5 ms·

Why is crybullying so rampant in the tech community?

• GirlsCanCode 10y ago
  Don't forget change.org which is basically a crybully clearinghouse
• empressplay 10y ago
  It was (and in many ways still is) an extremely sexist community, but over the last few years it has gotten better. My worry is that continuing to agitate when there's been obvious improvement is only setting things up for a backlash, which would be counterproductive -- however, I'm not sure many of the "activists" care (they're activists first, after all, so it's in their nature to keep pushing the envelope even when it's no longer profitable to the cause they're championing)
  • ageofwant 10y ago
    I see this assertion made often but never with any justification. Please provide evidence that we are a "extremely sexist community". I posit that the opposite is true, and provide the same level of evidence.
  • hasenj 10y ago
    > It was (and in many ways still is) an extremely sexist community The Tech community is sexist? Extremely sexist? How so?
  • sjwright 10y ago
    There's a world of difference between sexist and statistically gender-biased. Conflating the two is dangerous and ugly.
• friendlygrammar 10y ago
  It's almost entirely contained in the javascript community.
  • Matachines 10y ago
    And Ruby, and Python. Don't forget the guy that got fired from his job for making a "forking" joke at PyCon.
    • lake99 10y ago
      Ruby? Not as far as I know. Matz rejected the Contributor Covenant, and instated the PostgreSQL CoC. Maybe you meant Ruby On Rails? They have adopted the Contributor Covenant.
      • jacalata 10y ago
        Some people appear to feel that any code of conduct is evidence of toxic SJW takeover.
        • teacup50 10y ago
          Well, it is. They're the ones that push them through. It's classic bureaucratic maneuvering: it gives you a political hammer from which you can then further cement a position of authority by leveraging the threat of official censure. See also the expansion of Title IX and the resulting chill on campus speech.
  • aikah 10y ago
    > It's almost entirely contained in the javascript community. No it's not. Did you forget about the lambda conf already? it's everywhere in the Tech community, which is less and less about tech, and more and more about pushing some unrelated political drivel.
• wyldfire 10y ago
  I think the significant change is that the tech community is growing to include other subcultures. And some of those subcultures bring new/different focuses on what's important to them. Also, I think there's some amount of momentum behind the legitimate disclosure of unacceptable behavior. The fact that many women and minorities lately feel unashamed in admitting that they were oppressed/assaulted/etc is a net win. The perpetrators of that oppression and violence should get justice. But it probably brings with it some risk of attention-seekers and easily-offended folks too.
  • aikah 10y ago
    > The perpetrators of that oppression and violence should get justice I don't see any justice in that story. Justice means the accused should have the right to defend himself and be confronted to his accuser. He often doesn't as "political tribunals" have already decided he already is guilty. Don't conflate "justice" with witch hunts.
    • wyldfire 10y ago
      Maybe you misunderstood what I meant. "The perpetrators of that oppression ..." referred to "... legitimate disclosure of unacceptable behavior...". So, concrete examples could help clear this up: disclosures of sexual assault [1] and occasions when law enforcement have killed unarmed minorities [2]. I referred to the fact that many women no longer feel embarassment or shame that would prevent an attacker from getting justice, or minorities with a policeman's justice -- I said that was a "net win." In earlier decades these legitimate evils might have gone un-punished, and that's bad. But unfortunately with that good comes the potential bad that some folks are emboldened to cry wolf. [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-let... [2] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-snap-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-deaths-20160707-s...
  • douche 10y ago
    Hmm, so increasing diversity increases the level of friction and strife within a particular culture... What a novel concept. Eventually the people who just want to build shit and get things done will have to splinter off again and go back into an uncool cultural ghetto.
• oldmanjay 10y ago
  Because there is a lot of money and power, which attracts politics, of which "crybullying" is a tactical maneuver. Also, it's a terrible word in an aesthetic sense. People don't try to bring much elegance to neologisms these days. Such a pity.
  • defen 10y ago
    How about instead of crybullies we call them Corinthians. > And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
    • EdSharkey 10y ago
      I think that was an affirmation of God's saving grace. It describes the ease of putting one's faith in God when suffering under great stress or pain or loss. The 'grace' comes from the fact that God won't judge us for our sins because Jesus took our place in the courtroom. So rather than our being damned, Jesus saved us through His perfect sacrifice. Crybullies are the persecutors, no? They're the ones to pray to God for deliverance FROM!
      • defen 10y ago
        Well it's obviously not the originally intended message, but the idea is that "crybullies" get their strength from weakness, in the sense that it gives them a feeling of moral superiority due to victimhood. They then use this as a platform to attack opponents. "Punching down" is the worst sin in the modern liberal conception of morality, so if your peer group consists of those people (and that means, nearly everyone in the middle and upper classes of modern western society) then you can very effectively have someone shunned by the group if you paint them as an oppressor. It doesn't appear to matter how tenuous those claims are, if the purported victims are sufficiently weak.
• alva 10y ago
  It is actually a fairly recent, systematic campaign across all industries. These actions are taking place across medicine, the scientific community and many others.
• tapsboy 10y ago
  Universities are also debating this through safe spaces. However, these events lead me to question if silencing the "bullies" is the only strategy in activist playbook? How is it different from a minority voice not being heard? If there is no common platform to interact with those "bullies", how else would you prove their belief's fallacious.
• tzs 10y ago
  I'm often a jerk, and occasionally an asshole. If I do something bad and someone justifiably berates me over it or criticizes me over it, I pretty much have to acknowledge that it was something I did that has upset them. That's because I'm a white male, so I can't rationalize it away as them just being racist or sexist. Some women and minorities (some, nowhere near a majority, but it only takes a few to stir up a lot of trouble) are also jerks and assholes, and when that draws criticism or anger or insults they can rationalize it away as them being attacked for their race or sex. It's a lot easier on the ego and self-esteem to think that someone dislikes you because of something you have no control over such as your race or sex rather than because you have a terrible personality.
• tome 10y ago
  Because it works.