4 ms·

Hopefully nobody shoots the messenger (or in this case, translator): She has dyed hair which is increasingly becoming a sign of narcissistic Tumblr types. The

by Nadya 11y ago

Hopefully nobody shoots the messenger (or in this case, translator): She has dyed hair which is increasingly becoming a sign of narcissistic Tumblr types. The hair dye is seen as "pay ME attention, I'm a special snowflake!" This is because the group of people often referred to as SJW's consist of a large majority of women with dyed hair (reds, pinks, blues). In other words: it has become a stereotype. Therefore, the other user is making a presumption that due to her dyed hair coupled with the title of her book she is an oversensitive Tumblr-type who isn't worth the time to read. I tried to keep this explanation as neutral as possible, hope it clears up your confusion.

mahouse 11y ago
And also she's written for Vice, The Verge, Forbes, The Guardian, Slate, and WIRED (according to her website). Translation: I expect a very very biased book I'm not interesting in reading.
- Nadya 11y ago
  Well you mentioned her picture, not her history. :) I was just looping them in on why you might say that. I can see where you're coming from about the extreme bias. Only two missing from that list are Salon and Jezebel, yeesh.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    I admit I saw the blog list just when I posted it, it was enough for me to look at the pic to know what to expect ;P
geofft 11y ago
Thank you for the explanation; that makes sense. I confess that I am still confused why one would go and look up the appearance of an author before making a decision about whether their work is worthwhile (I believe neither of my links included a photo of the author, but did contain reviews). Outright discrimination on appearance has not been a mark of the hacker community as I understand it, and I worry that people who endorse it are outsiders without the cultural norms of the hacker community. So while I now understand what the judgment on her appearance is, I am still a little baffled why any judgment on an author's appearance is necessary. I am also curious if anyone looked at my appearance (easily linked from my HN profile) before deciding whether to accept my endorsement of that book.
- Nadya 11y ago
  >I am still a little baffled why any judgment on an author's appearance is necessary. It's being used as a proxy for zealous ideologues. A certain group of ideologues from a certain city all seem to have very similar style. Some people do not enjoy wasting their time reading the work of ideologues. To illustrate, I'll throw myself under the bus. If I can read a summary of a book and accurately guess "This came from an author based in San Francisco", I will disregard it entirely. I cannot speak for others, but I know I'm not the only one. There are a few other cities that come to mind, but SF is easily the worst offender. The most extreme and vehement bias festers in that place and it is not worth my time. The people who speak from that place are more similar to a cult-like mentality than individual or innovative thinkers. I don't bother with listening to cults and so I don't listen to people from SF. Which is unfortunate because I am sure there are a few precious gems that don't tow the party line who may be worth the time to read. The unfortunate bit is I don't have the time to read everything. Part of my decision-making process for whether or not time should be allocated to read something involves assessing the likelihood that the author is so entrenched in their own biases as to make their work a waste of my time. Looking like an ideologue, talking an ideologue's talking point, and coming from a place known for its ideologues are tell-tale signs for me that the person is very likely an ideologue. I will let others risk wasting their time reading the work. If it gets enough charitable mentions from "outsiders" (those outside of the cult) then I may give it the time of day. Until then I will dismiss it just as some people would dismiss anything from Alex Jones and his ilk. As for your last statement - there are most likely people who do. And, for what it's worth, I didn't. (Also take my throwing myself under a bus as a separate talking point than the book recommendation you made. She is not from SF, I'm just illustrating the point about dismissing ideologues based on some small amount of known criteria.)
talmand 11y ago
Has this been downvoted? Why? It's a valid explanation. It's like punishing a nice person for explaining the concept of racism to you.

by Nadya 11y ago

mahouse 11y ago

And also she's written for Vice, The Verge, Forbes, The Guardian, Slate, and WIRED (according to her website). Translation: I expect a very very biased book I'm not interesting in reading.

Nadya 11y ago
Well you mentioned her picture, not her history. :) I was just looping them in on why you might say that. I can see where you're coming from about the extreme bias. Only two missing from that list are Salon and Jezebel, yeesh.
- mahouse 11y ago
  I admit I saw the blog list just when I posted it, it was enough for me to look at the pic to know what to expect ;P

geofft 11y ago

Thank you for the explanation; that makes sense. I confess that I am still confused why one would go and look up the appearance of an author before making a decision about whether their work is worthwhile (I believe neither of my links included a photo of the author, but did contain reviews). Outright discrimination on appearance has not been a mark of the hacker community as I understand it, and I worry that people who endorse it are outsiders without the cultural norms of the hacker community. So while I now understand what the judgment on her appearance is, I am still a little baffled why any judgment on an author's appearance is necessary. I am also curious if anyone looked at my appearance (easily linked from my HN profile) before deciding whether to accept my endorsement of that book.

Nadya 11y ago
>I am still a little baffled why any judgment on an author's appearance is necessary. It's being used as a proxy for zealous ideologues. A certain group of ideologues from a certain city all seem to have very similar style. Some people do not enjoy wasting their time reading the work of ideologues. To illustrate, I'll throw myself under the bus. If I can read a summary of a book and accurately guess "This came from an author based in San Francisco", I will disregard it entirely. I cannot speak for others, but I know I'm not the only one. There are a few other cities that come to mind, but SF is easily the worst offender. The most extreme and vehement bias festers in that place and it is not worth my time. The people who speak from that place are more similar to a cult-like mentality than individual or innovative thinkers. I don't bother with listening to cults and so I don't listen to people from SF. Which is unfortunate because I am sure there are a few precious gems that don't tow the party line who may be worth the time to read. The unfortunate bit is I don't have the time to read everything. Part of my decision-making process for whether or not time should be allocated to read something involves assessing the likelihood that the author is so entrenched in their own biases as to make their work a waste of my time. Looking like an ideologue, talking an ideologue's talking point, and coming from a place known for its ideologues are tell-tale signs for me that the person is very likely an ideologue. I will let others risk wasting their time reading the work. If it gets enough charitable mentions from "outsiders" (those outside of the cult) then I may give it the time of day. Until then I will dismiss it just as some people would dismiss anything from Alex Jones and his ilk. As for your last statement - there are most likely people who do. And, for what it's worth, I didn't. (Also take my throwing myself under a bus as a separate talking point than the book recommendation you made. She is not from SF, I'm just illustrating the point about dismissing ideologues based on some small amount of known criteria.)

talmand 11y ago

Has this been downvoted? Why? It's a valid explanation. It's like punishing a nice person for explaining the concept of racism to you.