Comment by FirmwareBurner
1 year ago
> If the focus of Google's technology is identity rather than reality, it is inevitable that they will be surpassed.
They're trailing 5 or so years behind Disney who also placed DEI over producing quality entertainment and their endless stream of flops reflects that. South Park even mocked them about that ("put a black chick in it and make her lame and gay").
Can't wait for Gemini and Google to flop as well since nobody has a use for a heavily biased AI.
> put a black chick in it and make her lame and gay
TIL South Park is still a thing. I haven’t watched South Park in years, but that quote made me laugh out loud. Sounds like they haven’t changed one bit.
Fortune 500s are laughably insincere and hamfisted in how they do DEI. But these types of comments feel like schadenfreude towards the "woke moralist mind-virus"
But lets be real here ... DEI is a good thing when done well. How are you going to talk to the customer when they are speaking a different cultural language. Even form a purely capitalist perspective, having a diverse workforce means you can target more market segments with higher precision and accuracy.
Nobody's is against diversity when done right and fairly. But that's not what Disney or Google is doing. They're forcing their own warped version of diversity and you have no choice to refuse, but if you do speak up then you're racist.
Blade was a black main character over 20 years ago and it was a hit. Beverly Hills Cop also had a black main character 40 years ago and was also a hit. The movie Hackers from 30 years ago had LGBT and gender fluid characters and it was also a hit.
But what Disney and Google took from this is that now absolutely everything should be forcibly diverse, LGBTQ and gender fluid, whether the story needs it or not, otherwise it's racist. And that's where people have a problem.
Nobody has problems seeing new black characters on screen, but a lot of people will see a problem in back vikings for example which is what Gemini was spitting out.
And if we go the forced diversity route for the sake of modern diversity argument, why is Google Gemini only replacing traditional white roles like vikings with diverse races, but never others like Zulu warriors or Samurais with whites? Google's anti-white racism is clear as daylight, and somehow that's OK because diversity?
Not trying to be combative - but you do have a choice to refuse. To me, it seems like they wanted to add diversity to account for bias and failed hilariously. It also sounds like this wasn't intended behavior and are probably going to rebalance it.
Now, should Google be mocked for their DEI? ABSOLUTELY. They are literally one of the least diverse places to work for. They publish a report and it transcends satire. It's so atrociously bad it's funny. Especially when you see a linkedin job post for working at google, and the thumbnail looks like a college marketing brochure with all walks of people represented.
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In the case of Disney, how much of the frustration comes from the fact that their entire success was built on “borrowing” European folk tales? So that now when they lazily remake those same stories with non-white casting, it causes an uproar? I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be focussing more on actually storytelling over DEI, but I also don’t think white people get as upset over movies based on non-white source material, or created whole-cloth.
So we need commercial insentive to be diversity accepting? I think it should just not matter where you are from, what your background is. We should be treated to our skills. If your skills are not required, people shouldn't have to hire you because of DEI reasons.
"done well" is really hard to define, and its also very hard to attribute back to one thing when you do have success.
Did you get the sale with the customer because you invested in DEI? Or because you made something they want by accident?
Customers can also talk in different languages, and as a result of historic oppression, minorities tend to be able to code shift. Assuming your potential customers are unable to become customers because of their limitations might not be right
DEI should grow naturally.
That's a bit like saying that if you want to sail from Europe to America, you should jump in a boat and let the wind take you there naturally. Don't touch the sails.
The entire hypothesis behind a formal DEI program -- whether or not you agree with it -- is that DEI doesn't happen naturally. Humans tend to gravitate toward (I.E. hire) people similar to themselves for various reasons, and that has to be purposely shifted if the organization is aiming for diversity. If they don't care where they end up, that's a different story.
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For background on the problems over there, see the new book "MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios" (2023). This is a business book, not a fanboy book. It's all about who did what for how much money. How the business was organized. The conflicts between New York and LA. The Marvel universe was driven by the merchandising operation. For a long time, the films were seen by top management as marketing for the toys. What will sell in action figures drove film casting decisions.
>Antman, Indiana Jones, Wish, all had white main characters,
DEI doesn't just affect main characters. See who were tasked to write and direct those movies and the DEI agendas they're forced to push. Clueless people with other flops under their belt, who got the projects out of DEI so Disney can look inclusive on social media.
And speaking of Indiana Jones, that flopped because they shoved a strong independent Girl Boss™ with an annoying personality to replace the beloved Indie as the main character who got sidelined in his own movie. It flopped because people go to an Indian Jones film to see Indie, not Fleabag. If you disrespect the fans they won't watch your movie.
Same stuff with Star Wars where Disney shoved Rey the super-powerful Girl Boss™ to replace Luke Skywalker the old and useless CIS white Jedi, and defeat all other evil white men in the movie by herself with her magic powers. Same with Marvel, Snow White, Little Mermaid and every other of Disneys trash remakes that are all about DEI instead of entertainment.
People go to see movies to get entertained. If you fail to entertain them because you wish instead to push DEI agendas on them, they won't pay for your content and you will lose money and ultimately your shareholders won't be happy and the free market will eventually correct this, so at least capitalism has some upsides.
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_k8cDLe-Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E6wJpu0A8E
Fleabag is not a strong independent Girl Boss either, the problem is bad writing and poor characterization which has a lot of broader industry factors. Gig-style inconsistent writer employment, lack of streaming royalties, shorter seasons, shutting writers out of film shoots, they all screw up the junior -> veteran pipeline and produce more immature and unpolished writing.
Today, bad writing manifests as bad expressions of today's predominant values because that's what people grow up with, just as bad writing in the past would badly express the past's predominant values.
Also 90% of stuff is crap and we only remember the good stuff from the past.
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Nah, Luke's story in the TLJ was actually interesting; he lost his faith, and had to be reminded of it by the next generation. It kind of mirrors Obi-Wan's story in the original 6 movies, where he no longer believed that Anakin Skywalker could be redeemed. It's the pointless side quest to space vegas, and Holdo's pointless refusal to tell anyone her plan that made the movie crap.
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> Same stuff with Star Wars where Disney shoved Rey the super-powerful Girl Boss™ to replace Luke Skywalker the old and useless CIS white Jedi, and defeat all other evil white men in the movie by herself with her magic powers. Same with Marvel, Snow White, Little Mermaid and every other of Disneys trash remakes that are all about DEI instead of entertainment.
I don't see how this was a flop given they grossed more $ than their predecessors, so people actually do pay more money to have better representation? https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Wars#tab=s...
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Hollywood milking things for so long that the entire thing resembles anaemic dogshit is as old as Hollywood. Big budget films with stupid stuff because tons of people are involved is also as old as Hollywood. Dune, Alien >=3, Æon Flux, etc. etc.
Sometimes a bad film is just a bad film for all the reasons bad films have been around for 100 years, and that's it. This entire "zomg bad film + female character = woke mind virus!!11" is just silly.
Also Harrison Ford is 81. He's old. Almost old enough to run for presidency. It's physically impossible to make films with Indie like it's 1982. They tried that with Robert DeNiro and unintentional comedy ensued.
Oh, and I heard all of this bollocks with Mad Max too, and that did well enough. Again, sometimes a bad film is just a bad film.
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1. Most of the writers and directors on those movies were white men. 2. The notion that every time someone who isn’t a white man is hired to do something it’s an example of DEI is profoundly evil and stupid.
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So is DEI a vast conspiracy on the parts of these studios to make less money and disappoint shareholders?
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