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Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

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Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#381

Post by georgeorwell »

Eliezer wrote: post #321
ericb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes beyond Tu quoque. She claims to have been offended, enough to publicly name and shame these people over their private conversation, but she has publicly made jokes that were far raunchier days before. It isn't about hypocrisy in this case, it is about whether she was really offended. https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 I have trouble seeing her shaming behavior as anything more than…

Hypocrisy usually isn't conscious. Why would it be?

Guilty pleasure?

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#382

Post by Crake »

rmc wrote: post #327
Tichy wrote: post #304

Earlier 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).

Men have to earn enough money to support themselves and their potential spouse if they want to attract a mate, or even just generally be considered not a complete and total failure. Women can just marry someone after college and make the husband pay off all of their college loan debt for their women's studies major or whatever. Men have to choose more carefully, because they're the ones who have to pay off whatever debt they incur. (This also goes for lesbians as well, who can't expect their significant other to pay for all their things just because they are female, because their SO is also one.)

I don't know that having all that societal pressure to make money is really a benefit for men. Women have far more options with career paths these days, and very rarely have to worry about money. It's totally socially acceptable to let their family or boyfriend support their existence. This is why you can easily find "professional artists" who write in their little blog that they "make their living" off of etsy when you can easily see they've made a total of a whopping $150 from their shop this month.

I don't think it's fair at all to blame men for women making less money than men. Most women have the luxury of being able to afford not making much (or any) money and still do whatever they feel like/not have to worry about starving/housing/etc.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#383

Post by Crake »

bloaf wrote: post #352
rmc wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Plenty of people without any access to programming classes manage to teach themselves. If she was interested, she would have found a way. Just having access to college classes puts her ahead of most of america, honestly. Most people in America aren't lucky enough to have that sort of privilege. (as much as I hate that word)

I don't want to make too many assumptions about someone I've never met, but from here it seems likely that it wasn't an oppressive culture that kept her out, it was the lack of enough innate interest to kick over into actively learning more about it.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#385

Post by dspeyer »

georgeorwell wrote: post #380
dspeyer wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what I'm saying. The causal network looks like this: S->O | V D->A | V H S=sexism O=other people being offended A=Adria being offended D=Adria being dishonest H=Adria being hypocritical We know that A and H are true. We don't have data for the others. O would allow us to conclude S. H suggests D, which explains A, causing A not to be evidence for S. It's like how flying saucer cultists being visibly cr…

Okay, thanks for explaining, I better understand your position. For myself, I don't believe A -> S or !A -> !S. I also don't believe O -> S or !O -> !S. People will get offended over the silliest things, and conversely victims of abuse will also deny that any was done to them. I also don't believe D, in that I don't think she was intentionally lying about being offended in order to manipulate the situation. I'm not s…

My arrows are for causality. It's simpler this way. Evidence flows the other way. If sexism causes offence, then offence is evidence for sexism. How strong evidence depends on the likelihood of the consequence in absence of the cause. Bayes FTW!

As for concluding !S, most statements aren't sexist. In the absence of meaningful evidence for S, we should conclude !S (or rather, p(S)<.1).

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#386

Post by georgeorwell »

dspeyer wrote: post #385
georgeorwell wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, thanks for explaining, I better understand your position. For myself, I don't believe A -> S or !A -> !S. I also don't believe O -> S or !O -> !S. People will get offended over the silliest things, and conversely victims of abuse will also deny that any was done to them. I also don't believe D, in that I don't think she was intentionally lying about being offended in order to manipulate the situation. I'm not s…

My arrows are for causality. It's simpler this way. Evidence flows the other way. If sexism causes offence, then offence is evidence for sexism. How strong evidence depends on the likelihood of the consequence in absence of the cause. Bayes FTW! As for concluding !S, most statements aren't sexist. In the absence of meaningful evidence for S, we should conclude !S (or rather, p(S)<.1).

