equity and inclusion in your role, ensuring accessibility is considered in any output or practice 
  • becoming an active member of an employee-led group or the Sustainability Community of Practice’ 

 Even the Software Development process is sustainable. Really, it’s just more corporate buzzwords and meaningless jargon.  

Sustainable Software Development lifecycle

There is a comprehensive reference architecture on Confluence covering account structures, principles, application architecture, data architecture, security architecture, standards & templates, sustainability, app launch, EDA and more.  

The tech strategy and architectural runway is fully documented on Confluence covering all core technology and platform services, components and enablers. It is future proofed and covers all investment case technology needs, and product roadmaps.

Environmental Sustainability is close to my heart and is a critical strategy as we work towards Carbon Net Zero by 2040. 

Closing Thoughts

I think the claim to be Carbon Neutral is mostly virtue-signalling and although they might come up with some schemes to reduce carbon emissions, it will mostly just be a box-ticking exercise and can just move the problems elsewhere. So the field staff may well have electric cars, and most people work from home. But since we aren’t just heating a single office, but hundreds of homes now; then we probably are using more energy overall. Then everyone is using AI for simple communication.

More propaganda at work

I’ve stated in many blogs that our head office is near a city with a large non-white population so we have a larger non-white workforce than most companies. As a Software Developer, the Development team is mostly male, but managerial positions are often held by women. I’ve never observed a need to change the natural status quo with forced diversity practices.

The “woke” movement talks about diversity and being welcoming to everyone. In practice, it is unachievable to be welcoming to literally everyone because people will naturally have different opinions and some of these can be opposing.

So a much quoted example; there can be religions that will be against homosexuality, so how can you be welcoming to both the LGBT community, and people from those religions?

I find it bizarre that you constantly get told that we need to “create safe spaces” for people, “all people are welcome”, but then at the same time there’s certain views that aren’t tolerated or frowned upon by the people that want such DEI practices. I find most people I meet claim to be left-leaning politically and they seem to have a hatred for right-leaning politicians.

It’s contradictory, but then the constant messaging and certain phrases are basically propaganda and gaslighting. 

I’ve seen some people liken this behaviour to cults. Where there’s strict rules; and deviating from the opinion of the leader (and therefore the group) means you are cast out. The repetition of phrases means you are constantly aware of the belief and because you hear it so much, then you don’t question it because you just accept it as true. Anyone beginning to question things is discouraged. 

There was one recent post about “Allyship” where an ally is defined: 

 “as someone who is not a member of a marginalised group but wants to support and take action to help others in that group’’  

Then it was sold as:

 “Being an ally, in both the workplace and your personal lives, broadens our understanding of all cultures and backgrounds. Removing boundaries to give way to respect and friendship creates security, a sense of belonging and allows everyone to be their authentic selves. We wholeheartedly believe in the importance of embracing and welcoming everyone and providing a place of equity and inclusion for everyone to thrive. To create a place of security and belonging”

 Then the usual propaganda phrases were used

 “are a safe space for individuals to express themselves” 

 How to be an ally
Educate yourself and others.
Be careful not to ask intrusive questions. Personal information is a privilege
Everyone makes mistakes. Be accountable for your mistake, educate yourself to make an active change

This is quite culty isn’t it. Telling people they are wrong and need to conform to the belief. Don’t question it.

Safe Christmas

Another recent post talked about creating safe spaces for Christmas. Why would anyone feel unsafe at Christmas? absolute mental. We are just making up issues now. 

In celebration of Christmas, we have issued our 2nd North and South Conversation. The North and South initiative creates a safe space for colleagues in the UK and Chennai to share stories and ask questions, building a sense of knowledge and togetherness through the art of video and conversation. It is important that everyone at work feels comfortable being their authentic selves. We have a clear goal dedicated to just this: creating a supportive, inclusive environment where everybody can thrive, both doing and being their best.

Safe space, authentic selves.

Stickers

When I have walked around in my neighbourhood I have occasionally seen stickers placed on pedestrian crossings, lamposts, or electrical boxes. Some have been political in nature, but mostly have been pro-trans.  I thought it was somewhat ironic when one guy posts a blog at work about “dogwhistles”.

The claim was that he had seen “negative stickers that are currently in circulation in public spaces which may cause negative and unwanted feelings in the LGBTQ+ community. “

The reasons people can do this was: 

  • To make the kinds of people they dislike know they are unwelcome and that the place is unsafe for them. 
  • To send a positive message to people who believe in the same thing as them, through symbols the wider public might not know. This is sometimes called a “dog whistle”, named after whistles that dogs can hear but people can’t. 
  • To shift people from a more general form of discomfort to more extreme reactionary views.

Could a reason why there are anti-trans stickers to counter the pro-trans stickers? The constant pushing of what the correct narrative to believe will naturally create counter action; which means these “dog-whistles” are necessary to show there are people with the opposite opinion.

