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This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The

This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner.

cronix 6y ago
> where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy Wouldn't someone talking to someone "lower" on the "oppression hierarchy" just be what we basically have today? That sounds like "privilege," or an "imbalanced power dynamic." I think you'll only be able to talk to equals, whatever that is, and by whatever metric is en vogue for that day.
- lazide 6y ago
  People don’t talk candidly most of the time now to those lower on the hierarchy. In many Corp environments, almost no one talks candidly to anyone - too many minefields. You’d generally only talk candidly to those who were not just peers, but you already had a deep seated existing rapport with and trust. Friends? Everyone else gets the politically safe story that is supposed to be told. I’ve seen it in action, and it makes me sad because it becomes fundamentally corrosive. And if you think for some people that doesn’t include the right kind of outrage discussion or telling the right stories to the visible oppressed minority they’re mentoring so they can get the right checkbox when they hopefully get considered for SVP (or as plan B, their mentee does) - I’ve also got a bridge to sell you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ZitchDog 6y ago
  I believe when OP says "lower on the oppression hierarchy" they mean we only talk candidly with those who are as oppressed as us or less. i.e. someone higher on the oppression hierarchy would be more oppressed.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    yes, i have been perceiving same as he sayed. my thinking is that this is a bad thing for persons who are having less advantages: if white manager can give forthright feedback to only white persons this is actual bad for black one and maybe will harm the black one more than it help. this is likewise if most in office are feeling less cameraderie with a black for that they are not able speaking so openly and believe they are having to guard tongues. i wonder about these un-intended consecuences.
    - ambicapter 6y ago
      That is the gist of the article linked up top, yes.
- retrac 6y ago
  I do some work with HIV prevention. Sometimes I give talks where I'm very blunt about the realities of HIV among men who have sex with men. I've watched people immediately shift from mild hostility and discomfort to wholehearted acceptance of what I am saying, when I tell them I'm gay myself. In that circumstance, I think it is clear that my sexual orientation is the basis by which they are judging the authoritativeness I have to speak on the topic. Never mind the formal qualifications, or the logic or veracity of what I am actually saying. Like, I know we all have little unconscious checklists like that for judging whether someone is credible, but it is uncomfortable to see the effect live.
  - duckfang 6y ago
    As a bisexual male, I think a good part of disdain about connecting HIV and gay goes to the older naming of the disease: GRID. gay-related immune deficiency It also dates me, but I had a blood transfusion in 1982. At that time, it was a Russian Roulette if I ended up with HIV blood or not. I didn't. Had I been innfected, I would have ended up like Ryan White.
    - randallsquared 6y ago
      Even knowing the term GRID dates you. :) Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80%931982:_From_GRID_to_AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80... , the "GRID" moniker was only used for under two years, forty years ago. I think it's unlikely that the name is to blame.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - benatkin 6y ago
        I was born in 1982 and I knew about it. I don't think it's unlikely. It was early in the chain of events, so even if it was six months it could have had a big impact.
  - DenisM 6y ago
- tsm_sf 6y ago
  The subtext of this entire conversation is that you'll never be able to talk "freely" in front of subordinates, so you need to either pine for yesteryear or take another look at your power dynamics.
idyio 6y ago
> people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy This supposed hierarchy of oppression, based on identity characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, really is the biggest scam going. Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities, corruption, and abuse of power. Yet, identarians insist on shoehorning everything into their flawed worldview. The Black Lives Matter movement was a telling example of this - police brutality is indeed an ongoing problem in society, but it doesn't just apply to black people. It's anyone the police feel they can get away with abusing. Just look at how they treat homeless people, drug addicts, and so on, regardless of race. Another is celebrating people as tokens regardless of their actions. First mixed-race female Vice President of the USA - okay, but what sort of shitty role model is this? Rather reminds me of: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Co90umqUsAAdgQI?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Co90umqUsAAdgQI?format=jpg We would all do well to be critical of how identity politics is being used to mask the real root causes of oppression in our society. The so-called left wing of politics is the worst for this too, and I say this as a life-long leftist. Why make everything about identity; where has the traditional focus on class gone?
- Veen 6y ago
  > Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities Yes, and almost none of the people founding startups in Silicon Valley are oppressed by any reasonable understanding that concept.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    none of the people founding startups in Silicon Valley are oppressed by any reasonable understanding that concept I’ve never understood why they are so desperate to be oppressed that they have to invent new categories to be part of then claim to be oppressed when literally no one even knows what they are.
- yarcob 6y ago
  > Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities I recently talked to a mom who visited her adult foster daughter with a different skin tone. Her daughter reminded her to make sure she doesn't forget her ID in the hotel. The mom was confused. They were just going to take a walk in Munich. Why would she need an ID? She never has an ID on her when she goes for a walk. The daughter said, because the police, they stop you and ask to see your ID! Mom couldn't believe it that the police was so different in Munich. Then it dawned on her. Foster daughter had brown skin, so she was randomly stopped by police and asked for ID because she looks like an immigrant. Mom was white and has never ever been stopped by police before. The police absolutely treat people different because of race.