Ok, I actually just didn't realize you were talking about probabilistic logic, because I'm used to propositional logic. If there is no way to determine S in the absence of A, then yes, A matters. However, we have a reasonable accounting of the facts agreed upon by both sides, at least as far as the dongle joke is concerned. Given that, a post mortem evaluation of the joke by a large group of people is a much better way to determine S, making A irrelevant, and therefore H irrelevant. It's not the case that you had to be there in order to know S directly. Does this make sense, regardless of whether or not you agree?

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#387

Post by drivebyacct2 »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #233
kefka wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I've always found that self-proclaimed feminists are _always_ offended and loud about it when they are. A few I know go to the point by saying females are better and that all masculine references should be eliminated. They need to vote with their pocketbooks: don't pay for a ticket, and don't attend. I went to a 'con recently: The Midwest RepRap festival. I heard no references to sex, sexuality, race, or anything…

Feminists are people who believe men and women should be treated equally. Nothing more, nothing less. Classifying fanatics as "feminists" and acting like all feminists acts that way is ... well... pretty damn stupid.

I sure as hell hope we can agree acting like all feminists act fanatical is harmful for this discussion all around.

Also, look up the definition of feminism.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#388

Post by Draco6slayer »

youngtaff wrote: post #310
geoelectric wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no, we say server, because server is gender-neutral. Compare steward/stewardess with flight attendant. And some servers will get mighty angry if you call them a waitress. I don't necessarily think that response is justified when no offense is actually meant. But the point is that there has been an identifiable trend in our language towards moving away from gender-specific terms for roles that shouldn't otherwis…

Server is a US thing (maybe AU, NZ too?), we don't use it in the UK. I find server to refer to a waitress and waiter a really odd term, almost de-humanising but that might just be a cultural difference.

To be entirely honest, I've never heard server used in the US, and a few of my friends are waiters and waitresses.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#389

Post by dspeyer »

georgeorwell wrote: post #386
dspeyer wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My arrows are for causality. It's simpler this way. Evidence flows the other way. If sexism causes offence, then offence is evidence for sexism. How strong evidence depends on the likelihood of the consequence in absence of the cause. Bayes FTW! As for concluding !S, most statements aren't sexist. In the absence of meaningful evidence for S, we should conclude !S (or rather, p(S)<.1).

Ok, I actually just didn't realize you were talking about probabilistic logic, because I'm used to propositional logic. If there is no way to determine S in the absence of A, then yes, A matters. However, we have a reasonable accounting of the facts agreed upon by both sides, at least as far as the dongle joke is concerned. Given that, a post mortem evaluation of the joke by a large group of people is a much better w…

I always use probabilistic logic for real-world questions. Certainty is just too rare.

I understand and agree with your analysis except for one point: as I understand it, the exact text of the joke has not been published, sadly preventing post mortem evaluation.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#390

Post by CRConrad »

samiur1204 wrote: post #130
WalterSear wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is she? She published this joke about sexual humiliation from the same conference: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 And the company she was envangelising for on that twitter feed thinks that a visual joke about photocopying your genitals is not inappropriate for their jobs pages: http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png I understand that speaker and context make all the difference, but she made a jok…

I'm not saying that getting offended is the right response, I'm just saying she has the right to be offended. I get offended by people walking slowly in front of me. They're not doing anything horribly wrong, I'm just annoyed. Again, I understand her being offended, but do not excuse it, as you say.

When someone walks too slowly in front of you, they are annoying, not "offensive". You are perfectly with in your rights to be _annoyed_ at them -- but you are _not_ "offended". In order to be offend-ED, some would have to actually _offend_ you, not just annoy you.

Similarly, in this context, I'd disagree: No, saying "dongle" in earshot of someone who tweets about "enhancing" the contents of one's shorts by stuffing socks down them does not give the over-hearer any "right" to be offend-ED, since it obviously isn't anything that this worthy regards as particularly offens-IVE. She obviously claimed the right to _maintain_ that she was offended, but by any sensible definition of the word she actually wasn't.

[Edit:] Duh, that's what I get for replying in a browser tab I opened ages ago -- I see someone said most of that already.

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