When Nerds Collide (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#291

Post by misuba » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #247

misuba wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, how do you know the difference between something that's "who you really are" and something that you simply feel discomfort around being asked to change?

A good question. I can't talk for all "weirdos", but let me tell you about my personal fears. I fear that I will have to give up my intellectual honesty. I fear that I will have to start caring about politics (which I consider waste of time and something that shows the worst parts of our nature). I fear that I will have to start playing signalling games. I fear that I will have to censor my words and my thoughts, so…

What I hear you saying is you personally identify with what you perceive as intellectual honesty, what you perceive as rationality, and the freedom to say whatever you want without worrying whether listeners will like it.

The trouble with such identifications, though, is they can lead to logical errors that make your life a lot worse, by causing you to feel as though a question about your intellectual honesty, rationality, or empathy is in fact a personal attack. This happens entirely unconsciously, and repairing it can seriously suck.

I could go into the ways in which I eventually learned that challenges to my own intellectual honesty and rationality ended up strengthening them both once I stopped reacting to those challenges emotionally and started choosing to believe in the good will of the people making them. But that might just be tedious; instead I will say that in my own life, waving the banner for diversity and equality has come along with being happier, feeling more decent, and being more energetically invested in technology than I was before.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#292

Post by tedks » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #281

tedks wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely spot-on. I think it has a great example of anti-feminist/male-privileged mindset: > Desire for civility and freedom from objectification is "censorship" > Wanting to not support misogynists/rape apologists/rape denialists/sexual predators is worse than the soviets > My fear of social ostracism is as or more valid than your fear of being raped > My chosen "identities" are as important as the assigned s…

> If progressive values are not hacker values, the hacker values will be, should be, and must be destroyed. To presume that every aspect of your value system is superior to every aspect of everyone else's value systems is both astoundingly arrogant and also authoritarian. Improvement of societal values can't come about without minority groups being allowed to practice alternative value systems, as abhorrent as they m…

Progressive values are in fact the minority. Most people on hacker news (for example, but also in the world at large) do not believe women have rights to bodily integrity, to be respected as people rather than sex objects, and to be comfortable in their communities. This thread from yesterday is a great reminder of that, to anyone who thinks HN is some egalitarian utopia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9168299

In order to have any concept of morality, we must presume that every aspect of our value system is superior to every aspect of any other value system. But this isn't a negative. It isn't ~presumptuous~ to believe that murder and torture and rape are wrong. Likewise, supporting these things is not some mere "alternative" that should be encouraged by some moral-relativist position that all forms of society are equally preferable.

The universe is not fair. There is no law of physics that naturally leads to good triumphing over evil. The history of humanity is the story of the slow climb of our species out of the darkness, away from tyranny and patriarchy and towards freedom for everyone, but this has not come for free. The road to freedom is mortared with the blood of freedom fighters, from Joan D'Arc to John Brown to Bobby Seale to Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm X to Andrea Dworkin. In order to continue this slow climb, we have to fight. There is no alternative. This article and the voices supporting it here are evidence of the backslide that would occur if ever we stopped.

It's laughable to suggest that patriarchy doesn't harm people. Read the thread I linked and the comments if you think otherwise. Every rape joke/rape denial is one more brick in the wall of PTSD facing one quarter of women. Every dongle joke is one more pane in the glass ceiling protecting the good ol' boys club. You have the luxury, the privilege, of pretending these things don't exist because you are a member of the social class committing these oppressions. With your silence, you become complicit; and you are not even silent.

It's comforting to know that I'm not alone among hackers. There is no intrinsic aspect of hackerdom that demands being creepy or misogynistic. And one day, just as there are few hackers that are KKK members or Nazis, there will be few hackers that are misogynists. Because the ratchet of history only ever turns in one direction, and once this ground is lost to you it will be lost forever.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#293

Post by angersock » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #268

jschwartzi wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually an ideal. Ideals also don't exist in reality. The difference is that ideals are generally held to be worth striving for in spite of that.

Actually it’s used as a bludgeon to kill all debate, not something to strive towards. The point that’s always made is that something already is this magical and perfect meritocracy with the selection process already working perfectly. The term meritocracy is thrown into the faces of those that question the selection process as a defense of the selection process. Perfectness is just assumed, not something to be strive…

So, bad example of interviews: the reason we know they are broken is because the code doesn't work.

Look, the entire hacker thing comes down to: does the code work? If it does, you're fine. If it doesn't, you're not. The computer sure as day doesn't care about the particulars of the person who generated the source code for the hack, so why should we?

Everything else is FUD, spread by people that are fools, well-meaning but not understanding, or both.

Don't try to bring in the baggage of other failed "meritocracies" into this, because we can actually, objectively, test whether or not the code works.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#294

Post by seabee » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

Nutella4 wrote: post #243

throwaway9324 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That's as good as calling him out by name." As far as I know the guys name was not widely, if at all, published.

Yes, his name has been carefully kept out of public discussions. This is the patriarchy protecting his reputation while repeating the complainant's name as often and as widely as possible to make sure that anyone who dislikes what she did has a target for criticism and/or abuse while the people who dislike what he did don't.