semi-extrinsic 6y ago
I believe this phenomenon is more like overshoot in an underdamped system than being the end result. Rapid changes always lead to overshoot. I also think the amount of overshoot is proportional to the amount of sexism that was present in a society thirty years ago. I believe Northern Europe has been trending slowly towards gender equality since the 90s, and thus the amount of overshoot here is much less from the recent rapid changes like #meetoo. Also our kids roam around the neighbourhood freely. We're thinking of giving our 9-year-old a cellphone soon, for now she just has an analog watch and we agree on what time she has to be home by. If you look at statistics, the rate of women murdered per capita, and the rate of women who experience sexualized violence per capita, are around 5x higher in the US than in Northern Europe. The murder rate here for children (excluding by their own parents) is below 1 per million children per year. We're definitely not perfect, we have a long way to go still, but we are starting from a more equal place if you look at the status pre-2017.
- hhjinks 6y ago
  There's no such thing as overcorrection when _any_ correction in the direction we're seeing on display in this article is a net negative for literally everyone involved. Women get worse advice, men tip-toe around women, and society loses out on potentially valuable investments.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  > I also think the amount of overshoot is proportional to the amount of sexism that was present in a society thirty years ago. What is the mechanism for this? The majority of the "woke" twitter mob is 30 or younger.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  I believe this phenomenon is more like overshoot in an underdamped system than being the end result. Rapid changes always lead to overshoot. "Underdamped system" is very apt here. There are some positive feedback factors which exacerbate the situation in the "underdamped system." If you give over power to a mob, then the very principles which act as damping can be completely abandoned. Things like "innocent until proven guilty," and the valuing of evidence. The answer to unchecked, abused, one-sided power is not more unchecked, one-sided power with the vector rotated 180 degrees. That's just welcoming more dysfunction and abuse. we are starting from a more equal place if you look at the status pre-2017 We are starting from a place where typical middle-school, high school, and college kids are likely to answer with expletives towards the principles mentioned above -- depending on the context in which you ask their opinion. EDIT: Way back when, when I was watching that Vice report about the Evergreen State College activists, and one of them said, "...then f#ck your Free Speech!" I became very afraid that our society was in for a world of hurt. I'm pretty sure Gandhi and MLK were for Free Speech and the other principles mentioned above.
Fordec 6y ago
Women have for years had the same fear of men. Most men, good people. Or at least not criminally bad. But some are. But the social stigma of women going out alone at night, fear of first dates etc. has permeated the social fabric of how women have to treat men on their day to day. I've yet to encounter a woman who has gone from internalizing this aspect of society to dropping their priors and living care free without fear of men they don't know / met for the first time. They have had decades, minimum, of this just being how things are. And things have not found a way to change to a more easy going society. If anything things have just hardened up as information and media have become more prevalent. In comparison, powerful people fearing being potentially (mis)interpreted not being worth the risk to their entire career is a relatively new phenomenon. I wager that the OP of this article doesn't have a solution to the problem of trust by investors, because women have yet to discover the solution to their own generalized mistrust of men outside their direct social circle despite how long that situation has gone on for. Until the risk / reward dynamic changes (and I do not see how it could without making people less accountable), I fully anticipate that this self censorship in society will not only just continue, but will yet increase further in an information society where powerful people can be made accountable by the public as stories of people being held to account to their actions, regardless of whether those actions were deliberate, accidental or misunderstandings.
- neonological 6y ago
  >Women have for years had the same fear of men. Most men, good people. Or at least not criminally bad. But some are. But the social stigma of women going out alone at night, fear of first dates etc. has permeated the social fabric of how women have to treat men on their day to day. I've yet to encounter a woman who has gone from internalizing this aspect of society to dropping their priors and living care free without fear of men they don't know / met for the first time. Before you get outraged I just want to caveat this by saying that what I'm about to say is just controversial and anecdotal. If you share a different opinion than fine, this is just my opinion. The general fear women have of men that permeates all of their behavior is more of a biologically programmed fear than it is a an environmentally programmed one. What makes me say this? Because, anecdotally, women have this fear even when there is ZERO prior trauma. Although they can train this fear away, practically all women are naturally more guarded when among unfamiliar men, even with No prior Trauma. I've been been in tons of fists fights when I was a kid. There are many times where I've lost and was beaten until my face was a bloody mess by other dudes. This is 100x more trauma than an average woman will ever go through and even I don't live in fear of "men." Now this is not scientific evidence but anecdotal evidence is not invalid. It's the only way to talk about such subjects short of doing a 10 year scientific study. So you may have a different experience and I respect that but I also respectfully ask anyone who replies not to start a gender flame war and get outraged at my viewpoint. >They have had decades, minimum, of this just being how things