The internet is a weird place. I will never understand why Adria did what she did, from all i read she is an intelligent person yet she chose to do the most childish thing in the world... tattle the kid that said "penis" in class. I'm not saying that what the kid is wrong, but don't tattle on him flat-out... just tell him to stop before you go to the teacher and the whole class finds out and the kid gets expelled. But then, the whole class got mad at her. With reason, or not. It do... But the point is that this feels like kindergarden. JUST BE NICE TO EACH OTHERS. DON'T BE PENISES.
Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
351–360 of 395 posts
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 77 cents on the dollar thing is just a symptom of the same thing, blaming men for all and everything and portraying women as victims (to excert special compensation for women). If you research the paygap issue a little bit, you'll find that it really isn't an issue of discrimination at all (hint: among other things, women chose other professions than men). I admit that I have started to become very angry about th…
among other things, women chose other professions than men But why do they choose other professions? Do people pressure them into not choosing better paid jobs? Isn't that a symptom. Most feminists don't "blame men", but "blame gender roles". It's just most gender roles significantly benefit a lot of men (and harm a small amount of other men).
My wife has expressed some interest in learning to program. I asked her why she never took any programming classes in high school or college (aside from the little bit of Matlab they gave to most freshmen interested in technical fields.) She said that in high school she wasn't even aware it was an option. No one ever thought to suggest it to her, they just assumed she wouldn't be interested. Once she got to college, she therefore felt like she was already behind; that everyone else already knew way more that she did and that she wouldn't be able to keep up in an elective class.
It wasn't an oppressive culture or dongle jokes that kept her out of programming, it was just the assumption by everyone around her that girls generally are not interested in computers.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly didn't know Appeal To Hypocrisy was a fallacy! Probably one I'm going to continue to make; hypocrisy is the one thing that drives me insane.
Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. Her argument about overheard dongle jokes being sexist is weak enough as it is. The added hypocrisy just makes for sadly entertaining drama / go…
> Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them.
The inconsistency claimed here was an argument against the credibility of the claimed offense. "Offense" is not a objective conclusion of a rational argument, it is a subjective state. Inconsistency in the part of the person claiming the subjective response is a legitimate basis for challenging the claim of offense, and isn't a form of ad hominem fallacy because it isn't challenging the argument being made because of the hypocrisy of the arguer, it is challenging the fact claim in the premise of the argument, by presenting factual evidence.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#354Exactly the article I was contemplating writing. Thank you!
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're being an idiot Says the guy who resorts to name-calling. White male is the most privileged thing to be No, being an upper middle-class white male is the most privileged thing to be. not some down trodden, exploited minority Think positive, maybe one day a minority might become president.
>Says the guy who resorts to name-calling. Notice I said being an idiot. Name calling would be saying that he was an idiot as a state of being. I didn't say that, nor do I believe it. >No, being an upper middle-class white male is the most privileged thing to be. If you have to be poor or middle class you want to be white male. Do you honestly think you'd be better off being poor and black or poor and a woman? Maybe…
Your comparison is odd. If you are poor, you are poor. So a poor woman, poor black male and a poor white male would be equally poor.
Seems to me more interesting is the risk of being poor. I think you'll find that there are a lot more poor men than poor women. I guess this is the case because 90% of homeless are male, and men tend to be more prominent on the extremes (more rich men and also more poor men than rich/poor women). Feel free to research the actual data, though.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly what legal risk for the employer are you referring to? "Termination suit"? You've assembled a series of statements that certainly do sound credible, but I can't figure out how to actually attach them back to employment law. Firing someone without cause or even for a demonstrably faulty cause is not a tort, Michael.
I think the issue is that you can fire someone for no reason but you can't fire them for a wrong reason, even if a "right to work" state. I haven't seen this in law but I worked for a very large company in a "right to work" state and this is how they behaved in all things. If you were fired you would never be told why. If you called for a reference you would be told the length of employment and last position held. No…
You can in fact fire people for a wrong reason.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly what legal risk for the employer are you referring to? "Termination suit"? You've assembled a series of statements that certainly do sound credible, but I can't figure out how to actually attach them back to employment law. Firing someone without cause or even for a demonstrably faulty cause is not a tort, Michael.