Are both types of stickers “dog-whistles”, or is it just the ones he doesn’t like?

The offensive stickers he had seen were “against trans women using women’s toilets”, “single sex facility – women only”, and “Protect women-only spaces”. 

These are mainly feminist slogans which was a relevant political movement when I was growing up. Why is feminism not a valid thing to support now?  I find it strange that the biggest allyship these days is from young women, so it’s like they are fighting against what the previous generation of women fought for.

As expected, all the comments were agreeing to conform. You cannot have diverse views on any topic in the name of diversity.

“Thank you for sharing, I didn’t know about this… sending support to those who suffer through this “

Psychological safety

One manager suddenly started going on about “psychological safety”. The usual “safe space”, “inclusive”, “authentic selves” propaganda has been used:

“We believe that fostering a supportive and secure environment is essential for our collective growth and harmony. To ensure that everyone feels comfortable, valued, and heard, we are conducting a brief survey about psychological safety in our teams.

Your honest feedback is very important to us. By sharing your thoughts, you will help us understand how we can enhance our work culture and create an even better experience for all. The survey is anonymous, and your responses will be kept confidential. Your insights are invaluable in helping us build a stronger, more inclusive team. 

This week, organisations up and down the UK will be celebrating National Inclusion Week. It is an opportunity to reflect and highlight inclusivity in workplaces.   

 We wholeheartedly believe in the importance of embracing all cultures, welcoming everyone and providing a safe place of equity, inclusion and belonging for people to thrive.”

Unconscious Bias

There was a time where a group of people were hyping up “woke” topics, and the latest topic was “Unconscious bias” which is supposed to cause a certain degree of racism/sexism during the hiring or promotion process. Or maybe even leading to some microaggressions in meetings.

We were encouraged to watch a few courses on LinkedIn Learning, but it was not mandatory. Some of it was actually quite interesting.

There was one cringy moment where the presenter gave a trigger warning of sorts:

“if you feel an emotion, pause the video and deal with it. If you still feel the emotions, contact me and discuss it“

In my opinion, I think if you get overwhelmed with a simple LinkedIn Learning video, then you have bigger problems.

In my notes, I had written this claim but not sure what it means – because how do you even measure the bias:

“Research has shown that even a 1% bias in favor of promoting men changes the outcome.”

The following sounds like a decent philosophy though. If bias does exist then we do need to take it into account:

“By understanding that we’re all biased, we can make the decision to work together to be more conscious of our thoughts and actions when relating to others. Not only can we fix the current situation, we can then resolve not to do it again. Over time, it’s possible to learn to think and behave differently.”

She then makes the claim that even if you look at different aesthetics within a particular gender, you can notice trends which would suggest there is an unconscious bias at play:

“Blonde women earn 7% more than brunettes. Slim women make more money than obese.”

Some of the categories of bias are quite interesting. Halo bias probably does make a huge difference. You can say it’s like when you work with a Senior who you respect; whatever they claim in the next project you are tempted to back them and agree.

  • Halo bias – “admiring all of a person’s actions because of their praiseworthy actions in the past” 
  • Perception Bias – “the tendency to form stereotypes and assumptions about certain groups that makes it difficult to make an objective judgment about individual members of those groups.” 
  • Therefore it is difficult for women to be hired in gender perceived roles. E.g. software developer 
  • Confirmation bias –  “Seeking out evidence that confirms our initial perceptions, ignoring contrary information.” “We double-down and seek out information to justify our position.” 
  • GroupThink – When the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in incorrect decision-making.
  • Performance Bias – Underestimate women’s performance but overestimate men’s. Men are often hired on future potential, women hired on past performance. 
  • Attribution bias – Less likely to credit women for success, but more blame for failure. Women’s contribution is less valuable. Women are more likely to be interrupted when speaking. 
  • Likability Bias – Expect men to be assertive so like them more when they are assertive, but have a negative response to women. Agreeable and nice is perceived as less competent so need to assert themselves to be effective, but then are less liked. 
  • Maternal bias – motherhood is perceived as less committed and less competent. Strongest kind of gender bias. Lower performance ratings, and lower pay in future. 
  • Affinity bias – gravitate to people like ourselves, dislike those that are different. More likely to give positive performance ratings to those that are similar. White men’s prominence means women and those of colour are negatively affected. 
  • Double discrimination (intersectionality): Women, and of colour is double discrimination. 3+ minority attributes make people feel like they don’t fit anywhere. 

“Woke” people seem to suggest that men are the problem when it comes to bias. However, I have seen claims that if you have an all-female panel they are often shown to be biassed towards hiring men. The claim was women don’t want to hire someone they perceive as a threat, or someone who is more attractive than them.

There was another LinkedIn course I watched that stressed the point that both genders show bias, sometimes in different ways.

