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I knew exactly how she felt

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Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#171

Post by newnewnew »

narrator wrote: post #105
newnewnew wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we are experiencing is a particular flavor of secular religion called "cultural Marxism". Marxists believe that social forces are best understood through a model of class conflict . Economic Marxists explained the ills of society through the conflict between rich capitalists and the poor working proletariat. The rise of the middle class threw it a curve ball that it couldn't explain and it fell out of favor (out…

This is where I was a few years ago. You've found the enemy and it's Marxism. However, Marxism is just an abstraction that is related to the underlying epistemological disease of the modern era which is that we use statistics to prove our assumptions regardless of an actual identified mechanism of the phenomenon. We discard the search for the theory because it's hard and we've become accustomed to believing hand-wavy…

I actually think an honest reading of statistics undermines the Marxist worldview, as with the examples I mentioned.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#172

Post by NoPiece »

pessimizer wrote: post #115
pekk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're glossing over something significant. Some subcultures (and demographics) suffer more from norms against intellectualism. It is more stigmatized as a woman, among the general population of other women in the US, to be into technical stuff, than to be a man into the same things. It is similar to how bookish black kids may be told to stop 'acting white'.

>It is similar to how bookish black kids may be told to stop 'acting white'. As someone who was an absurdly bookish black kid (pre-edit: from a segregated black neighborhood in Chicago, lower middle-class, never knew a white person until I was 13) in the 80's I never heard this once except as a declaration by white people about the pressure felt by black children not to achieve. I agree with your overall point, thoug…

It is good to hear that was your experience, because it is disheartening to think that knowledge or education would be negatively stigmatized in any community.

Interestingly, Barack Obama is one of the big propagators of that idea. I think I heard from him first, and that's probably true of many others, when in his 2004 DNC speech (where many Americans heard him for the first time), he said, "Children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#173

Post by Dewie »

Sometimes I feel alienated both by the "normal" crowd and the "nerd" crowd - it's like I am some hybrid that can't seem to feel a strong identity to either group (normal/nerdy because that is a common dichotomy). It doesn't help that being "nerdy" is now a hip/self-ironic thing, and people will flaunt how they are the most geekiest person ever because - and I can't really relate to feeling such a strong identity with an archetype.

I've also never seen Star Wars, for some reason.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#174

Post by chris_mahan »

overgryphon wrote: post #79
ryanmolden wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I used to attribute it to douchiness, and sometimes it can be. Some people seem to feel the need to flaunt some kind of (mostly imaginary) superiority over others. That said, the curse of knowledge is also a good explanation. Some people just assume it is common knowledge because for them and others they talk with it is, so when they encounter someone that doesn't know it, it is easy to think "they must be an i…

It's laziness. Instead of recognizing that everyone got where they are now by a different path where they learned different things and appreciating the diversity of knowledge that creates, it's so much easier to say, you should have known that.

It's laziness, and it's also lack of empathy.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#175

Post by chris_mahan »

scott_s wrote: post #123
msutherl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I also sometimes work as a programmer with fashion people and I just made some time to learn all the references. These days I work as a sort of fashion person for a chip manufacturer. I can hold a conversation about Haskell and I wear designer clothes to the office. Do both. When you're being Othered, ask questions, listen, and adapt.

I think his point is that you should avoid mocking people who don't happen to know about your sub-culture.

What I like is when I tell people what I do and they realize it has a direct impact on the economic recovery of the United States, and then suddenly they feel silly for making fun of me for not using decorators in python. At that moment, they realize that their sub-culture, while enjoyable in itself, is not 42.

I liken it to this (perhaps badly translated, perhaps misappropriated) Chinese saying: "If your philosophy does not wash rice, I'm not interested."

In 2003, ESR wrote of this in "The Art of UNIX Programming" (which I have on my desk): http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/end-user.html

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#176

Post by shardling »

philwelch wrote: post #158
eightpersimmons wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely - women sometimes internalize and participate in misogynistic and cruel behavior, and it can be hard to talk about. I've seen this happen with the "fake geek girl" phenomenon - some women who feel that they are legitimate parts of the community participate in this kind of destructive policing because they've bought into the cultural misogyny and are often rewarded and have their status reinforced in their…

Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? When women bully other women, it's because they're agents of the patriarchy?

It doesn't sound ridiculous to me; perhaps you have a different conception about what the word patriarchy means in this context?

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#177

Post by [deleted] »

AlexandrB wrote: post #116
newnewnew wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we are experiencing is a particular flavor of secular religion called "cultural Marxism". Marxists believe that social forces are best understood through a model of class conflict . Economic Marxists explained the ills of society through the conflict between rich capitalists and the poor working proletariat. The rise of the middle class threw it a curve ball that it couldn't explain and it fell out of favor (out…

> nobody cares that there are no female garbage collectors or miners Just like nobody cares that there are very-few/no male prostitutes or strippers. The underclass you speak of is split along gender lines too - unfortunately.

[deleted]

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#178

Post by marquis »

AlexandrB wrote: post #116
newnewnew wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we are experiencing is a particular flavor of secular religion called "cultural Marxism". Marxists believe that social forces are best understood through a model of class conflict . Economic Marxists explained the ills of society through the conflict between rich capitalists and the poor working proletariat. The rise of the middle class threw it a curve ball that it couldn't explain and it fell out of favor (out…

> nobody cares that there are no female garbage collectors or miners Just like nobody cares that there are very-few/no male prostitutes or strippers. The underclass you speak of is split along gender lines too - unfortunately.

>nobody cares that there are very-few/no male prostitutes

Prostitution is very common in the gay and especially trans-gendered community. It may just take a different flavour of prostitution and a different sense of power balance.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#179

Post by sanderjd »

chris_mahan wrote: post #175
scott_s wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is that you should avoid mocking people who don't happen to know about your sub-culture.

What I like is when I tell people what I do and they realize it has a direct impact on the economic recovery of the United States, and then suddenly they feel silly for making fun of me for not using decorators in python. At that moment, they realize that their sub-culture, while enjoyable in itself, is not 42. I liken it to this (perhaps badly translated, perhaps misappropriated) Chinese saying: "If your philosophy…

Maybe I missed this somewhere else in the thread but ... what do you do? I feel like I can't quite grok your comment without that context.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#180

Post by sanderjd »

stickfigure wrote: post #163
DanBC wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found wine-types much easier to deal with once I learnt that there's a bunch of chemicals which cause tastes in wine, and there's a list of recognized names that people use to describe those tastes. Still, I would strongly prefer any tasting sessions and reporting to be done double blind. With only a sub-editor knowing the name of the wine and putting that in at the last minute.

Wine-types are always much easier to deal with after your second glass.

The right approach to someone who says they have a particularly delicious bottle of wine is always "let's talk about it after I've had a couple glasses".
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