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

This Industry is Fucked

blog.jessfraz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 311 posts

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#251

Post by knowtheory »

rdrake98 wrote: post #247
knowtheory wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, why is that question a relevant one? Would it matter to the author whether it was one person or many in her specific case? Would it make the harassment any less troubling or alarming? Would it matter to the general case, since the author's story of harassment is certainly not a unique one in our industry? So what point would the answer to your question prove one way or the other? Not much. Which is also wh…

So you're interpreting my first three posts on HN as "trying to minimize the source of harassment"? Because that is a lie. If you persist in spreading it I'm likely to give up my embryonic life as a contributor here. I don't think you have any reason to do this to me or the OP, based on what he's written, but I get the idea. Nasty place to make a mark, despite the value I've accrued as lurker for a number of years. T…

You're clearly not interested in actually engaging in a conversation, so, like i said before, i hope you can find ways to be excellent to others.

Have a good one.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#252

Post by chuckcode »

purp wrote: post #240
vonklaus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a small culture of people online who make a hobby of harassment. They don't have an agenda. They aren't representative of anything. They're not distinguished by being part of any particular industry, race, sexuality or economic status. They are simply selfish individuals I wish more people understood this. It is a big problem with no solution. We can keep spamposting these tropes of #gurlgamers and #womeni…

There are no social problems so large that we can't fix them once we develop the will to do so. > It is a big problem with no solution. [...] I imagine a lot of the country felt that way about civil rights in the early 1960s. Then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968 ... And while it's nowhere near solved, people don't regard cross-burnings…

Completely agree that this is a fixable problem that we must resolve before some "responsible" institution comes along and trades our freedom on the internet for security.

I do think that there is an interesting twist for humanity though as we try to move into a virtual space. Much of the social norms that are hard wired into people to allow us to get along involve actual facial and other cues only accessible in person. It will likely take some training and some time figure out how to deal with each other remotely. There is a lot of work in psychology looking at things like "social identity theory" that people have applied to internet interactions (with some colorful summaries [1]).

I do think that many folks will be surprised in the future to find that the internet isn't quite as anonymous as they think. There are only 7 billion or so of us and google and others could process everything we've ever written in an afternoon. Certainly a lot of folks have been surprised to find that their emails aren't very secure and can hang around for a long time. If you wouldn't say something to somebody in person then it usually isn't a good idea to say it online as well with possible exceptions for concern for your own personal safety when constructively criticizing the powerful.

[1] https://vgresearcher.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/the-greater-in...

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#253

Post by livingparadox »

TTPrograms wrote: post #242
bato wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue along your analogy, that would be akin to the local population saying "there's need to involve police forces, it's only the one guy" "Just because there's a violent criminal in town doesn't mean we have to do anything about it, we're on the whole nice people" Instead of you know, assisting the police with their enquiries, teaching their kids it's not ok to slice open people, volunteering for search partie…

You kind of missed the analogy - we should do all of those things. The problem is that the acts of the violent criminal are being treated as the acts of the whole town.

Except, if we are going to make the analogy faithful to the real life scenario, the blame is not transferring the guilt of the criminal, but the separate crime of not doing anything about the criminal.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#254

Post by zaccus »

beloch wrote: post #130
alaroldai wrote: post #80

Every time I see posts like this, I see people commenting on it with varying statement to the effect of "that's a shame, but most people in tech aren't like that", or "I'm so tired of seeing posts like this, quit making a fuss." And that makes me so angry. Sure, maybe not everyone in the industry is an arsehole. But enough people are, and those people are vocal enough, that a significant number of people feel disgust…

The problem is, just one person like this is "enough" to really mess people up. You can have hundreds of normal, positive interactions in a week and it just takes one a$$hat to make you forget all that. Thanks to the internet, one guy can ruin hundreds of other people's days. He (or she) can do it anonymously and safely from a great distance. For the overwhelming majority of us, there simply are no barriers to preven…

IDK, she's talking about hundreds of vile personal messages. Sounds like more than one a$$hat to me.

And I can't help but notice that as a man I don't get this kind of abuse at all. Literally 0 rape threats. I think when this kind of thing happens it should be called out. Sunlight is a great disinfectant.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#255

Post by breadbox »

TTPrograms wrote: post #242
bato wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue along your analogy, that would be akin to the local population saying "there's need to involve police forces, it's only the one guy" "Just because there's a violent criminal in town doesn't mean we have to do anything about it, we're on the whole nice people" Instead of you know, assisting the police with their enquiries, teaching their kids it's not ok to slice open people, volunteering for search partie…

You kind of missed the analogy - we should do all of those things. The problem is that the acts of the violent criminal are being treated as the acts of the whole town.

No, they aren't. That may be what you're hearing, but I promise you that's not what the intended message is.

When someone says "This town has a crime problem," they're not saying "The town itself is committing lots crimes" or even "This town contains nothing but criminals." What they are saying is that it doesn't matter how many good people there are in the town, it's still that town's responsibility to do something about it. The town can't just wait around for some other town to come and fix things for them. Or go on letting people get robbed and killed as long as it doesn't happen to anyone that "matters".