There was a test where participants were shown pictures of men and women and they had to state (purely by stereotyping) if they associate them with “family” or “career”. Regardless of the participant’s gender, 76% of people associate women from the images with “family” rather than “career”.

There was also a claim which I would like to see what results back it up:

“Diverse teams tend to be more committed and work harder, and companies with more women in leadership tend to produce better business results.” 

During the hiring process, there is some scope to anonymise it somewhat to try and remove any bias against gender or race, in an attempt to judge purely on merit.

Seeking Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

I’ve said in previous blogs that our head office is located next to a city with a high Asian population, so therefore we employ a disproportionate amount of Asians. There tends to be a lack of women applying to be software developers but we employ a lot of women testers, and managers.

A few years ago, we started some “working groups” with a woke agenda. We had one specifically for women, then for ethnic minorities, and then one for people of different sexualities.

I have no idea how many meetings were arranged or what came out of it, but then their groups were all merged under the umbrella of DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion).

I’ve always said I am fine with these groups as long as they are solving a problem. But what problem are they trying to solve? We don’t have any relevant problems as far as I am aware, but then often forming these groups and pursuing agendas causes the issues they claim to solve. 

I remember someone made a point about not talking about politics, religion or sexuality at work because it can cause arguments, make people feel excluded or bullied. You mainly go to work to do your job, not discuss your private life, so I think this unwritten rule has mainly been abided by. 

Now with this modern woke movement, people are being told that we need “diverse opinions” from “diverse backgrounds“. However, if you do attempt to talk about these topics, you soon find out that it’s completely the opposite mentality, and you actually need to align with the group-think. Political opinions are fine as long as it aligns with the left-wing. Talking about religion is great as long as it’s not the negative aspects of it, and talking about sexuality at work is normal now.

What happens if you just want to write some software?

Pride meeting

During Pride month, we had a meeting with a guest external speaker. Presumably paid them a lot of money to talk about their identity and sexuality at work; which is incredibly weird.

“Conforming means compromising your own identity.”

You could argue having to go to work “compromises your identity”. In a work situation, what part of your sexuality is required to be known? Why is gender really relevant?

The speaker was talking about being bisexual, gender-fluid and polyamorous. Do we need to know this? Did that ever impact her career? People like that seem to imply that you need to be different to stand out.

At the end of the month, a Director sent out a message:

Special thank you to all our colleagues in the LGBTQ+ community across our organisation. We are truly thankful for the talent and value that you bring to us every day. We Belong! 

Imagine the outrage if they only praised straight colleagues. Targeting a group of people implies that the people outside that group are excluded and don’t bring value. If we really are equal then you don’t single groups out like that. A similar commendation was given during Black History Month.

Representatives

So they were looking to appoint some DEI Representatives to bolster their working groups:

“Our mission is to be a company that welcomes diversity amongst our workforce and provides

opportunities for everyone to be themselves and thrive at work.”

“The role involves identifying new and creative ways to raise awareness of key DEI topics and break down barriers through sharing educational content, organising webinars or other events and sharing experiences for others to learn from, helping us to become a more equitable, diverse and inclusive workplace.”

7 people volunteered: 1 Indian, 6 white. 5 women, 2 men

I would have thought it would be key that the leaders are diverse and I don’t think that is diverse, and far too skewed towards the women too.

One of the first posts they made contained one of those dramatic videos where each person takes it in turns saying a sentence and holding up a sign with a slogan like “I belong” with emotional music playing in the background.

"Wellbeing and inclusion are closely linked. The human brain is constantly assessing the environment for signs of rejection and social exclusion and adjusting our behaviour to keep us safe from threats and harm. When people are regularly reminded that they belong, they are likely to give their best, think clearly, feel safe to express their views and ideas and be happier, engaged and supportive of others, too. As such, we all have a responsibility and part to play in driving a culture (and beyond) of increased inclusion; one which boosts wellbeing and enables everyone the opportunity to apply their full potential.

For this campaign, we decided to create a video, involving individuals from across the business describing what an inclusive workplace means to them and characteristics that make them who they are. 

Wow – trying to do this required openness and bravery and led to both tears and laughter.

We learned that who we are is different to what we are, or how we are perceived.

We questioned if people would treat us differently after they read our post.

We understood how hard this was to do but how powerful too.

As you will see, we all answered in our own way and felt bonded as a team. 

Please watch with an open heart and an open mind."

This kinda sounds like propaganda that teaches people they are victims and people are out to put them down. Like I always say, DEI seems to create the problems it is trying to solve. They talk about diversity but then seem to imply that groups of people are targeting you. I wrote a blog about that recently.

DEI In Practice: Marketing

There’s been a big push over the years to show more ethnic minorities in marketing material. Ideally it should be representative of the country’s demographics, but it never is. I end up noticing when you’ve gone through many slides of a presentation and not seen a picture of a white man.

