3 ms·

I think you're pretty close to 100% correct here. My one addition would be that with our level of connectedness, it would require an insane amount of self contr

I think you're pretty close to 100% correct here. My one addition would be that with our level of connectedness, it would require an insane amount of self control for an individual (male) to be of the mindset 'I take the things I want at work' and not have slip ups of the sort we're seeing here (inappropriate messages etc.) Because this disclaimer seems necessary in posts like this, I am in no way condoning his actions or the actions of people like this. However, it certainly seems like we're looking at an interesting area where the personality characteristics required to be successful may be orthogonal to 21st century social norms. (Venture capital.) I'd argue that another similar area is war fighting, and that this could be a plausible explanation (not excuse) for why sexual harassment can be so high in those areas as well.

adamsea 9y ago
To say it requires an "insane" level of self control is ridiculous.
- FeepingCreature 9y ago
  Different people probably feel impulses with different strength.
algesten 9y ago
Oh. You're one of those people: "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- qb45 9y ago
  To some extent he may be describing the phenomenon otherwise known as "groupies", to some extent he obviously was taking it too far.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  Your comment is totally inappropriate, not to mention ridiculous, and essentially amounts to a silly personal attack. No rational reading of anything he wrote could possibly suggest that he does or condones that. In fact you'd have to entirely ignore the sentence where he specifically says the opposite. Comments like this make it very difficult to have important discussions about these topics.
  - s73ver 9y ago
    At the same time, your “boys will be boys” attitude makes it hard to take you seriously as well. How do we actually get this behavior to stop when there are so many out there saying we shouldn’t call it out or there shouldn’t be consequences for it because they are “ignorant” of what they’re doing? On top of that, I don’t buy that ignorance argument for a second; they know exactly what they are doing.
    - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
      If you got "boys will be boys" out of what I said, you obviously didn't read very far. Feel free to read the whole post and make half an effort to see what I was saying. I also didn't say there shouldn't be consequences. Not that it matters much, you've already wrongly assumed how these people work. You're free to do that, but if you don't understand what motivates someone's behavior, your efforts to improve your own situation or that of your allies is doomed to be counterproductive.
      - s73ver 9y ago
        I got it out of what appears to be an unwillingness to hold these people accountable for their actions. All throughout this thread, including from you, I see an unwillingness to condemn these actions, and really, a call for a complete lack of real consequences. I see a lot of “Well, we can’t actually punish them; that’d be counterproductive.” Counterproductive to what? Actual punishment is how you send the message that these things are not acceptable. If someone can do these things, and when called out just say, “I’m sorry I got caught”, then the message is that no one really cares if this happens.

adamsea 9y ago

To say it requires an "insane" level of self control is ridiculous.

FeepingCreature 9y ago
Different people probably feel impulses with different strength.

algesten 9y ago

Oh. You're one of those people: "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
qb45 9y ago
To some extent he may be describing the phenomenon otherwise known as "groupies", to some extent he obviously was taking it too far.
lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Your comment is totally inappropriate, not to mention ridiculous, and essentially amounts to a silly personal attack. No rational reading of anything he wrote could possibly suggest that he does or condones that. In fact you'd have to entirely ignore the sentence where he specifically says the opposite. Comments like this make it very difficult to have important discussions about these topics.
- s73ver 9y ago
  At the same time, your “boys will be boys” attitude makes it hard to take you seriously as well. How do we actually get this behavior to stop when there are so many out there saying we shouldn’t call it out or there shouldn’t be consequences for it because they are “ignorant” of what they’re doing? On top of that, I don’t buy that ignorance argument for a second; they know exactly what they are doing.
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    If you got "boys will be boys" out of what I said, you obviously didn't read very far. Feel free to read the whole post and make half an effort to see what I was saying. I also didn't say there shouldn't be consequences. Not that it matters much, you've already wrongly assumed how these people work. You're free to do that, but if you don't understand what motivates someone's behavior, your efforts to improve your own situation or that of your allies is doomed to be counterproductive.
    - s73ver 9y ago
      I got it out of what appears to be an unwillingness to hold these people accountable for their actions. All throughout this thread, including from you, I see an unwillingness to condemn these actions, and really, a call for a complete lack of real consequences. I see a lot of “Well, we can’t actually punish them; that’d be counterproductive.” Counterproductive to what? Actual punishment is how you send the message that these things are not acceptable. If someone can do these things, and when called out just say, “I’m sorry I got caught”, then the message is that no one really cares if this happens.