Women say "This industry is fucked" because they want things to get better. Some people hear this and seem to think that if they personally didn't cause it, then it's not their job to fix things or even acknowledge the issue. But news flash, the only way things get better if the people who aren't causing the problem drive the change. Because the people who are causing the problem aren't going to. They're entirely happy with the shitty status quo.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#256

Post by jessaustin »

rdrake98 wrote: post #182
knowtheory wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Hunt is a nobel prize winner. He already made his career. And the thing he was asked to resign from as an honorary position so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > Please, please, PLEASE show me some evidence that I am wrong. I already did. Your theory doesn't make any sense because of how insanely labor intensive it is. Revenge porn sites, 4Chan, GamerGate, the Fappening, all of it is too involved and complex for even a determined group…

I think shoeluckpotland's original post was wrong to to call those involved in the posited conspiracy, faking both sides, SJWs. The giveaway there being 'faking both sides'. That's how I would see it. It doesn't make it any less horrible for a woman like Jessie being verbally attacked of course. I thought the post was otherwise great, floating what I feel is an important idea to consider. I've never tried to write on…

Go to https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rdrake98 and set "showdead" to "yes". Then you'll still see posts that have been flagged and deaded.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#257

Post by purp »

tzs wrote: post #245
purp wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a particular follower of Randi's and still couldn't help but see the Vivek stuff going on. I wouldn't have labeled it harassment; what I saw was a loud and unrelenting public call for accountability. I don't believe she threatened, doxxed, or otherwise harassed him. Do you know differently? What I would call harassment is that Randi was doxxed as well as swatted, seemingly by the same sort of folks involved i…

I'd count publicly accusing him of harassing, intimidating, and trying to silence women [1] as harassment. [1] http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/01/randi-harpers-bul...

Fair, and we can disagree. I'll say that I'm not a fan of urging people to die in fires.

However, it's noteworthy that her review made several clear statements, some opinion and some fact, in her own name. She didn't resort to ad hominem attacks, nor doxxing, nor swatting. And evidently 370 of 1218 people found it useful in some way.

Also noteworthy that Stop the Goodread Bullies isn't a balanced, objective news source. Their coverage makes clear that SJW is a pejorative term that equates to bullying[1]; that they're happy to damn with innuendo rather than fact[2] and they're seemingly okay with pulling quotes out of context[3]. The only mention of Vox Day, who has participated in the same bullying review activity[4], is in the article you shared. Ergo, I'd tend to say they're not unbiased.

Still, they're not aking lewd suggestions or threatening peoples' lives, so I'm glad they're out there working to represent their opinions directly.

[1] http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/08/sjws-create-fake-... "Well, it appears that bullies (also known as SJWs) are at it again" [2] http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/02/randi-harper-figh... which quotes a Breitbart article, including a link to an eleven year old arrest (the page gives no reason) along with "[...] for what she claims were traffic offences but around which much more salacious rumours swirl, say games industry insiders." Neither Breitbart nor STGRB offers evidence supporting the claim they perpetuated. [3] http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/07/john-scalzi-and-t... ... I read the tweets at the time, and this is a very selective, one-sided collection. [4] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale, which is a good source of referenced quotes made by Theodore Beale aka Vox Day. I wouldn't hold Rational Wiki up as an unbiased news source, either.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#258

Post by purp »

chuckcode wrote: post #252
purp wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no social problems so large that we can't fix them once we develop the will to do so. > It is a big problem with no solution. [...] I imagine a lot of the country felt that way about civil rights in the early 1960s. Then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968 ... And while it's nowhere near solved, people don't regard cross-burnings…

Completely agree that this is a fixable problem that we must resolve before some "responsible" institution comes along and trades our freedom on the internet for security. I do think that there is an interesting twist for humanity though as we try to move into a virtual space. Much of the social norms that are hard wired into people to allow us to get along involve actual facial and other cues only accessible in pers…

Thanks for the link, chuckcode. Skimmed a bit and added to the "read before bedtime" pile.

There's a lot of interestingness around anonymity vs. pseudonymity. From what I've read and experienced, it comes down to how much you value a particular identity in a particular context; from there, it's all about framing incentives around the identity that you value. Violentcranz didn't value the online persona enough that online incentives mattered; when he was outed by a journalist, he valued the real life incentives enough to stop the online behavior.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#259

Post by vonklaus »

purp wrote: post #244
vonklaus wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trolling I am just being a realist here. I recognize that it totally sucks, and it does seem to be harder for women in certain arenas because they are targeted by trolls more heavily. That being said, this comment is wishy-washy feel good fluff, and doesn't address the real issue. If i was being harassed online how would I employ these tactics? These are just cliche motivational phrases. > not giving up and…

It's disingenuous to switch from your original context in which you, a bystander, urge listeners to believe that this is an unsolvable problem, to the context of the victim, which you aren't. If you, the bystander, decide to take a stand rather than write this off as too hard a problem to solve, you help the victim by giving them support, and you help future victims by decreasing, however slightly, the chance that ha…

I have been thinking about this more and more lately. It is a security problem, not a social one.

>So let's fix it.

I posted a thread earlier today trying to solicit advise about solving this and posted some of my own advise. I realized that there is a lot that can be done but I was focusing on the attacker. This is much more about defense than it is about offense.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#260

Post by tptacek »

tzs wrote: post #162
tzs wrote: post #157

Several thoughts, some reasonable and some probably stupid, split into separate comments so the reasonable parts can be discussed and the stupid parts torn apart separately:

Part 3. Since the power that the attackers have in these messages is the reaction of the recipient, it might be possible to turn this around. In part 2, I suggested filtering and trashing (or sharing for research into de-anonymizing the senders). How about going beyond ignoring the empty idiots and embracing their idiocy? Make a game of this. Have a scoring systems where you get points based on the number of threats…

I think there is a material disconnect from your experience of "idiotic harassment" and the experience of most victims of harassment. For many, perhaps most --- bearing in mind that you don't hear lurid details of most peoples' experience! --- it's not a game, at all.
Post reply on HN