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

Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 126 posts

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#101

Post by olalonde »

vidarh wrote: post #96
olalonde wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why make that assumption? Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men, it's not surprising to see panels reflecting this demographic, even without any discriminatory intent. If anything, you'd be more justified in raising that question when encountering a panel containing only black women, considering their underrepresentation in the industry. The probability of that happening randomly, absent of…

> Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count , 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon). Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty…

I was of course talking in the context of a US based developer conference[0]. It's not a blanked assumption, it's an objective fact. I invite you to look up the statistics. In the same vein, it would be equally unsurprising to see a black only panel in Nigeria or an asian only panel in China.

[0] https://cppcon.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/JTP_9606-1024x...

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#103

Post by colpabar »

vidarh wrote: post #97
olalonde wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ideal world state is one where there is no race or gender based discrimination. The way to get closer to that ideal is to condemn race or gender based discrimination. What's problematic about that?

What is problematic about that is that you don't fix existing discrimination by just condemning something while pretending that just as long as you don't make it worse you're not perpetuating the effects of what is there. In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping t…

I think the overwhelming majority of people (and not just us white devils) would disagree with you. We want to end discrimination by not discriminating, not discriminating in a way you think is good.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#104

Post by realaleris149 »

vidarh wrote: post #68
that_guy_iain wrote: post #28

I understand why people want to talk at conference that have a diverse array of speakers. However, the fact there is an extreme shortage of a specific gender shouldn't really fall on conference organisers. One conference that was blasted for only having one or two women speakers was organised by a women who pointed out that every women who applied got to speak. It's got to the point from what I've noticed from confer…

Is there an extreme shortage? Or is there an extreme shortage of women who applies to speak because they're not used to seeing many women speak and assume they wouldn't get a slot? I genuinely don't know, but I have met enough women in tech with speaking experience as a total introvert that I do find it astounding that someone making a living of arranging events don't have a sufficient network to be able to line up s…

Probably is just that the percentage of woman in the domain reflects in the percentage of woman in conferences.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#105

Post by vidarh »

colpabar wrote: post #103
vidarh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is problematic about that is that you don't fix existing discrimination by just condemning something while pretending that just as long as you don't make it worse you're not perpetuating the effects of what is there. In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping t…

I think the overwhelming majority of people (and not just us white devils) would disagree with you. We want to end discrimination by not discriminating, not discriminating in a way you think is good.

As a "white devil": way to totally fail to understand what I wrote. Nothing I wrote argued for discrimination, and it's flat out dishonest of you to claim so.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#106

Post by vidarh »

olalonde wrote: post #101
vidarh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count , 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon). Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty…

I was of course talking in the context of a US based developer conference[0]. It's not a blanked assumption, it's an objective fact. I invite you to look up the statistics. In the same vein, it would be equally unsurprising to see a black only panel in Nigeria or an asian only panel in China. [0] https://cppcon.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/JTP_9606-1024x...

There was no reason to assume constraints you had not stated, and consider that the demographics of that picture seems to mesh poorly with the demographics of us tech employees, and ask yourself why that is.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#107

Post by vidarh »

colpabar wrote: post #102
vidarh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

There was no reason to say any more. The reply in question argued against something I never got even close to claiming, and as such it was plainly in bad faith.

When you made a show out of expressing disgust for views you falsely attributed to me, you lost any expectation of me taking you seriously.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#108

Post by vidarh »

realaleris149 wrote: post #104
vidarh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an extreme shortage? Or is there an extreme shortage of women who applies to speak because they're not used to seeing many women speak and assume they wouldn't get a slot? I genuinely don't know, but I have met enough women in tech with speaking experience as a total introvert that I do find it astounding that someone making a living of arranging events don't have a sufficient network to be able to line up s…

Probably is just that the percentage of woman in the domain reflects in the percentage of woman in conferences.

That doesn't mean there's a shortage sufficient for you to be unable to find any, and it raises the question of what is keeping the percentage that low, and sometimes part of the answer to that is that people can't see themselves there because of lack of representation (and yes, that does creat a chicken and egg problem). You may not be able to fix that, but anyone who claims to care about discrimination ought to at least consider if there are any steps they can take to try.

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#109

Post by phpisthebest »

vidarh wrote: post #108
realaleris149 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably is just that the percentage of woman in the domain reflects in the percentage of woman in conferences.

That doesn't mean there's a shortage sufficient for you to be unable to find any, and it raises the question of what is keeping the percentage that low, and sometimes part of the answer to that is that people can't see themselves there because of lack of representation (and yes, that does creat a chicken and egg problem). You may not be able to fix that, but anyone who claims to care about discrimination ought to at…

I think based on other comments I have read, we will have very different views on what constitutes discrimination, which to me is an active action not a passive result

Re: Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference

#110

Post by tptacek »

pushcx wrote: post #48
phpisthebest wrote: post #6

>> IP logs from a forum for programmers obtained by 404 Media I am more interested in what forums is turning over their IP logs to the media, what the privacy policy was for that forum, and if other members of that forum know this is happening

Hi, I'm the forum admin who banned Sizovs for suckpuppeting a few years ago: https://lobste.rs/s/s67tjc/don_t_learn_too_many_things#c_nfn... I know this is pure whataboutism ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism ), but I don't have any duty to keep the secrets of sockpuppeting spammers; the forum privacy policy is short and unambiguous. No members have expressed concerns over me banning his accounts in 2019, i…

You did the right thing. Thanks.
Post reply on HN