are. And things have not found a way to change to a more easy going society. If anything things have just hardened up as information and media have become more prevalent. In comparison, powerful people fearing being potentially (mis)interpreted not being worth the risk to their entire career is a relatively new phenomenon. I wager that the OP of this article doesn't have a solution to the problem of trust by investors, because women have yet to discover the solution to their own generalized mistrust of men outside their direct social circle despite how long that situation has gone on for. You used the word "decades," and this is what the wrong part of your statement. It is actually factually wrong and there is tons of anthropological research to back this up. The word you should have used was "centuries." Practically all of human civilization has been patriarchal. They have never identified in the history of archaeology and anthropology any human civilization where the dominant sex was not Men. This fact flies across time and across geographic boundaries of countless cultures. There is not a single exception. There are civilizations where women took on roles that are traditionally "male" but there has never been a civilization that has been consistently matriarchal. Thus from this perspective it is arguable that patriarchy could be biologically ingrained and that modern civilization is currently trending beyond out biological imperative. The additional rights afforded by women today is largely a modern and very unique phenomenon. According to the current school of thought in academia much of it is attributed to changes in technology. Sewage, tampons, etc.
neonological 6y ago
I don't blame the media for this. The media just magnifies a very real and sizable aspect of our culture that already exists. Just like how these people are seeking someone to blame, you are seeking the same when you blame the media. It's not just the media, what's going on here is something we're all responsible for.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  The magnification distorts reality and alters peoples behavior such that everyone is a little bit more irrational.
  - neonological 6y ago
    But the distortion existed in society in the first place. The main stream media reports what people what to hear because it's good for business. The root of the problem is us. The phenomenon isn't something created by the media and deployed into society. The origins of cancel culture and most of this outrage come from extremist leftist elements from students in college campuses. The media just made the spreading of this phenomenon faster. You can't really blame social media either. Because we control what goes onto social media. We're responsible for the news on our social feeds.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
anonporridge 6y ago
It's a matter of risk mitigation. Either a person accepts extreme, but very unlikely, risk by exercising perfect candor with everyone or they decide to clam up around people lower on the 'oppression hierarchy' which costs them almost nothing to do. Why would any rational actor not choose option B unless they're getting some reward great enough to offset the risk of option A?
- stcredzero 6y ago
  https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/ https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-...
  - mojo982 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. This issue is constant but I’ve never had it explained so well.
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      There's a weird inversion of the Thermocline happening in the past few years, with "activists." Social Media can so amplify the voices of "activists," that they gain power which people are afraid to speak out against. Especially if the power is based on mob mentality. Especially if power is given over to accusation without evidence. (This is borne out by history. McCarthy, for example.) So when certain people go too far -- and given how power corrupts, it's inevitable that sudden onsets of power will corrupt -- people who should be saying "wait a minute" are saying nothing. All power is fleeting. All power is contextual. Any one who tries to deny these truths, is attempting some manner of deception to further their own power at someone else's expense.
pron 6y ago
Imagine a woman were to say, if we don't put an end to casual sexism, the end result we're heading for is that men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon. A much more realistic and likely outcome, and a far less hysterical perspective than yours, is that the needle was way too far one way, now people are learning to cope with it shifting, and if we try to be more empathetic, perhaps getting help when we need to, we can shift it to a better place than it was before. How do I know this? Because identical dynamics play over and over, change is scary, even if it is for the better, and people have opposed it on similar grounds -- it would lead to absurdities and worst outcomes for everyone involved -- since time immemorial. For example, see some arguments against women suffrage from just over a hundred years ago [1]: > Because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities. > Because Woman Suffrage is based on the idea of the equality of the sexes, and tends to establish those competitive relations which will destroy chivalrous consideration. And, of course, women do not want the vote [2] The belief that we can -- and must -- work tirelessly change the world by, say, allowing humans to fly and even reach other planets, but when it comes to how people should speak to one another, well, that's too difficult to change, there's no point in trying, and if we try then the outcome will obviously be bad, just seems so bizarre. [1]: https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-women-do-not-wish-the-suffrage/306616/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-wom...
- dang 6y ago
  > men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon. > And, of course, women do not want the vote Please keep this sort of flamebait out of your HN posts. It's guaranteed to make everything worse, and you can make your substantive points without it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - pron 6y ago
