We were wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: We were wrong

#101

Post by scarmig » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

hacker789 wrote: post #28

Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men. If it becomes necessary to take a few quotes out of context in our noble quest to protect the fairer sex, so be it. Kudos to Kickstarter for adhering to feminist principles. > The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advic…

”5) Get CLOSE to her, damn it! To quote Rob Judge, “Personal space is for pussies.” I already told you that the most successful seducers are those who can’t keep their hands off of women. Well you’re not gonna be able to do that if you aren’t in close! ” “All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality. Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That’s hot. It arouses her physically and psychologically.”

“Decide that you’re going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.”

I don't know if it should have been removed from Kickstarter, but this is bad, bad behavior that must be discouraged.

As for the "whip your cock out and drag her hand to it" bit, everything's contextual, but for some reason I'm skeptical that people buying a "seduction guide" will grok the very subtle facets of circumstance that might make that consensual.

Re: We were wrong

#102

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

loumf wrote: post #44

iandanforth wrote: post #30

I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom of speech also protects the freedom to hate and be a terrible person. There are countless texts, movies, and other 'creative works' which both condone and encourage violence against women, mass murder, torture, and other things I find abhorrent, but I don't get to b…

"Freedom of speech" is a limit on the government, not on private companies.

As usually codified in law. There is plenty of room for people to believe that rights to speech should enjoy greater protections (I don't mean to defend that position, I mean to acknowledge it).

Re: We were wrong

#103

Post by dspeyer » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #62

iandanforth wrote: post #30

I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom of speech also protects the freedom to hate and be a terrible person. There are countless texts, movies, and other 'creative works' which both condone and encourage violence against women, mass murder, torture, and other things I find abhorrent, but I don't get to b…

Freedom of Speech goes out the window when you start dealing with private enterprise. Kickstarter doesn't have the power to "ban" anything more than you or I. They're just addressing the kind of content they don't want to be promoting, which is totally within their rights.

There don't seem to be any direct competitors to kickstarter, so when kickstarter chooses to ban something from their site, they ban it from getting kickstarted. Just because they don't use violence doesn't mean they don't have power, or that their power doesn't come with responsibility.

Re: We were wrong

#104

Post by Metrop0218 » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

hacker789 wrote: post #28

Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men. If it becomes necessary to take a few quotes out of context in our noble quest to protect the fairer sex, so be it. Kudos to Kickstarter for adhering to feminist principles. > The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advic…

EDIT: Apparently the OP was being sarcastic, and I failed to read deep enough into the ASCII characters. But if he hadn't been sarcastic, I would've still said what I said below.

What the hell? I had to read this over 6 times to make sure I was understanding it correctly.

"Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men."

That right there ladies and gentlemen, is the thinking that permeates and sustains misogyny throughout our world.

I understand that the original poster had good intentions, but the way is high and his eyes are definitely upon the ground.

Women are not sensitive, fragil, or inferior. Please avoid false blanket statements like this.

Re: We were wrong

#105

Post by fusiongyro » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #72

iandanforth wrote: post #30

I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom of speech also protects the freedom to hate and be a terrible person. There are countless texts, movies, and other 'creative works' which both condone and encourage violence against women, mass murder, torture, and other things I find abhorrent, but I don't get to b…

I've been tweeting jeers to @DoSomething (the group that garnered the petition) and kudos to Perry Chen and Kickstarter for not having ceded to censorship. To be fair, the book is ugly. The passages quoted are disgusting. I would never buy this book, nor endorse that anyone else buy this book. If asked, I would state that I think the book is disgusting and that you probably should not buy it. What is even more disgus…

You have kind of a funny idea of censorship. Kickstarter can't stop the book from being made, and authors are certainly not owed assistance by Kickstarter or anyone else to get their work published. It's actually never been easier to get books published and there's certainly no actual censorship happening here. The only role Kickstarter plays is aggregating funds. The author is not limited from pursuing that goal through other means.

