12 ms·

Crockford said: > the Old Web was great because it provided promiscuity [0] and > promiscuous: indiscriminate; without discrimination [1]. It's just people

by adamors 10y ago

Crockford said: > the Old Web was great because it provided promiscuity [0] and > promiscuous: indiscriminate; without discrimination [1]. It's just people getting offended for absolutely no reason. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w6tZEbrHIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w6tZEbrHIY [1]: from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/promiscuous http://www.dictionary.com/browse/promiscuous

tankenmate 10y ago
Hyper-vigilance is quite often an ongoing response to PTSD. It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact reliving previous issues. Would it not be better that root cause are addressed; honest to goodness cases and their psychological fall out are dealt with so that whole conferences don't need to duck and run for cover every time a car backfires.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact reliving previous issues. I highly doubt that. There seems to be a great deal of deliberation behind these attacks always involving some self declared champion of 'rights' that is flexing their muscle in an underhanded game of power.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I think it's a little of both. On the one hand you have people who really do have troubles and really could use a little kindness, and on the other you have people who are totally okay with cynically exploiting them and their troubles in order to acquire power. And if we're honest, people who've been abused already? Super easy to exploit. You don't even have to break them yourself! That's already taken care of. Do I sound bitter? Perhaps I sound bitter. I was going for savage sarcasm, but maybe I've overshot and landed in bitter. I've seen this dynamic play out to completion once, with homosexuals like myself in the role of foil. Now I'm seeing it play out again, this time on the backs of people whose uniting characteristic is having gone through hell at the hands of others, in many cases at the hands of people whom they should have been safely able to trust. Now they get to be used all over again, at the hands of people claiming to want to help - indeed claiming, implicitly or otherwise, to be the only ones who can effectively help, a classic abuser's trick in itself. In the face of such enormities, perhaps I may be forgiven a bitter moment here and there, shameful though they nonetheless be.
    - tankenmate 10y ago
      This would gel with my experience of working with LGBT+ people; some of them fight the "system" for so long that it takes a very heavy toll in stress; sometimes stress they don't even realise, or don't consciously realise the full impact it has.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        To be sure I've made myself clear, let me note explicitly that my prior comment's "on the other hand" refers to people who claim to be acting on our behalf as they behave in ways inimical to our interests.
  - mtrimpe 10y ago
    I know it's anecdote and not data but I for one became much more active in agitating against such cases after having been inappropriately dismissed after raising a complaint with HR about a colleague being discriminated against. I rationalize it as becoming more active in human rights issues after realizing their importance first hand but based on my externally observable behaviour the PTSD explanation could be considered just as valid... and to at least some degree also rings true to me. So I would say that there is indeed a good chance that a lot of these are caused by PTSD related to previous 'similar' workplace incidents and that indeed preventing those original events will go a long way towards calming the current storm of outrage. Not that I have the slightest clue as to how to do that though...
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Did you raise your complaint in a public forum and did you ask for the discriminators to be fired?
      - mtrimpe 10y ago
        I fail to see how this is relevant. Could you explain?
        jacquesm 10y ago
        That's roughly the context of the case at hand here. The initial shots were fired over twitter and included a threat of a boycott unless the 'offending' party was removed from the roster.
        mtrimpe 10y ago
        I was responding to the hypothesis that many of these 'overreactions' are essentially the result of PTSD symptoms... not the specific case at hand since I wasn't even aware of it. That a mere comment about a personal experience with this dynamic manages to garner a bunch of downvotes is all the more indication that awareness about such dynamics is sorely lacking in large parts of the IT community... which of course only reinforces those exact same dynamics.
  - mafribe 10y ago
    great deal of deliberation I suggest to study the works of people like Saul Alinsky, Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci who have spend a great deal of effort on thinking about political activism and how to undermine organisations and societies.. Then start following the money. Who pays for this? There would not be this "great deal of deliberation" if there wasn't something in it for the organisers.
- retrogradeorbit 10y ago
  If they are suffering from PTSD and reliving previous issues the solution is not removing the triggering stimulus and attacking the person who is causing the stimulus, but being gradually exposed to it in a safe environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy
  - tankenmate 10y ago
    I never suggested that anyone should be attacked, my comment never even implied as much.
- ageofwant 10y ago
  Yes it has become fashionable of late to blame a lot of discordant behaviour on "mental illness". SJW' are mentally ill by that definition sure :-) But I think the vast majority of it can be adequately explained by plain old fashioned arsehollery and dickiness. Also I also strongly suspect that their ranks contain a fair number of highly motivated and successful situation trolls. The last group deserve our respect and admiration.
- mafribe 10y ago
  that root cause are addressed The root cause is money, people get paid for SJW-style bullying, people get jobs so companies can tick the (legally mandated) diversity boxes. That's all you need to know to understand the root cause.
jacquesm 10y ago
There is a reason: by pretending to be offended by a 'name' the person pretending to be offended got to raise their own stature. It's the same mechanism as some nobody writing an open letter to a famous person. Apparently the offense doesn't even have to be real for it to have the same effect. Just like there isn't any bad publicity there seems to be no 'bad' offense because true or false the goal for the person claiming to be offended will be achieved, no matter what damage will be done to the reputations of others. Note that it is the organizer of the conference stepping down (mostly symbolic, this conference has no legitimacy any more anyway), there is no fall-out for the person that seems to have orchestrated the whole thing. Stupid power games.

