When Nerds Collide (2014)

When Nerds Collide (2014)
medium.com

Both groups [geek feminists and brogrammers] are latecomers barging in on a cultural space that was once a respite for us, and we don’t appreciate either group bringing its cultural conflicts into our space in a way that demands we choose one side or the other. That’s a false dichotomy, and false dichotomies make us want to tear our hair out.

I’m not claiming that’s entirely rational, because fear isn’t rational, but it sure does explain the response to being told that our culture is broken and must be adapted to accommodate the very people who rallied it into being by shunning us from theirs.

Trying to convince hacker culture to change its norms by appealing to progressive values alone won’t work. You’re going to have to appeal to hacker values, and nobody’s done that yet.

leading with “there are more of us than there are of you, so you have to change to accommodate us” is, hands down, the best way to ensure that your carefully constructed appeal will fall on deaf ears.

We made these communities to escape the people that tried to force their norms and values on us, who tried to pass judgement on us and ostracise us because of our differences. So it should be obvious why we circle the wagons when someone comes with accusations, demanding access to our group and insinuating that our reluctance to accept them is due to something wrong with us, something bad that we have done. They are acting exactly like the kind of people we're trying to keep out. I'm not saying we're perfect and have no biases of our own, but trying to force your way via moral or social might is not going to work.

These bits resonated with me more than I had expected. The declaration "life is not like high school" is only partially true. College offers a temporary respite since are significantly more likely to be around people with a distinct interest in building things and learning things, in an environment where the "politics" are somewhat restrained.

... But afterwards, back in the "Real World", some of the same high-school factors return, as you see an increase in the social and financial predators, parasites, and empire-builders.

> We don’t always live up to this value as well as we should[...] In our ideal world, though, your identity and personal history are orthogonal to your commit history.

To use an analogy, this is like the ideals of "rule of law" or "freedom of speech" in various countries. Even when there are chronic violations in practice, it's still hugely important and valuable that the culture still holds it up as a goal. Even among two nations equally authoritarian in practice, the one where the population all knows and recites the social-mores of democracy is much much better-off and more likely to achieve them.

The creation and maintenance of a widely-believed idea (especially one which is sometimes inconvenient to individuals and institutions) represents an enormous and ongoing investment in collective effort and willpower.

The fact that we even have a collective shared-ideal of "we judge you by your work" is an achievement worth celebrating and continuing, even if we individually fail at it, or even fail at it a lot.

I agree with respect to the overall piece, what I meant was that the "code is no respecter of persons" section is mainly reacting to "nerds in their boys-only treehouse"-type accusations.

It's not a defense of the behavior, of course, but a defense of the culture occurs in: "Yes, people do bad things, but it's despite the unifying cultural ideals, not because of them."

Even if a bad actor finds rationalizations or excuses for a common-behavior, on the whole you have the option of making an appeal to the common-ideals.