One example is the slides we were given for a new company values, each value had one or more people photographed in an office environment. I made a note of who they were:

whiteblackbrown/mixed/otherTotal
men0123
women3238
Total33511

Is that representative? Not at all.

DEI In Practice: Leader executive program

They recently announced a “Leader executive program” which sounded like a way to train senior leaders. Out of 44 people chosen for the scheme, only 5 were men.

Is that representative? Not at all.

Dartmouth Scar Experiment

If you see yourself as a victim, you'll be convinced that the world views you that way too. The Dartmouth Scar Experiment reveals that. Participants thought they'd be interviewed for jobs with a fake scar on their face, which they saw being applied by a makeup artist. However, during the touch up phase, unbeknownst to them the scar was removed. Those participants who believed that they still had a visible scar, reported a massively increased level of discrimination. They also "displayed heightened feelings of powerlessness, self-pity, and an increased tendency to blame others for their failures." They believed that they were discriminated against and thus internalized it in a negative way. The study essentially revealed that regardless of whether there's actual discrimination or not, when one believes themselves to be a victim it results in negative consequences.

North Face

Companies are going too far with virtue signaling and victim mindset. Like when Retailer @thenorthface are offering 20% off if you complete their “digital course in racial inclusion”.

Customers are told that “white privilege grants access to the outdoors” and warns others are “excluded” from the outdoors because of “racism”

James Esses

The irony is that North Face is implicitly acknowledging here that all its customers are white. After all, why would black customers need to take a course about ‘white privilege’ to get a 20% discount? But if all NF’s customers are white, shouldn’t it be examining the beam in its own eye?

Spotify & Diversity Fatigue

Spotify posted a blog about “Diversity Fatigue”, which sounded like some companies were abandoning the initiative.

"Organisations like Spotify, that are committed to DEI (and not ‘tired of it’) are increasing their focus on data-informed decision-making when setting global DEI strategies… Data provides a stronger evidence-based approach to executing DEI programs and inoculates against the ‘diversity fatigue’ virus, as you can see the progress"
"Conclusion: At Spotify, and amongst other DEI professionals, it is foreseen that we can be smarter with our work, embedding the results and changes deeper into the business so that they become the norm. So if you’re feeling frustrated, I ask you not to quit your DEI work. Instead, look to the HR Community as your support network. We need to band together and point-blank refuse the existence of such a thing as ‘Diversity Fatigue’. This way we are not giving each other and our leaders the permission to give up. Most of us already know from experience – it’s together and with community (and only then) that we can continue to make progress towards a more equitable future. "

One large critisicm of DEI that it’s just reverse discrimination. So there’s the idea that the workforce is too white or too male so then the hiring goes against them even if they were the best applicants for the role. In Spotify’s next blog, they show that they are intentionally doing it for race, although the apparent 50/50 split on gender you could say is more representative of the world.

Our internships help us to identify and nurture potential future employees, and we find that interns often bring new ideas, perspectives, and approaches to our work. Our interns’ fresh insights contribute to innovation and help us stay competitive. Diversity is also fostered through our internships by attracting candidates from different backgrounds, cultures, universities and organizations.
Offering a hybrid experience, provides us access to a broader pool of talent and reach into areas we likely would not have been able to hire from. As a result, we welcomed 161 interns from around the world with over 50% identifying as female globally and 60% of those in the US identifying as being part of an underrepresented group. 

They keep saying “systematic racism”, but they don’t have a problem with systematic racism, they have a problem with meritocracy. You have to discriminate to hire more people of colour, and choose less qualified people (and that is systematic racism)

James Klug

When people make statements against DEI, it starts to sound racist. But I argue that DEI initiatives produces racism. Flip the scenario where whites are the minority…

Charlie Kirk made a great point, around 73% of NBA players are black, and around 17% are white, with the rest of other races like Latino and Asian. Assuming these metrics have happened based on a meritocracy, if diversity quotas were enforced, and there had to be 50% white; would you expect the quality of the league to go up or down? Everyone he asked reluctantly admits it would go down.

Conclusion

So what does the phrase “Seeking Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” actually mean? It’s seeking to create a culture of systematic sexism, and racism, and gaslighting people into thinking it’s acceptable.

Victim Mindset

DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY!

I’ve written some blogs on the Woke mindset that seems to be progressively impacting my workplace. I stated that there was previously no sexism/racism from what I have experienced. We have a high percentage of Asians that work here, and if anything, women seem to find it easier to get promoted. So I think you could argue bias towards certain minority groups, or maybe we are pretty much perfectly balanced in diversity and equity.

The “woke” mindset seems to create a “victim” culture, and often tries to rectify “issues” (read: non-existent issues) by actually creating sexism/racism that it aimed to combat. Here is an example of such a “victim”.