White: a layoff for a legitimate business reason (termination for convenience). Firing people who break the law or do things that are unethical (termination for cause). Firing people who fall short of a published and objective performance standard, if the policy is enforced uniformly. These are all considered to be unambiguously legal and ethical cases of termination. Black: firing those who intend to unionize, firin…
"Interference with work performance" is also not a tort, Michael. It's one possible element of a retaliation case.
But your use of the word "retaliation" is also suspect. "Retaliation" in employment law means a demotion or termination in response to an exercise of other employment law rights, like a sexual harassment claim. You can't claim "retaliation" when your boss is an asshole and deliberately tries to screw you. In the US, absent a contract that says otherwise, your boss can do that.
Your white/black stuff looks reasonable, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your "grey" category is what you want employment law to be, not what it is. I'm just an employer though, not a lawyer.
At this point I'm settled on the notion that there is no interesting theory of law I was unaware of that would give the fired Pycon dev any leverage in procuring a severance. You can be fired for any reason, a bullshit reason, or no reason at all. He was. End of story.
Thanks for the discussion.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 77 cents on the dollar thing is just a symptom of the same thing, blaming men for all and everything and portraying women as victims (to excert special compensation for women). If you research the paygap issue a little bit, you'll find that it really isn't an issue of discrimination at all (hint: among other things, women chose other professions than men). I admit that I have started to become very angry about th…
among other things, women chose other professions than men But why do they choose other professions? Do people pressure them into not choosing better paid jobs? Isn't that a symptom. Most feminists don't "blame men", but "blame gender roles". It's just most gender roles significantly benefit a lot of men (and harm a small amount of other men).
Apart from what I said in my other reply, I suppose it is possible that a lot of women don't reflect their options and just choose the traditional paths society expects them to.
If the 77% discussion makes more women reflect and choose professions with higher pay, fine. I just reject the notion of female victimhood and male oppression.
However, it might really be a bit complicated. For example to get a degree costs the same no matter if you are going to work part time or full time. So investing into higher education already is a bigger gamble for women, if they expect they might have kids at some point. I suspect women are not stupid but chose their jobs smartly.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something sounding like /r/mensrights does not make it right or wrong. And I argue against misinterpreting a statistic here, not particular feminists. I wonder why you are so emotionally invested in the belief that women are being oppressed? And what is absurd about men wanting rights? One issue I have with the "discrimination causes the wage gap" theory is that it prevents looking into the real causes. WSJ was just…
>And I argue against misinterpreting a statistic here Pretty much everyone who studies the issue concludes that there is a gap. It is likely that if anyone is misinterpreting a statistic it would be a laymen like you or I, not experts in the respective fields. >I wonder why you are so emotionally invested in the belief that women are being oppressed? I'm not emotionally invested in anything but the truth. >And what i…
Of course there is a gap (if you count the right way anyway), the question is, what does it mean? I argue that jumping to the conclusion that women are being discriminated against is wrong and aslso counterproductive.
As for /r/mensrights I really can't comment. I do think men have a problem, though.
Divorce court: aren't divorces rather common?
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this brands me an asshole, but if I'm doing something that I find to be not offensive, and somebody complains that it is offensive to them, I don't honestly know that I would stop doing it. To what extent does one go to accomodate? If someone finds my breathing offensive, am I an asshole if I keep breathing? I'm specifically ignoring the action of the companies, the firings and all that, because honestly, while…
Breathing is a bad point of comparison. Stopping breathing is much, much more costly to you than making a certain sort of joke. I think if someone said "Could you stop using words containing "e"? Such words hurt my brain." I think I would. If someone said "Quit your "e" words, you bad guy!" I'd be less inclined to. "Words with the letter "e" are bad words, and you need to stop using them" even less (the difference be…
Breathing was obviously proferred as an extreme example, but I could, at least for a short while, likely find that to be easier than speaking without using words containing 'e'.
Either way, I find it highly unlikely that I would even try to craft e-less sentences, regardless of how offensive someone might find it.