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Lynn Conway has died

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111–120 of 429 posts

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#111
post #13

I recommend reading Lynn's story, written in her own words: https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/RetrospectiveT.html It is amazing, tragic, and triumphant in so many ways.

I appreciate her making the effort to tell her story. I struggle sometimes to understand what it means when people say they feel born in the wrong gender. They way she describes it - not just about wanting to do 'girl' things but wanting to be soft and round and feminine - is eye-opening for me.

I read around reddit of experiences of people who wore VR headsets and played a character of the other gender. The NPCs treated them as such, but they themselves experienced gender incongruence. Their internal identity was at mismatch with how the NPCs treated them, and that helped them understand what gender dysphoria means.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#113
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tragedy of Wikipedia is that something like 3,000 people in the entire world are active editors (>100 edits)

The last time I tried to contribute to Wikipedia I spent more than an hour crafting an initial article about Makoto Matsumoto, inventor of the popular Mersenne Twister PRNG, mostly using sources from the sister article on the Japanese wiki. Within moments, the article was deleted by a veteran editor who didn't consider the subject sufficiently notable. (This was apparently not an issue for the much smaller German, Fr…

This happens a lot on the Norwegian Wikipedia. It has a super-deleter, deleting hundreds of articles a month, especially on Norwegian artists, musicians and companies. Many of them have Wikipedia entries in other languages, but for that person, the bar is high. This pattern really scares people off.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Quite disappointing to hear; I know the feeling on discovering unfortunate things coworkers believe :(. I can scarcely imagine the feeling of seeing real progress happen on trans acceptance, only to then see a blowback coming, right at the end of your life. Glad she will be remembered positively.

> seeing real progress happen on trans acceptance, only to then see a blowback coming, right at the end of your life.

Yes

It is surreal

I do not understand why people care so much. Your gender is none of my concern

It is so hard, it seems, to take people as you find them

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#116

For those of you who are inclined to say "HackerNews doesn't deal with politics", I hope that Lynn's story reminds you that any work you do is intertwined with politics. While I appreciate that it's a difficult line to walk, to have productive and relevant political discussion in a forum like this, politics and social acceptance are a part of every aspect of our lives. Brilliant, kind, impactful people are kept from…

> any work you do is intertwined with politics. That simply is not true. Apolitical topics do exist, and it is incredibly annoying when people try to force politics into an apolitical topic (looking at you, Rust community).

I mean, treating people with a modicum of respect shouldn’t be a political position, and it’s hardly the Rust community’s fault that it is.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#117

For those of you who are inclined to say "HackerNews doesn't deal with politics", I hope that Lynn's story reminds you that any work you do is intertwined with politics. While I appreciate that it's a difficult line to walk, to have productive and relevant political discussion in a forum like this, politics and social acceptance are a part of every aspect of our lives. Brilliant, kind, impactful people are kept from…

> any work you do is intertwined with politics. That simply is not true. Apolitical topics do exist, and it is incredibly annoying when people try to force politics into an apolitical topic (looking at you, Rust community).

Can you give an example of an apolitical topic?

EDIT: unfortunately I can’t reply to the comments as I have been banned

EDIT 2: I have been banned to reply to the commenter, dang told me

EDIT 3: dang has now wiped all the upvotes on this message and given me 2 extra downvotes and suddenly another comment I made mentioning him in a totally different thread has been mass downvoted

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#118

For those of you who are inclined to say "HackerNews doesn't deal with politics", I hope that Lynn's story reminds you that any work you do is intertwined with politics. While I appreciate that it's a difficult line to walk, to have productive and relevant political discussion in a forum like this, politics and social acceptance are a part of every aspect of our lives. Brilliant, kind, impactful people are kept from…

Anybody who conflates human rights as "politics" are someone I simply cannot respect A persons right to exist is not political (This isn't a dig at OP but it's worth restating)

[deleted]

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is completely uncalled for and a blatant violation of the rules. Not cool, not in the least.

It is also "not cool, to say the least" to post transphobia in the thread celebrating the life of a recently deceased trans person.

breadbasket is communicating the same sentiment as "fuck off" without using those words.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#120
post #6

If this is verified, I think a black band is 100% warranted. As I understand it, she was a real innovator in VLSI, which I think we all agree is somewhat important :) EDIT: GG, the black band appeared as I sent this

[flagged]

> all people deserve respect simply for being human, they shouldn't have to invent both superscalar architecture and VLSI design in one lifetime just to be treated politely.

QFT

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