Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

First off, on what planet do you think it's alright to hurt someone physically for anything they say? You'd actually punch someone in the face who's arguing with your stupid comments?

Second, if you get raped and do nothing about it that's your fault? I think Andrea Dworkin just ate her fist. One of the most vile offensive acts a person can do to a weaker person and you say it's the victim's fault? That they're somehow complicit?

Third, battered women deserve their beatings? Didn't you say that you wrote your stupid poorly written blog post in response to the whole Porno Ruby Conference Offending Women news lately? How in the _hell_ can you even pretend to claim you give a rat's ass about women if you think any of the above?

Alright, I gotta stop before I step into territory where I get banned from HN. However, I have one statement I'd like to see you fumble a reply to:

I can fully understand your hatred of geek arrogance, since I can't stand it myself, but even at my most obnoxious I never said that rape, beatings, torture, and abuse of the weak were defensible.

Every person who has been abused never deserved the _level_ of abuse they received. Whether it's children, or women, or just someone who's different, the abuser is always more powerful and enjoys hurting people weaker than them. Because of this, they take any tiny little offense and turn it into a reason to nearly kill another human being. Even if the victim changes every single thing about themselves to please the abuser, it's not enough.

The abuse continues, not because of the victim, but because it satisfies the abuser.

Using the dual nature of the word "responsibility" is a common ploy to distribute blame to everybody equally when discussions of blame become counterproductive. That can be appropriate in some situations, especially team situations, but applying it to rape and domestic abuse is way over the line. It's repellant.

What I said was that it's the attitude above that leads to physical violence. When somebody starts wanting to punch somebody in the face, it comes from that particular level of dickery.

I am not at all a violent person. I don't fight people, I don't hit people. I don't have a personality that leads to fights. The closest I get to violence is posting angry things online. And I'm certain that writing all these responses at 7 in the morning might have dimmed my writing a bit, but I never once implied violence.

What I said, again, was this:

If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything.

That's not me threatening. In fact, the one "threat" I made was the one where I lock out my Hacker News account because debates like this are a waste where nobody learns a damn thing. The point I was making was that chairface's comment was aggravating and glossing over points in a way that was smarmy and obnoxious. (His response to the parent post clarified a lot, so props to him.) That's an attitude that's not just on Hacker News. A friend of mine had it when he'd constantly pester a violent kid just to provoke a reaction. He'd get clocked in the eye and tell us all what a savage that other kid was. The point of my stupid poorly written blog post was that this is a common attitude amongst nerds when they handle things socially. They'll do things that they know will alienate them because they think the alienation is forthcoming anyway. In doing that they give themselves some "control" over their hopeless state.

I mean, I'm certain I'm talking to somebody who knows what I'm talking about. I've seen a lot of people dismiss your blog posts because of the "ZED'S SO FUCKING AWESOME" logo or because of your many elongated, poorly written rants. I'm too lazy to search back, but I've gotten into a lot of Zed debates on this site where you get slammed because your old web site was just begging for people to call you immature. You obviously knew that would happen and you went on doing it anyway, so you fit into the category of people I'm talking about here.

You're quoting me saying a lot of shit I didn't say, Zed. Cut that out; if you're going to get pissed off at me get pissed off at me for what I believe.

I never said violence was defensible. I have friends who have been molested and harassed and hurt. I think it's one of the most terrible things there is. And this entire argument is such a loose tangent from the argument I originally made that it was stupid of me to respond in the first place. I'm aware of that. There's a difference between an abused woman and an abused nerd. Nerd abuse is largely petty in nature. I know maybe two kids in my nerd group who got into fights, ever, and neither of those was a case of random abuse: both sides wanted to pummel the other side. So when the argument sifted away from petty and towards serious, my response should have been: that's not the same thing. Abuse and rape stem from an entirely other side of human existence than things like teasing and name-calling.

Child abuse is not name-calling. If you're suggesting that calling somebody a name is child abuse, you're off your fucking rocker. If a nerd is getting hit and hurt for what he's saying and doing, there's something pathological behind that happening; when a nerd is ostracized because he acts like a jackass, he's responsible for its happening.

The point I was trying to make, half-asleep, earlier today was that people who are getting seriously abused should take action to stop the abuse. If you're getting beat up or raped then you should take action to stop it from happening, because otherwise you're letting a guilty person get away with a crime. The only blame on the other person is letting the criminal get away. They aren't responsible for the horrible things being done to them.

But now I'm just repeating myself, and to be honest I can't tell if you just flew off at me because you think I said a terrible thing or if, like your critics claim, flipping out just gets you off. If it's the former, then I've clarified myself, and I'm sorry for sounding like I meant something I absolutely do not. If it's the latter, we've got nothing left to talk about.

I use hyperbole. I ought to have said "proposed" solution. Either way, your response was snide and still hasn't addressed what I said in that point. I think that what I proposed would help the two sides understand each other in a way they don't know, and in my experience the more people get to know each other the better they get along. The disconnect at the moment is that nerds think other people are wasting their time, and other people think nerds only do what they do because they haven't got anything else going for them. When you make people like stuff, they form bonds.

You're descending into ad hominem territory here. Please don't.

I need to apologize to the people I've argued with in this thread, because I've been much angrier and snappier in these responses than is appropriate for Hacker News. This morning I woke up to find a bunch of emails from people telling me my blog was broken in IE and I found this on the top of Hacker News. I've been writing a post for a little while now that I was going to submit here; I only submit things here if they're quality things. This is part of my daily writings, where I spill out a bunch of things on my mind without thinking about them, admitting all the while that I'm not putting careful thought into my writings. So to find that sort of thing here and discussed by people calling me a sad angry little man really just isn't a good way for me to start the day, and it's not how I want to approach my work. So I'm mad because I'm finding myself seriously debating something I wasn't exactly serious about in the first place, but I've got a sense of propriety about my writings and so I refuse to let people dis what I've said without defending myself. You've stood out to me as one of the people who's most deliberately ignoring the things that I'm saying, though this response was a lot better. Again: apologies.

Causes for these things are shared - blame is given to one side or the other for their own actions.

Okay. By that standard I'm blaming the nerds for deliberately setting up a situation wherein they're persecuted, when they could easily avoid the entire situation by not being so deliberately hostile. Does that work?

Or maybe he just doesn't care what people think on this matter.