An Apology From TechCrunch

Distilled into management of expectations.

When you go to an event like this, or say a TED talk or some type of technology conference (VMworld, PyCon, etc), I assume a G/PG rating, unless told otherwise. Sure they were jokes, just told in the wrong setting. Some people like to push the boundaries, and if you give them a soap box, they will speak. This should be news to no one, but when you show PG-13, or R content to someone expecting a PG show, joke or otherwise, then eyebrows will raise.

As an example, lets say you went to see Louis CK [1], is anyone going to be outraged if he did a bit about either of these things, maybe, but that's what they signed up for, both were jokes right, what is the difference, people expect and want a PG-13/R rated show when they signed up to see Louis CK.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_CK

This.

Ted Dziuba has mentioned the tech industry being extremely sex negative, and him being almost afraid to criticize it because of the inevitable massive backlash he would face. And this is being reinforced by the increasing "don't even mention anything related to sex in a prrrrrofesional setting" approach being taken by a lot of popular organizations these days.

For example, just look at github's repository forking message. Before, it used to say the not-very-funny-but-would-still-bring-a-smile-to-your-face "Hardcore forking action". I'd bet good money this was changed to the unassuming dining table due to these same sex-negative, puritanical people who claimed it was somehow making them feel oppressed or uncomfortable.

Sex is a biological need of humans. A lot of the tech industry has forward, progressive views on things such as gay marriage. Why retain these puritan, intolerant, purse-lipped attitudes towards sex-positivity?

So it's come to this? A society that prefers that male nerds spend their time indoors working on a computer screen from an early age is bound to end up with socially inept geeks. The real shame here is that these young (and old?) men don't realize there can be so much more to a relationship than staring.

If the parents of these young men won't do their duty (including the whole junior high blind date scenario), I'd suggest that the best course of action for teaching the resulting lepers is the smoyer social skills class. In short, you'll learn the basic syntax of male-female encounters, as well as the all-important order-of-operations as follows:

1) Looking a girl in the eyes (and don't look down)

2) Having a conversation

3) Having another conversation

4) Asking for a date (repeat as needed)

5) Staring (and maybe even touching) with permission

Our advanced course features additional materials to help when you need to meet the parents, get engaged, get married and live happily ever after. So there are scenarios where its permissible (and even flattering) to stare, but you geeks are doing it all wrong.

Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in a lot of what I wrote. Many of you are as dismayed as I am that this happened, but some of you laughed along without realizing you should be uncomfortable. You need help!

The problem with that comparison is that I can easily imagine some spoof "Racial Profiler!" app being showcased as a joke. Perhaps an app that allows Atherton residents to report "suspicious" behavior.

But I guess the larger lesson here is: do not try these things unless you're The Onion, SNL, or Key and Peele.

Their promised fix, "every presentation is getting a thorough screening from this hackathon onward", destroys something that was neat about their hackathon: an essentially free minute on stage to do whatever wild/strange thing the entrants wanted.

Yes, such freedom means some embarrassments, promotional spam, offensiveness, and weak/unfunny jokes get on stage.

But no-prior-restraint errs on the side of project-inclusiveness and free speech, gets the most possible teams/ideas on stage, and avoids the endless rathole discussion of exactly what the "officially enforced content standards" should be.

Now, the extra overhead of screening (or debating corner-cases) could easily mean fewer teams on stage, simply because of the extra effort required inside an already chaotic and time-bottlenecked get-on-stage process.

Some teams will water down what would have been an interesting/memorable presentation, beyond what's strictly necessary, just knowing a content-screening filter must be passed. With screening in place, appearance-on-stage now implies a level of 'approval' from the organizers that didn't previously exist. That invites further controversies over the precisely-acceptable boundaries, and a bias toward more taboos and caution over time.

Ultimately, the people such content-policing is purported to protect may not get a net benefit out of the smaller, tamer forum that results.