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ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

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Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#181

Post by Baeocystin »

an27 wrote: post #163
Baeocystin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's no way I'm going to defend the TSA's methodologies. They a pain to deal with. The good thing I'll say is that somewhere around 57 million people visited the US last year. 99.9%+ had no trouble other than long lines and the general frustration that comes with long distance travel. So your fears, while completely understandable, are also very, very unlikely to cause any actual trouble.

That doesn't really do it for me. Isn't the level of government mistrust and "dissent in speach" you regularly encounter on HN, extremely high on HN compared to the average US visitor? Like, at levels only seen in 1 out of every 100,000 visitors, making it quite likely you'll be one of the 0.1-% percent if you hold these extreme viewpoints?

The sort of stuff you see here wouldn't even wiggle the needle.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#182

Post by TeMPOraL »

ubernostrum wrote: post #177
julianmarq wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> relative complicity No, this stuff doesn't belong in HN, I don't accept it; this isn't tumblr. Nobody is complicit of anything just for existing. At risk of invoking Godwin's law, that's exactly what the nazis said about every jew, including children. > About not being able to sail through life without ever having to. Yeah, let's not pretend you aren't a person who's had so much privilege that the biggest thing you…

The instant someone steps in to make comments defending the status quo -- when the status quo is obviously deeply flawed -- they become complicit irrevocably and beyond any hope of later denial. Like you just did with your comment.

Don't confuse defending the status quo with resisting the misguided attempts at breaking it by encouraging something even more deeply flawed.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#183

Post by cygx »

DerpyBaby123 wrote: post #167
cygx wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gender gap in the open source world is notoriously bad (worse than in the idustry as a whole), and this goes beyond women not being able to pull their weight. There are fun statistics such as that women who are not immediately recognizable as such have a higher pull request acceptance rate on github than their male counterparts, whereas women who are easily identifiable have a lower one.

Source? I heard of one study like this but it was refuted for bad procedures

https://peerj.com/articles/cs-111/

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#184

Post by naasking »

ubernostrum wrote: post #171
PrimHelios wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never said anything about advocating for unqualified people. That's what being against meritocracy means. A system based on something other than merit. If the people in charge aren't the people with the most merit, they aren't really qualified. >Almost all Fortune 1000+ companies are doing this today Appeal to popularity is a fallacy > And it's been conclusively shown to be improving the quality and strength of th…

"Meritocracy" isn't. It's a sham, a veneer layered on over an ugly and disgusting history of bigotry and oppression, to cover up the underlying biases which still exist and are perpetuated every day. Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "un…

> Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "unqualified" or else they'd already have succeeded

You're not describing meritocracy, which has literally nothing to do with majority conformity, but literally reduces to ability. It's the most unbiased position possible.

There is literally zero unjustified bias in a true meritocracy.

When trying to build a meritocracy, pre-existing bias can certainly skew who has more ability, because some group or other has better access to education or opportunities for acquiring better experience. The solution is not to decry meritocracy, but to enforce those principles even more strongly.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#185

Post by julianmarq »

ubernostrum wrote: post #177
julianmarq wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> relative complicity No, this stuff doesn't belong in HN, I don't accept it; this isn't tumblr. Nobody is complicit of anything just for existing. At risk of invoking Godwin's law, that's exactly what the nazis said about every jew, including children. > About not being able to sail through life without ever having to. Yeah, let's not pretend you aren't a person who's had so much privilege that the biggest thing you…

The instant someone steps in to make comments defending the status quo -- when the status quo is obviously deeply flawed -- they become complicit irrevocably and beyond any hope of later denial. Like you just did with your comment.

> The instant someone steps in to make comments defending the status quo -- when the status quo is obviously deeply flawed -- they become complicit irrevocably and beyond any hope of later denial.

Counterpoint: no, it doesn't. Because, being against racism against white people or sexism against men is not the same as being in favor of racism against non-white people or sexism against women. You're doing a false dichotomy.

> Like you just did with your comment.

Good thing I'm not in the USA and I'm not white, then. Now you'll tell me I have "internalized racism."

I'm also gay, facing actual discrimination because I can't even get legally married in my country.

And none of that makes retaliating to racism and sexism with racism and sexism ok. Nor it does retaliating homophobia with heterophobia, of course.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#186

Post by gens »

viraptor wrote: post #69

I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…

>(https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336)

I usually hate doing this, but hey.

From that twitter:

>OG tech diversifier. GitHubber. Lecturer, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

And her github is: https://github.com/nmsanchez?tab=repositories

Two repositories have only a README, with, more or less, one line in it. One has a document about, not surprisingly, "diversity in tech" (and a code of conduct, ofc). And one is a fork. Her contributions to other projects sing the same song.

There is also a link there to her profile on https://medium.com/@nmsanchez

>Lecturer at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. VP of Social Impact @ GitHub. Founder of Vaya Consulting. Purveyor of fine race/class analysis.

All this kind of behavior rubs me the wrong way so i won't even comment on it all.

To be honest i never had a high opinion of electron as a piece of software, so i don't know why i am even here. Sorry, i guess.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#187

Post by julianmarq »

viraptor wrote: post #162
julianmarq wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (they're usually have their own group - guess why?) Self-segregation, so in-vogue nowadays. That, by the way, is also not the way to do things. > No review process is more fair. But if you end up with all-X selections from a blind-review, you may be advertising to a very homogeneous culture. As a result, you may be limiting your pool of ideas to choose from and reaching only a local maximum. There are usually great…

> if you were told that the organizers did reach out as many different groups as possible? If we were discussing what-ifs, then I'd say - tough, maybe next year they'll have more success. But that's not the situation we're discussing. An organiser responded with "we can do better, we're postponing", so I don't have really a comment to that.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc sure is handy... in this particular situation.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#189

Post by viraptor »

protomyth wrote: post #164
viraptor wrote: post #69

I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…

I'm mad because this is a commitment to optical diversity and does nothing for actual diversity in our industry. It is approaching the problem from the exact opposite direction. Instead of giving a diverse audience the best possible information using a blind selection system, the organizers are now going to select based on something that is not part of the lecture. If the organizers actually cared about diversity bey…

> Instead of giving a diverse audience the best possible information using a blind selection system, the organizers are now going to select based on something that is not part of the lecture.

You're making an assumption here that the blind selection process will change or that added/substitute papers will not chosen by the same criteria. I'd wait for the followup, before judging the followup ;)

I agree it could be done in a better way, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#190

Post by selllikesybok »

julianmarq wrote: post #161
selllikesybok wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if people stopped flipping out a out having to think about injustice and their relative complicity in institutional inequality... Like, freaking out about having to think about it. About not being able to sail through life without ever having to.

> relative complicity No, this stuff doesn't belong in HN, I don't accept it; this isn't tumblr. Nobody is complicit of anything just for existing. At risk of invoking Godwin's law, that's exactly what the nazis said about every jew, including children. > About not being able to sail through life without ever having to. Yeah, let's not pretend you aren't a person who's had so much privilege that the biggest thing you…

Straight to Nazis, huh? I'm not talking blood and soil here. I'm talking about benefiting from structural inequalities that favor certain groups over others.

And to the degree one benefits, and takes that for granted, and perceives the calling out of those benefits as a form of persecution, then yes, there's a degree of complicity.

But no one's saying (well, not anyone on HN, anyway, and not most people on Tumblr) that white people or me should be persecuted. Just that they shouldn't be accorded undue advantages to the direct detriment of others.

How you get to Nazis from that, I don't know.

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