My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also perceived intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a landmine)).
From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share). Same questions are being understood by neurotypicals as expressing intentions, in a covert way.
Nerd: I read that X, on the average, are less interested in tech.
A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior.
A non-nerd disagrees with the perceived intention and fights back, while a nerd perceives it as immunity to facts and unwillingness for a discussion.
That said:
- not all nerds are well-intentioned and open-minded
- workplace is not a place for all possible talks (or other social activities); if it makes people feel bad, excluded or less productive - it may be an argument to keep such discussions outside of the workplace; in particular, workplace is not an evolutionary biology discussion club
"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior."
I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear arguments from biology!" She said it with the same tone and conviction you'd label someone a racist.
It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument, it means we can say the fight for gender equality is finished, that whenever equality exists, we can all throw our hands up in the air and say, "It's biology!" I can see the danger but at the same time, the alternative--denying reality--is far more insidious.
I can of understand her reaction (I would have had the same) and for me it’s in fact not very dangerous:
- to my knowledge it’s impossible to separate biology and culture with the data we have
- some discriminations were and are made by wrongfully attributing it to biological traits
- since it’s hard or impossible to separate things a lot of people (myself included) adopt « it’s not biology it’s culture » by default because we think if we are wrong it causes less harm and is less dangerous than falsely attributing something to biology, and if it’s right then it helps the society progress.
I understand closing the debate is frustrating for the scientifically minded and rationale people, but my opinion is that it’s not a bad heuristic for society as a whole at least until we make progress. But obviously the debate can happen in the right context, but I find it dangerous to introduce it in the actual climate of crtitical thinking we are in
What do you consider to be the right context for public debates about these thorny issues?
What besides communicating with each other about those issues will move us forward?
I don't think they will go away by themselves and I agree that some cannot be resolved, but then we should politely agree to disagree, after having explained our reasoning for each other's viewpoints, no?
Disclaimer: I work in this space and we get this reaction quite often, so I am happy to read your thoughts on this.
What I'm saying is that introducing biology at this point in the debate, by looking if the inequality is "natural" because phenotype A or chromosome B gives you some edge or not in science or other discipline, is kind of irrelevant given the weight of culture in our societies.
I find it even dangerous because I don't think a lot of people are ready to understand the subtleties of a shift in a normal distribution (if one is present), and it'll just give them a wrong/misused "scientific" evidence for reinforcing their prejudices. Because I can't teach critical thinking in minutes I now resort to "it's always cultural" and try to move the debate forward to the (IMHO) main causes.
(not a native english speaker so sorry if I missed your point)
I disagree, we should always, when available, use our best source of knowledge to argue about issues. Always. I see no reason to say, "hmm let's go and use lesser quality evidence."
I would even say that, if you don't know the science about an issue, it might be the wisest to refrain from having a strong position on a matter, at all.
Sure, many people do not understand statistics, I would dare postulate many many scientists don't properly understand stats ;)
But, if we do away with the science domain, people will resort to another domain, which is normally trumped in debates by scientific arguments. And that is, anecdotal evidence. And people will use it just as much and as falsely to defend their believes.
You're saying you want to keep science out of the 'debate.' That's not a debate. That's religion. You refuse to allow scientific evidence into the discussion because you don't trust people with that knowledge. We can't discuss science is what you're saying. We're supposed to keep our heads in the sand and pretend that genetics don't exist to support your agenda. No thank you.
I’m not saying I want to keep science out of the debate, I’m saying with our current state of knowledge there is no evidence to help conclude anything and tell things apart between biology and culture in complex high level chain of decisions like choosing a career path.
We can’t say “biology=true science!” and try to shoehorn it in the debate no matter what, this, is unscientific.
Yes, given that we don’t know, assuming it’s always culture to help society progress (and implicitly saying society needs a change) is a political and philosophical opinion, and on this we can disagree, but don’t invoke religion vs science to create a false dichotomy and paint me on the irrational side.
It's like you didn't read the comment you're replying to. You do not have good evidence that romance is shaped by evolutionary, rather than cultural, forces. Of course there's a biological motivation for procreation but unless you're going to play semantic games and define "romance" as any activity involved in pursuit of procreation, that motivation doesn't explain specific behaviors.
"It" being a biological basis for romantic behavior? We've survived this long without know how, or if, biology determines our current romantic behavior, I think we'll be okay. We're not going to go extinct because everyone is fucking robots.
Humans have existed a lot longer than science or the contemplation of nature vs. nurture.
> no evidence of the opposite
There's plenty of evidence that romantic behavior is culturally determined. Just look at how much it has changed over the centuries even though, biologically, humans have hardly changed at all. There's also the wide variance between cultures geographically in which we're all biologically the same.
Chances are this didn't have so much to do with open debate as making a faux pas.
1. Scandinavian society is largely based on that biology isn't a good enough justification for inequality. Unless you're being very specific you also end up making an argument against Scandinavia equality. Which is something that many Scandinavians would obviously disagree with. (the argument, not necessarily the arguing).
2. Scandinavians, compared to other people, have few things in modern history to be ashamed of. Unfortunately eugenics is one of those few things. [0]
3. Presenting a casual theory to someone in the field is generally not a good idea. Maybe especially so if it's in a social setting, if your theory states the importance of a competing field and/or if you are part of the historic majority addressing the historic minority. Since them not being taken seriously can be an issue.
4. The research of biological traits doesn't seem to support the large gender difference in technology. The overlap between men and women is large, the correlation between gender traits and e.g. intelligence is weak and differences to other fields seem hard to explain. Even if you accept the idea that women don't like x and technology has a lot of x it's hard to explain why technology must have a lot of x. Other than being dominated for a long time by people who like x. At least while establishing causation, or even correlation, between the factors.
> Presenting a casual theory to someone in the field is generally not a good idea.
I don't buy that at all. As long as the argument is based on science, there's no reason you can close your ears to other fields of study that could affect your own.
> The research of biological traits doesn't seem to support the large gender difference in technology.
Nor does the research support that the large difference in due to social construct. The default answer "It's all due to social construct" is presumptuous.
There's an interesting paradox. In countries with more gender equality, like Sweden, women end up in more traditionally female fields, like nursing where as in countries with less equality, like India, women end up in more traditionally male fields, like engineering. Do a search for the Swedish gender equality paradox.
The male to female ratio of autism is 4:1. There are other studies that show genetic differences in gender that exist outside of social construct. Male monkeys tend to play with boy toys, while female monkeys play with girl toys.