At work, there was a post on Viva Engage about Recycling, informing which items cannot actually be recycled, and how some councils actually end up incinerating rather than recycling. There was the following comment:

Really informative. Thanks for sharing this. What is interesting is that out of the 13 reactions, only TWO are from men (well done guys)… is it just we women who recycle the most or are most interested?!!

My initial thoughts are: what made her read the article, then check the likes, then observe that it was mainly female? Surely she has a victim mindset and is going out of her way to feel the victim and claim “sexism”, showing  clear misandry.

I was also thinking, if she has a point that 2 men and 11 women added reactions, then why was this?

  • Do women more likely add a reaction to articles they read?
  • Do men check Viva Engage at the end of the day, but women like to check at the start; so men haven’t read it yet?
  • Do men focus on their work more, but women like slacking off?
  • Do women care more about environmental issues?

If it was the case that women are more interested in the article content – recycling, is it because in their household, the woman is the one that sorts out the waste in their house? It’s quite common for families to assign certain chores, and pulling a heavy bin up your drive ready for collection could be down to the man.

I told one of my colleagues about the person’s comment and he was outraged by the comment. He did say he tends to check Viva Engage at the end of the day so hadn’t read the article yet. He also said his wife tends to put the rubbish in the bins, but he was the one to take it to the street for collection day.

He rightly pointed out that you could say “why are there no blacks/asians or Muslims/Jews commenting on the article?”.  So it seems she very much was man-hating since no other relevant demographic was called out. He made the classic point that if you switched out the word “men” for “asians” or similar, then does it sound offensive? If so, then the original statement is offensive. People seem to think it is much more acceptable to be sexist than racist, then also more acceptable to criticise men than women. 

When I checked who left reactions, everyone looked white apart from the women that posted the comment. Her profile picture was black and white, but her general looks seemed likely to be tanned, and her surname would suggest she could have some middle-eastern country heritage. I think it’s a clear case of her having a victim mindset, and seeing confirmation bias in data, leading to a clear over-reaction.

Dev.to review

Dev.to is a blogging website for developers. At one point, I had an RSS feed to it, but there’s so much content posted daily that it is impossible to read it all. Some of the blogs can give good insight into other developer’s lives and mentality. Some of the blogs have informative tips for developers. There’s also a lot of social justice awareness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for equality, and promoting the amount of female developers, but I think a lot of people end up doing it in an obnoxious way which does nothing. I don’t think you get equality by excluding males or putting them down.

There was one blog which opened with the greeting “Hey ladies and non-binary friends!”. Not a great start to your blog when there will be a range of people reading it, but predominately men. If the blog’s content was strongly geared towards a particular demographic, then maybe it could be debated to be appropriate language. As it goes, although she was criticising behaviour in the office, it was nothing to do with male behaviour. She comments on some rubbish banter (a developer who happens to be male) had said. But the banter was nothing to do with being male, and it wasn’t against women or any other minority group. So why attack him for being male? Why exclude your blog from males?

In the comment section, I saw a man had commented on the blog. It was a polite reply and rightly advising her to stop putting her colleagues into groups. She replies “I think you’re a bit out of your depth here mate.” Not really a good thing to say to one of your readers.

Again she seemed like she had a victim mindset, seeing confirmation bias in behaviour, leading to a clear over-reaction and bringing out her misandry.

Eni Eluko 

I was discussing the drama around ex-footballer Eni Eluko with a friend. Andrew Gold speaks out against DEI practices, and invited Eni onto his Heretics podcast. Eni Eluko stated an anti-DEI stance is clear racism. Andrew asked her why 3.5 times more black presenters than white are employed by the BBC? She could only say they must be better than the white presenters. Yet, she was still adamant that DEI practices, which favour employing people from minority groups – is needed because black people are overlooked. Eni herself is a black woman who has got lots of work from the BBC.

Andrew was a victim of such DEI practices when he wanted his show commissioned by the BBC, with him presenting, and he got told they would accept if he agreed to let them choose a new host, who would be an ethnic minority – to which he refused.

Eni was recently involved in a slander case with ex-footballer and controversial, outspoken personality Joey Barton, who had criticised her ability as a football pundit and also had the views that women shouldn’t work in the men’s game. She thought it was outrageous. She more recently came under fire after saying Ian Wright, (a well-known black pundit who works on both men’s and women’s game) shouldn’t be commenting on the women’s game as he is stealing a position from the women. Not only is that exactly like Joey Barton’s opinion (sports pundits/commentators should match the gender they are working with), but Ian Wright has helped raise the profile of the women’s game, and possibly more shockingly, helped mentor Eni as a pundit. Yet she is blinded by an agenda, that she betrays a friend and someone of the same race that is allied to her cause.

