Getting free of toxic tech culture • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#331

Post by malvosenior » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #310

dang wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was guaranteed to produce an off-topic flamewar, one which HN has already litigated to death and well into zombieland. Please don't do that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hasn't the topic of the article already been "litigated to death" and been the subject of many flame wars? In what manner is that twitter link "off-topic" in the context of this article? Has the twitter link ever been discussed here rather than killed? I, for one, found it quite surprising. Based on news coverage and personal interactions with Googlers, I had no idea people were writing such things without reprimand…

This is what I don't understand. I'm now being threatened with being banned while adamsea is getting a slap on the wrist. If you're only allowed to discuss one side of this topic without getting kicked off HN, why even allow the threads in the first place?

I was responding to the question:

> Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies?

What could I have done to answer that without posting some evidence?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#332

Post by badwulf » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

> What is toxic tech culture? Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well being. Toxic tech cultures are those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a system of constant churn and burnout.

Isn't that the whole point of a for profit organisation in a capitalist system? (minus the churn)

The workplace is a place you go to get work done and get paid for it. If she thinks differently, she is free to create her own company where they hire you based on "holistic, multifaceted human beings" instead of skill.

These people have the opportunity to prove their worldview, yet they never do, they just complain about it online.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#333

Post by malvosenior » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:01 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #271

malvosenior wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> encouraged to speak their minds. Damore was fired though.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological and political battle. That's an abuse of the site—it kills the spirit we want here—so we ban accounts that do it, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm responding on topic to the threads though. Here we have a blog post calling the industry I work in toxic, why can't I comment on it?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#334

Post by thiht » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:17 AM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #116

I agree with essentially everything in the article — and I'm not a marginalized type (white male, actually). • Avoid the "cult-like" trappings. • Avoid "genius worship" and call bullshit on the "reality distortion field". • Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage, hike, play in a band, paint, whatever). • Stay healthy. You're valuable to the corporation, they will allow for you to tak…

>• Get a life (that is, a life outside of work – build stuff in your garage, hike, play in a band, paint, whatever).

I notice a trend in being demeaning towards people not wanting to do anything besides computing/tech. Why is that acceptable? Is my life worse because I don't do "hiking" or some other stuff? I like spending my free time coding, and I hate hearing I should do "something better with my life".

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#335

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:32 AM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #333

dang wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological and political battle. That's an abuse of the site—it kills the spirit we want here—so we ban accounts that do it, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm responding on topic to the threads though. Here we have a blog post calling the industry I work in toxic, why can't I comment on it?

It isn't a question of individual threads but of overall behavior. If you're using HN primarily for ideological battle then you're not using it for intellectual curiosity, the intended use of the site. The two are not compatible. Worse, one destroys the other, so we have to moderate HN to keep that toxin below fatal levels.

We can't exclude politics altogether, nor would we want to. But we can't let it take over the site either, and it's like fire: it consumes everything it touches. This is a conundrum. Our way out of the conundrum is the 'primarily' test:

We ban accounts that use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle, regardless of which politics they favor. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We noticed that the most damage comes from users who don't care about much except their politics, while users who are interested in plenty of different things and occasionally post on politics tend to be benign. The first group is abusing the site while the second is using it as intended. That turned out to be a clear line that we can rely on as a standard for moderation.

We try to warn people first, especially when they've been on the site for a while, but if the pattern persists we do ban them. So would you please reread the site guidelines and use HN in the spirit of curiosity, not battle, from now on?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#336

Post by Sacho » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:48 AM UTC

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #178

malvosenior wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 guess i feel like letting one great programmer drive away 25 good programmers isn't actually a very savvy move

I would like to challenge this assertion. If "good programmers" are replaceable, and "great programmers" are not, then keeping one "great programmer" and rotating the "good programmers" may be a wise business decision.

YMMV what "great" and "good" means, or how disposable "good programmers" are, but I don't think the assertion is categorically true.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#337

Post by archagon » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #327

tptacek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields, CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55% women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And, of course, among the professions in g…

>anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic security conferences, I have to wonder what you are comparing them to. The only field with a worse female participation rate in my experience is networking (e.g. SIGCOMM). Check out this picture from EuroCrypt in 97 and count the ratio of women to…

It could be argued that the “pull” from top companies will entice members of underrepresented groups to get into tech on the college level.

It is also not necessarily the case that picking 50:50 out of a 75:25 distribution will lead to a competence imbalance. Even if the skill distribution is the same for both populations, maybe only certain baselines matter for doing good work, and maybe any skill gaps could be corrected via on-the-job training. Maybe having that kind of diversity is worth the extra effort for the company.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#338

Post by Sacho » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

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.

I think you read his comment in bad faith and ascribed "flamebait" and unsubstantiveness to it. Specifically, the comment states:

> The willingness to slog though abusive working conditions is one of the most highly-selected-for trait in tech.

The comment claims that "abuse tolerance" is one of the most highly-selected-for traits, not the only thing you need to become a programmer. Further, programming skill isn't even necessarily a "trait" - the colloquial meaning of "trait" is often a personality trait, not any possible characteristic of a person.

I don't see how the comment is substantively different from the many others on this topic.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#339

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #310

dang wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was guaranteed to produce an off-topic flamewar, one which HN has already litigated to death and well into zombieland. Please don't do that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hasn't the topic of the article already been "litigated to death" and been the subject of many flame wars? In what manner is that twitter link "off-topic" in the context of this article? Has the twitter link ever been discussed here rather than killed? I, for one, found it quite surprising. Based on news coverage and personal interactions with Googlers, I had no idea people were writing such things without reprimand…

It's a matter of degree. If you think we need more Damore wars, HN is not the site you're looking for.

No, I wouldn't say the current submission's topic has been done to death at all, though I grant you that it touches on topics that have. But it's the other parts that led us to try turning off flags on the story. I would not call the experiment successful.

Part of the art of substantive discussion, which is always in peril on the internet, is (1) to stay in the places that aren't already scorched earth and (2) not scorch them. There is constant temptation to do otherwise, and we all need the discipline to resist it. Generic flamewar topics are black holes that suck in everything that comes their way, so resistance isn't easy, but it's needed.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#340

Post by ant_mc » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #256

ant_mc wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what, you're going to punish someone who mentions they saw the shape of water last night and it was really good? That seems rather ridiculous. Or how about, I'm trying to learn rust and it's pretty neat but also pretty hard. I don't use rust at work. Is that work related enough since it's tech? If I walk up to a coworker and say "You idiot, this damn bug is ridiculous" am I not responsible for them getting upset a…

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments in this thread? and not post them to HN in general?

Would you please stop accusing me of that?

I can't make a fucking comment without you up my fucking ass about it. I was illustrating the point that I think the standard proposed is not a good hard rule.

The moderation here has become truly ridiculous.