by adamors 10y ago

tankenmate 10y ago

Hyper-vigilance is quite often an ongoing response to PTSD. It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact reliving previous issues. Would it not be better that root cause are addressed; honest to goodness cases and their psychological fall out are dealt with so that whole conferences don't need to duck and run for cover every time a car backfires.

jacquesm 10y ago
> It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact reliving previous issues. I highly doubt that. There seems to be a great deal of deliberation behind these attacks always involving some self declared champion of 'rights' that is flexing their muscle in an underhanded game of power.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I think it's a little of both. On the one hand you have people who really do have troubles and really could use a little kindness, and on the other you have people who are totally okay with cynically exploiting them and their troubles in order to acquire power. And if we're honest, people who've been abused already? Super easy to exploit. You don't even have to break them yourself! That's already taken care of. Do I sound bitter? Perhaps I sound bitter. I was going for savage sarcasm, but maybe I've overshot and landed in bitter. I've seen this dynamic play out to completion once, with homosexuals like myself in the role of foil. Now I'm seeing it play out again, this time on the backs of people whose uniting characteristic is having gone through hell at the hands of others, in many cases at the hands of people whom they should have been safely able to trust. Now they get to be used all over again, at the hands of people claiming to want to help - indeed claiming, implicitly or otherwise, to be the only ones who can effectively help, a classic abuser's trick in itself. In the face of such enormities, perhaps I may be forgiven a bitter moment here and there, shameful though they nonetheless be.
  - tankenmate 10y ago
    This would gel with my experience of working with LGBT+ people; some of them fight the "system" for so long that it takes a very heavy toll in stress; sometimes stress they don't even realise, or don't consciously realise the full impact it has.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      To be sure I've made myself clear, let me note explicitly that my prior comment's "on the other hand" refers to people who claim to be acting on our behalf as they behave in ways inimical to our interests.
- mtrimpe 10y ago
  I know it's anecdote and not data but I for one became much more active in agitating against such cases after having been inappropriately dismissed after raising a complaint with HR about a colleague being discriminated against. I rationalize it as becoming more active in human rights issues after realizing their importance first hand but based on my externally observable behaviour the PTSD explanation could be considered just as valid... and to at least some degree also rings true to me. So I would say that there is indeed a good chance that a lot of these are caused by PTSD related to previous 'similar' workplace incidents and that indeed preventing those original events will go a long way towards calming the current storm of outrage. Not that I have the slightest clue as to how to do that though...
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Did you raise your complaint in a public forum and did you ask for the discriminators to be fired?
    - mtrimpe 10y ago
      I fail to see how this is relevant. Could you explain?
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        That's roughly the context of the case at hand here. The initial shots were fired over twitter and included a threat of a boycott unless the 'offending' party was removed from the roster.
        mtrimpe 10y ago
        I was responding to the hypothesis that many of these 'overreactions' are essentially the result of PTSD symptoms... not the specific case at hand since I wasn't even aware of it. That a mere comment about a personal experience with this dynamic manages to garner a bunch of downvotes is all the more indication that awareness about such dynamics is sorely lacking in large parts of the IT community... which of course only reinforces those exact same dynamics.
- mafribe 10y ago
  great deal of deliberation I suggest to study the works of people like Saul Alinsky, Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci who have spend a great deal of effort on thinking about political activism and how to undermine organisations and societies.. Then start following the money. Who pays for this? There would not be this "great deal of deliberation" if there wasn't something in it for the organisers.
retrogradeorbit 10y ago
If they are suffering from PTSD and reliving previous issues the solution is not removing the triggering stimulus and attacking the person who is causing the stimulus, but being gradually exposed to it in a safe environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy
- tankenmate 10y ago
  I never suggested that anyone should be attacked, my comment never even implied as much.
ageofwant 10y ago
Yes it has become fashionable of late to blame a lot of discordant behaviour on "mental illness". SJW' are mentally ill by that definition sure :-) But I think the vast majority of it can be adequately explained by plain old fashioned arsehollery and dickiness. Also I also strongly suspect that their ranks contain a fair number of highly motivated and successful situation trolls. The last group deserve our respect and admiration.
mafribe 10y ago
that root cause are addressed The root cause is money, people get paid for SJW-style bullying, people get jobs so companies can tick the (legally mandated) diversity boxes. That's all you need to know to understand the root cause.

jacquesm 10y ago

There is a reason: by pretending to be offended by a 'name' the person pretending to be offended got to raise their own stature. It's the same mechanism as some nobody writing an open letter to a famous person. Apparently the offense doesn't even have to be real for it to have the same effect. Just like there isn't any bad publicity there seems to be no 'bad' offense because true or false the goal for the person claiming to be offended will be achieved, no matter what damage will be done to the reputations of others. Note that it is the organizer of the conference stepping down (mostly symbolic, this conference has no legitimacy any more anyway), there is no fall-out for the person that seems to have orchestrated the whole thing. Stupid power games.