Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting free of toxic tech culture

blog.valerieaurora.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 420 posts

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#91

Post by mquander »

dang wrote: post #22
OnlyRepliesToBS wrote: post #6

The moderation mechanisms are the very tools that enforce this cult-like mentality. And threat of suppression, of course.

Bit of an awkward moment for a searing indictment, as we'd just turned off flags on the OP. With suppression like that, who needs promotion? It's a common misconception, but Hacker News really isn't identified with or immersed in Silicon Valley. Those of us moderating it are largely on the margins of SV and always have been, and the community by no means has its center of gravity there. It's globally distributed and…

Wait, it is? HN seems incredibly Silicon-Valley-culture-centric to me. Compared to the general population:

* Extremely interested in technical topics.

* Extremely interested in startups.

* Extremely interested in big tech company news and behavior.

* Extremely interested in cultural tech industry drama.

* Extremely interested in self-help/business-advice stuff.

* Somewhat interested in explicitly regional stuff like California politics.

* Libertarian+liberal political outlook.

What are the things that you think belong to mainstream Silicon Valley culture which HN is not about?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#92

Post by geofft »

peterwwillis wrote: post #81

What is the point of allowing discussion? HN would not allow a post on this topic from an opposing viewpoint to get to the front page. Moreover, this particular point of view is from a radical organization - you can't really have intellectual discourse with people who refuse to see any other position than theirs.

What is the viewpoint you think this post holds? That parts of tech culture are toxic? That all of it is? Plenty of posts hit the front page every day holding the opposing viewpoint.

And as people who refuse to see other viewpoints go—would you say the same about posts from people who believe that, say, mass surveillance is bad, or net neutrality is good, or Apple should not cooperate with subpoenas for user data? The authors of those posts are also very unlikely to see opposing positions.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#93

Post by golemotron »

tomlock wrote: post #29
throwaway1748 wrote: post #26

Could constantly identifying oneself as being 'marginalized' contribute to the feeling of being an outsider? As another commenter pointed out, the Kapor Center data is not nearly as damning as this piece suggests. Many of the reported reasons for leaving show similar numbers between genders & races. Sexual harassment is clearly a bigger problem for women than men, but not as drastic as this article claims. The Kapor…

It could. But what evidence is there of that?

Every study of confirmation bias. If you see yourself as an outsider you look for evidence of it and it becomes your worldview.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#94

Post by MollyR »

dang wrote: post #67
whatshisface wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is one of the most highly-selected-for trait in tech. Mature people are, on average, are less willing to do this than young people of the customarily military age range.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments or flamebait here. What you say isn't remotely plausible, since if it were true, software companies would be filled with non-programmers. Edit: I mean instead of programmers.

During the first dot com bubble, software companies were sort of filled with non-programmers.

Source: I lived through it and started with almost no experience and was hired and trained on the job. They hired a ton of people to be trained, and many didn't succeed and were transferred to non dev jobs.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#95

Post by adamsea »

malvosenior wrote: post #75
adamsea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) With respect, your experience and the author's experience may vary, for a variety of reasons, so I'm not sure it makes sense to pit one set of experiences against another, so to speak. B) Would you be willing to clarify what was toxic about your experience with SV startups as you described? C) Realistically, without denying the problems which probably do exist with "intersectionaly identity politics", etc, it seem…

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

I concur that judging someone by the output of their work as opposed to their sex or skin color is extremely important, however, I believe that by itself is a narrow and inaccurate view of the whole situation/problem. In fact, acknowledging the vastness of the problem is a major challenge in and of itself.

> As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

So, it's pretty much been like this but times a thousand for women and people whose skin is not pinkish white.

Of course some people of color are racist towards white people, and of course some women are sexist towards men. However to acknowledge this without acknowledging the vast amounts of institutionalized and socialized sexism/racism in American culture (which doesn't just come out in tech - look at the racist/sexist behavior of the current President) is a bit ludicrous.

It's like talking about optimizing performance in one small domain while ignoring the major bottleneck!

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#96

Post by dang »

mquander wrote: post #91
dang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of an awkward moment for a searing indictment, as we'd just turned off flags on the OP. With suppression like that, who needs promotion? It's a common misconception, but Hacker News really isn't identified with or immersed in Silicon Valley. Those of us moderating it are largely on the margins of SV and always have been, and the community by no means has its center of gravity there. It's globally distributed and…

Wait, it is? HN seems incredibly Silicon-Valley-culture-centric to me. Compared to the general population: * Extremely interested in technical topics. * Extremely interested in startups. * Extremely interested in big tech company news and behavior. * Extremely interested in cultural tech industry drama. * Extremely interested in self-help/business-advice stuff. * Somewhat interested in explicitly regional stuff like…

Lots of people outside SV are interested in those things—many more than are in it, actually. And a topic list doesn't say whether readers identify with or against SV, "tech culture", and so on. The HN users who dislike all of that are just as active in discussing it. More active in fact.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#97

Post by hondo77 »

oceanghost wrote: post #8

I've written software for Intel, Nintendo, Samsung, LG, DirecTV, Applied Materials, Microsoft, and Apple to name a few. My last project was the basis for an entire business line at a 500m/yr company. I am unemployable because I'm a white male whose in his 40s, has a family, and because somehow, in this industry experience is a bad thing. It amazes me how intolerant of age and differing opinion tech culture is.

I'm a white male programmer in my mid-50's, have a family, and I am very employable. Quit whining.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#99

Post by majormajor »

malvosenior wrote: post #75
adamsea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) With respect, your experience and the author's experience may vary, for a variety of reasons, so I'm not sure it makes sense to pit one set of experiences against another, so to speak. B) Would you be willing to clarify what was toxic about your experience with SV startups as you described? C) Realistically, without denying the problems which probably do exist with "intersectionaly identity politics", etc, it seem…

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? I'm both white, male, and at an SV company, and haven't seen them in my experience.

From a managerial perspective I'd love to hire more people from underrepresented groups because it would mean a bigger pool to hire from, so I'm all for recruiting efforts, outreach/education programs, etc, but at the end of the day the yes/no on the candidates coming through the door is in my hands, and even if I wanted to abuse that, I can't hire people who aren't even applying. :|

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#100

Post by smsm42 »

tlb wrote: post #44

I predict people will claim "our culture isn't that toxic. Some of those things happen, but they don't bother me much." If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out. So don't ask "would this bother me?" Ask "would it bother someone?" And since you can't predict this from inside your head, you have to rely on firsthand acc…

> If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out.

That's a very high demand. People can leave the industry for a very wide variety of reasons, often mutually contradictory - some want to work as much as possible, provided it translates to $$$$, some are ok with earning less provided they can pursue side interests or family life, some want to make worldwide impact and break paradigms and change the world, some want quiet, predictable and organized workplace, some want high-risk/high-reward environment, some want benefits of predictable income and steady promotion... It is literally impossible to make an industry in which there would be nothing that would cause anybody to leave. Tech industry not special - some people may try it and find it's not what they'd like to do anymore and leave.

Surely, if some things bother people and we could reasonably fix them without bothering even more people in the process, then there's no reason not to do it - it'd be a positive-sum action that would make the world better.

But pre-committing to a goal that no non-zero subset of reasonable people ever wanted to leave tech does not seem like a smart thing to do, because it's impossible.

Post reply on HN