There are obviously genetic differences between men and women as well as genetic preferences. How these affect the ratio in technology is very difficult to ascertain. We can't just say it doesn't seem like enough to account for the difference because we don't know how that difference plays out throughout people's lives.
> I don't buy that at all. As long as the argument is based on science, there's no reason you can close your ears to other fields of study that could affect your own.
Keeping your mind open to other fields as a researcher doesn't mean, nor is reliant on, having to accommodate casual opinions over dinner.
> Do a search for the Swedish gender equality paradox.
I've read about it, I'm not convinced. If gender equality overall was the main culprit for gender inequality among professions we should see a difference between similar European countries with different levels of equality. According to the figures on the web page of the book popularizing the theory, the UK is far less gender equal than Sweden. Yet, the UK seem to have a lesser percentage of female engineers than Sweden. Just to name one example.
What seem more plausible is that inequality tends to correlate with development. The less time a country has been "developed", the less gender equality there is. But being "developed" recently also mean that you have less cultural baggage.
Sweden is an old engineering culture dating back to at least Alfred Nobel (of Nobel Prize fame). Ericsson was formed in 1876, ASEA in 1883, Volvo in 1927 etc. It also avoided the second world war, when women in other countries "got their break" in technology. And has since the 80s had one of the strongest informal computer cultures in the world. This is obviously quite different from an emerging economy were much of the industry has formed in recent decades.
> It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument,
Right, facts.
Most of the biological arguments are very touchy-feely. But .. we can see differences in MRI between gays and straights (or men and women, or some other divide du jour)! That's to be expected. Unless your equipment is broken. But the facts that patterns in the brain has established doesn't tell us anything how, or why, they developed.
Scan a professional piano player and compare with a regular person and you'll pick up patterns there as well. Is that some sort of argument that piano talent is innate? If hypothetically some statistical factor could be identified that is more prevalent among black people and piano player, does that mean black people are more suited to be piano players?
No, it does not. Yet when considering sex differences, and to some extent race differences, those are the kind of argument that goes for factual. I doubt it's the factual part that bothers people, but rather the logical hoops necessary for these argument to gain practical relevance for decisionmaking.
I can somehow relate to the tiredness your friend expressed. In some other areas where I have taken active part for the past decade or two, I still encounter the same arguments over and over again (for example why open source is by necessity non-innovative), and every person genuiney believe they came up with a new and important thought that other people needs to consider. Just a quick skim of the discourse in the relevant area would really go a long way of presenting them in a more informed way.
So it might not be the arguments themselves that are tiring but the repetitivesness with the way they are presented.
"does that mean black people are more suited to be piano players"
Maybe I'm misunderstanding things, but if some statistical factor was identified with predictive power, does that not literally mean that generally they'd be more suited to be piano players?
This isn't some argument about philosophically what constitutes a piano player. If this were true, you'd expect on average that this group has a higher proportion of piano players, and you could say heuristically that, yes, they are more suited to be piano players.
Caveat: this does not necessarily mean you should base decisions solely off of whether they belong to the group, as it depends on how strong said predictor actually is.
> does that not literally mean that generally they'd be more suited to be piano players?
Depending on exactly what you mean by "predictive". You can identify someone as more likely to be a piano player while the person may not be more suited to be one.
The example was meant to be illustrative of a confounding effect, but perhaps a better one could have been chosen.
It is because some people do the mental gymnastics of separate biology, sociology, culture. But the reality is that these boundaries are virtual. Black people (which I'm) are more likely to become succesful rappers. It doesn't matter if it is because of biology or culture, it is.
First of all, almost everything and its opposite can be argued from biology, and evolution. Among the reasons for that is a sort of circular logic, because many ideas of early human life we still hold are based on today’s stereotypes.
Secondly, arguing from biology denies the single most important difference of humans and other animals: that we are unique in having the capability to overcome our biology.
Sure, there's average differences between groups. Between almost any two arbitrary groups you'll find significant differences.
The problem is that there's a very slippery slope between stating a difference, ascribing causality (the difference is due to biology, for instance), and justifying it as a moral imperative (we should treat men and women differently).
It's dangerous because if differences between groups are easy to pinpoint, they're much harder to explain. Even if you can get to a plausible causal mechanism, it doesn't say anything about how things should be anyway.
How about the moral imperative "we should treat men and women the same", as opposed to "women are heavily oppressed, we must discriminate in their favor"? Would that imperative be justified by stating a difference?
Skimming through it, it does seem pretty even-handed. Although I'd like to point out that you're writing a "guide for nerds" and consistently addressing the reader as if they were a man. Women can be nerds, too. It's fair to have a guide for male nerds, since the experience is bound to be quite different for men vs. women, but it'd make sense to actually point that out.
I address it in the first part, where I clearly point that out (http://p.migdal.pl/2017/07/23/dating-for-nerds.html). First, some pieces of advice are gender-specific. Second, I don't have a living experience of a woman.
For nerdy women (dating man) some problems are similar (and I got quite a lot of of positive reaction from this group; and a few requests to write a text for that setting). For nerdy women dating women, it seems that most problems are the same (see also: Emma Lindsay's blog posts).
Reading through "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context" has gotten me thinking pretty deeply about myself. I found many items in that writeup exceedingly relatable. I've previously been told that I definitely have some aspie aspects / tendencies, but hadn't ever given it much thought, especially on their potential impact.
My only comment is that if you cannot discuss an idea then the idea cannot evolve, and you probably won't change your mind.
Maybe the problem is not oppression of ideas, but the lack of a discussion culture which can tolerate a wider spectrum of ideas for the sake of debunking some of them.
I think it is reasonable to question what people mean by "can't discuss". As mentioned in the article people can discuss anything, but certain things are met with some pushback which makes discussing them hard or unpleasant.
I would say, if you hold one of these "taboo" opinions there is a reasonable amount of responsibility on you for how you open a discussion on them. If you do want to discuss them you need to try and raise them in a way which shows you are genuinely interested in discussion, including possibly changing your own opinion and trying to get a better understanding of others opinions without necessarily judging them. Rather than coming from a fixed position and trying to convert people, which in my experience rarely works.
If you hold one of more of these taboo opinions and think I am being rude, suggesting you don't discuss properly it that those you discuss with are all perfect reasonable beings that is not the case. But in my experience it is not common for people to open a discussion honestly looking to assess their own opinions as well as those they are discussing with. If you aren't open to change your mind, why should anyone be open to change theirs? If you are already doing that, then good for you! Hopefully some minds will get changed and we can all move forward with a more honest understanding of the world.