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Who are “we”? Anglo-Saxons? Unite States Citizens? or even only a subset of the later? particularly those active in finance and other fields where a man's social conformance weighs more than his skills. I can't say that I have ever in my life noticed much of the Anglo-Saxon gender, race, and other such politics in real life and I remain sceptical as to what extent it is actually true within Anglo-Saxon offices, for I find that all “sides” of the issue seem to offer very different, contradictory experiences, and mostly reads as a rather exagerated an implausible story of how bad it is for one's own side. Though there might be a kernel of truth behind some of it, most of it reads as though the writers see boogymen, and unreasonable fear, and I will say that when actual hard statistics be available, they almost always paint a very difficult picture than what is complained about in all these “culture war” discussions, and that certainly goes for all sides.
skjfdoslifjeifj 6y ago
One of my main concerns is that almost all legitimate discussion is now happening in private invite only communities because people are too risk averse to continue to chat on public sites that will be indexed forever in a culture where they can be cancelled for even a slightly uncouth opinion. Almost all of my consumption and contribution on the Internet is now in private communities that are quite strict about invites and the trend among my colleagues is similar. When I was younger I learned so much and established many valuable relationships by having discussions on public services/websites. Many legends in the field were quite accessible on public sites and mailing lists. My life would be much worse if I hadn't had those experiences and it feels like a lot of younger people that don't have connections to the SV bubble are now going to miss out on similar experiences. This isn't to say that we should be tolerant of everything but it definitely feels like we've swung too far in the opposite direction.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  Not saying I do this, necessarily, but friends of mine who are active in policy circles write for various publications under pseudonyms now for this reason. The development of the idea happens in private group chats, where everyone is using their IRL name, but the publication happens under a pen name. I really don't know if this is a positive change for how policy gets made, but it is happening actively right now.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    Can you link to some examples of policy papers written under pseudonyms?
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      Obviously no? That would defeat the purpose. I understand what you're getting at though. I just made a claim that people in policy circles are writing things under pseudonyms. You want evidence for this (justifiably), but this would require me to essentially out the pen names. Sorry, not going to happen.
geoduck14 6y ago
I respectfully disagree. Feedback is best received when you relate to the person who is giving it and you trust the giver has your best interest at heart. While the "current environment" may make it so women are more weary of men (and thus less likely to receive feedback) - I think there is a stronger current. White male investors see people outside of their social group and realize that their advice might not be well received- not because of a flame war, but simply because they don't look like them. I'm fully convinced this effect is visible with all mixes of social groups (race, gender, religion, national origin, job family). This effect sucks, and we should be looking for ways to unite ourselves to other people so that we can receive hard advice and also give hard advice.
- johnrichardson 6y ago
  Hogwash! Cultural enrichment has no downsides, ever! We just aren't diversifying hard enough, comrade.
foobiekr 6y ago
The risk of the unpredictable, catastrophic risks that children face when they roam lower than it has ever been. The risk of an unpredictable, catastrophic event for a man is higher than it has ever been. I don't think that's a good analogy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Natsu 6y ago
It's a sort of similar to the prisoner's dilemma. It's hard to keep a community cooperative when there are defectors about and our impression of how likely others are to defect on us influences how willing we are to cooperate. That's why you see people looking for smaller, more trust-bound online communities to associate with.
rapind 6y ago
"Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner." They're called cars. Houses are packed tighter and there's more cars per household than when I was growing up (maybe due to everyone being double income now). Streets are also narrower and most have street parking, creating visibility issues. Go check out a development than went up 40-50 years ago compared to one that went up in the last 5 years. The difference is pretty stark and pretty hostile to kids running around doing kid stuff. I don't think media's focus on bad guys has nearly the impact that the enormous increase in cars has had.
- fastball 6y ago
  Honestly, this is pretty trivially avoided. My parents drilled it into my head to look both ways before going into a street. I always look ways before going into the street. It's really not difficult.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    It is trivially avoided once the kids are old enough, but there's a long period during which kids would be safe enough to roam around in the absence of cars, but aren't in the current environment. We live a block from the playground, close enough that I can almost see it from our window, but you can't get there without crossing the street. So our kids (7y, 5y) can only go there with a grown up. I've worked on teaching them how to cross the street safely, but they're just not good enough at checking for cars yet.
    - fastball 6y ago
      I'm still not buying it. I lived in Switzerland for a while where kids walk themselves to school starting at like 5 years old, and there are loads of cars.
      - catmanjan 6y ago
        Whats the speed limit? In Australia there are a lot of 60kmh roads near parks
rocqua 6y ago
One explanation here is certainly the media being sensationalist for sensation's sake. An alternative is that some in media might think the crackdown on sexism is bad. Hence they focus on the bad effects. Whether this is explicit propaganda or honest reporting on what they consider the more important issue almost seems like a semantic question. I suspect both elements play a role. How big a role I have little idea.
- sneak 6y ago
  > One explanation here is certainly the media being sensationalist for sensation's sake. Sadly I think it may be for profits, for survival's sake. The media business is very different now than it was pre-Zuckerberg.

