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It is unfortunate that way too many commenters on a prior threads dismissed her as a some twitter personality and trivialized her body of work in spite of the f

It is unfortunate that way too many commenters on a prior threads dismissed her as a some twitter personality and trivialized her body of work in spite of the fact that she is well regarded and reputable in the ML community. Both the positive aspects of her contributions and the clear negatives of her approach were rightly pointed out by various people (as well as problems with process and politics at Google); perhaps your reading of a long and complicated morass of comments was unintentionally selective.

whimsicalism 6y ago
I think the tone on HN was markedly more critical than elsewhere and I certainly notice that the divergence in tone seems greatest when discussing black people and women.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  It depends where "elsewhere" is. I personally find HN to be generally liberal-leaning but not excessively so, and have noticed a welcome openness to centrist opinions that might once have been dismissed here out of hand as right-wing (and are still being dismissed elsewhere) that I take as a good sign of an increasingly aware local commentariat with respect to the excesses of the more ideological elements of the left and right.
- contemporary343 6y ago
  Yep, I've noticed this too.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Where is elsewhere? The big online communities I'm a part of are twitter, reddit, hacker news, and facebook. It's true that hacker news seems to be different from those when discussing culture war topics. With hacker news being father to the right than twitter and reddit, and more center right than my facebook feed. One conclusion is hacker news exists in a right wing bubble. The other is that twitter and reddit exist in a left wing bubble. Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator. And even the people arguing her being let go was justified are probably pretty center or center left. I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in. I am in a bubble where I mostly talk to college educated people and people who have educated themselves in a similar tradition or are well-read. Perhaps it is snobbish of me, but I am mostly okay with that bubble for discussion forums. Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter, HN seems like it is in a right-leaning bubble. > Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator Your assessment of the median voter is being super distorted by the geographic layout of the US, btw. The median voter did not vote for a republican senator.
    - patwolfe 6y ago
      Yeah this is simply not true, the median American did not vote for a Republican senator.
    - mellosouls 6y ago
      You are self-aware enough to acknowledge you are in a bubble in that respect (as most of us are but not everybody likes to admit); you should consider going a step further and understand that the larger community you talk of ("Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter") is itself a bubble that is perhaps rather more liberal leaning than society as a whole - or at least not as sympathetic to the more activist types being discussed here. Even if in the long run it turns out your position becomes the mainstream, that isn't necessarily nearly the case now. This is why your original "elsewhere" is being questioned as it's likely not a representative baseline in that regard. Whatever HN is, it certainly isn't right-leaning.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      > I am in a bubble where I mostly talk to college educated people and people who have educated themselves in a similar tradition or are well-read. Perhaps it is snobbish of me, but I am mostly okay with that bubble for discussion forums. > Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter, HN seems like it is in a right-leaning bubble. If most of the people you talk to are college educated people who live in a city than you most definitely exist in a bubble. Remember 47% of the country voted for Trump(I doubt Hacker news came anywhere near this number). Of your friends how many voted for Trump? As an example I'm a college graduate in his 30's who lives in the city. 0% of the 20 people I talk to most often voted for Trump, and maybe 4% of the the extended 200 people I know, voted for trump. And of that 4%, 3/4ths voted for him begrudgingly. And I live in a southern state that voted for Trump. So when you look at hacker news and encounter opinions that are different than your own it might seem like Hacker News exists in a bubble, but I think it's far more likely your life exists in a bubble that's stronger than hacker news. > Your assessment of the median voter is being super distorted by the geographic layout of the US, btw. The median voter did not vote for a republican senator. The median senate voter would have voted for a Republican but that's mostly because California and New York didn't have senate races this year.
- patwolfe 6y ago
  Agreed. It feels like there is a lot of tone policing that happens around the way women and people of color talk about these issues (especially with regard to their Twitter posts) which is pretty disappointing.

whimsicalism 6y ago

I think the tone on HN was markedly more critical than elsewhere and I certainly notice that the divergence in tone seems greatest when discussing black people and women.

mellosouls 6y ago
It depends where "elsewhere" is. I personally find HN to be generally liberal-leaning but not excessively so, and have noticed a welcome openness to centrist opinions that might once have been dismissed here out of hand as right-wing (and are still being dismissed elsewhere) that I take as a good sign of an increasingly aware local commentariat with respect to the excesses of the more ideological elements of the left and right.
contemporary343 6y ago
Yep, I've noticed this too.
JamesBarney 6y ago
Where is elsewhere? The big online communities I'm a part of are twitter, reddit, hacker news, and facebook. It's true that hacker news seems to be different from those when discussing culture war topics. With hacker news being father to the right than twitter and reddit, and more center right than my facebook feed. One conclusion is hacker news exists in a right wing bubble. The other is that twitter and reddit exist in a left wing bubble. Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator. And even the people arguing her being let go was justified are probably pretty center or center left. I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in. I am in a bubble where I mostly talk to college educated people and people who have educated themselves in a similar tradition or are well-read. Perhaps it is snobbish of me, but I am mostly okay with that bubble for discussion forums. Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter, HN seems like it is in a right-leaning bubble. > Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator Your assessment of the median voter is being super distorted by the geographic layout of the US, btw. The median voter did not vote for a republican senator.
  - patwolfe 6y ago
    Yeah this is simply not true, the median American did not vote for a Republican senator.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    You are self-aware enough to acknowledge you are in a bubble in that respect (as most of us are but not everybody likes to admit); you should consider going a step further and understand that the larger community you talk of ("Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter") is itself a bubble that is perhaps rather more liberal leaning than society as a whole - or at least not as sympathetic to the more activist types being discussed here. Even if in the long run it turns out your position becomes the mainstream, that isn't necessarily nearly the case now. This is why your original "elsewhere" is being questioned as it's likely not a representative baseline in that regard. Whatever HN is, it certainly isn't right-leaning.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    > I am in a bubble where I mostly talk to college educated people and people who have educated themselves in a similar tradition or are well-read. Perhaps it is snobbish of me, but I am mostly okay with that bubble for discussion forums. > Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter, HN seems like it is in a right-leaning bubble. If most of the people you talk to are college educated people who live in a city than you most definitely exist in a bubble. Remember 47% of the country voted for Trump(I doubt Hacker news came anywhere near this number). Of your friends how many voted for Trump? As an example I'm a college graduate in his 30's who lives in the city. 0% of the 20 people I talk to most often voted for Trump, and maybe 4% of the the extended 200 people I know, voted for trump. And of that 4%, 3/4ths voted for him begrudgingly. And I live in a southern state that voted for Trump. So when you look at hacker news and encounter opinions that are different than your own it might seem like Hacker News exists in a bubble, but I think it's far more likely your life exists in a bubble that's stronger than hacker news. > Your assessment of the median voter is being super distorted by the geographic layout of the US, btw. The median voter did not vote for a republican senator. The median senate voter would have voted for a Republican but that's mostly because California and New York didn't have senate races this year.
patwolfe 6y ago
Agreed. It feels like there is a lot of tone policing that happens around the way women and people of color talk about these issues (especially with regard to their Twitter posts) which is pretty disappointing.