It works on my machine: Top 20 Replies by Programmers

I was watching a tech conference and a woman was detailing her experiences as a software tester. Her presentation was titled “Being a woman in tech“. She was implying that people have been sexist towards her, or at least a clear victim of unconscious bias. The quotes she wrote down were:

  • Are you sure you’re testing this correctly?
  • This doesn’t need testing, there’s no bugs
  • Why is this taking so long?
  • That’s how it’s supposed to work
  • Works fine on my machine

Now, aside from the first one (maybe the third too), those are just generic statements and not any attack on her ability, or anything to do with being a woman. As a man, I have heard other men say those things to me or other men. I often think today’s generation are told they are victims so misinterpret many statements are microaggressions.

If you have any experience with working with developers, then there’s plenty of recurring statements they make as excuses, often they use them intentionally as a classic software development joke.

Sometimes developers say them because they are certain their code was working under all test scenarios they tried. Sometimes it’s just an automatic deflection to defend their pride.

I saw this meme which has many classic ones, some that I have heard in some scenarios, and others I reckon are just included as a joke and no one actually said them. Notice how similar they are to her claims of sexism:

Top 20 Replies by Programmers when their programs don’t work…
  1. That’s weird…
  2. It’s never done that before.
  3. It worked yesterday.
  4. How is that possible?
  5. It must be a hardware problem.
  6. What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?
  7. There has to be something funky in your data.
  8. I haven’t touched that module in weeks!
  9. You must have the wrong version.
  10. It’s just some unlucky coincidence.
  11. I can’t test everything!
  12. THIS can’t be the source of THAT
  13. It works, but it hasn’t been tested.
  14. Somebody must have changed my code.
  15. Did you check for a virus on your system?
  16. Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel?
  17. You can’t use that version on your system.
  18. Why do you want to do it that way?
  19. Where were you when the program blew up?
  20. It works on my machine.

The Troubling Rise of Artificial Intelligence: A Mirror of Modern Ideologies

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent, no longer confined to science fiction. In some industries it may just enhance minor aspects, but in others, it is replacing processes. AI programs today can generate realistic deep-fake videos, simulate voices, create images, write essays, and even compose poems or songs.

While these creations are (mostly) not yet indistinguishable from reality, they are convincing enough to deceive many. Major companies are integrating AI into their operations, often at the expense of human jobs. Customer support has been partially replaced by chat bots. Websites are now flooded with AI-generated articles, and the likes of X are full of bots that use AI to repost a summary just to farm engagement. 

The influence of AI on our future is undeniable. Even this blog was partially written by AI. I stole a transcript from a YouTube video that made some good points, and turned it into a blog using AI. Deleted some parts, rewrote others, shuffled paragraphs around, and mixed in some of my own opinion and information from other sources. 

One thing to always keep in mind is how the creator’s ideas can then become a bias in the algorithms. This was seen in Google’s Gemini, which severely favoured political correctness over accuracy.

Like many discovered weaknesses, it is exploited by people for humorous effect. People asked Gemini to make an image of the Pope or a World War II German Soldier and they got a dark skinned version. Even the founders of Google were turned into Asians. The bias was so extreme, that the only reliable way to get white people was to ask AI to generate absurd racial stereotypes which would then be switched for a white person. This could be abused by asking for a person doing a mild stereotype and it would instinctively choose to draw a dark-skinned person whereas a non-biassed algorithm might have just defaulted to white.

So using Gemini, you couldn’t get a historically accurate image of most people, and could only create images of white people if it was in jest.

It was so bad that you couldn’t even ask for white actors, because that isn’t inclusive. But you can ask for only black, because that is inclusive.

When it comes to impersonating celebrities, it seemed to make out that it cannot impersonate people in the case that the person held right-wing views or provided controversial opinions, but then it had no problem with left-wing opinions.

In a now deleted tweet, there was a thread about the creator of Gemini posting several tweets about left-wing politics, systematic racism, and white privilege. All the usual phrases of woke activists.

Young people in particular will use AI for information, potentially at the expense of critical thinking. As AI becomes more integrated into education, media, and social platforms, it has the power to influence societal narratives, political opinions, and perceptions of history. This raises questions about the ethical responsibilities of AI developers and the potential consequences of unchecked technological influence. Prominent figures like Elon Musk have voiced such concerns.

As AI continues to be a prominent part of our lives, it’s important to understand any underlying bias, and any limitations of what it can and cannot do.

Skin-tone plasters

Big changes coming from the Employee Forum. We are getting a variety of skin-tone plasters (band-aid) for the first aid kit. What sort of insane social justice warrior asked for that?

If anything, the default plaster is brown so us white folk need lighter ones.

This is the most extreme woke thing I have ever heard of. I don’t think we will beat it.

Skin Tone Plasters.  A great shout and a big thank you for the lack of variety being highlighted to the Employee Forum.  Aligning to our environmental credentials, the incumbent plasters will remain where they’re within a 3yr use-by lifespan.  As we move to replace, this will be done with a wide variety of skin colour matching plasters. 

