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

Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

tarahenley.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 441 posts

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#211

Post by citilife »

commandlinefan wrote: post #101
badRNG wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I didn't word it well enough, but I intend to comment on a broad category of discussion that I don't think is necessarily inappropriate according to the guidelines, but tends to produce unproductive, hostile conversations. I understand that anti-diversity blogs often gain a lot of traction with a particular subset of HN readers, but it consistently winds up producing flame wars and can make HN a less friendly p…

It seems to me that HN is the last place you can discuss this topic - it's just preemptively deleted on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Based on the number of flagged posts I've seen on here... I think it's not preemptively deleted, but it is very self-censoring.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#212

Post by NikolaeVarius »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #169
xienze wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. The type of people concerned with being addressed by the "correct" pronouns will list them without being asked, believe me. And for the other 99.9% of people, it's pretty obvious what to use.

Maybe for you, but I don't know what pronoun to use to refer to someone named Xie that I have never met, and it's not exactly unusual for it to come up in email discussions.

I dont understand. You do the thing we have been doing a hundred years. "They"

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#213

Post by _0ffh »

undoware wrote: post #53
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait why are we not allowed to complain about trans people. Are they special in a way that makes them immune from being complained about? Im fine with trans people. I am asking literally are we not allowed to complain about them.

Quoted post unavailable.

Assuming it is true that discussions on "free speech" always lead to "That Topic", maybe it is because a clique of political activists that claim for themselves the exclusive right to speak on any matter pertaining to "That Topic" are among the most censorious and intolerant that most people are likely to ever encounter?

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#214

Post by bastardoperator »

coolso wrote: post #134
bastardoperator wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about everyone else but I've been using non-gendered pronouns my entire life. I was taught words like "they" and "them" in first or second grade. At this point I just assume anyone bothered by this is the actual narcissist.

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#215

Post by AlexandrB »

maxsilver wrote: post #114
coolso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pronouns are merely virtue signaling acts of control. By specifying pronouns if they are obvious (99% of the time) you are signaling you are part of a non-bigoted, non-hateful club. Surely you don’t hate people right? So why don’t you have your pronouns visible, fellow citizen? It’s also a form of control in redefining the obvious. You want to just live your life? Nope, sorry, you need to consciously be aware of my p…

>by specifying pronouns if they are obvious (99% of the time) Except they aren't obvious 99% of the time. They aren't even "obvious" like 60% of the time. They aren't even "obvious 99% of the time" for cis-straight (non-LGBTQ) folks. "Hi, Sam Shepard will be on the call with you today, and will be joined by Alex VanBeckran and Kegan Marton" -- are these folks hoping to be addressed as men, or women, or non-binary? Th…

> "Hi, Sam Shepard will be on the call with you today, and will be joined by Alex VanBeckran and Kegan Marton" -- are these folks hoping to be addressed as men, or women, or non-binary? There's no way to tell, and it's kind of disrespectful to be wrong.

As another commenter pointed out, in a professional setting you would ideally address these people by their proper nouns (names) and not by their pronouns. And if you're addressing more than one person, it's the gender-neutral we/they/them anyways.

I'm actually struggling to think of a business scenario where using the proper pronoun would be more professional or polite than just using someone's given name.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#216

Post by wussboy »

tgv wrote: post #97
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #30

Except at political groups to which I belong, I am almost always the left-most person in the room. The Lefts greatest weakness is an enthusiasm for splintering over small matters of doctrine. Identity politics, tribalism over principle, virtue signaling, whatever fad this is, it's deeply hurting progress.

The right and the religious are also known to splinter over small differences. I see it as a trait of fanaticism, and an indication of tendency towards extremism.

Agreed. It is a human quality, not a Left or Right quality.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#217

Post by kerneloftruth »

monkeybutton wrote: post #28

I wonder where she will go after publishing her book. Postmedia? Bell media? Staying independent? The news landscape in Canada is rather limited and still consolidating. Think what you may about the CBC and its biases, its nothing compared to the National Post where the owner, Conrad Black, airs his crappy opinions.

I think she's joining Glenn Greenwald over at substack.com.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#218

Post by hk__2 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #167
ketzo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is a symptom – say they're interviewing CEOs for a piece on Canadian business, so it's tricky to find people who are not white men – then I would argue that what they're doing is important. There's a chicken and egg thing, and media can be a part of addressing the root cause. To me it seems logical that a young black woman who sees a black female CEO interviewed on TV is more likely to become a CEO herself…

"To me it seems logical that a young black woman who sees a black female CEO interviewed on TV is more likely to become a CEO herself. " Beware logic in this case. A lot of claims in social sciences seem logical, but either aren't proven at all or the alleged proof fails to replicate. A similar logic was used to argue for banning violent video games or porn.

This is a strawman argument. That some claims aren’t proven or that some similar logic was used to do another bad thing doesn’t mean OP is wrong. What OP is referring to is largely documented and is not some small claim from a random article.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#219

Post by rectang »

badRNG wrote: post #92
finite_jest wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From HN guidelines ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ): > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.

Maybe I didn't word it well enough, but I intend to comment on a broad category of discussion that I don't think is necessarily inappropriate according to the guidelines, but tends to produce unproductive, hostile conversations. I understand that anti-diversity blogs often gain a lot of traction with a particular subset of HN readers, but it consistently winds up producing flame wars and can make HN a less friendly p…

> a less friendly place

I draw a line connecting the prevalence and vigor of anti-diversity flame wars on HN and the lack of gender diversity on HN. The ecosystem tolerates a high baseline of hostility so long as you couch that hostility in ways which meet the letter of the guidelines.

I've often wished for an alternative to HN because of it. This place doesn't really match my punk-rock hacker ethos where the underdog and the excluded are celebrated.

Re: Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

#220

Post by thaumasiotes »

lovecg wrote: post #155
kbenson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the sentiment, I think to some degree putting a pronoun down is for the benefit of those conversing with you, so they don't have to wonder or get it wrong. In lieu of this, and because I don't really care what pronoun is used for me, I sometimes just put "any" if it's an option to denote that I don't care.

But that’s a problem for like 1% of people who’re free to do so. Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”. Seems unnecessary to require this as a matter of policy.

> Absolutely no one will confuse my bearded, balding, fat self for a “she”.

I was confused once when a doctor gave me the direction "follow him" and there was no male around. A definitely female nurse had just walked out, and that's who I was supposed to follow.

Nothing strange was going on; this happened in China. Chinese doesn't have gender distinctions in pronouns (except in the spelling...), and Chinese speakers aren't able to make the distinction consistently in extemporaneous speech.

The default is 'he', though, so I guess you're still safe from being called 'she'.

Post reply on HN