cronix 6y ago

> where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy Wouldn't someone talking to someone "lower" on the "oppression hierarchy" just be what we basically have today? That sounds like "privilege," or an "imbalanced power dynamic." I think you'll only be able to talk to equals, whatever that is, and by whatever metric is en vogue for that day.

lazide 6y ago
People don’t talk candidly most of the time now to those lower on the hierarchy. In many Corp environments, almost no one talks candidly to anyone - too many minefields. You’d generally only talk candidly to those who were not just peers, but you already had a deep seated existing rapport with and trust. Friends? Everyone else gets the politically safe story that is supposed to be told. I’ve seen it in action, and it makes me sad because it becomes fundamentally corrosive. And if you think for some people that doesn’t include the right kind of outrage discussion or telling the right stories to the visible oppressed minority they’re mentoring so they can get the right checkbox when they hopefully get considered for SVP (or as plan B, their mentee does) - I’ve also got a bridge to sell you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ZitchDog 6y ago
I believe when OP says "lower on the oppression hierarchy" they mean we only talk candidly with those who are as oppressed as us or less. i.e. someone higher on the oppression hierarchy would be more oppressed.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  yes, i have been perceiving same as he sayed. my thinking is that this is a bad thing for persons who are having less advantages: if white manager can give forthright feedback to only white persons this is actual bad for black one and maybe will harm the black one more than it help. this is likewise if most in office are feeling less cameraderie with a black for that they are not able speaking so openly and believe they are having to guard tongues. i wonder about these un-intended consecuences.
  - ambicapter 6y ago
    That is the gist of the article linked up top, yes.
retrac 6y ago
I do some work with HIV prevention. Sometimes I give talks where I'm very blunt about the realities of HIV among men who have sex with men. I've watched people immediately shift from mild hostility and discomfort to wholehearted acceptance of what I am saying, when I tell them I'm gay myself. In that circumstance, I think it is clear that my sexual orientation is the basis by which they are judging the authoritativeness I have to speak on the topic. Never mind the formal qualifications, or the logic or veracity of what I am actually saying. Like, I know we all have little unconscious checklists like that for judging whether someone is credible, but it is uncomfortable to see the effect live.
- duckfang 6y ago
  As a bisexual male, I think a good part of disdain about connecting HIV and gay goes to the older naming of the disease: GRID. gay-related immune deficiency It also dates me, but I had a blood transfusion in 1982. At that time, it was a Russian Roulette if I ended up with HIV blood or not. I didn't. Had I been innfected, I would have ended up like Ryan White.
  - randallsquared 6y ago
    Even knowing the term GRID dates you. :) Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80%931982:_From_GRID_to_AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80... , the "GRID" moniker was only used for under two years, forty years ago. I think it's unlikely that the name is to blame.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - benatkin 6y ago
      I was born in 1982 and I knew about it. I don't think it's unlikely. It was early in the chain of events, so even if it was six months it could have had a big impact.
- DenisM 6y ago
tsm_sf 6y ago
The subtext of this entire conversation is that you'll never be able to talk "freely" in front of subordinates, so you need to either pine for yesteryear or take another look at your power dynamics.

