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As a meta, it seems to be an infallible rule of Hacker News that any discussion about the relationship between men and women turns into an angry painful mess in

As a meta, it seems to be an infallible rule of Hacker News that any discussion about the relationship between men and women turns into an angry painful mess in no time. Maybe we should look into this anger itself rather than draw all sorts of conclusions from cases of which we don't know half of what really happened.

adekok 10y ago
It's similar to conversations between conservatives and liberals. Both groups have implicit assumptions about how the world works. They have implicit value judgements, in preferring one thing versus another. Conversation almost never describes these implicit assumptions. As a result, each side ends up thinking that the other side is stupid, obtuse, biased, etc. Getting to the underlying biases is hard. As evidence, see any number of newspaper headlines, including this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-us-military-attack-yemen-civilians-women-children-dead-a7553121.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-t... Ignoring the Trump bit, the headline says "kills 30 civilians, including 10 women and children" Now, try to prove that the male / female victims were treated equally. And, that there is no implicit bias in male / female relationships. I'm not saying that such bias is good, bad, or ugly. I'm saying it exists. And it underlies a lot of conversations, without anyone realizing it. Which goes a long way to explaining why things end up as you pointed out.
- RileyKyeden 10y ago
  I think in a lot of cases it's more that: 1: We know the assumptions. 2: We know the differences are often intractable (I will never relent on full LGBTQ equality, for example) 3: We can't just split off and do our own thing because we need each other for civilization to function, so we have to deal with them. Some of us can avoid dealing with it by moving to the city/suburbs/exurbs where there's more unity, but that just postpones dealing with the problems we ran from. Eventually, elections happen, and you realize putting 50-5000 miles between you and that person who finally motivated you to leave didn't actually resolve your conflicts.
- danaliv 10y ago
  > It's similar to conversations between conservatives and liberals. This is a terrible analogy. We're talking about one group's lived experiences, not a political issue where there are equally valid opposing viewpoints.
- spangry 10y ago
  That headline, and your comment on it, is a thought provoking example. I can easily imagine people with all sorts of opinions overlaying their own biases/preferences on what you said, and then responding reflexively. It's quite frustrating to watch people 'talk past' each other in this way.
debacle 10y ago
It might be helpful if there was some sort of statistic for comment threads. % of readers that read the comments vs % of readers that commented. It might be a valuable way to determine when comment threads are inhabited by vocal minorities.
forgottenpass 10y ago
> Maybe we should look into this anger itself... Not a bad idea in and of itself. But that'll just lead to a bunch of armchair psychologists "discovering" what they already wanted to be true. Undoubtedly a complete net-negative unless there are also some heavy hitters here on HN. Which I doubt, because I rarely even see pop-psych analysis posted beyond the current NorCal memes about what constitute a "healthy" temperament.
spangry 10y ago
Yeah, it's a little painful to watch. Half of the comments on this article seem to be mostly appeals to emotion and devoid of any reason. I have no idea if this sort of thing goes on here, but it almost feels like brigading.

adekok 10y ago

It's similar to conversations between conservatives and liberals. Both groups have implicit assumptions about how the world works. They have implicit value judgements, in preferring one thing versus another. Conversation almost never describes these implicit assumptions. As a result, each side ends up thinking that the other side is stupid, obtuse, biased, etc. Getting to the underlying biases is hard. As evidence, see any number of newspaper headlines, including this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-us-military-attack-yemen-civilians-women-children-dead-a7553121.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-t... Ignoring the Trump bit, the headline says "kills 30 civilians, including 10 women and children" Now, try to prove that the male / female victims were treated equally. And, that there is no implicit bias in male / female relationships. I'm not saying that such bias is good, bad, or ugly. I'm saying it exists. And it underlies a lot of conversations, without anyone realizing it. Which goes a long way to explaining why things end up as you pointed out.

RileyKyeden 10y ago
I think in a lot of cases it's more that: 1: We know the assumptions. 2: We know the differences are often intractable (I will never relent on full LGBTQ equality, for example) 3: We can't just split off and do our own thing because we need each other for civilization to function, so we have to deal with them. Some of us can avoid dealing with it by moving to the city/suburbs/exurbs where there's more unity, but that just postpones dealing with the problems we ran from. Eventually, elections happen, and you realize putting 50-5000 miles between you and that person who finally motivated you to leave didn't actually resolve your conflicts.
danaliv 10y ago
> It's similar to conversations between conservatives and liberals. This is a terrible analogy. We're talking about one group's lived experiences, not a political issue where there are equally valid opposing viewpoints.
spangry 10y ago
That headline, and your comment on it, is a thought provoking example. I can easily imagine people with all sorts of opinions overlaying their own biases/preferences on what you said, and then responding reflexively. It's quite frustrating to watch people 'talk past' each other in this way.

debacle 10y ago

It might be helpful if there was some sort of statistic for comment threads. % of readers that read the comments vs % of readers that commented. It might be a valuable way to determine when comment threads are inhabited by vocal minorities.

forgottenpass 10y ago

> Maybe we should look into this anger itself... Not a bad idea in and of itself. But that'll just lead to a bunch of armchair psychologists "discovering" what they already wanted to be true. Undoubtedly a complete net-negative unless there are also some heavy hitters here on HN. Which I doubt, because I rarely even see pop-psych analysis posted beyond the current NorCal memes about what constitute a "healthy" temperament.

spangry 10y ago

Yeah, it's a little painful to watch. Half of the comments on this article seem to be mostly appeals to emotion and devoid of any reason. I have no idea if this sort of thing goes on here, but it almost feels like brigading.