Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Subtle -isms at Hacker School

hackerschool.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 136 posts

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#121

Post by thesz »

"First, we want marginalized people to feel welcome, not like they have to defend their presence."

I believe this is wrong. Catering to marginalized people do not make those people less marginalized. In fact, it can make situation worse: http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended...

I think that one should provide insistence on some important criteria evaluation instead of banning something outright.

This is from basic psychology - provide positive idea to focus on.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#122

Post by wmj »

rev_bird wrote: post #118
wmj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone says "hey, we should work on addressing this sexism," and the response is, "be quiet, there isn't any sexism, you just hate fun," that seems pretty stinking sexist, doesn't it? No. Replace sexism with unicorns and reread your premise.

That's silly -- a unicorn's presence is, for the most part, a measurable binary, it's either there or it isn't. Sexism is subjective, or at least more up for debate than "is the unicorn in the room or is it not." If somebody says, "hey, this is some bad sexism," that's a lousy argument, because it's a vague statement that can't be proven either way. You could respond with "no it isn't, shhh" and it would be just as r…

> Sexism is subjective,

No, it isn't.

If you believe you have an actionable claim, bring it to court.

If you don't (and you know that you don't) you have no right to shame and defame people, while hiding behind some bullshit policy that prevents them from defending themselves.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#123

Post by wmj »

davorak wrote: post #120
wmj wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone points out a subtle-ism it seems like it would be fine to ask for clarification and/or additional concrete examples. Or to reject the accusation. That's also fine. It's fine especially when the accusation is absolute and utter bullshit. If you think your accusation has merit, see me in court.

> If you think your accusation has merit, see me in court. This makes me think you are not talking about lightweight social rules at private institution.

There's nothing the least bit lightweight about shaming and defaming someone of illegal behavior, while denying them the right to defend themselves.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#124

Post by davorak »

wmj wrote: post #123
davorak wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think your accusation has merit, see me in court. This makes me think you are not talking about lightweight social rules at private institution.

There's nothing the least bit lightweight about shaming and defaming someone of illegal behavior, while denying them the right to defend themselves.

I would bet $100 to $10 that the article is not trying to describe any form of illegal behavior with the term subtle-ism.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#125

Post by wmj »

davorak wrote: post #124
wmj wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing the least bit lightweight about shaming and defaming someone of illegal behavior, while denying them the right to defend themselves.

I would bet $100 to $10 that the article is not trying to describe any form of illegal behavior with the term subtle-ism.

It most certainly is.

Shaming and defaming someone of a crime that they didn't commit, and mobbing them out of their right to defend themselves publicly (the school's policy amounts to collusion with the shamer/defamer) is most certainly illegal.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#126

Post by wmj »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #80
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 add to that, given that HS is more diverse--in terms of race, religion, sex, orientation, gender expression, whatever--than anywhere else I've ever seen in the tech industry, maybe HS is onto something...

If you artificially create an environment that empowers minorities to harass straight white men without consequence, of course you'll get more minorities.

It's not exactly embedded programming.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#127

Post by [deleted] »

beering wrote: post #29
Zikes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ban on debates is particularly jarring. I get the idea, a debate could easily turn into a heated argument, but if someone told me I am being sexist or homophobic when I am not then I'm certainly not going to apologize for it. If they want to maintain a civil environment that's able to call out subtle -isms, then they should simply accept "no, it wasn't" just as freely as "oops, sorry".

Perhaps not the most subtle example: I may tell someone to "man up and crank through the work". I didn't intend on being sexist, but someone points it out. And then I proceed to get into an irrelevant shouting match about how, in German, "mensch" is gender neutral. If you didn't intend on being sexist or whatever, then maybe there's a better way of phrasing what you said. Or, you can find faculty later, in private, a…

[deleted]

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#128

Post by wmj »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #77
ibejoeb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now we watch as the debate happens here by throwaway proxy. I'm certainly not going to attend HS, so do what you want, I suppose. I probably won't be hiring anyone who comes out of the program, either. I can't imagine interacting with a product of this environment. So conditioned to avoid not just confrontation but plain discourse. This is a social lobotomy.

It's 'conditioning' to be polite and think about what you say. It's sad that you think that's a negative.

Banning debate is antithetical to thinking.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#129

Post by wmj »

thumbtackthief wrote: post #101
ibejoeb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going after the debate embargo. I don't think it's good for business. I choose not to embrace it. I also think that codifying subtly is a snipe hunt. In doing so, It's conditioning people to be afraid to speak lest someone be offended. The throwaways here are evidence. It's encouraging hypersensitivity. I'm also going to point out that rather than attacking my argument, you called my thinking sad. In my reading o…

"After this, we ask that all further discussion move off of public channels." I don't see anything wrong with keeping such discussions private. Especially when you are dealing with a minority standing up for himself or herself, keeping it to one-on-one instead of having to face off against a squadron of privileged people who for the first time in history are being asked to acknowledge viewpoints other than their own…

If a false allegation has been made publicly, then it must be debunked publicly as well. Otherwise, it remains as such in people's minds. It's both illegal and immoral.

Re: Subtle -isms at Hacker School

#130

Post by colomon »

Zikes wrote: post #93
bshimmin wrote: post #33

It's really heartening that this has gone down like a lead balloon here. Seriously, anyone who manages to take offence at a mixed group being greeted with "you guys" really needs to find something better to do. It doesn't consciously or unconsciously make anyone's life worse. It's just a couple of words that are a convenient greeting.

I once had a foreign friend comment on the unfortunate lack of a plural form for "you" in English. We Southerners tried to solve that problem ages ago with "y'all" but the rest of the country apparently doesn't care for it.

Around here we use "you guys" for the second person plural, with the exact same amount of inherent gender reference as "y'all" has. (My wife's all-female college friends routinely refer to themselves as a group as "you guys", for instance.)

Frankly, I sometimes use "y'all" in print, but as a non-Southerner feel like a poser saying it out loud.

Post reply on HN