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Subtle -isms at Hacker School

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Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#81

Post by invadedby »

rev_bird wrote: post #54
invadedby wrote: post #14

This is a throwaway account. I feel we are being invaded. The culture we used to have didn't cared about isms or whatever you want to call them. It developed through text were it hardly matter who was on the other side of the connection, only skills and thoughts mattered. Those were the good old days, when we were free. Now we are being invaded. We, like every other culture in the world, are ask to not use certain la…

The "no debate" thing seems really odd and control-freakish on their part, I'll give you that. But if you look at people trying to make tech a more inclusive community and call it an "invasion," you're reflecting the exact view that made movements like this pop up. If "the good old days" were really that good, why have women been almost intentionally excluded from IT until relatively recently? Do you mean "good" for…

>why have women been almost intentionally excluded from IT until relatively recently?

I have never excluded women. Also IT, tech, hackers are not interchangeable terms.

>Do you mean "good" for people in general, or "good" for you?

I meant good for hackers. People with a certain world view, goals and sense of humor.

>When you say "we are being invaded," who is "we"?

Again, hackers. We never cared for race nor sexuality.

>who is doing the invading?

Control freaks.

>They're not trying to control your thoughts, they're trying to get you to be less of an asshole.

If anything, this rules make it easier to be an asshole.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#82

Post by PeterGriffin »

mcguire wrote: post #78
PeterGriffin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, why would this be something to try to avoid? Sexism and racism is a kind of cultural trait, I hope you realize that. A culture may be selective on very different criteria. It can easily be blind to gender, race, age, religion, nation and many more, yet have certain very specific values. And letting people in who have the opposite values are toxic to that culture. You can't have a culture that's "open to everythin…

I'm sorry, I don't understand your comment. Are you trying to say that the field of technology development in general or programming specifically would be toxicly harmed if certain groups of people, identified by "gender, race, age, religion, nation and many more", are allowed in to it? Or are you trying to say that objecting to people attacking others on the basis of gender, race, age, religion, nationality, etc., w…

Neither. I'm not sure how I can help you, maybe try reading it slower.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#83

Post by Zikes »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #76
Zikes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a chance? Certainly. Should we let everyone's internalized emotional damage be projected onto society at large? Certainly not. If we're going to let everyone interpret our words however they wish, then the entire concept of language becomes meaningless.

Personally, I want someone to tell me if I've said something offensive. If the offense was unintentional, I then can decide whether saying that thing was important enough to me to warrant upsetting someone else. Maybe it was. Usually it's not. I suppose some people might prefer living in a bubble where they never have to think about how what they say impacts other people, but I was glad to go to Hacker School where t…

I would also want someone to tell me if I've said something offensive. It gives me an opportunity to re-evaluate my words, and reply accordingly.

The reply might be "oops, sorry", or it might be "no, it wasn't." Thats the argument here. If further debate or discussion were necessary following that exchange, I would welcome it, but "oops, sorry" cannot and should not be the default because it assumes that whomever takes the defensive first is always in the right, and that is its own "bubble" worth worrying about.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#84

Post by thumbtackthief »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #76
Zikes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a chance? Certainly. Should we let everyone's internalized emotional damage be projected onto society at large? Certainly not. If we're going to let everyone interpret our words however they wish, then the entire concept of language becomes meaningless.

Personally, I want someone to tell me if I've said something offensive. If the offense was unintentional, I then can decide whether saying that thing was important enough to me to warrant upsetting someone else. Maybe it was. Usually it's not. I suppose some people might prefer living in a bubble where they never have to think about how what they say impacts other people, but I was glad to go to Hacker School where t…

I don't think 'oops sorry' is demanded. You're allowed to disagree. That's there so people don't think that being corrected means that they're terrible racist sexist homophobes that don't belong in society, it just means that they made a human error and can apologize and move on. If you really don't feel you did anything wrong, that's fine. That being said, I don't know how many times people have told me (not at Hacker School) that it was fine that they said, "That's gay" about something because they 'didn't mean it that way.' Yeah, well, you don't get to tell me what offends me, especially if you're a person that's not a member of the group at hand. I tend to think women, for example, have a better idea of what a sexist remark is than I do and, if not, at least bring a perspective to the table that's different than mine and worth listening to.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#85

Post by antics »

Zikes wrote: post #79
antics wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the Summer 2013 batch. Since this is the top-voted comment, let me be emphatic. The assumptions the parent comment makes about the HS experience bear no resemblance to reality. A good example is the consistent theme in this thread that such a rule can't exist without a shaming ritual, or without loss of being considered an adult. The context we're missing here is that participants at HS are self-selecting. O…

> To have this discussion without this specific context is to miss the point entirely. The first sentence of the article: > We've enjoyed seeing our social rules spread into other parts of the tech community. The debate here is around whether or not these rules would work in other environments.

