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On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

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Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#441
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He seems to be claiming that black people, gay people, women, trans folk and the poor were in no way oppressed and it was all made up by Communists to take down capitalism. No he doesn't. He says Marxists participated in gender/race politics, and the ultimate goal of Marxists was destruction of capitalism. Which, btw, if you read any of real Marxists - who aren't exactly hiding, thanks (not ironically, they shouldn…

No, I called someone a Nazi because they put a extreme right wing conspiracy theory into a footnote of a manifesto about hiring less minorities. No one asked for their opinion on Marxism. No one asked for their opinion on Google hiring practices. They volunteered both, and the fact that in their mind these things are entwined together. Which, not coincidentally, is a talking point of those so far right that facist or…

> because they put a extreme right wing conspiracy theory into a footnote of a manifesto about hiring less minorities.

This is false. Neither the manifesto was "about hiring less minorities", nor the footnote contained the conspiracy theory. The footnote contained facts, which you declared to be Nazi conspiracy theory because Nazi conspirologists mentioned the same facts. It's like saying somebody is a Nazi because Nazis think 2x2=4 and they do too, so they clearly agree with Nazis, so they are Nazis themselves.

> No one asked for their opinion on Marxism

You imply one should express one's opinion only if Powers That Be - of which you undoubtedly see yourself as a prominent member - ask them to? Wouldn't you like that. Fortunately, it's not the case - one can express one's opinion about Marxism whenever one likes to, and that doesn't make one a Nazi.

> No one asked for their opinion on Google hiring practices

Shut up, grunt, and back to the keyboard! We don't pay you to have opinions!

Sure, why not. Google has the right of insist their workers STFU and let the VPs think for them. It's not what it says on the box, but if it's what it is, no problem.

> Which, not coincidentally, is a talking point of those so far right that facist or Nazi is not a slur but a descriptive adjective

No it is not. Nothing expressed in the manifesto has anything to do with Nazism, and the only extremely tenuous connection that you could find is that some Nazi conspirologists also talked about Marxists participating in gender politics. Which would be very easy to observe to anybody who knows anything about current politics. Your claim that it is not a slur is a bald-faced lie.

> It's the ones that think Google wouldn't hire gay people unless Marxist's wanted them to

If you imply that the author of manifesto thinks something like that, it is again a lie. If you do not, I don't understand why you brought up those imaginary non-existing people.

I also find it disappointing, though not surprising, that the whole discussion of a long and dense text concentrates here on latching on a couple of words in a footnote, misinterpreting them in the most hostile way possible, affixing the most emotional and charged label available and refusing to discuss anything else on the grounds that affixing the label explains everything. It is, unfortunately, what many people on the internet think political discussion is. The same people then lament how bad the politics has gone lately. Maybe they should stop digging.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#442
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you just wrote is the equivalent of a climate change denier writing: I think if you want your argument to be more convincing, it would be nice to spend less effort on trying to brand the opponents "climate change denier", which sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to capitalize on a tribal thought-terminating cliche - basically a highbrow structural equivalent of calling someone a Nazi - if you're in any way li…

> There is also zero reason to consider comparing somebody do anti-vaxxers or any other outgroup a rational argument. I took it as an argument by analogy. A more analytical approach like listing logical errors and fallacies wouldn't go over well either. I'm curious how someone else would phrase those points without neutering them.

If you see the specific fallacy, you can just point out the fallacy, you don't have to affix label like "you're just like $outgroup!". Mentioning $outgroup doesn't add anything to a rational argument. However, it frequently (though, of course, not always) betrays the weakness of the rational part and the desire to plug the hole by the emotional part.

Re: On managing outrage in Silicon Valley

#443
post #435
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. See this comment I just made in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14956998 The trouble with avoiding "all right-thinking people know" is that I have no idea how to find a solid citation for the claim that, say, software engineering is at least as much about people as things. It's a thing you will find anyone senior who's good at their job to agree with. Would you accept books by experienced s…

I am senior at my job and I disagree with that assertion. People skills are indeed helpful and a good benefit, but they are nowhere near primary. Consider the following two people: (A) Understands people hardly at all, is constantly confused by hem, but understands computers very well (B) Understands computers hardly at all, is constantly confused by them, but understands people very well Which of these two candidate…

B, without question! You have junior people to get unconfused by computers and tell you what they're capable of. You have a wealth of existing open-source libraries, protocol designs, whitepapers about private products, etc. You need to understand what the documentation of those products are, that is, what humans are claiming about those components and what humans have successfully done with them. You don't need to be able to tell a double from a lambda to design and lead a team building a complex software product.

Candidate A is going to build a technically impressive product, sure, but we have no idea whether it's what the customer wanted. Candidate A will be a fantastic research scientist or lone-wolf open source hacker, but not a product builder.

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