> If you aren't open to change your mind, why should anyone be open to change theirs?
A lot of discussion/debate is less about changing minds and more about mutual understanding of the underlying values. The problem is these "taboo subjects" all too often have people assuming the other's intentions and therefore the underlying reasoning for those bad arguments never get fleshed out. Thus the person with the taboo perspective just feels misunderstood.
I imagine this is also how athiests feel in deeply religious parts of the US.
In the south (and other places) you're more apt to spot people who have deep bias against people for intrinsic things - in the North (including CA, and Northwest) those ideas are so completely unacceptable, that those people never get called out on them.
How did you write that without realizing how oxymoronic it is? Were you trying to be an example of: "people who have deep bias against people for intrinsic things"?
Besides your suggestion that prejudice doesn't exist in the north (lol), you're writing from the Pacific Northwest, one of the least diverse places in the country. Oregon is 83% white; Texas hasn't been that white since 1970, currently 45% non-Hispanic white. Washington state is 72% non-Hispanic. We deal with a diverse culture every day, most of us aren't racist and ignorant.
The assertion seems to be that racism -- perhaps even a specific manifestation of racism -- is more prevalent in the south than in other areas of the country. Not that everyone in the south is racist, or that everyone in the north isn't.
Perhaps you would like it if even this more carefully worded thing was something people didn't say. If so, it'd probably be interesting to unpack why.
Also, I'm not sure that geographic location counts as an intrinsic trait. And no matter how diverse your circle of association is, beware of assuming they're representative of what you'd see in a geographic cross section. Based on my survey of my Republican acquaintances in my home state, I would have assumed that Trump wouldn't have won the primary there.
yes, this - I'm actually advocating that racism in the north, northwest, and west is even more harmful, because those who are in the minority can't take any mitigation steps to deal with those who have bias.
I'm arguing that people who are biased is a constant - but in parts of the south its more culturally acceptable to be open about it.
The way to end bias like this is by direct, constant exposure, as in interpersonal relationships with people who are different from you in; race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background.
When you create a culture where people who are biased do not expose themselves, their perspectives will never ever be changed.
Are you going to argue that there is more racism in a Texas company than a California company? You are really going to have to prove that.
Have you ever actually lived in a city such as Houston? One of the most diverse cities in the country.
Look how segregated Silicon Valley is. Cupertino and Saratoga Schools are —- about 80% Asian and 2% black. How is that possible given that racism is a “completely unacceptable” idea in California? Those schools are reflecting the employment of the region. Since those are expensive areas, only people with wel paying tech jobs can live there and yet the diversity is pretty much the opposite of the US as a whole.
Perhaps Silicon Valley needs to be called out — far more than those “racists in the south.”
I'm arguing that people who are biased is a constant - but in the south its more culturally acceptable to be open about it.
The way to end bias like this is by direct, constant exposure, as in interpersonal relationships with people who are different from you in; race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background.
When you create a culture where people who are biased do not expose themselves, their perspectives will never ever be changed.
Your final sentence raises exactly the point I was trying to make - you need a 'marketplace of ideas' to change anyones mind about anything - monocultures do not change minds - they just drive those who disagree underground, and if anything give those who disagree a persecution complex, and subtly reinforce their views.
not touching the actual issue of racists in the south, but do most people consider Texas the south? I never have. I never think of Florida either (although north Florida is a lot closer to what i think of when I think of the south).
It's funny, I don't see it on the list but by far the biggest taboo in SV in my experience is talking about things going badly. You're doing great, killing it even, or you should keep it to yourself.
I don't know if it's really specific to startup. In life in general no one cares about you and people tend to avoid you if it's going badly (except very close friends).
Here's how it works in London: a right-wing racist will call you a racist epithet to your face. A left-wing racist will talk a lot about diversity but work behind the scenes to ethnically cleanse your neighbourhood (aka "gentrification").
What I read about the current climate in the US reminds me a lot of how things were in the months after 9/11. While I don't have unbiased data like in the link, I can share a personal anecdote:
In the months after 9/11, if you spoke up and said you didn't agree with US foreign policy (invading Afghanistan) or that you didn't approve of Bush and wanted him to resign, you got blacklisted.
I had a friend, every house in his neighborhood had an American flag except for his, because his dad was an introverted engineer and uninterested in politics. The absence of the flag was obvious, and after a few nights of things like eggs on the door, flaming dog shit, and finally a dead animal left on the door mat, he put up an American flag and all the drama went away.
As someone living far away from SV, this is fascinating reading. But I think the survey could be more precise about what "can't say" really means. Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog, or will you get fired for bringing it up in the workplace?
I personally believe some viewpoints really are inappropriate to bring up in a professional working environment. If I genuinely believe read-headed people have a brain structure which makes them inferior developers, I don't think I should bring this issue up during a meeting. Sure, my red-headed coworkers have the option of challenging my viewpoints and perhaps a fruitful discussion will follow - where I will convince them with rational arguments and evidence that my viewpoint is correct. But I think it is fair if said red-headed colleagues would prefer not to have the discussion at all.
I notice the top taboo subjects are diversity, racism, sexism etc - exactly subjects where you can indirectly question a colleagues competence.
SV is an oddly judgemental area. When people have unpopular opinions they tend to discuss them quietly.
My wife doesn't work in tech, but she did lose a job over a post on a message board that didn't agree with her boss' politics. (She thought it was a waste of money to rename a school)
I'm wide open with the co-workers that I'm close to (i.e. in my working group). I'm more reserved among others, and since I work for a large entity, I'm aware of the people that pose a political challenge and do my best not to piss them off. I know of a few people in tech who let the wrong words out and ended up losing jobs as an indirect result. (it wasn't "you said X, you're gone", it was more "he said X and a few weeks later - surprise surprise... he doesn't work here anymore") I haven't seen anything like that outside of the bay area and I've worked all over.
> Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog
Yes, that can happen. If you argue on your blog that red-headed people are inherently inferior developers and it gets back to your colleagues, there will be people who treat you differently.
Oh certainly, but that does not necessarily mean you "can't say" such things. I would definitely treat a colleague differently if I discover they write a blog arguing in favor of Hungarian Notation. Of course people will judge your character. But if such a blog post would get you fired then it would be fair to say you "can't say" it.
