Hongjia Lin

Poll: best guess as to how long it will be before somebody uses machine intelligence to create a working theory of quantum gravity.

At Meta, 90% of my coworkers were Chinese, and non-Chinese were routinely excluded, disadvantaged, and targeted for layoffs. 6 out of the 7 layoffs I observed targeted non-Chinese despite non-Chinese being the vast minority. Certain orgs like ads and MRS are notorious for being Chinese dominated. I think Americans would be outraged if they knew that their own citizens were getting marginalized and laid off at their own companies, while Chinese promote themselves up, conquer entire orgs, and reap millions. Imagine if Huawei in Shenzhen had entire orgs and leadership chains completely dominated by Japanese people who brazenly spoke Japanese at work without a care in the world that their Chinese coworkers don't understand, imposed their own work culture without respecting Chinese culture, excluded the Chinese, and laid off Chinese people while promoting their own. I imagine Chinese citizens would be outraged, and never allow that to happen in the first place. The most blatant and obvious way that non-Chinese are excluded is that Chinese primarily speak Mandarin at work. I'm not talking about one-off conversations, I'm talking about every single conversation. Loudly and brazenly with no respect for others. 10+ teammates and leaders having a group conversation in Mandarin while the 2 non-Chinese don't understand and feel excluded from the team. Although everyone at least has the decency to speak English during formal meetings with a non-speaker present, it was common that right after the meeting ended everyone would immediately switch to Mandarin. Funny I'm in Korea right now and was just on a double date with 3 other Koreans, and I was shocked that when the conversation would split into two, the other couple would speak to each other in English in my presence just out of respect. A Korean couple on a double-date had the courtesy to speak to each other in English in front of me even though I'd never expect that from them, but my Chinese coworkers did not. Lunch was another place where non-Chinese were blatantly excluded. Recall that the team I joined was an all Chinese team with only one other non-Chinese person. The Chinese would always get lunch together and never invite us (except for one of them who occasionally would, though at some point stopped). Me and the non-Chinese person would invite them, they'd always refuse, and then shortly after they'd disappear and get lunch together. As a result, it was usually just the two of us getting lunch. (caveat, some of the newer Chinese who joined afterwards also experienced similar treatment. So it's moreso a clique thing than a Chinese vs. non-Chinese thing, though 100% of the clique was Chinese) On Wednesdays and Fridays I'd often be the only non-Chinese person on my team in the office, and they'd all get lunch together without inviting me. It was depressing, and made me not want to come into the office on those days. One team dinner we went to a Korean BBQ. I arrived with a non-Chinese coworker and the first table was full, so we sat at one end of the next empty table. Shortly after one of the Tech Leads walked in, and sat at the complete opposite end of our table, alone and not in talking distance to anyone. We invited her over, and she declined. Later another Tech Lead came in and sat across from her. Non-Chinese and Chinese at opposite ends of a long table at a team dinner, and they refused to sit with us. Eventually more people came and the TLs joined our side because I guess maybe it was too obviously anti-social, and they spent the entire dinner speaking speaking Chinese to each other. These were our tech leads. I could not understand how Meta could have "Tech Leads" that so blatantly excluded teammates. I thought Tech Leads were supposed to uplift the team, and that Meta would hold tech leads to a higher standard. Now someone might say that it's just lunch or a one-off team dinner, who cares? To that I vehemently disagree. Lunch is extremely important for team bonding, and so much information is transferred through informal socializing. I'm not saying that everyone needs to get lunch together everyday, but if a minority of people are excluded from getting lunch with the rest of the team, and especially the most tenured and senior employees, then naturally that minority is going to feel alienated, disadvantaged, and excluded from opportunities. And the very fact that they're excluded from lunch is reflective of being excluded in general. When 90% of an org and the entire leadership chain is dominated by one ethnicity, naturally their work culture is going to spill through. Chinese culture is completely different from American work culture, and learning to navigate that was a huge obstacle for me. For example I'm the type that tends to question everything and isn't afraid to challenge a "superior", but I quickly realized that my TL seemed to take offense to that, and would punish/retaliate me for it. I want to make it clear - I have nothing against Chinese people. Most of them are very kind (strong correlation between kindness and not engaging in the kind of exclusionary behavior I mentioned above), and I have many good friends who are Chinese. I get that some barely speak English (though I question how they got hired). I do genuinely believe that most are good people, and not deliberately trying to exclude others. But regardless of intent, the result is that non-Chinese get excluded. The fact that 6 of the 7 layoffs I observed were not Chinese in a 80-90% Chinese dominated org is testament to this. The fact that 90% Chinese dominated orgs even exist in the first place is testament to this. I might not even be posting about this given the sensitivity of the topic if not for the fact that I've seen and/or heard stories of some very toxic people who I do not believe would otherwise survive if not for their ability to exclude others, throwing others under the bus for the next layoff. The same people do this over and over again, and get away with it because they're part of the "clique" that essentially has immunity. I think the company needs to take this more seriously. Some ideas would be enforcing English at the office (I've heard of other teams that do this), raising leaders to a higher bar when it comes to team inclusivity (eg. under the "People" axis), investigating potential discrimination cases (eg. layoffs and/or mistreatment disproportionally affecting certain groups) and having a zero tolerance policy around that, having a zero tolerance policy around injustice in general (eg. lying or deliberately throwing somebody under the bus), ensuring more diverse teams, etc. But to be honest, I don't have faith that much would change so long as the entire leadership chain up to the VP level is dominated by the same ethnicity, language, and culture. Nor does it seem that leadership even remotely cares given that this has been happening in the HQ for probably at least the last decade, and is obvious to anyone who's stepped foot in the office.