idyio 6y ago

> people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy This supposed hierarchy of oppression, based on identity characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, really is the biggest scam going. Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities, corruption, and abuse of power. Yet, identarians insist on shoehorning everything into their flawed worldview. The Black Lives Matter movement was a telling example of this - police brutality is indeed an ongoing problem in society, but it doesn't just apply to black people. It's anyone the police feel they can get away with abusing. Just look at how they treat homeless people, drug addicts, and so on, regardless of race. Another is celebrating people as tokens regardless of their actions. First mixed-race female Vice President of the USA - okay, but what sort of shitty role model is this? Rather reminds me of: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Co90umqUsAAdgQI?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Co90umqUsAAdgQI?format=jpg We would all do well to be critical of how identity politics is being used to mask the real root causes of oppression in our society. The so-called left wing of politics is the worst for this too, and I say this as a life-long leftist. Why make everything about identity; where has the traditional focus on class gone?

Veen 6y ago
> Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities Yes, and almost none of the people founding startups in Silicon Valley are oppressed by any reasonable understanding that concept.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  none of the people founding startups in Silicon Valley are oppressed by any reasonable understanding that concept I’ve never understood why they are so desperate to be oppressed that they have to invent new categories to be part of then claim to be oppressed when literally no one even knows what they are.
yarcob 6y ago
> Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities I recently talked to a mom who visited her adult foster daughter with a different skin tone. Her daughter reminded her to make sure she doesn't forget her ID in the hotel. The mom was confused. They were just going to take a walk in Munich. Why would she need an ID? She never has an ID on her when she goes for a walk. The daughter said, because the police, they stop you and ask to see your ID! Mom couldn't believe it that the police was so different in Munich. Then it dawned on her. Foster daughter had brown skin, so she was randomly stopped by police and asked for ID because she looks like an immigrant. Mom was white and has never ever been stopped by police before. The police absolutely treat people different because of race.

semi-extrinsic 6y ago

I believe this phenomenon is more like overshoot in an underdamped system than being the end result. Rapid changes always lead to overshoot. I also think the amount of overshoot is proportional to the amount of sexism that was present in a society thirty years ago. I believe Northern Europe has been trending slowly towards gender equality since the 90s, and thus the amount of overshoot here is much less from the recent rapid changes like #meetoo. Also our kids roam around the neighbourhood freely. We're thinking of giving our 9-year-old a cellphone soon, for now she just has an analog watch and we agree on what time she has to be home by. If you look at statistics, the rate of women murdered per capita, and the rate of women who experience sexualized violence per capita, are around 5x higher in the US than in Northern Europe. The murder rate here for children (excluding by their own parents) is below 1 per million children per year. We're definitely not perfect, we have a long way to go still, but we are starting from a more equal place if you look at the status pre-2017.

hhjinks 6y ago
There's no such thing as overcorrection when _any_ correction in the direction we're seeing on display in this article is a net negative for literally everyone involved. Women get worse advice, men tip-toe around women, and society loses out on potentially valuable investments.
dahfizz 6y ago
> I also think the amount of overshoot is proportional to the amount of sexism that was present in a society thirty years ago. What is the mechanism for this? The majority of the "woke" twitter mob is 30 or younger.
stcredzero 6y ago
I believe this phenomenon is more like overshoot in an underdamped system than being the end result. Rapid changes always lead to overshoot. "Underdamped system" is very apt here. There are some positive feedback factors which exacerbate the situation in the "underdamped system." If you give over power to a mob, then the very principles which act as damping can be completely abandoned. Things like "innocent until proven guilty," and the valuing of evidence. The answer to unchecked, abused, one-sided power is not more unchecked, one-sided power with the vector rotated 180 degrees. That's just welcoming more dysfunction and abuse. we are starting from a more equal place if you look at the status pre-2017 We are starting from a place where typical middle-school, high school, and college kids are likely to answer with expletives towards the principles mentioned above -- depending on the context in which you ask their opinion. EDIT: Way back when, when I was watching that Vice report about the Evergreen State College activists, and one of them said, "...then f#ck your Free Speech!" I became very afraid that our society was in for a world of hurt. I'm pretty sure Gandhi and MLK were for Free Speech and the other principles mentioned above.

