As 2020’s protests for racial justice heightened the spotlight on tech’s continued diversity problem, we saw tech leaders respond with public statements and commitments to increase diversity in their workforces. However, little progress has been made to meet the goals they’ve publicly committed to and diversity numbers are still dismal. Even more troubling, we continue to see reports of continuing discrimination and censorship in tech workplaces. In the last few months alone, several prominent Black women have been pushed out of tech companies in hugely public ways: The prominent AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru was forced out of Google in December, and earlier in 2020 Aerica Shimizu Banks and Ifeoma Ozoma went public with allegations of discrimination at Pinterest. … [Read more...] about Tech’s attempts to diversify are failing. Here’s what to do instead
New day refinance
The story of the pandemic in a single poster
Rainbird is now continuing the project for 2021 and creating a poster for 2020 that will soon be for sale on the project’s website. The poster presents the headlines as a single block of text. “The poster version is one list of 366 headlines with no breaks,” he says. “It has the kind of feel of a war memorial—when you go to something like the Vietnam War Memorial—you just see text going on and on and on and on and on—or the 9/11 memorial. I wanted to have that feel, in a way. It’s kind of overwhelming, but it’s full of detail as well.” … [Read more...] about The story of the pandemic in a single poster
A Tech Billionaire Tries to Reboot The “Best Music Scene In The World”
Among those voices is a rapper and poet named Geneiva Arunga, who performs as Dadabassed and hails from the Central District, where Vulcan is developing housing and retail projects. “If the singers, DJs, writers, rappers, and artists cannot live in this city, this city will no longer have anything to do,” she told the Seattle Weekly in May. “You can’t just push us out of Seattle and then call us up when you need Upstream and need us to participate in this local showcase. It’s like, hold up—a lot of these artists don’t live here anymore.” … [Read more...] about A Tech Billionaire Tries to Reboot The “Best Music Scene In The World”
Scott Galloway: Why 2021 will be a year of reckoning for Big Tech
To prevail against the Big Tech titans, the government will need more than a strong legal case; it will need public support. For years, however, our idolatry of innovators was Big Tech’s ace in the hole. That’s changing. Social media disinformation and polarization, the exploitation of the gig economy, and the strip-mining of our personal information are melting away the heat shield of likability that surrounds these companies. More hearings like July’s CEO barbecue, and more revelations about the way in which these companies exploit their dominance, will burn it away for good. … [Read more...] about Scott Galloway: Why 2021 will be a year of reckoning for Big Tech
How Trump gave rise to the aesthetics of hate
Perhaps every president wears the American brand for four to eight years, imbuing it with an ephemeral meaning that fades away with the next administration. But as Trump was drenching himself in America the brand, he was aggressively eroding its core principles. What feels so different about Trump is that through his constant support of the alt right—most recently calling those who stormed the Capitol “very good people”—the lines between Trump, America, and extremism have blurred. His failed attempt to invalidate Biden’s own presidential victory and remain in office was a dictatorship cherry on top. … [Read more...] about How Trump gave rise to the aesthetics of hate