As an example, Peter Thiel (if I remember correctly) criticized women having the vote. Certainly a controversial viewpoint, but not controversial enough to get him ostracized. But his support for Trump did get him ostracized to some extent. I think this shows the difference between what is just controversial and what is considered unacceptable in SV.
If your company is spending a significant fraction of its capital on increasing the number of red-headed employees, and purports to be a place where you can voice your opinions about anything that's going wrong, etc., then you might consider discussing whether we as a company are spending too much much money and effort to hire more red-headed people, and that the net effect is bad whether your goal is diversity or performance.
Almost anything can be thought of as indirectly questioning colleague's competence. Suppose I saw, "U. Waterloo is a great school, let's hire more people from there.", this is indirectly questioning the competence of anyone who's not from U. Waterloo. Suppose HR decides to offer employees free LASIK surgery, then they are questioning the competence of people who choose to wear glasses instead. Encouraging employees to use desk in stand-up mode questions the competence of people who prefer to work while sitting. The list is endless.
There's a big difference between ideas that weaken minorities, and ideas that weaken majorities, because you get blowback for different reasons. When you attack minorities the people that get upset with you, are people that are worried that weakening an already weak group is a bad thing. When you attack majorities however, you get blowback from the people that are afraid to lose their power.
I agree that there are problems with not allowing people to express all kinds of ideas, but there's a big difference in the two types above: You should be more careful when attacking the already weak, for their position is already brittle.
(I'm going to assume from context you don't mean minority as in population, but rather power dynamics as you talk about for the rest of the post.) The problem distinguishing stronger and weaker sides is that there isn't an objective metric that both sides can agree on. The reason gender issues are so prevalent on this list and are such a hot topic is exactly because it is a debate about which side is weaker, about which measures of power are valid and invalid, and so on.
That there isn't a metric is a really interesting problem. I think most debates should start with talking about metrics.
For instance, when talking about skewed power dynamics when it come to gender, you could look at the number of men vs. women in management positions. Being able to fire someone is a form of power. Or you could look at raw salaries, and say that money is a form of power. And so on. Would make many discussions a lot clearer.
Why weaken anyone? It isn’t zero sum. The free market has nothing to do with minorities or majorities: people don’t care about the race of a person selling them bread — they just want the cheapest bread at the highest quality.
Interesting thing is about gender and technology jobs. In „evil“ Iran, about 50% of students of computer science are women. Being a female software developer is common. Cousin of my wife is a programmer, another female friend of the family is a IBM mainframe programmer(now retired), my wife is an engineer with interest in computer science. So its not all about „brain structures“, it is about society. When Iran can do it, how will we westeners?
I want Silicon Valley to be a place where you can publicly hold extreme views and not be a huge social liability to anyone you associate with (employer, friends).
What does that actually mean? It has to mean that your views are consequence-less, that there is no way they could have an effect on the real world.
Do you really think it should be possible to walk around wearing a "kill all Jews" badge, and not recieve so much as an angry glare from a Jewish person?
The thing is you are free to hold and expose extreme views - and I strongly support your right to do so and not to be subject to persecution from the state for doing so. However I also have the right to not associate with you if I think that you are a dick.
Ignoring people who we don't agree with is how we got to a place where supporting your political party was more important than having an ideology you could morally justify.
I personally lean fairly far to the right but I spend a lot of time listening to NPR, reading slate, and other pretty lefty publications. When I talk to people who only consume one side of the media, whether it's right or left, I feel like I'm talking to a wall of nonsense. People have so little understanding of those they disagree with and will dismiss them with "they're a bunch of idiots" so quickly that their position has no basis in reality. I'm not saying we should give everyone a platform, I'm saying that if someone says "all the rich should be killed" or "gay men don't know love" each position despite being on diametrically opposite sides of our current political landscape need to be understood if we want to move forward.
The OP is talking about extreme views like racism (or in their case hating trans people).
You are talking about listening to Democrat opinions.
Very very different thing.
I am quite happy to be friends with people with different political opinions or who vote for another party.
I am also happy to know who is spouting racist, sexist or crazy drivel. This allows me personally to avoid them.
Others may choose to engage with the extremists I choose not to waste my time. This is a matter for individual free will.
NB once again listening to Democrat/republican media when you are voting for the other party is just normal and has nothing to do with choosing not to associate with e.g Klansman.
It seems regardless of one’s viewpoint, there is a strong reluctance to digging deeper to examine the roots of one’s beliefs.
A lot of these people might not believe what they believe if they were to attempt to justify their beliefs in a rigorous and intellectually honest way.
"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring your political views into the workplace. Everyone has met the very passionate on both the left and the right, and having someone stand outside your cube or in the lunch line trying to "win" you over to their view just isn't conducive to getting your work done and making money.
>"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring your political views into the workplace.
In theory, yes, but in practice it's only considered "rude" when you bring unpopular political views into the workplace. In a partisan locale such as SV people openly talk about the popular political view at work, all the time.
A Googler can go to TGIF Q&A and openly bash Trump/GOP and he'd get sympathetic responses from Larry, if not cheers from the audience (and a bunch of new memegen entries), but I highly doubt the same would be true for someone expressing opposite views.
I used to work for a start up in Boston (co-lo'd with a bunch of other startups) a couple years ago, and people would openly talk about politics of the left-wing establishment variety and go around patting each other on the back for it.
It isn't political debate that it is the issue, it is the absolute assumption that everyone agrees with the standard SV dogma, so people say political things all the time, with no intent to debate, because they are just the accepted truth. A subtle example would be trashing "flyover" states. There is no intent to debate whether people from Texas are rednecks, but people feel free to say it.
A subtle example would be trashing "flyover" states. There is no intent to debate whether people from Texas are rednecks, but people feel free to say it.
Similarly the Brexit vote revealed alot about people's true characters and beliefs. The vote largely broke down along class lines, working class for Leave, middle class for Remain. And those middle class types, who tirelessly virtue signal about how left-wing they are, when confronted with what the actual Workers really want, are quick to condemn the entire lot as racist mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging morons. Class divisions are never far from the surface in the UK.
Totally agree with respect to irrelevant political views.
But sometimes sensitive topics become relevant in the workplace (e.g. diversity in hiring). If any suggested divergence from the party line is repudiated, we risk losing objectivity.
An open mind easily discards a bad idea. A closed mind may miss a good one.
