3 ms·

These ideas can come from good intentions, but what it often means is that a certain opinion is the _right one_ and another opinion isn't. As an example, some

by dannyw 6y ago

These ideas can come from good intentions, but what it often means is that a certain opinion is the _right one_ and another opinion isn't. As an example, some parts of the internet ostracised Brendan Eich for a personal donation he made to support a Californian ballet proposition on same sex marriage; forcing his resignation. There were no complaints about any of his behaviour or actions at Mozilla whatsoever. That's not a good thing to be doing. As another example, the recent Stack Overflow changes where a controversial, over-empathsised policy change on respecting pronouns (also pretty much a non-issue, I have never seen pronoun complaints come up on Stack Overflow) has forced multiple community moderator resignations and a widespread community revolt. These changes are often negatives for the projects involved.

thrwaway69 6y ago
> also pretty much a non-issue, I have never seen pronoun complaints come up on Stack Overflow Eh, there are. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean there aren't any reports.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Most users on Stack Overflow use nongendered pseudonyms, and as a Q&A site, they go out of their way to explicitly discourage conversation. If you do need to a reply to a user in the comments, the convention is @username, no pronouns needed.
Nextgrid 6y ago
The Stack Overflow fiasco was more about virtue signalling because nowadays you need to be (or rather show) “diversity and inclusion” as a business if you want to appear as a “better” company (useful for soliciting VC investment when you don’t have a profitable business), regardless of whether diversity & inclusion has ever been a problem at the company.
- waterhouse 6y ago
  > nowadays you need to be (or rather show) “diversity and inclusion” as a business if you want to appear as a “better” company (useful for soliciting VC investment when you don’t have a profitable business), regardless of whether diversity & inclusion has ever been a problem at the company. Could you expand on this? My naive impression is that VCs do their best to make hard-nosed expected-value-in-USD estimates, perhaps specifically estimating the likelihood the company will be worth >$100M/$1B or whatever; and that acting like that is probably in their job description because they're investing other people's money who expect a return. How does the phenomenon you describe fit in? Is there some group of VCs that believe that championing "diversity and inclusion" is likely to lead to 10x growth? Does the company making the pitch make that claim—or, as one reading of your words suggests, claim that not having achieved 10x growth in the past is due to the lack of such championing? Or do VCs face social pressure (from, I dunno, other VCs, journalists who write about them, whoever else they talk with) to make it look like they're funding virtuous causes (er, companies)? Seems like the last is most plausible.
  - random32840 6y ago
    Companies in general try to seem like they care about more than money. "Grey Goo Ltd. We care." Diversity rhetoric is an easy, pre-constructed set of Things to Say (TM) that you can use to project empathy - notably, without doing anything significant to back it up. Google is still 70% men. But bear in mind San Francisco is incredibly liberal, SF programmers even more so. Companies based there will make overtures toward diversity & inclusion rhetoric to keep their workforce happy.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I wonder what that 70% looks like relative to other software engineering firms?
      - random32840 6y ago
        According to this chart[1], less women than Amazon, Facebook and Apple, more than Microsoft. When you normalise for tech workers only, it climbs to 77% men, which is about average for the industry. [1] https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4467.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4467.jpeg
midasz 6y ago
(I'm willing to catch some flak for this, since I know this may be controversial but it's how I truly think about this) What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being them. Maybe it's because I see myself as a progressive, I understand why people were mad at Eich and petitioned his removal. Him being the face of one of the biggest tech companies in the world actively working against your best interests must be hurtful. In my bubble it's absolutely normal to be gay, gay marriage is also nothing to be frowned upon, my country (NL) was the first in the world to legalize it. I realize a large portion of the rest of the world sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating money to the KKK or other extremist groups - should black people just think well hey he's doing a good job right? Who cares he's funding a group that actively detests me not for who I am but the color of my skin? Just like gay people think he's funding a group that detests me for something that isn't even my choice? I followed the SO debacle and what I gathered from it was that there were a couple of individuals who made some very very poor decisions, ruled with an iron first, and any dialogue was not only suppressed but the mod in question was booted in such a despicable way that the rest of the community followed. I don't think they're comparable.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > I realize a large portion of the rest of the world sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating money to the KKK or other extremist groups At the very least, that depends on whether you take his position as being an extremist "anti-gay" one, or simply as upholding the then-current status of traditional, cross-sex marriage. It should be noted that same-sex marriage has not been introduced by overt policy in the U.S.; it has acquired its status via a judicially-introduced "extension" of the usual cross-sex marriage. This surprising development has contributed to its wide-ranging acceptance in a way that shouldn't be misunderestimated; far from being something "contrary" to existing tradition, same-sex marriage has simply joined a lengthy list of comparable legal fictions known from the history of Western jurisprudence.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being them." Ironically, progressives say this piously while failing to extend it to those with conservative (or even moderate) beliefs or religious beliefs. (For the record, I am a non-religious classical liberal, part of which means I am against the intolerant aspects of progressivism.)