I asked a friend what he thought of this:

Jack: I've heard of this before, so dumb
 
Me: Bet we get sacked for using the black plaster
 
Jack: Haha I would, just to make a point. Whoever came up with this has too much time on their hands, and whoever gets upset about wearing a wrong coloured plaster is a melt
 
Me: I should swap 'em with kids ones with cartoon characters on them

I do raise a good point there. If you did use the wrong colour plaster, would people get offended? What happens if you took the last dark-skinned one and someone saw you and they wanted it?

How often do you need a plaster when you are in the office? If the plaster is in a visible part of your body, is the presence of the plaster uncomfortable/embarrassing anyway regardless of colour? I think the default brown one is probably a good compromise for all skin types anyway, but I suppose modern ones can be white or transparent. 

This surely has to be a case of a white person suggesting this, using their wokeness to raise an injustice against darker skinned people, even though no dark-skinned person was actually offended. However, if you now take the plaster that is reserved for them; then they will be offended.

Do we have the same policy in regards to bandages? They are usually white too.

Pride At Work

During Pride month, there were a few Yammer (now known as Viva Engage) posts about LGBT issues. One guy made a blog post about how gay people were denied the opportunity of blood transfusions until recently. It was informative but I did think it was a weird thing to post at work – given the word-count of the word “sex” reached double figures and contained the phrase “anal sex” along with other sexual references.

If you take that out of the context of “pride”, wouldn’t discussing or writing about sex at work result in you being on a call with a member of HR?

I discussed it with a few of my colleagues. One guy said he thought he “had crossed the line with his phrasing and could have easily worded it in a less explicit way”. Another colleague stated that “although I support Pride, I don’t feel I should be reading about it at work“. That is actually a good point. Although there can be important social issues in the world, if it has nothing to do with work, then why are we reading or talking about it when we should be working? I’m sure there was even some policy we had to agree to – that said you couldn’t discuss religion and politics because if someone had different beliefs to you, then they may feel excluded.

It made me think that – because LGBT is the current hot-topic, then it trumps all existing work policies, and you aren’t allowed to say anything against it. This is even more contentious when this particular topic could be against someone’s religious beliefs (we do employ a significant number of Muslims, and a certain number of colleagues could have opposing views regardless of religion).

To conclude Pride month, a member of HR posted the following:

“Lots of events take place throughout June every year to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and all the progress that has been made across legislation, attitudes and behaviours.
Personally, one reason I find these events so wonderful is because they bring together people of all ages and I see so many families attending together with children – what better way to encourage change than to teach children about positive attitudes and behaviours and set a great example for them.”

HR staff member

I laughed out loud when I read that. I really wanted to respond, but thought I’d end up being unfairly sacked. So I wrote this blog instead.

Maybe the average person hasn’t heard about all the controversies this year, but recently, I’ve spent a lot of time on Twitter and been watching a lot of Daily Wire content. I suppose the more stuff you view on Twitter, the more it recommends the content, and so if you have any hint of an opinion, then it becomes stronger with “confirmation bias”. I’ve generally been interested in conspiracy theories and hot debates, so Twitter has pushed a lot of this content to my feed.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not against LGBT in general, but am opposed to it being directed at kids (which a lot of people from the likes against Daily Wire are making content about), and Twitter seemed to like showing me everything that Gays Against Groomers were Tweeting, and that’s their purpose.

oh, won't somebody please think of the children - The Simpson's meme

So let’s go through some examples of what I am referring to here. If I remember correctly, the first controversy was a “family-friendly” Pride event where gay people in fetish gear were being whipped on top of an open-car. The next was a photograph of a curious girl about 6 years old who had approached 2 guys who were wearing that dog-themed leather bondage gear. A point here is – this content should only be known about if you go out of your way on an 18-rated website. Instead, people are in a public event where they knew that kids would be at, dressing up and even simulating these acts.

I actually only came across that particular fetish due to a colleague mentioning that a former male colleague had an OnlyFans with his boyfriend, and it was the company’s discovery of this fact that had forced him to leave the business. Given that the colleague that was telling me this had a reputation for exaggerating and lying, I asked him to prove it, and he linked me to his pages. He was telling the truth 😱😳

If my employer really is fine with this gay fetish aspect, then why was our former colleague sacked? Probably some hypocrisy there.

So I only learned about this fetish attire by going out of my way of the dark side of the internet, and here we have the likes of members of our HR department stating “I find these events so wonderful is because they bring together people of all ages and I see so many families attending together with children – what better way to encourage change than to teach children“. I find this sentiment being echoed among many that are presumably scared to be labelled a bigot for speaking out about it.

Some YouTubers stated that when they made content using such Pride footage, they were labelled as “adult content”. How can a “Family-friendly” event be adult content? Oh because it is adult content!