“A lot of the ideas here will not actually get you ostracized from Silicon Valley society.”
Oh dude you have just not been paying attention.
Can you show me a single example of someone in tech who publicly expresses, at any point, any of the beliefs which are “not allowed?”
I’m looking for one.
Find me one person on Twitter in tech aside from John McAfee or Peter Theil who would dare. Sam Altman was good enough to step forward, I hope he won’t be the last. The complete and total castigation of the dude by every tech media outlet showed exactly what happens to anyone who isn’t rich enough not to care.
While Sam Altman can take a beating, a standard employee like James Damore can’t. Did we forget about him? Apparently we did!
Show me a single tech luminary staying that diversity is overrated and has numerous downsides (such as the degradation of communal trust which had swept the valley), that we don’t actually need additional codes of conduct to add protections that are already covered in the US legal code at every Meetup, that all gender bathrooms are lunacy or that most of the Millenials coming into the job market have an incredibly broken and fearful view of the world that is unwarranted by the available evidence.
Show me a single tech luminary willing to say that women should realize they have advantages and disadvantages and should take responsibility for guarding themselves st off-site social events to avoid being approached by men.
One! Show me one!
I can find these opinions on conservative podcasts but I have never seen anyone express them in tech. Ever!
I see a non-stop avalanche of one set of these opinions on every social media feed, internal company meeting and industry conference.
I have NEVER seen ANYONE notable in tech aside from Peter Thiel, who has been made untouchable st this point.
Why is that? It’s because they know it’s not good business and they will get to join Peter Theil in the excommunicated pile.
A great example is Scott Adams. Scott used to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year giving paid speeches.
When he began writing about Trump, he was excommunicated and all of his speaking gigs were cancelled.
Another great example is the systematic and deliberate demonetization of conservative YouTube videos. People who are very balanced and fair like Dave Rubin have had their videos defunded for having conservative speakers as interview guests.
Twitter has been notorious for slowing down or “never getting around to” giving Blue Check Marks to conservative speakers - If I remember correctly, Scott Adams had to reach a simply insane number of followers before being given the check.
The hatred of conservatives and direct, persecutory and economic attacks on them is real, ongoing and getting worse.
Seriously - if you believe most of these opinions won’t harm your career if expressed publicly, you have really not been paying attention.
If you don’t believe me - Try it. Go on Twitter right now and say: “all gender bathrooms are stupid.”
I agree with some of the points you make, and I think they're pretty reasonable positions to take.
But I'm curious as to the arguments against all gender bathrooms? I've visited tons of restaurants over the years that just had a single restroom, and it's never been a problem. When you have people over they might use your bathroom, and that's also not considered a problem. Heck, at all the doctor's offices I recall visiting they always had a single bathroom. I always find it slightly frustrating when I try using the restroom and it's occupied and I'm forced to wait, even though there's a unoccupied bathroom mere feet away. What are people's concerns with shared bathrooms?
But I'm curious as to the arguments against all gender bathrooms? I've visited tons of restaurants over the years that just had a single restroom, and it's never been a problem. When you have people over they might use your bathroom, and that's also not considered a problem
As someone who grew up watching Ally McBeal, I am pretty sure that noone of my generation really has any problem with unisex toilets. But where the confusion comes from is that I think that the concept of a "bathroom" has somehow been conflated with that of a "changing room", e.g. at a gym or something. I have found that people who are passionately against them, with gently probed, actually mean the latter.
> But I'm curious as to the arguments against all gender bathrooms?
In college, my freshman-year dorm bathroom was unisex. It initially created huge complaints from everyone. The women complained that the toilets were always messy and the men complained that the toilets were always occupied. Those may be stereotypes, but they're also frequently true. We eventually resolved our issues by designating 1 stall as "standing only" and the other 2 as "sitting only" to ensure that men could always pee without a wait and women could always sit without having to clean first.
But that only worked because we could impose those kinds of rules. A public bathroom is a different matter and I'll bet both genders get annoyed with having to share with the other absent those kinds of imposed rules.
Note that this kind of thing can be cultural as well. At my last job, the non-Asian women complained about some of their Asian counterparts' bathroom use. It seems that women who grew up with squat toilets liked to stand on the seats so they could use their preferred squatting technique. This resulted in much the same sort of messes that result from men standing when they pee.
The women complained that the toilets were always messy and the men complained that the toilets were always occupied
I've worked in a gym and bars, back when I was a student, so I have been in women's changing rooms/bathrooms regularly, when we closed up, to clean. Not everywhere has dedicated cleaning staff; sometimes the lifeguards or the bartenders do it at the end of their (our) shift. It's true that men tend to miss and pee on the floor. Alot. But good God, the state of the women's...
Not the parent poster, but I'll barge in and say I don't have any. Who knows, though - maybe there are actually some really good ones, and I'll never know them because everyone who came up with one kept quiet lest they be blacklisted and hounded out of polite society. Human reasoning is a cooperative effort (when can you say have you last won a debate on a topic widely regarded as important using only arguments you came up with yourself in a vacuum?); if you expel a position from the commons, you tilt the playing field against it in a way that is orthogonal to its truthfulness, and thereby destroy what would otherwise be a useful correlation between how a position fares in the debate circuit and how likely it is to be true.
I don't think I could convince you of anything. But can I ask: if the other side were right, and some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell?
There are definitely some political views that should be socially discouraged and attacked and there should be social repercussions for the people who express them. You disagree on whether some particular views fit in this category. You must admit that from your position, it can be very difficult to distinguish between unfair persecution and genuine persecution.
For the record, if a company I work for invited someone as purely evil / anti-intellectual and vapid as Scott Adams to give a speech, I would absolutely resign in protest.
> some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell?
Yes, we can tell most of the time, and yes even if it gets difficult sometimes and we fail to distinguish unfair and genuine persecution, we will try our best to discuss it, study it, and get better at it. That's how we should approach the problem. That, is the intellectual way.
Your method of automatically shutting down discussion of controversial ideas just because a small percentage of them are truly evil, is in fact more anti-intellectual than anything Scott Adams has ever said/written.
I disagree that we can tell most of the time. I think we can't tell most of the time. Most Americans couldn't tell in the 60s- about 33% of the country had a favorable view of MLK. Most Germans couldn't tell in the 30s. And so on and so on. If we were any good at tellint, then evil wouldn't be so scary!