He didn't ask for his name to be published and she outed him under her real name on her employer's Twitter account. 'The patriarchy' is not conspiring against her to keep her name public, it's just maintaining the status quo.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#295

Post by Klockan » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

modfodder wrote: post #184

lucio wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and this distinction is essential: You're welcomed based on what you can do and not on what you are . "white male" is un-meritocratic, is something you "are", and not something you can "make" by talent and effort. "code" is cold, hard, unforgiving ("you can't argue with a root shell"), and meritocratic. She's saying: Nevermind who you "ARE", you're welcomed if you can "PRODUCE" (great code). That's exactly the an…

I understand what was being said. But in my experience many groups say this but in fact don't even come close to actually achieving it. Groups of white males have said this for a long time, "we are merit based, gender or ethnicity aren't considered during selection", but it just wasn't true. Much of the time it is a conscious decision to avoid the qualified diverse candidate, other times it isn't. Just because she or…

Asians got in rather easily though so the effect of workplace biases can't be that hard to overcome. Why did they get accepted? Because they are awesome at tech! If women suddenly became as awesome at tech as Asians then they would get accepted as a group in a heartbeat.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#296

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

vor_ wrote: post #288

TeMPOraL wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not joining, they're invading , and we have all the reasons to feel afraid that we will get pushed out again. And honestly, I'm fine with the fact that tech has grown beyond the culture that created it. I'm uncomfortable that what this "extended tech industry" produces is often a bastardization of what we so loved and cared. I get it, different priorities, I'm fine with that too. What I am not fine wi…

> And it probably would still be fine if social justice crowd just stayed away. I have no sympathy if you feel uncomfortable or threatened by people who expect you to treat others with respect, especially when you use terms like "invading" and prop yourself up as a paragon of intellectual pursuits.

> if you feel uncomfortable or threatened by people who expect you to treat others with respect

That's not the people I'm talking about. Social justice crowd is the exact oposite of treating others with respect. And by their actions they are exacerbating the very problems they claim to fight against.

> when you use terms like "invading"

That's what it feels like.

> prop yourself up as a paragon

Well, I played Paragon Shepard, for what it's worth.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#297

Post by BrainInAJar » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference there that goth is a subculture, while tech and software development is a job. Sure, there's also various subcultures in the software development industry, but there isn't one big subculture there. There's the abrasive brogrammers, there's the sensitive political correctness advocates, there's the quiet nerd that just wants to be left alone, there's the hiring manager looking for new employees,…

> I think the difference there that goth is a subculture, while tech and software development is a job. And here I think is the crux of the problem; it's what the article was about. Tech became mainstream, and attracted people who look at it as a job. From the point of view of us native nerds, we became colonized and are being pushed back from the thing we built as our little place in the universe where we would feel…

Stop trying to make yourself one dimensional. Existence precedes essence. You aren't a nerd, you're just a dude, that does nerdy things sometimes. The things you do aren't you, and you aren't them. If other people want to do the things you do it does not detract from your enjoyment of them one iota, unless you're so self absorbed you can't enjoy it without exclusivity.

grow the fuck up.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#298

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

vor_ wrote: post #290

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the difference there that goth is a subculture, while tech and software development is a job. And here I think is the crux of the problem; it's what the article was about. Tech became mainstream, and attracted people who look at it as a job. From the point of view of us native nerds, we became colonized and are being pushed back from the thing we built as our little place in the universe where we would feel…

> From the point of view of us native nerds I can't stand nativism anywhere I smell it.

Don't read politics into a simple phrase. Cf. "digital native".

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#299

Post by Tycho » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #172

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who try to join nerd communities and then immediately start complaining about "inappropriate behavior" (eg the dongle thing) You seem very sure about when Adria Richards (the lady involved in "donglegate") "tried" to join the nerd community. And yet you're wrong. Here's a partial bio from a recent article: "She was introverted, smart, and "weird" (according to the other kids)—a burgeoning nerd. By age 17, sh…

Is the dongle thing even remotely defensible? She got a man fired over a private conversation. One of the rules of civilized behavior is that you don't do that .

Tried to publicly shame someone, and it backfired spectacularly.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#300

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

misuba wrote: post #291

TeMPOraL wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good question. I can't talk for all "weirdos", but let me tell you about my personal fears. I fear that I will have to give up my intellectual honesty. I fear that I will have to start caring about politics (which I consider waste of time and something that shows the worst parts of our nature). I fear that I will have to start playing signalling games. I fear that I will have to censor my words and my thoughts, so…

What I hear you saying is you personally identify with what you perceive as intellectual honesty, what you perceive as rationality, and the freedom to say whatever you want without worrying whether listeners will like it. The trouble with such identifications, though, is they can lead to logical errors that make your life a lot worse, by causing you to feel as though a question about your intellectual honesty, ration…

> The trouble with such identifications, though, is they can lead to logical errors that make your life a lot worse, by causing you to feel as though a question about your intellectual honesty, rationality, or empathy is in fact a personal attack. This happens entirely unconsciously, and repairing it can seriously suck.

I agree. Thanks for a reminder.

> But that might just be tedious; instead I will say that in my own life, waving the banner for diversity and equality has come along with being happier, feeling more decent, and being more energetically invested in technology than I was before.

I agree. I like diversity and equality. But diversity means allowing different groups to coexist, and to tolerate people with different opinions and outlooks on life. I don't see "weirdos" trying to impose their own worldview on everyone - on the contrary, it's them who are being forced to conform to the rest. That is not diversity.