by dannyw 6y ago

thrwaway69 6y ago

> also pretty much a non-issue, I have never seen pronoun complaints come up on Stack Overflow Eh, there are. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean there aren't any reports.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Most users on Stack Overflow use nongendered pseudonyms, and as a Q&A site, they go out of their way to explicitly discourage conversation. If you do need to a reply to a user in the comments, the convention is @username, no pronouns needed.

Nextgrid 6y ago

The Stack Overflow fiasco was more about virtue signalling because nowadays you need to be (or rather show) “diversity and inclusion” as a business if you want to appear as a “better” company (useful for soliciting VC investment when you don’t have a profitable business), regardless of whether diversity & inclusion has ever been a problem at the company.

waterhouse 6y ago
> nowadays you need to be (or rather show) “diversity and inclusion” as a business if you want to appear as a “better” company (useful for soliciting VC investment when you don’t have a profitable business), regardless of whether diversity & inclusion has ever been a problem at the company. Could you expand on this? My naive impression is that VCs do their best to make hard-nosed expected-value-in-USD estimates, perhaps specifically estimating the likelihood the company will be worth >$100M/$1B or whatever; and that acting like that is probably in their job description because they're investing other people's money who expect a return. How does the phenomenon you describe fit in? Is there some group of VCs that believe that championing "diversity and inclusion" is likely to lead to 10x growth? Does the company making the pitch make that claim—or, as one reading of your words suggests, claim that not having achieved 10x growth in the past is due to the lack of such championing? Or do VCs face social pressure (from, I dunno, other VCs, journalists who write about them, whoever else they talk with) to make it look like they're funding virtuous causes (er, companies)? Seems like the last is most plausible.
- random32840 6y ago
  Companies in general try to seem like they care about more than money. "Grey Goo Ltd. We care." Diversity rhetoric is an easy, pre-constructed set of Things to Say (TM) that you can use to project empathy - notably, without doing anything significant to back it up. Google is still 70% men. But bear in mind San Francisco is incredibly liberal, SF programmers even more so. Companies based there will make overtures toward diversity & inclusion rhetoric to keep their workforce happy.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I wonder what that 70% looks like relative to other software engineering firms?
    - random32840 6y ago
      According to this chart[1], less women than Amazon, Facebook and Apple, more than Microsoft. When you normalise for tech workers only, it climbs to 77% men, which is about average for the industry. [1] https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4467.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4467.jpeg

midasz 6y ago

(I'm willing to catch some flak for this, since I know this may be controversial but it's how I truly think about this) What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being them. Maybe it's because I see myself as a progressive, I understand why people were mad at Eich and petitioned his removal. Him being the face of one of the biggest tech companies in the world actively working against your best interests must be hurtful. In my bubble it's absolutely normal to be gay, gay marriage is also nothing to be frowned upon, my country (NL) was the first in the world to legalize it. I realize a large portion of the rest of the world sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating money to the KKK or other extremist groups - should black people just think well hey he's doing a good job right? Who cares he's funding a group that actively detests me not for who I am but the color of my skin? Just like gay people think he's funding a group that detests me for something that isn't even my choice? I followed the SO debacle and what I gathered from it was that there were a couple of individuals who made some very very poor decisions, ruled with an iron first, and any dialogue was not only suppressed but the mod in question was booted in such a despicable way that the rest of the community followed. I don't think they're comparable.

zozbot234 6y ago
> I realize a large portion of the rest of the world sees it differently, but I'd place it in the same category of a CEO donating money to the KKK or other extremist groups At the very least, that depends on whether you take his position as being an extremist "anti-gay" one, or simply as upholding the then-current status of traditional, cross-sex marriage. It should be noted that same-sex marriage has not been introduced by overt policy in the U.S.; it has acquired its status via a judicially-introduced "extension" of the usual cross-sex marriage. This surprising development has contributed to its wide-ranging acceptance in a way that shouldn't be misunderestimated; far from being something "contrary" to existing tradition, same-sex marriage has simply joined a lengthy list of comparable legal fictions known from the history of Western jurisprudence.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "What to you may be just another opinion is another's legitimacy of them being them." Ironically, progressives say this piously while failing to extend it to those with conservative (or even moderate) beliefs or religious beliefs. (For the record, I am a non-religious classical liberal, part of which means I am against the intolerant aspects of progressivism.)