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This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

ariannasimpson.com

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Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#221

Post by __pThrow »

hbags wrote: post #137
meritt wrote: post #3

> In my mind, it’s a little preposterous that if I want to do so, however, I have to be ok with being felt up and indirectly insulted. To the author: You're right, it's unacceptable but you know how to fix it? You say something at the point in which it occurs. Nip it in the bud. Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree…

I think it's absolutely disgusting that you criticize the victim for documenting what happened to her. It's despicable and downright fucking evil that you basically accuse her of sharing her story solely because she wants attention. The worst part of your god-awful post is that it's currently pinned to the top of this board. The fact that your disgusting, insensitive post is at the top is why women don't work in tech…

I prefer using speech to communicate, dialog, argue, persuade.

I dislike using speech to bully, name call, police.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#222

Post by wonderzombie »

rfnslyr wrote: post #197
hbags wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's absolutely disgusting that you criticize the victim for documenting what happened to her. It's despicable and downright fucking evil that you basically accuse her of sharing her story solely because she wants attention. The worst part of your god-awful post is that it's currently pinned to the top of this board. The fact that your disgusting, insensitive post is at the top is why women don't work in tech…

Jesus christ you must have SERIOUS emotional issues. You know how this situation should have been actually handled? "Hey [groper], get your hands off me, I don't appreciate being touched by someone I don't know and I don't appreciate your remarks either." 10 seconds, situation over. But instead, OP decided to write a novel on this "experience", and generalized to: meetups, women, and tech. Now if other women read thi…

What makes you think that "get your hands off me" would be enough for a statistically significant subset of people who are convinced that this isn't a problem, let alone their problem? On what planet do you live where people won't find yet another way to 20/20 hindsight somebody's past actions?

You and everyone else who reflexively criticizes someone who dares complain about how they're treated? It's social DoS. A single person can't possibly meet the arbitrary demands of a hostile reader. Folks — mostly men — pile on enough reasons why she's Doing It Wrong, and safely write it off.

And the part where it's her fault for instilling "fear and hostility" because a man groped her and she talked about it is a breathtaking feat of inverted logic.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#223

Post by Crito »

acdha wrote: post #188
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure everyone younger than 30 is well aware that such things aren't acceptable. In case you haven't noticed almost all cases are by people in their 50s or older who grew up in a different period and have different norms for social interaction. At least that is certainly the case where I grew up. You keep your hands to yourself (and typically leave it to women to initiate things since doing otherwise will o…

> I'm pretty sure everyone younger than 30 is well aware that such things aren't acceptable This is a severely optimistic take. There is a generational aspect but the main problem is lack of respect and empathy and those follow no generational boundary.

I would identify lack of respect and empathy as the primary source of the problem, rather than lack of education. The issue is less "some people under 30 do not know that treating others that way is not acceptable" and more "some people under 30 _do not care_ that treating others that way is not acceptable"

I mean, technically I suppose the empathy and respect may be something that you can teach, and if those are lacking then education aimed at raising empathy and respect needs improvement. However I think we are dealing with an issue that will be more difficult to resolve than just adding this material to high-school curriculum. Teaching empathy and respect is much trickier. (And with some people, it may be flat out biologically impossible (though google seems to be suggesting to me that researchers believe that psychopaths can choose whether or not they feel empathy, which is better than I suspected.))

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#224

Post by throwawaycoder »

clavalle wrote: post #210
throwawaycoder wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I wouldn't trust him after seeing him display that behavior. Would you?" Of course I wouldn't. Neither would most people in the Bitcoin community. Nevertheless, now we have "this is how women are being treated at Bitcoin meetups". Btw not only would I not trust him, I also wouldn't like him.

In that case, your comment is misplaced. I don't think this guy represents any group of people either. I was commenting on why the woman might be justified in worrying about a physical attack if she embarrassed the creep because he obviously doesn't have much in the way of boundaries.

Sorry, I probably really misread you. I also read the article again and personally I don't think the situation sounds that threatening - there were a whole bunch of people there, including a good male friend.

Nevertheless, "she could have said something" is of course not an excuse for rude behavior. I wouldn't want to excuse his behavior. As I said, if I knew him, I probably wouldn't like him much and certainly wouldn't encourage him to attend further meetups.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#225

Post by Difwif »

hbags wrote: post #137
meritt wrote: post #3

> In my mind, it’s a little preposterous that if I want to do so, however, I have to be ok with being felt up and indirectly insulted. To the author: You're right, it's unacceptable but you know how to fix it? You say something at the point in which it occurs. Nip it in the bud. Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree…

I think it's absolutely disgusting that you criticize the victim for documenting what happened to her. It's despicable and downright fucking evil that you basically accuse her of sharing her story solely because she wants attention. The worst part of your god-awful post is that it's currently pinned to the top of this board. The fact that your disgusting, insensitive post is at the top is why women don't work in tech…

What the heck did I just read? Look you obviously have the best intentions and you seem to be very emotionally invested in this topic and that's honestly great, really it is. While sometimes it can be impersonal and a tad cold, it seems our community tries to leave ego at the door (sometimes) and make level headed analysis in order to seek greater understanding or offer advice. Meritt's statement had merit and if you hadn't based your whole argument on the feelings it immediately stirred in you, you might have seen the truth in what he said.