Re: We were wrong

#106

Post by rlt » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #56

hacker789 wrote: post #28

Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant, vigilant protection from honorable men. If it becomes necessary to take a few quotes out of context in our noble quest to protect the fairer sex, so be it. Kudos to Kickstarter for adhering to feminist principles. > The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advic…

Is this a joke? Inferior? Women like to have sex just like men do. But many women, especially in their early 20s, are often reluctant to take the first step. So a man needs to take action. That's what the whole fuss is about.

I'm pretty sure the OP was being sarcastic.

Re: We were wrong

#107

Post by ebbv » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

Dear fellow HN dwellers,

If you read the writings of the Guide's author and do not recognize that it is misogynistic and advocating sexual assault, you have a problem. That problem is that you are mistaking sexual assault for "taking the first step."

You do not need to resort to pulling out your dick and forcibly placing the woman's hand on it in order to "make a move." There's literally hundreds of other things that aren't sexual assault that you could do before resorting to that.

If you believe that's a reasonable "move" to make, then you not only have no imagination, but your judgment of what's acceptable behavior is way, way off. It doesn't matter if this is a woman who you're behind closed doors with for the first time, that's not a normal, acceptable "move". That kind of thing is for people already in an established, ongoing relationship with a solid foundation of consent.

Without that consent, it is assault.

I strongly urge all of you who "do not see the problem" with the author's writings to do more research into exactly what consent is, and what women (as a whole, obviously it varies from individual to individual) see as acceptable, expected behavior.

If women are loudly saying "This is assault.", you need to take them at their word, because it is their judgment, it is their consent that matters. Not yours.

Sincerely,

A married, 34 year old HNer who is ashamed of this community right now.

EDIT:

I thought this was obvious but I have already read all the comments in this thread and all the "context" the excusers are providing. If you think pointing me to that again is refuting my points, then you didn't understand what I wrote.

Re: We were wrong

#108

Post by angersock » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #54

angersock wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind listing some of the quotes you found "rapey"?

The blog post linked from the kickstarter blog post includes lots of examples of what most people would consider to be "rapey" “Decide that you’re going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.” http://caseymalone.com/post/53339539674/this-is-not-fucking-...

According to the author, that was taken from a section on what to do once already in a private setting:

"The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates, spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors fooling around."

Out of context, yes, that's awfully rude. But, given the predicating situation, it is not nearly as much so.

Re: We were wrong

#109

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #59

gilrain wrote: post #15

I won't touch the issue of whether the action was right or wrong here on Hacker News, but I think everyone has to admit that this is a brilliant example of an apology done well. They do not equivocate (the "sorry you were offended" apology) and they take direct action to fix what their users felt was wrong (new policy made) as well as somewhat atone for the original offense (donation to RAINN). It's also written simp…

I don't see it as brilliant, I see it as a giant foot-in-mouth situation (which may be colored by the fact that I don't have a problem with seduction guides in general, and haven't seen the material in question) - until now Kickstarter has been neutral on legal content so if I see something I don't like, well too bad, but now there is a precedent for removing something because somebody finds it offensive, but others…

> until now Kickstarter has been neutral on legal content

No it hasn't. They've had clear policies about certain types of content. They even say in this blog that if they'd seen the Reddit material when the KickStarter had been created they would not have allowed it.

Re: We were wrong

#110

Post by bmelton » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #59

gilrain wrote: post #15

I won't touch the issue of whether the action was right or wrong here on Hacker News, but I think everyone has to admit that this is a brilliant example of an apology done well. They do not equivocate (the "sorry you were offended" apology) and they take direct action to fix what their users felt was wrong (new policy made) as well as somewhat atone for the original offense (donation to RAINN). It's also written simp…

I don't see it as brilliant, I see it as a giant foot-in-mouth situation (which may be colored by the fact that I don't have a problem with seduction guides in general, and haven't seen the material in question) - until now Kickstarter has been neutral on legal content so if I see something I don't like, well too bad, but now there is a precedent for removing something because somebody finds it offensive, but others…

Agreed. The more dangerous precedent is that they are willing to cave to a vocal group who may or may not be right. Without defending the material, because I frankly can't, I am troubled to see Kickstarter imposing its own value judgements on projects, and even worse than that, now subject themselves to the value judgements of whichever populace can prove to be the most vocal.