Fordec 6y ago

Women have for years had the same fear of men. Most men, good people. Or at least not criminally bad. But some are. But the social stigma of women going out alone at night, fear of first dates etc. has permeated the social fabric of how women have to treat men on their day to day. I've yet to encounter a woman who has gone from internalizing this aspect of society to dropping their priors and living care free without fear of men they don't know / met for the first time. They have had decades, minimum, of this just being how things are. And things have not found a way to change to a more easy going society. If anything things have just hardened up as information and media have become more prevalent. In comparison, powerful people fearing being potentially (mis)interpreted not being worth the risk to their entire career is a relatively new phenomenon. I wager that the OP of this article doesn't have a solution to the problem of trust by investors, because women have yet to discover the solution to their own generalized mistrust of men outside their direct social circle despite how long that situation has gone on for. Until the risk / reward dynamic changes (and I do not see how it could without making people less accountable), I fully anticipate that this self censorship in society will not only just continue, but will yet increase further in an information society where powerful people can be made accountable by the public as stories of people being held to account to their actions, regardless of whether those actions were deliberate, accidental or misunderstandings.

neonological 6y ago
>Women have for years had the same fear of men. Most men, good people. Or at least not criminally bad. But some are. But the social stigma of women going out alone at night, fear of first dates etc. has permeated the social fabric of how women have to treat men on their day to day. I've yet to encounter a woman who has gone from internalizing this aspect of society to dropping their priors and living care free without fear of men they don't know / met for the first time. Before you get outraged I just want to caveat this by saying that what I'm about to say is just controversial and anecdotal. If you share a different opinion than fine, this is just my opinion. The general fear women have of men that permeates all of their behavior is more of a biologically programmed fear than it is a an environmentally programmed one. What makes me say this? Because, anecdotally, women have this fear even when there is ZERO prior trauma. Although they can train this fear away, practically all women are naturally more guarded when among unfamiliar men, even with No prior Trauma. I've been been in tons of fists fights when I was a kid. There are many times where I've lost and was beaten until my face was a bloody mess by other dudes. This is 100x more trauma than an average woman will ever go through and even I don't live in fear of "men." Now this is not scientific evidence but anecdotal evidence is not invalid. It's the only way to talk about such subjects short of doing a 10 year scientific study. So you may have a different experience and I respect that but I also respectfully ask anyone who replies not to start a gender flame war and get outraged at my viewpoint. >They have had decades, minimum, of this just being how things are. And things have not found a way to change to a more easy going society. If anything things have just hardened up as information and media have become more prevalent. In comparison, powerful people fearing being potentially (mis)interpreted not being worth the risk to their entire career is a relatively new phenomenon. I wager that the OP of this article doesn't have a solution to the problem of trust by investors, because women have yet to discover the solution to their own generalized mistrust of men outside their direct social circle despite how long that situation has gone on for. You used the word "decades," and this is what the wrong part of your statement. It is actually factually wrong and there is tons of anthropological research to back this up. The word you should have used was "centuries." Practically all of human civilization has been patriarchal. They have never identified in the history of archaeology and anthropology any human civilization where the dominant sex was not Men. This fact flies across time and across geographic boundaries of countless cultures. There is not a single exception. There are civilizations where women took on roles that are traditionally "male" but there has never been a civilization that has been consistently matriarchal. Thus from this perspective it is arguable that patriarchy could be biologically ingrained and that modern civilization is currently trending beyond out biological imperative. The additional rights afforded by women today is largely a modern and very unique phenomenon. According to the current school of thought in academia much of it is attributed to changes in technology. Sewage, tampons, etc.

