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I've tried to piece together the debate with LeCun, but I can't find anything she said that seemed all that bad. It seemed like, if anything, she just simply w

I've tried to piece together the debate with LeCun, but I can't find anything she said that seemed all that bad. It seemed like, if anything, she just simply wouldn't let him off the hook. And it's very possible I missed several tweets that were really toxic...

Certhas 6y ago
Also, to put the double standard here into context, HN comment threads always had plenty of people defending Linus Torvalds tone.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  And plenty of people attacking him. Every Linus thread has a massive debate about him being an asshole. Just like in this thread there are plenty on each side. Where’s the double standard?
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    A quick look through a few of the last Linus threads and there is a lot more "taking his word as gospel" over calling him an asshole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      I was thinking threads from before his big "shit, i'm an asshole, sorry. gonna take time off" phase. Maybe I have a selective memory, but I'm remembering threads from those couple years before and after Susan Fowler and Uber's culture implosion. It felt like there was a shift in how the whole industry felt about brilliant assholes around then (thank god). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16508921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16508921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8415603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8415603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372096 I think the threads in articles specifically about Linus are better comparisons to this, rather than articles about computing that involve him. But, hey, folk like Torvalds and Gebru both really rub me the wrong way, so it's reasonable that I might be selectively remembering threads where HN said I'm right and that he's an asshole (and I did a lazy googling of "linus torvalds asshole site:news.ycombinator.com" which is biased too), so who knows.
- notSupplied 6y ago
  Communities are not monoliths. Otherwise, it would be incredibly easy to charge any sufficiently large community of blatant hypocrisy.
jeffbee 6y ago
Gebru did not engage LeCun in a reasoned debate. She said he should stop taking, listen to her and her allies (and only them). She said "Let us lead here and you follow" and "Just listen", essentially telling the inventor of convolutional neural nets that it was now his role to sit and shut up. That's how woke Twitter works: you define the group of people who are allowed to speak as only you and your allies. You pursue the meta-argument whenever someone not in your group attempts to speak.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Some links to specific comments here would help?
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1274809417653866496?lang=en https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1274809417653866496?l...
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > Let us lead [here] (I'm assuming "her" was a typo) and you follow. Aggressive, sure, but also seems: a. reasonable for AI ethics experts to "lead" in issues surrounding AI ethics b. not the cardinal sin of discussion that it appears to be viewed as here. You'll see people here defending Linus or Elon Musk for saying objectively way worse stuff than this. Somehow Timnit is defined by this discussion, but Elon isn't defined by calling a rescue diver a pedophile with no evidence or Linus telling someone to kill themselves.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        OK, but imagine that you are the expert in your field and you have work for this person, who controls your career and compensation, who has a tendency to say that domain experts need to shut up and defer to her.
        6y ago
cmiles74 6y ago
Agreed, there's even an article floating around that purports to summarize the most offensive tweets. In my opinion, this whole thing is being vastly blown out of proportion.

Certhas 6y ago

Also, to put the double standard here into context, HN comment threads always had plenty of people defending Linus Torvalds tone.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
And plenty of people attacking him. Every Linus thread has a massive debate about him being an asshole. Just like in this thread there are plenty on each side. Where’s the double standard?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  A quick look through a few of the last Linus threads and there is a lot more "taking his word as gospel" over calling him an asshole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    I was thinking threads from before his big "shit, i'm an asshole, sorry. gonna take time off" phase. Maybe I have a selective memory, but I'm remembering threads from those couple years before and after Susan Fowler and Uber's culture implosion. It felt like there was a shift in how the whole industry felt about brilliant assholes around then (thank god). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16508921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16508921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8415603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8415603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372096 I think the threads in articles specifically about Linus are better comparisons to this, rather than articles about computing that involve him. But, hey, folk like Torvalds and Gebru both really rub me the wrong way, so it's reasonable that I might be selectively remembering threads where HN said I'm right and that he's an asshole (and I did a lazy googling of "linus torvalds asshole site:news.ycombinator.com" which is biased too), so who knows.
notSupplied 6y ago
Communities are not monoliths. Otherwise, it would be incredibly easy to charge any sufficiently large community of blatant hypocrisy.

jeffbee 6y ago

Gebru did not engage LeCun in a reasoned debate. She said he should stop taking, listen to her and her allies (and only them). She said "Let us lead here and you follow" and "Just listen", essentially telling the inventor of convolutional neural nets that it was now his role to sit and shut up. That's how woke Twitter works: you define the group of people who are allowed to speak as only you and your allies. You pursue the meta-argument whenever someone not in your group attempts to speak.

CydeWeys 6y ago
Some links to specific comments here would help?
- jeffbee 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1274809417653866496?lang=en https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1274809417653866496?l...
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > Let us lead [here] (I'm assuming "her" was a typo) and you follow. Aggressive, sure, but also seems: a. reasonable for AI ethics experts to "lead" in issues surrounding AI ethics b. not the cardinal sin of discussion that it appears to be viewed as here. You'll see people here defending Linus or Elon Musk for saying objectively way worse stuff than this. Somehow Timnit is defined by this discussion, but Elon isn't defined by calling a rescue diver a pedophile with no evidence or Linus telling someone to kill themselves.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      OK, but imagine that you are the expert in your field and you have work for this person, who controls your career and compensation, who has a tendency to say that domain experts need to shut up and defer to her.
      - 6y ago

cmiles74 6y ago

Agreed, there's even an article floating around that purports to summarize the most offensive tweets. In my opinion, this whole thing is being vastly blown out of proportion.