My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said. It's possible we're not in that kind of situation, but I hope that you realize that (a) some of the things that you're upset about (educated people pushing some ideas out of their institutions; radicals and communists protesting in the streets; highly charged and accusatory language) were the exact same sorts of things the people who ended up being wrong in those circumstances were upset about, and (b) historically, people sympathetic towards these bad ideas or unsympathetic to their opponents could not tell the difference in their own times.
So? That's my exact point. In all of your examples the righteous eventually prevailed due to their own merits, and history proved that they were on the right side.
You don't get claim victory by shutting down the debate at the beginning. You don't get to moral high ground by "proclaiming" it, you get there by engaging the opposition in debates and by fighting to change people's mind with positive examples.
MLK knew he was right, and he worked hard to convince the remaining 66% of the country by engaging with them, by changing one mind at a time.
>My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said.
That's some crazy logic fallacy. Just because you are pushing new agenda doesn't mean you are automatically correct and your opposition are literally the same as Nazis. You also automatically assume that your ideas are the "good ones" and anything that differs even slightly to your opinion is "bad ideas". How can you tell that you are not the one being sympathetic toward "bad ideas", it is after all, like you said, hard to tell right?
You know who used the same kind of logic? Literally Nazis and Communists. They automatically proclaimed their ideology as the "righteous ones" and brutally shut down any debates.
I'm of the opinion that if you have to forcefully shut down opposite views from even debating you, then your idea is not worth debating in the first place, and you are just some immature child putting himself on a moral pedestal.
I don't know how old you are, but I wish one day you get to learn that the world is not black and white, but different shades of gray. And yes, even your own opinions will change throughout time, for different reasons.
If you really think Scott Adams is "purely evil", as in Hitler level, I have some strong suspicion that you are a troll that is trying to make liberals look ridiculous.
If not, then I have a feeling that you mistakenly equate many opposing ideas to "pure evil ideologies".
I could list off how he treats his purposeful ignorance and anti-intellectualism as a virtue, how he pushed a strange cult-like "persuation" pseudoscience that also celebrates a kind of selfish creepiness as a virtue, his endorsement of Trump, his purposefully disengenious gas lighting of his critics, and arguably most impotant, his advocating for climate denial-
But I don't think we can reconcile our viewpoints in the comments here, and I think you missed my entire point. My point was it is very difficult to tell right from wrong when those wrongs are widely accepted by society. A majority of Germans in the 1930s either believed in Nazism or believed it was just an "opposing idea". An even larger majority of Americans in the 60s disapproved of MLK, and either believed in racist laws or believed that they were just "opposing ideas".
My point is that once again, you are now in a position where a minority of people believe that some ideas are truly evil and not worthy of any merit. You are sympathetic towards these ideas, or unsympathetic to their opponents (just as many who disapproved of Jim Crow laws but thought MLK was too radical)- so I hope you can at least realize that statistically speaking, you're in a position where it has traditionally been very difficult for people to determine right from wrong.
Your entire argument is based off cherry picking historic examples where the majority is wrong.
>My point is that once again, you are now in a position where a minority of people believe that some ideas are truly evil and not worthy of any merit. You are sympathetic towards these ideas, or unsympathetic to their opponents (just as many who disapproved of Jim Crow laws but thought MLK was too radical)- so I hope you can at least realize that statistically speaking, you're in a position where it has traditionally been very difficult for people to determine right from wrong.
So what are you suggesting here? Should we automatically crown the minority's opinion as the "right one" because they challenge the status quo being accepted by society? Yes, you have examples of Jim Crow and MLK, does that mean every time someone writes off an idea his argument is automatically as valid as MLK's and his opponents are automatically the KKK?
> so I hope you can at least realize that statistically speaking, you're in a position where it has traditionally been very difficult for people to determine right from wrong.
My point is that it doesn't matter whether we can determine right from wrong. I can't do that easily, and neither can you. So let all sides debate and engage with each other and make history judge the outcome. You do not get to jump through this step.
Remember, Fascism and Communism rose to power by being the "progressive minority" at first and claimed morale high ground against their oppositions and shut down all forms of public debate soon after.
If you think the majority is bad at judging good from bad, what makes you think the minority is better in this case?
Dr. King's speech started with "I have a dream", not "I'm right and you are wrong and is not even worth my time to debate". Unfortunately, Social Justice Warriors today are no MLK.
I can maybe see how Scott Adams is anti-intellectual, although people claiming to be rational should definitely consider his view, but how is he "purely evil"?
>But can I ask: if the other side were right, and some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell?
Well, on some issues you can always appeal to authorities - for example if people have strong opinions on economic issues you can compare that consensus to IGM Forum polls. People are oftentimes predictably biased.
Alternatively, you can try to get people who disagree with eachother to perform an ideological Turing test. It should be informative if someone basically cannot meaningfully articulate the actual arguments that are being presented that they disagree with.
I've occasionally advocated online policies that were taken from Ronald Reagan or the first President Bush or from their leading cabinet members and advisors and not run into any problems in liberal forums online.
I got banned from /r/republican for advocating such policies.
Conservatism today has been largely taken over by the extreme right. Conservative political leaders thought they could court the extremists like white supremacists, anti-immigration fear mongers, religious bigots, conspiracy theorists, and just plain nutcases and the like for their votes but would be able to keep them under control. They were wrong.
Age discrimination did not make the list. Maybe the survey poster's audience is not affected by it or maybe it's not controversial to admit that it is common practice.
I wonder what percentage of HN users would subscribe to this sentence for some values of X and Y: "I am worse at task X than person Y for genetic reasons."
Well, add one. "I am worse at interpersonal interactions than my brother-in-law for genetic reasons."
I'd also say that this is actually very easy to say, since you can also pick out genetic anomalies: I could say the sentence about swimming and Michael Phelps, or running and Usain Bolt, without a single person being offended or disagreeing.
If you want to make the sentence controversial, you need to replace "person Y" with "genetic group Y"; i.e. men, women, caucasians, blacks, asians, mongoloids, or so on.
I am worse at playing basketball than the average high school basketball player because I’m of average height, have poor hand eye coordination and a terrible vertical jump, all of which are largely genetic.
I am worse at math than the average physics undergrad for genetic reasons, low conscientiousness and interest.
Why not run a poll rather than speculate idly? (Of course, the interesting comparison is probably between the percentage that would say that with "better" and with "worse" respectively. You'd also want some restrictions on the set X is drawn from to prevent worthless positives from low-status values of X such as sports, social skills or rote memorisation)
> “Most successful entrepreneurs are simply lucky.”
