I think conferences should end.
Clearly they don't work any more.
On the Internet, no one knows if you're a green Martian.
ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
151–160 of 339 posts
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#152As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…
It's social engineering meant to divide and weaken us, and a large portion of the country has fallen for it. Especially in Academia.
We are becoming crippled by our own will. It's sad to watch and the pendulum response was the 2016 election.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#153Will we ever accept the fact that women tend to be less inclined to do nerdy stuff (like developing Electron plugins instead of doing your actual coding job)? That doesn't imply that women are worse or unable, it's simply a matter of proportion. It's like saying men are underrepresented at yoga classes.
But then some feminists, who probably never took a single science class in their life and majored in "gender studies", will tell you that women not being interested in open source or men in yoga is because our society deliberately conforms people/children into gender based roles.
To counter this of course, parents buy their daughters lego sets with female scientists in lab coats glamorously posing with telescopes. Instead of, say - buying them actual scientific toys like gyroscopes, electronics kits, or lego's own genderless DIY programmable robot.
Go figure.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#154This may be an unpopular opinion but I still don't understand why diversity even matters here - shouldn't it be the merit of the ideas and the presentation skills of the speakers?
The trouble is, this is a very difficult position for the organizers to defend as it is easy to attack them with "So you claim that the other sex is not capable for skilled presentations, how dare you!" -comments. And likely this is something that resonates with enough people to create a storm in social media where you as the organizer end up in the middle.
It is much easier to put up a more equal lineup of speakers and probably picking up few less insightful presentations. While somebody could also attack this approach, it would be much more difficult as you would need to argue that somebody who was left out due to their gender would have given much better presentation than somebody who was included. This would be so complicated that it is not likely to create the angry mob effect.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#155I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…
I haven't read a single comment here from someone "getting angry at the idea of diversity." What I've read are comments expressing disappointement that speakers are being judged by the color of their slides, not the content of their presentation.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling something a "white sausage party" is racist and sexist, and if you said something equivalent against women or minorities on-line, you'd end up in a huge shitstorm. This assymetry is a big part of the problem.
This is a common reaction, and it started from a misunderstanding of the terms. I recommend reading https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism And then https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism Of course, it's a complex topic, and there's a lot more great material which would help you get a better understanding. While particularly focused on a specific type of racism in the US, includes a decent 101 on…
If you were going for discrediting calling something "a white-sausage party" as if it were a bad thing isn't racist by linking that, you failed.
The very first definition in your own link on racism:
> : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
Inherent inferiority, I'd assume, fits within that mind frame.
As for sexism, the second definition.
> : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
Now you'll start thinking of ways to complaint to the dictionary so that those definitions can be changed in a way that it's only about "minorities", I'm sure.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#157I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…
> Edit2: A few people assume that talks will be dropped / replaced as a result. I don't know what the organisers are planning, but there's always an option of adding another room/stream. Until any talks are confirmed as dropped, this is just baseless speculation. Yeah... If a second room were confirmed, your rationalizing by saying that talks wouldn't be dropped is baseless speculation.
If I did say they won't be dropped, that would be baseless speculation indeed :) Simply saying: don't assume either way before it's announced. There are a few comments which did imply previous speakers will be bumped as a result: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480918 and some others.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to imply that being happy to be surrounded with a more gender/race diverse crowd than the typical 90s IT conference is either racist or sexist. I just don't understand that argument.
Calling something a "white sausage party" is racist and sexist, and if you said something equivalent against women or minorities on-line, you'd end up in a huge shitstorm. This assymetry is a big part of the problem.
A little while back someone tweeted a series of images, designed to be provocative. They were staged photos of everyday scenes, but with the typical everyday race/gender disparities inverted.
For example, a white girl in a store, staring at an aisle of dolls whose skin colors were all nonwhite. Or a row of Asians sitting in chairs and getting pedicures from conventionally-attractive white people on their knees.
Was it "racist" to do so? Was the creator of those images "the real racist"?
There's a quote that goes around a lot, allegedly from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about how many women should serve on the Supreme Court, where she says 9. Since, after all, the Court was all-male for a long time and nobody seemed to think it was a problem, that must mean an all-female Court would be just as acceptable.
Is it "sexist" of her to say so? Is she "the real sexist"?
Also, you should either see a doctor or sign up to be a fighter pilot, because the speed of your knee-jerk reflex in jumping to one of the most tired and predictable clichés of these discussions ("You're the REAL racist/sexist here!") is impressive.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, there's no way I'm going to defend the TSA's methodologies. They a pain to deal with. The good thing I'll say is that somewhere around 57 million people visited the US last year. 99.9%+ had no trouble other than long lines and the general frustration that comes with long distance travel. So your fears, while completely understandable, are also very, very unlikely to cause any actual trouble.
Ok, thanks for the numbers. That feels much better than what I was lead to believe happens at the borders all the time.
0.01% of 57 million people still means 5,700 people were harassed, largely unnecessarily.
Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered
#160As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…
I definitely agree with this view, and it's perhaps also why I really can't understand choices like these, to cancel an event, because of the genders of the people speaking? Why does that even matter? If what another commenter mentioned[0][1], that they did blind-reviews of the papers, then this is actually quite appalling to me and sends the reverse signal that we don't really care about your paper, as long as you f…
PC culture is a frustrated reaction to how fucked up America is with regard to race. Look at the income/health statistics between blacks and whites, or go live in an inner-city. It's mind blowing. It's a problem we created as a society and we're not doing anything to fix it. So we've resorted to counting the number of different color people at coding conferences.