GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#851

Post by naaaaak » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 11:08 AM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #270

speeder wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have on my Facebook lots of feminist friends. One thing they frequently claim, is that they are NOT censoring anything, people are free to do whatever they want. Yet they keep pushing for this behaviour (black listing people that disagree with feminism, nagging companies until they decide to not launch products in some markets because fear of feminist backlash, and so on). I honestly don't see how they don't notice…

>> I honestly don't see how they don't notice how illogical their position are. I have a friend on Twitter who's a raging feminist. I asked her if she was concerned about Carly Fiorina being excluded from the GOP debate since she was the only woman and actually had more votes in the Iowa caucus than two other male candidates who they kept in the debate. Her response was that she never cared about any GOP candidate. I…

Exactly it, but your friend is just a typical hypocrite. She says she is for women's rights, but is really just for any woman who has the same worldview as her and f the rest.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#852

Post by threatofrain » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 11:39 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #721

imfine-ok wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with growth or even sexism/racism. This is a political takeover and shakedown of a valueable company. Moving out of a meritocracy to a hierarchy like this is to move away from performance based influence to political based influence. The SJWs behind this just want money and they are importing their people into the company to increase their control. The use of discrimination is part of the mecha…

We've banned this account for crossing into personal attack. There are a lot of new accounts in this thread commenting in a way that pushes the limits of HN's rules, but given that it's a highly charged topic, we've cut most of them some slack. But stuff like the end of this one is not allowed.

How is that comment a personal attack? For saying that the Github CEO would hypothetically argue for more money? Other than the Github CEO, who has been singled out for personal attack? There are really no personal details or singling out of individuals here.

This comment is low-signal for sure, and smells like a newly minted account to avoid repercussions on a primary account, but banning it for "personal attack" is suspect at best.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#853

Post by threatofrain » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 11:53 AM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #379

I would expect more from a tech company that is supposed to be by programmers for programmers. Programmers are abstract thinkers, and it's disgusting to see them lower themselves and adopt the semantics and memes of obvious cultural constructs like race. What does it even mean to be "white"? Who exactly are they talking about and what is it about this group of people that is so bad? There's no need to bring in this g…

I think it's a weakness to omit thought and speech of outward appearance.

Race for some is more than outward appearance. It's a line of community strategy. It's a shared language. It's shared food. Shared customs. Shared values. There's something beautiful and treacherous there.

Race as a social reality exists whether we talk about or it not. Omitting speech destroys a valuable technique for counterbalancing instinct. Omitting thought disarms people from contemplating social reality.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#854

Post by humanrebar » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 12:22 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #833

humanrebar wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I support the right of the KKK to march through the streets, but that doesn't mean I should have to hire one of their members. That's not the analogy. It's contrived, but to stick with the theme of white racists, is it ethical (legality aside) for a board full of clansmen to fire a CEO that donated to the ADL? To keep it simple, let's say the CEO is not Jewish, but does financially support the ADL.

> That's not the analogy. I was making an oblique reference to a rather famous free speech case. [0] > is it ethical (legality aside) for a board full of clansmen to fire a CEO that donated to the ADL? No, but I have a hard time finding anything clansmen do ethical. If your ideology is motivated by bigotry, that's the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...

I'm familiar to the case. My point was that I don't find it particularly analogous to the Eich case. Having no relationship to some people who walk down the street occasionally is substantially different than actually having to be professionally associated with someone and practice tolerance on a regular basis. I'd also argue that free speech should be protected in both cases (socially if not legally).

> If your ideology is motivated by bigotry, that's the problem.

I agree. I'm not sure corporate leaders need legal protection. Perhaps. But the right to publicly assemble and speak absolutely needs legal protection. That's why I was trying to draw another analogy. To explore the difference between the Eich and Skokie incidents.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#855

Post by csteinbe » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 12:46 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #756

archagon wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how people can seriously claim that these are "current dominant themes". I studied at UC Berkeley, one of the liberal capitals of California. Most of my friends are Berkeley students. Most of my friends are feminists . There's practically no hostility (as you put it) towards white, heterosexual males in these circles. I have never been personally attacked or felt uncomfortable. Most of the discussi…

Did you not read the article? It says they can't even interview white candidates for jobs.

Just because they wrote it doesn't mean it's true.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#856

Post by Zappabain » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #494

The current dominant themes in certain feminism & diversity cliques in our community are openly hostile towards me. I'm a male. I'm white. I'm middle class. I'm heterosexual. I'm also a leader. I'm a parent of two daughters. My mother had to fight sexism issues in her career. I am supportive of inclusion & diversity. I am trying to raise my girls to be empowered, confident & curious. But the dominant themes in curren…

Completely agree with the pendulum hypothesis (a theory indeed already) and not letting any offense make us fall into rage and the other side of the pendulum they are claiming us to be.