It’s considered a faux-pas to criticise Pride, but yet, if this same thing happened outside the context of Pride, people would call these people a “nonce”/”sex offender” and demand they be locked up for public indecency. This is what the group Gays Against Groomers stands for. They are against grooming kids. They are against exposing children to 18-rated content. Yet, they posted videos of their van parked at a Pride event and people were coming up to it and spitting on it. That’s right, people are openly fine with grooming kids these days. We used to want to protect kids at all costs, and we seem to have lost that over the last few years in pursuit of wokeness.

There was even the controversy with the Twitch Streamer NickMercs who Tweeted “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue” (it was in the context of a vote to celebrate Pride at a school), then Activision removed his character “skin” from the game  “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II | Warzone”. This then resulted in a minor boycott/review bomb, and people mocked Activision with the phrase “Call of Groomers“. How far has society fallen if stating “leave little children alone” is considered a controversial statement?

To go back to the first thing the HR staff member said “Lots of events take place throughout June every year to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and all the progress that has been made across legislation, attitudes and behaviours.“. Progress made? So in addition to the examples of Pride becoming fetishized, you also had the transwoman that exposed their breasts at the White House, Puberty blockers banned in the UK , the boycott of Bud Light in the US due to the promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, the boycott of Target due to stocking chest binders which tanked their share price, the banning of Drag Queen events, men identifying as women to avoid Men’s prison, and more people speaking out against Transwomen in sports. So the Trans community has taken hits in their PR in this Pride month.

There was also the incident with Billboard Chris, where he was speaking to someone about how it is wrong to give puberty blockers to children, when a transwoman began screaming obscenities repeatedly in his face. Chris did his best to ignore her, until he got punched in the face. Despite having several police as witnesses, and having the event caught on camera, the police refused to prosecute the assault, and blamed Chris for being antagonistic. Pride Month ain’t it – Commit all the crimes you like.

So I’d say the LGBT movement had gained more and more support over time, but this year, it took a massive step back. I wouldn’t be surprised if further controversies were more widely publicised in future.

I think issues should be raised and discussed with logic, and not dealt with whilst being blinded by wokeness and hypocrisy. People need to take a step back, clear their minds and really decide what they actually believe in.

Assault is wrong. Grooming kids is wrong. Sex shouldn’t be discussed at work. I hope we can agree with that.

Women In Tech: Software Developer Transition To Manager

Many years ago, I was listening to a podcast where a group of women were talking about their experiences in Software Development. I think Person A had started their own company so now didn’t do much development because they were now the CEO. Person B had switched to teaching software development and was going to take up a role as a “Developer Advocate” which I think is kind of a teaching role; making tutorials and promoting via social media. Then Person C seemed happy being a software developer.

In other blogs, I’ve briefly mentioned my observations with women in software development. I find there’s a much higher percentage of women that will desire to go into management, whereas many men seem to love the idea of a career constantly coding.

I’ve followed a few of the women from the podcast, intrigued where their careers would go. Person A and B are still CEO and Developer Advocate, respectively. Person C, who was happy being a software developer had apparently got their dream job at a big tech company early 2021.

“I’m so lucky I get to do something I love for a living”

Neary a year later, they announce they are taking a year out due to maternity. A few months later, they state how being a new mother has given them new inspiration as a software developer. I wasn’t sure if she had been coding in her free time, or was just posting for attention. 

She claimed that she could:

  • “tap into new-found inspiration and creativity”
  • “think about more nuanced edge cases”
  • “Be more efficient”
  • “better at asking for help”
  • “better at asking the right questions”

The justification was that you have extra accountability, have to maximise how you spend time/money, ask for assistance when you struggle to support your child. It was quite tenuous and when people asked her to elaborate on how it really helps coding, she just accused them of “toxic masculinity”.

Only 2 months later, she announces that she applied to switch roles to become an Engineering Manager. Wait, what!? What happened to all that boasting about securing her dream role at her dream company? What about this new-found inspiration to be a better developer? 

How can that mentality shift in such a short space of time?

“I kinda just fell out of love with coding”

People often say that social media gives people a skewed perception of people’s realities, because it is a filtered view: people only post the good stuff, and sometimes even modify the photos. If someone goes on holiday, you see the beautiful sunny beach, and the exciting scuba diving session. You don’t hear about the argument they had with their partner, or how they were bedridden with illness on the other days.

So was she lying about her love for coding? Were the development teams at this company not well suited to her mindset or ability?

When she did return from maternity leave, she then said he loved being a manager “way more than I liked being a software developer.”

I do find it odd that her mentality has always seemed to be focussed on promoting women in tech, and calling out “bro culture”, but then she has ditched being a developer and followed the stereotype of being a manager instead.

See Also: Women In Tech / Programming Podcasts