Probably it's because "common wisdom" says it's the result of being smart and hard work. But if luck plays such a big role (and let's be honest, it does - there are also studies confirming that), it's difficult to be proud of your success. Happy - yes. Proud? No more than a lottery winner. For many successful people this would be an insult.
There's an old saying (IIRC, attributed to Seneca) that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I like that way of looking at things because it neither minimizes the work and insight that someone put into their success nor refuses to acknowledge that factors outside their control also contributed.
So what am I suppose to talk about if I went to US or Silicon Valley? Also wondering if this is just silicon valley or US in general?
For those who have never been to US, and just reading news and watching TV on it, it surely is a place full of controversy.
As a matter of fact, I am starting to see this isn't US only at all. It is the same with UK on certain issues ( Mainly Brexit ) but in typical Brit fashion they seems to be much more sensible about it when people disagree.
What happens to the old days where we agree to disagree. Take it on the chin, put a smile on your face and walk away?
This isn't just social media's echo chamber, a lot of people seems to want to blame them. But i think the social media only amplify the problem. Not the course of it.
Both sides feel oppressed! For example, some people think you can’t question diversity efforts; others think you can’t speak out about racism. Some think you can’t praise capitalism; others think you can’t suggest socialism. It’s theoretically possible that the Overton window could be in the middle and exclude both extremes, but to my mind it’s more likely that people just like to think or claim that their views are an oppressed minority.
That’s the real insight here. You wanted a fully networked society, well that’s what comes with a fully networked society.
The "taboo" list is surprisingly run-of-the-mill. All of it seems like stuff I see people discussing on the internet all the time. I thought there might be a few original thoughts, but even the things they claim they can't say are things they're kind of supposed to think. Different sides of boring issues.
Anyway rest assured there's no need to stifle heretical ideas with these people. The ones thinking anything truly original were probably either the ones left out of the 108, or never bothered answering or are already in institutions etc.
I can think of one taboo opinion - supporting prop 8. Results - being fired. Also it was made effective with back date. The firing of Brendan Eich was as chilling effect as possible.
In the current climate you could get a pitchfork mob after you extremely easy for even stuff perceived as homophobic - as the recent suicide of August Ames showed.
I'm not sure why something becomes "unacceptable to society" just because it "poses a threat to feminist aims." What's the first principles reason why it should be unacceptable?
It's not really something that can be well summarized in a hn comment, but basically, it re-enforces the idea that men and women are actually so different that you have to be a certain gender just to do something you want to do (gender essentialism).
My main point is, if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to.
>basically, it re-enforces the idea that men and women are actually so different that you have to be a certain gender just to do something you want to do (gender essentialism)
Do you think there's a difference between thinking you have to be a woman because you want (for example) to be a nurse, and thinking you have to be a woman because you want to be a woman?
Yes, there is a difference. But you really have to think about what being a woman means, if those aspects should really be attributed as those of women, and why you want those aspects (do you really have a fundamental desire to have breasts, or do you really want to be a nurse, and feel alienated by not having them when other nurses do).
Yes, you should listen to the Gondolier episode of Radiolab. But if transgender people feel that that is true, and maybe it is true, and maybe it does weaken feminist goals... Why should the impact on feminist goals be relevant to the conversation? I.e., is society's benchmark the advancement of feminism?
Thanks for the Radiolab episode recommendation, I'll take a listen.
>Why should the impact on feminist goals be relevant to the conversation?
Because feminists are members of the society, and they hold those views for a reason. I think you already know why feminists think that feminism is good for society.
Of course, it is a valid opinion to hold that women and men are fundamentally different. The problems arise when this limits people's freedom. As a technologist I look forward to this problem disappearing. When switching genders is like switching an outfit, then all these concerns will become irrelevant :)
> As a technologist I look forward to this problem disappearing. When switching genders is like switching an outfit, then all these concerns will become irrelevant :)
You said upthread that transgender thought should be socially unacceptable, so why do you hold this view?
if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to
Not to deny your lived experience or anything but (purely for the sake of providing a reference for discussion and not taking a position either way) TERF content is widely available on the Interwebs.
I can't find any because I don't know what TERFs call themselves (the term appears to be solely used by their detractors). Maybe my google-fu is lacking, but it seems to be hard to find. When I google things like "transgender and gender existentialism" I get only (unsatisfying) rebuttals and some poorly-thought-out complaints about trans people.
I think my s.o.'s viewpoint is a little more nuanced than "trans women aren't real women"
Is that argument really relevant? Aren't they human beings who don't chose to be transgender? So, their existence is their right. It's not a political position, or a favourite flavour of icecream, it's a human state of being.
Yes, you do have the right, but its also about how we conceptualize it as a society. People should be allowed to remove or add breasts to their body, but telling people that they did it because they felt feminine implies that feminine people should be women (and therefore that women should be feminine).
It's not just changing your body, but a redefinition of your identity to something that others were born with.
It's also a solution to something you felt needed to be solved. In the current framework of thinking, if someone feels they feel "feminine" without taking the time to really think about what that is, they might be told to consider that they are transgender. Being transgender is highly costly, associated with depression and suicide, and may make a person who feels not normal in a position where they are now even more of a minority.
I came it from your SO's side, and then went away from it. I didn't grow up around uhmm "liberals" and "liberal doctrine", so I had to figure it out for myself.
It was kind of a gradual thing. I wonder if i could really summarize right now.
I do know that atm I'm way more concerned with fighting the gender binary where it counts .. ie: cis men. "average" cis men need feel free and safe to express themselves in less "binary" ways. Until they are, it seems like the violence will never stop.
Trans folks make up such a minority and deal with a lot of shit. I don't want them to be hurt as part of somebody elses proxy war.
Yes, it did seem that way at first. I had a hard time of truly listening when we first began to discuss it as I had already formed my own standard, liberal, opinions about the topic.
They are discriminating against a group of people in the same way you're discriminating against them: for their beliefs. You can't choose your birth gender or race or sexuality, but you can choose how you approach the fact that you don't seem to fit society's mold for men/women.
I am not discriminating. Your s.o. is free to hold and promote whatever views they have our want to have. I support their right to do so. I however also have rights. I have the right to defend that people are allowed to be themselves+ without fear of persecution. I also have have the right to choose who to associate with.
+I think for example that gender and sexuality are not choices and that I should not tell other people how to live their lives.