民运人士姚诚回国，在边陲小镇住了一天，又顺利出国。如果这是中共有意为之的话，一方面说明中共的自信程度在提高，另一方面中共的统战手法和能力也在提升。 过去中共对反共人士的做法是，想走的赶紧走，赶到美国欧洲去。到那里你们去自嗨，反正国内也看不到，从此没了影响力，爱咋地咋地。对那些不那么激烈反共，还想在国内搞点事情的，则边控你不让离境。 那些被驱赶或者允许离境的反共人士，一旦出国，就不让再回国了。话说当年89一代的某些人士，别说活着回国，就是死了，想落叶归根，安葬在国内都不可以。 我不知道姚诚目前拿的什么护照，如果还是中国护照，这种大摇大摆回国，中共既不喝茶也不边控还让他顺利出国，只能说明中共并不在意这些人回国在国内可能做的什么事情。当然姚诚的影响力也有限，如果魏京生回国，大概率还是会被拒绝的。 更重要的是，中共允许姚诚这样的人来去自由，在反贼群里造成的震撼极其强烈。你看你反了大半辈子共产党，共产党也并不在意你，你还可以来去自由，这个对其余生的信仰极具摧毁性。正好美国现在庇护政策也在收紧，对移民也不友好，在美国等了很多年一直拿不到身份的很多民运人士，信仰就会动摇。 我看姚诚的视频里开始讲在哪里养老比较好，这就超越了反共叙事。如果说养老的成本，那自然国内姚低得多。也就是说，没了反共这个维度，出国就不是一个那么理想的选择。 假如从此之后，民运群体开始出现一波回国潮，那今后国是会议还开不开的起来，就都成问题了。毕竟开会也有成本，而且参会也拿不到庇护绿卡了。 这一招挺高，中共高层有能人。

This is incredible. Artificial intelligence getting booed out of the stadium in any commencement speech it’s mentioned. Maybe telling college students AI was taking their jobs wasn’t the best strategy. Must watch —>

Note that any of my coauthors can submit or update something on arxiv without my direct consent Minor edits are submitted by one author routinely with the tacit approval of the PI and collaborators With this policy, it becomes a huge risk