Of course the purpose of DEI was not to benefit companies but to encourage equitable and fair treatment of disadvantaged and minority groups within an otherwise systemically white supremacist capitalist framework.
Also, of course, companies were never taking it seriously, and everyone knew this. But if companies were left entirely to their own devices they would still be paying in company scrip and shooting unionists in the head. Even forcing them to pretend to have ethics is better for society as a whole than nothing.
It's interesting to see comments like this that sound like they were written by someone who recently went through a social justice course at university.
Of course, I understand the impetus to piggyback a grievance on phrases like "white supremacist", which used to mean something. But these days their non-ironic use really tells us something about the person using it.
I mean, it should tell you that not everyone here is irony-poisoned and redpilled and only ever using this language in bad faith.
Not that it matters, because of course to treat "woke" subjects with any seriousness is thoughtcrime on HN, and good faith only guarantees bad faith in kind. I get that. And I also don't care.
Also, of course, companies were never taking it seriously, and everyone knew this. But if companies were left entirely to their own devices they would still be paying in company scrip and shooting unionists in the head. Even forcing them to pretend to have ethics is better for society as a whole than nothing.