None. I don't mean current transgender people should be outcast, but we should begin to understand its external effects.
They too are victims of stereotype. They chose (perhaps felt forced to chose) to change their body to fit the stereotype. But the problem with being unable to discuss this is that people who are beginning to question their cis identity may not see the other option: being yourself in your own body, and not conforming to what society thinks a man or a woman is.
You and your S.O. are conflating gender identity, physical gender, and expression. Basic transgenderism is very simple: the uncanny feeling that your physical gender is wrong. You have male parts but they don’t feel like they should be there (kind of like a phantom limb), or female parts, or vice versa. There is ample research showing that this can manifest extremely early (3-4 years of age anyway), long before cultural training about gender roles can play a part. You cannot simply tell these people to try harder and accept their assigned birth gender; that’s like telling gay people they should be straight because it would be easier to fit in. Well, yeah, it would. But it doesn’t work.
Now, there are certainly people who are not transgender in that specific way, but want to express aspects of the stereotypical “other” gender or both genders. That’s a different thing, and they have a right to that too, but it’s very wrong, and misleading, to put all these people into a single bucket.
Of course, it should be unsurprising that people who are “physically transgender”, besides feeling there is a physical problem, might want to express themselves differently too. The fact that these two characteristics are often correlated may be what is steering you wrong.
> They chose (perhaps felt forced to chose) to change their body to fit the stereotype.
This is kind of presuming the conclusion, and ignoring the stated experiences of the people being discussed. The concept of gender identity (whether or not it does a good job of it) is explicitly intended to highlight that the causation isn't "I fit this stereotype, therefore I am this", but just "I feel I am this", with the implication that it may (or may not) be reaffirming to fit in socially with other people who are that way. Many don't identify with the stereotypes. Sure, some cling to stereotypes - maybe because they previously felt constrained from expressing themselves, or just as a practical measure against getting misidentified - but that doesn't imply that that's the cause or the goal. If you don't believe the claim that it isn't the cause, that's fair, but then it's just a person's beliefs against anothers' self-assessment.
The term "transitioning" is also used in a general sense, including "being yourself", as opposed to necessarily taking hormones. Taking hormones, changing paperwork, doctor appointments, losing fertility, etc., is kind of a long, drawn out, stressful ordeal that inherently starts with "being yourself in your own body" until changes kick in; it's pretty unlikely that someone transitioning hasn't considered just not doing the hard part, especially since it's so slow that there's ample time to turn back.
I'd wager most trans people are as opposed to gender essentialism and gender stereotypes as other feminists are. Nothing about accepting that they might actually just not be comfortable in their bodies, or at least just letting them be, implies philosophically accepting gender essentialism. Moreover, making the world more accpeting of people just being themselves is pretty closely aligned with just letting trans people be - if they actually don't need to transition, they'd be less likely to in a world where those who don't fit stereotypes, like trans people, are more accepted. And it's not a verboten topic - the Reddit trans communities have these discussions pretty often, when the questions are asked genuinely. It's just that, as with other minority-focused topics, it's often brought up with the clear intention of harassment rather than having an actual discussion, so there's a low tolerance for things that signal disingenuousness.
I suggest you talk to more actual trans people. I thought like you for a long time, but these concerns are based on assumptions about trans people, not the reality.
>They too are victims of stereotype.
Most trans people are well aware that the gender presentations they're conforming to are stereotypes, and indeed many would quite like to be butch transwomen or twink transmen, but find it very difficult to be accepted presenting that way. They are forced to conform to stereotypes by wider society, not by the ideas of trans people. That said, trans people often do choose and enjoy quite stereotypical presentations, and when they do, it's basically for the same reason that plenty of ardent cis feminists do: Just because you recognise the socialisation behind your preferences doesn't mean you can easily escape it.
> But the problem with being unable to discuss this
Trans spaces actively discuss a wide variety of gender identity experiences and possibilities, and encourage questioning people to explore their own experiences, and find the relationship with gender that feels right for them. The message is not "these are the things you're allowed to be" it's "do whatever makes you feel comfortable".
>may not see the other option: being yourself in your own body
Most trans people will have spent a long time uncertain and trying to "be themselves in their own body" before they decide to undertake any medical changes, and many trans people decide to change their bodies only partially or not at all. Very few people are comfortable undergoing extensive bodily changes on a whim. And when they do decide to make these changes, it is often driven by feelings of intense depression inducing discomfort with aspects of their bodies, not simply a desire to look how other people expect.
Yes, but that acknowledges there is a binary in the first place. You're still saying that cis (which is the default, no matter how much anyone wants it not to be) women should be feminine.
And why is proxy wars a bad idea? A lot about war is symbolism. Hell, the whole reason armies march to a battlefield is because it's a proxy of a real battle where civilians would die.
Well-accepted movements like feminism also engage with proxy wars, such as "free the nipples", "a day without women", etc. All these are pretty much symbolism, with some actual tangible value. Male porn star income equality is not only a symbol for striving for true quality, it also serves to demonstrate that as a society we seem to be fine with tolerating inequality at some places, and that feminism is not as much about equality as about identity politics (not that identity politics is inherently wrong).
This is a fantastic HN thread to scroll to the very bottom, and see which opinions have been greyed-out from heavy downvote bombardments. Highly recommended.
"Shadowban" means banning without saying so. We told you directly that we banned you, and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15939534. And we'd warned you a huge number of times in the past.
You've posted even more abusive comments since we banned you, confirming that it was the right call.
I think the most interesting thing about the recent debate is our true rulers must be getting worried that things are getting out of control. They have not forgotten about the Reign of Terror [0] or where this sort of thing can lead. There is the real risk the masses actually might not be distracted by the usual left/right pointless bickering and actually follow the money.
I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences (http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ...) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though).
From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share). Same questions are being understood by neurotypicals as expressing intentions, in a covert way.
Nerd: I read that X, on the average, are less interested in tech.
A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior.
A non-nerd disagrees with the perceived intention and fights back, while a nerd perceives it as immunity to facts and unwillingness for a discussion.
That said:
- not all nerds are well-intentioned and open-minded
- workplace is not a place for all possible talks (or other social activities); if it makes people feel bad, excluded or less productive - it may be an argument to keep such discussions outside of the workplace; in particular, workplace is not an evolutionary biology discussion club
And BTW, from "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context": https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c... see "Not Recognizing 'Yellow Light' Conditions" and even more: "Doesn't Apologize Readily".