Discrimination and harassment like what happened to the blogger truly is a horrendous glitch in humanity that needs to be addressed. We've been addressing it for the last few decades and have made great strides but the problem persists. Everyone should absolutely be letting their story be heard but we need to start nipping this in the bud.

I don't think anyone here actually blames Arianna for not saying anything at the time. It's very intimidating to stand up against your assailant. But maybe if we just talked about confronting these types of people we would all have more mental preparation and courage to stick up for ourselves in the moment. Most parts of the western world are civilized enough that a simple stern "Stop touching me" is enough to end it. Be brave and stand for what you believe in! You have nothing to fear but allowing these public interactions and maintaining status quo.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#226

Post by throwawaycoder »

hosh wrote: post #117
throwawaycoder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already a lot of forks of Bitcoin, some even moderately successful. Actually independent of feminism I have long wondered if other cryptocoins might supersede Bitcoin exactly for the reason of fairness. Assume the world wakes up to Bitcoin in a couple of years. Then the BTC wealth will be very unequally distributed. Why should people start using BTC if they are poor in it? They could as well say "hey, crypt…

Sure, I know there are lots of forks of Bitcoin. I'm talking about forking the whole economy though, which requires being able to at least trade for basic survival needs. From an existential point of view, there is no such thing as fairness and yet, people still create whatever notions of fairness. Fairness tends to be deeply rooted into emotional makeup of a person. Many conflicts come about because the parties invo…

I probably can't follow your whole reasoning :-(

I suppose whole sub-economies will emerge. Some will run on Bitcoin, others on dogecoin, others on whatnot. And of course there are markets for exchanging cryptocurrencies. And there will be tools for just accepting any currency, if the salesman doesn't care. For example there is a widget for accepting dogecoins that automatically converts all dogecoins earned into Bitcoins.

Those submarkets will perhaps compete with each other. If few people accept Bitcoin but many accept dogecoin, the price of Bitcoin will fall relative to dogecoin. Or so I imagine.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#227

Post by DorintheFlora »

My concern with posts like this is that a) men currently hold most of the power b) attacking their behavior in a confrontational manner tends to close doors, not open them and c) I do not see it offering a real solution.

I am female. I think about such things a lot and have, in the past, written about my own negative experiences. But my concern is that this does not give us a path forward.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#228

Post by rosser »

dictum wrote: post #162
zasz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about having a young daughter. People need to teach their sons that they shouldn't be putting their hands on women's waists and legs. That is the other reason to write blog posts on this--to make men aware that they shouldn't be doing things like this.

From my observation, most parents teach their sons some euphemism-laden variation of the idea that they shouldn't make unwanted sexual advances—that they should be respectful to women, "treat a lady right" etc. Even if they didn't it would be irrelevant: when it comes to sex, teenagers and young adults are much more influenced by their friends and by culture at large. A music video has much more influence than mom be…

Entirely speculating, but I think that's because a lot of parents avoid the Sex Talk until it's way too late. I think that if parents instill this kind of respect for consent at a much younger age, it will stick in the face of their children's peers' confused notions about what is and isn't okay.

But, again, I'm just speculating.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#229

Post by pstack »

hbags wrote: post #206
vacri wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with a bit of profanity and would like to see more, personally. But when your comment is basically nothing but invective, you don't really have a leg to stand on when you're calling someone else worthless. And I'd like other potential Meritt's to realize how utterly disgusting it is that he tried to shame the victim into silence. Meritt said 'say something right then and there, it's more effective. Then writ…

No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything. He's an asshole and a bully. If a victim doesn't protest withim his designated free-speech zone he doesn't want them to protest at all.

Hbags, you are full of shit.

Merritt said the behavior was unacceptable and the way to fix it is to address it when it occurs. Followed by the comment:

--- "Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree with you isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as taking care of issues promptly". ---

Then said that a story about a bad situation where the person spoke up about it would be a great story that would spread "like wildfire".

At absolutely NO point in Merritt's short post was it said that if you don't speak up when you are uncomfortable or accosted, you should never be allowed to say anything about it.

You owe Merritt an apology for straight out lying about the content and intent of their comment and repeatedly attacking their character based solely on the things you invented (then repeated) in this thread.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#230

Post by hosh »

hosh wrote: post #117
throwawaycoder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already a lot of forks of Bitcoin, some even moderately successful. Actually independent of feminism I have long wondered if other cryptocoins might supersede Bitcoin exactly for the reason of fairness. Assume the world wakes up to Bitcoin in a couple of years. Then the BTC wealth will be very unequally distributed. Why should people start using BTC if they are poor in it? They could as well say "hey, crypt…

Sure, I know there are lots of forks of Bitcoin. I'm talking about forking the whole economy though, which requires being able to at least trade for basic survival needs. From an existential point of view, there is no such thing as fairness and yet, people still create whatever notions of fairness. Fairness tends to be deeply rooted into emotional makeup of a person. Many conflicts come about because the parties invo…

@throwawaycoder I see. You're underlying assumption is that there will ever be only one single "economy" of which there are multiple markets. I'm not sure that is wrong either (though I am not sure that is right). Thanks for bringing that up.
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