Yeah, and you can't have that discussion without understanding why it works for HS.

By ignoring this context, the parent comment, and your comment here, debate a position that was never posited at all. In some sense you are debating yourselves.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#86

Post by Zikes »

antics wrote: post #85
Zikes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To have this discussion without this specific context is to miss the point entirely. The first sentence of the article: > We've enjoyed seeing our social rules spread into other parts of the tech community. The debate here is around whether or not these rules would work in other environments.

Yeah, and you can't have that discussion without understanding why it works for HS. By ignoring this context, the parent comment, and your comment here, debate a position that was never posited at all. In some sense you are debating yourselves.

I actually agree, but I think it's a debate worth having.

Clearly, this system works for Hacker School. Kudos.

This system is also being advertised for wider implementation, possibly into communities and companies that all of us are a part of, and any broad social reform deserves a good deal of scrutiny before implementation. A key part of these rules, in particular, is the potential for abuse and the sorts of implications they have on the culture that implements them.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#87

Post by thumbtackthief »

antics wrote: post #85
Zikes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To have this discussion without this specific context is to miss the point entirely. The first sentence of the article: > We've enjoyed seeing our social rules spread into other parts of the tech community. The debate here is around whether or not these rules would work in other environments.

Yeah, and you can't have that discussion without understanding why it works for HS. By ignoring this context, the parent comment, and your comment here, debate a position that was never posited at all. In some sense you are debating yourselves.

I'd also point out that Hacker School's anti-isms rule is probably a lot _less_ strict than most corporate HR policies.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#88

Post by thumbtackthief »

Zikes wrote: post #83
thumbtackthief wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I want someone to tell me if I've said something offensive. If the offense was unintentional, I then can decide whether saying that thing was important enough to me to warrant upsetting someone else. Maybe it was. Usually it's not. I suppose some people might prefer living in a bubble where they never have to think about how what they say impacts other people, but I was glad to go to Hacker School where t…

I would also want someone to tell me if I've said something offensive. It gives me an opportunity to re-evaluate my words, and reply accordingly. The reply might be "oops, sorry", or it might be "no, it wasn't." Thats the argument here. If further debate or discussion were necessary following that exchange, I would welcome it, but "oops, sorry" cannot and should not be the default because it assumes that whomever tak…

Again, the 'no debate' is more two-pronged: 1) No need to defend yourself, because no one is saying you're terrible, and 2) Keep the debate private, as opposed to long threads on the HS boards that just deteriorate into this.

The one time I was accused of being subtly-sexist, I disagreed with the commenter and I told her so (privately). She stuck to her point, and by the end I didn't 100% agree with her and I thought she was being a little sensitive; _however_ I'll still be more careful in the future. Whether or not I agree that she should have been offended is irrelevant: I said something that offended her, she seems like a nice enough person, and making that tiny switch in my language was a small-enough sacrifice that I was happy to err on the side of caution.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#89

Post by Zikes »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #87
antics wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and you can't have that discussion without understanding why it works for HS. By ignoring this context, the parent comment, and your comment here, debate a position that was never posited at all. In some sense you are debating yourselves.

I'd also point out that Hacker School's anti-isms rule is probably a lot _less_ strict than most corporate HR policies.

Being strict and verbose leaves less room for abuse or loopholes.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#90

Post by thumbtackthief »

colomon wrote: post #61
fred_durst wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to agree. To me "Subtle-isms" could lead to a culture of fear. When a mistake is vague and hard to understand, there becomes a certain amount of probability involved in making a mistake. Therefore those who are the most active could end up with the most mistakes. In this case, those who engage most with those around them, will likely break the most "Subtle-isms". This policy may simply reward the quiet s…

Or in the case of "you guys", the mistake is perfectly clear, but it's 1) in no way intended to be sexist and 2) deeply ingrained in the culture I grew up in. I can understand why someone might object, but the fact is it is the standard gender-neutral second person plural pronoun around here. If my wife was going into town with her best friend, I would not hesitate to ask her "How long will you guys be gone?" nor wou…

Sexism is deeply-ingrained in lots of cultures. That's sorta the point here.
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