In defence of Douglas Crockford • Hacker News Board

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#221

Post by madeofpalk » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #212

madeofpalk wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the way that sentence would normally be said where I'm from (Australia) would be "as long as they give a good talk" - no need to use specifics when you're talking about a specific person. I find it disjoining when I hear otherwise. I also find it weird that German and Spanish inject gender into every noun, although I do get that there's little meaning behind it (from the little quizzing I've given speakers of eac…

> But the way that sentence would normally be said where I'm from (Australia) would be "as long as they give a good talk" Yes, language evolves. Currently, this is almost certainly grammatically incorrect, "they" being the third person plural and (not shown here, but assumed) the speaker being singular. "They" is being pressed into service as the non-derogatory, gender-neutral third person singular that's missing in…

I pondered this exact thing, but came to the thought that you actually are talking about multiple people.

"As long as they give a good talk" - you're not talking about one specific person but in fact a general population of speakers.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#222

Post by jondubois » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

I think this is stupid. Crockford would be a centerpiece of any JavaScript conference.

There is no sexism in his remarks at all.

By attacking Crockford, that specific activist group is advocating discrimination against older generations. The kind of humour which Crockford used is totally normal for people of his generation.

He comes from an era where the software industry was run almost entirely by men - You have to forgive him for these harmless comments.

I would feel uncomfortable going to Nodevember knowing that members of this hypocritical intolerant group are among us.

I think even if Crockford was sexist (which he is clearly not), he should still be invited to talk - What happened to freedom of speech?

The real world is tough, sometimes people are mean. People should just grow up and toughen up.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#223

Post by AsyncAwait » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:45 AM UTC

rand_r wrote: post #76

inopinatus wrote: post #59

"as long as he gives a good talk/presentation" Given the content of your first remark, I'm strongly inclined to suspect this use of the explicitly masculine pronoun is first-degree trolling. This serves as a counterexample to your point, because as statements go, it would be simply be factually (rather than politically) correct to have said "they" rather than "he", unless you really do hold an expectation that all co…

Using the male pronoun by default is simply common practice in English, dating back at least hundreds of years. I wouldn't read into it.

Also, the uninvited speaker is male, so in this context it makes sense that that's what was first on OP's mind.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#224

Post by eli » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:51 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #124

eli wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they insinuated anything beyond that he apparently made others uncomfortable.

They said "We will also be removing Douglas Crockford from our keynote speakers list to help make the conference a comfortable environment for all." Imagine saying that about anyone, to any group (here it was to the whole world). Let's say the invite you to a gathering publicly then wrote a tweet about "We will also be removing eli from list of invited guests, to help make the venue a comfortable environment for all"…

But is it true that other guests have complained about me making them uncomfortable?

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#225

Post by lalalandland » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #195

inopinatus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok sure. In that case, I'll point out that being "a common practice going back hundreds of years" should lead you to question something, not accept it. It reminds me of the time I recommended (to the Unix team at a major financial institution) that they use ssh rather than telnet, and being rebuffed with "that's the way we've always done it". In this case, since you want to be specific, the practice of defaulting to…

> the practice of defaulting to "he" correlates with hundreds of years of treating women as chattels Er, no. It just means it is the unmarked/unremarkable case corresponding to males being generally worth less and discardable ("save the women"...). It is also a quirk of some of our languages that the gender-neutral pronouns are considered derogatory when applied to people. German and English have this problem ("it",…

As in english you use 'an apple' and 'a girl'. It's just linguistic quirks. Not a demeaning term

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#226

Post by jdbernard » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

xwvvvvwx wrote: post #200

10938101 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wrote some software instead of talking, like Grace Hopper, Barbara Liskov and thousands of others, people would respect you automatically in this space.

Ugly words from a throwaway account. Do you really believe that women should be seen and not heard?

That is not what they said. You are creating a strawman.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#227

Post by jondubois » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:55 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #34

> We will also be removing Douglas Crockford from our keynote speakers list to help make the conference a comfortable environment for all. If they are going to insinuate things about what he said, they should mention exactly what he said or did. The fact that they don't somehow tells me there is not much there to go on. To put it another way, if they have the guts to remove Crockford that should have enough guts to c…

The JavaScript/Node.js community attracts a lot of young programmers compared to other communities - But there are also a lot of older people - The range is just broader; that's why we often get into these kinds of debates... I guess it makes it more exciting.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#228

Post by AsyncAwait » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 10:56 AM UTC

tamana wrote: post #83

unimpressive wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.

When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.

Here's the thing; I am technically from a "marginalised" group and yet I still often use what you'd call marginalising pronouns. I use them not to marginalise anyone, but because they're commonly used and there's no reason to not use them. When I say "he", it's probably because I am a male so I default to "he", but that DOES NOT mean that I mean to "marginalise" women, in fact be free to substitute "she" in if you feel like it, it is sort of implied if you're a female and I am technically talking about all genders. In reality, it's just faster to not watch every word your write for "inclusiveness" or "marginalisation", because I assume you're able to infer the inclusiveness from context.

If you're searching for offence, you WILL BE offended, even if no offence was meant by the original poster and by doing this you're actually marginalising the real problems marginalised groups face.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#229

Post by mlvljr » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 11:00 AM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #187

rdtsc wrote: post #34

> We will also be removing Douglas Crockford from our keynote speakers list to help make the conference a comfortable environment for all. If they are going to insinuate things about what he said, they should mention exactly what he said or did. The fact that they don't somehow tells me there is not much there to go on. To put it another way, if they have the guts to remove Crockford that should have enough guts to c…

By comfortable environment they mean where you can say what you want... as long as it doesn't offend any of their unpublished list of vague rules, then you'll be publicly shamed, with no recourse nor explanation. That's a really comfortable environment, indeed.

Nails it, I think :)

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#230

Post by DanBC » Sun, Sep 04, 2016, 11:10 AM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #228

tamana wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.

Here's the thing; I am technically from a "marginalised" group and yet I still often use what you'd call marginalising pronouns. I use them not to marginalise anyone, but because they're commonly used and there's no reason to not use them. When I say "he", it's probably because I am a male so I default to "he", but that DOES NOT mean that I mean to "marginalise" women, in fact be free to substitute "she" in if you fe…

People aren't saying that you are trying to marginalise women and transgendered people. And if they are saying that you can safely call them idiots and ignore them.

What they are saying is that switching from "he" to "they" is simple and easy, and will make life better for many people. It's correct English, and has been in use since the 16th century, albeit with some push from prescriptivists.

You're right that in the face of things like rape statistics (women are far more likely to be raped by men) or domestic violence (women are far more likely to be killed by male partners) worrying about "he" vs "they" is a small thing.