Agree also in the big problem with the word 'feminism'. It seems the opposite of 'machism', and machism is bad, to claim supperiority of men over women, so many people still think feminism is claiming supperiority of women over men. And as you say, there are soooo many variants of feminism that indeed claim that, and so many feminists (men and women) that claim it, that when I say 'of course I'm feminist' I always have to inmediately explain what I mean in case someone doesn't really know it's real meaning, coming from the context of its birth, as an oposition to machism.

And almost always, personal feelings, traumas, etc get into every discussion, deforming reason incredibly. Also prejudices about what you are trying to say (filling everything non explicitly stated with what they want to hear, you being the monster they're desiring to crunch). So you have to loose so much time stating everything about the context of what you are refering to, it's better not to even begin, as if they read you, either wouldn't understand anyway, feelings and lack of practice in logic would make them not to reason properly, or would just be the kind that doesn't really want to listen and be open to change in front of new verified data and reasonings, as all of us should, and will attack you using the lowest use a human can give to its brain, a use we have used over centuries to destroy and kill innocents (evil plots, rumours, false accusations, deformation of claims, lies, ...).

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#857

Post by facepalm » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 1:40 PM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #640

droopybuns wrote: post #494

The current dominant themes in certain feminism & diversity cliques in our community are openly hostile towards me. I'm a male. I'm white. I'm middle class. I'm heterosexual. I'm also a leader. I'm a parent of two daughters. My mother had to fight sexism issues in her career. I am supportive of inclusion & diversity. I am trying to raise my girls to be empowered, confident & curious. But the dominant themes in curren…

I don't know why you are so frustrated. It seems misplaced. The system is totally stacked in your favor (and my favor).

Depends on what metric you choose. If your metric is "likelihood to study a technical subject and get a high paying job in the tech industry", maybe. That's pretty meaningless, though, and narrow - there are lots of other ways to have a good, often even better life.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#858

Post by belorn » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #778

humanrebar wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The system is totally stacked in your favor Is it? What about white men who grew up as orphans? Or with parents that had severe mental illness? What about white men with emotional disorders? What about white male cancer survivors? Or white male single parents? What about white men who grew up as historically disadvantaged minorities in their home countries? Why is it OK to assume the system is stacked in someone's…

I think this is one of the core questions that those playing identity politics games completely ignore. The very nature of their own efforts is, itself, something-ism. As you illustrate, they're categorizing a whole group, and assuming that every member of it fits its stereotypical mold. So in one respect, sure, as a white male I had some advantages, but there are plenty of other ways to look at it. As a "nerd" I was…

Privilege, favor and advantage is completely useless single-dimension concepts when talking about demographics. Statistics can show that men dominate the highest and lowest ranks in society, but every only focus on the few top who succeed and turn a blind eye to everyone else. It as if we would argue that people who gamble are "favored" since they have a slightly higher chance to become millionaires compared to everyone else.

White males has comparably poorer supportive network than most other demographics. Culture assume that all white men are healthy and strong, and society carry a discrimination when reality crash with that imagine. Is that privilege? Privilege for whom and compared to what?

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#859

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 2:12 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #494

The current dominant themes in certain feminism & diversity cliques in our community are openly hostile towards me. I'm a male. I'm white. I'm middle class. I'm heterosexual. I'm also a leader. I'm a parent of two daughters. My mother had to fight sexism issues in her career. I am supportive of inclusion & diversity. I am trying to raise my girls to be empowered, confident & curious. But the dominant themes in curren…

A few days after it passed, I complained about the abuses to liberty in the Patriot Act to an older, and very-wise friend. He talked about a sociological pendulum as well, and predicted those over-reaches of power would be righted in time. Given how often and completely he has been right, before, I started watching and waiting. Except, I've been waiting for fifteen years now, and that pendulum seems to only be going further away from liberty, privacy, and (real) security.

I'm not sure, but I'm starting to think that we've reached a point where sociological constructs that would have flamed out, even just 20 years ago, can be sustained, because the people in power to sustain them now have an echo chamber where the message never quite falls below the point of being lost. It's almost as if improvements in communication have now backfired in raising the noise above the signal.

I hope you turn out to be right. As a white, male, heterosexual programmer who's reached his late 40's, I don't need any extra pressure working against me in my career prospects. I'm already starting to hate the H1-B visa program, but that's a rant for another post.

Re: GitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart

#860

Post by qb45 » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

eecks wrote: post #266

bitL wrote: post #139

Seems like another instance of "let the nerds build a company and then take over"...

Just out of interest, what are other examples of this?

Not OP, but I think the "let the nerds build" quote may have referred to this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10238132