neonological 6y ago

I don't blame the media for this. The media just magnifies a very real and sizable aspect of our culture that already exists. Just like how these people are seeking someone to blame, you are seeking the same when you blame the media. It's not just the media, what's going on here is something we're all responsible for.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
The magnification distorts reality and alters peoples behavior such that everyone is a little bit more irrational.
- neonological 6y ago
  But the distortion existed in society in the first place. The main stream media reports what people what to hear because it's good for business. The root of the problem is us. The phenomenon isn't something created by the media and deployed into society. The origins of cancel culture and most of this outrage come from extremist leftist elements from students in college campuses. The media just made the spreading of this phenomenon faster. You can't really blame social media either. Because we control what goes onto social media. We're responsible for the news on our social feeds.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

anonporridge 6y ago

It's a matter of risk mitigation. Either a person accepts extreme, but very unlikely, risk by exercising perfect candor with everyone or they decide to clam up around people lower on the 'oppression hierarchy' which costs them almost nothing to do. Why would any rational actor not choose option B unless they're getting some reward great enough to offset the risk of option A?

stcredzero 6y ago
https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/ https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-...
- mojo982 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing this. This issue is constant but I’ve never had it explained so well.
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    There's a weird inversion of the Thermocline happening in the past few years, with "activists." Social Media can so amplify the voices of "activists," that they gain power which people are afraid to speak out against. Especially if the power is based on mob mentality. Especially if power is given over to accusation without evidence. (This is borne out by history. McCarthy, for example.) So when certain people go too far -- and given how power corrupts, it's inevitable that sudden onsets of power will corrupt -- people who should be saying "wait a minute" are saying nothing. All power is fleeting. All power is contextual. Any one who tries to deny these truths, is attempting some manner of deception to further their own power at someone else's expense.

pron 6y ago

Imagine a woman were to say, if we don't put an end to casual sexism, the end result we're heading for is that men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon. A much more realistic and likely outcome, and a far less hysterical perspective than yours, is that the needle was way too far one way, now people are learning to cope with it shifting, and if we try to be more empathetic, perhaps getting help when we need to, we can shift it to a better place than it was before. How do I know this? Because identical dynamics play over and over, change is scary, even if it is for the better, and people have opposed it on similar grounds -- it would lead to absurdities and worst outcomes for everyone involved -- since time immemorial. For example, see some arguments against women suffrage from just over a hundred years ago [1]: > Because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities. > Because Woman Suffrage is based on the idea of the equality of the sexes, and tends to establish those competitive relations which will destroy chivalrous consideration. And, of course, women do not want the vote [2] The belief that we can -- and must -- work tirelessly change the world by, say, allowing humans to fly and even reach other planets, but when it comes to how people should speak to one another, well, that's too difficult to change, there's no point in trying, and if we try then the outcome will obviously be bad, just seems so bizarre. [1]: https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-women-do-not-wish-the-suffrage/306616/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-wom...

dang 6y ago
> men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon. > And, of course, women do not want the vote Please keep this sort of flamebait out of your HN posts. It's guaranteed to make everything worse, and you can make your substantive points without it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pron 6y ago

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

Who are “we”? Anglo-Saxons? Unite States Citizens? or even only a subset of the later? particularly those active in finance and other fields where a man's social conformance weighs more than his skills. I can't say that I have ever in my life noticed much of the Anglo-Saxon gender, race, and other such politics in real life and I remain sceptical as to what extent it is actually true within Anglo-Saxon offices, for I find that all “sides” of the issue seem to offer very different, contradictory experiences, and mostly reads as a rather exagerated an implausible story of how bad it is for one's own side. Though there might be a kernel of truth behind some of it, most of it reads as though the writers see boogymen, and unreasonable fear, and I will say that when actual hard statistics be available, they almost always paint a very difficult picture than what is complained about in all these “culture war” discussions, and that certainly goes for all sides.

skjfdoslifjeifj 6y ago

One of my main concerns is that almost all legitimate discussion is now happening in private invite only communities because people are too risk averse to continue to chat on public sites that will be indexed forever in a culture where they can be cancelled for even a slightly uncouth opinion. Almost all of my consumption and contribution on the Internet is now in private communities that are quite strict about invites and the trend among my colleagues is similar. When I was younger I learned so much and established many valuable relationships by having discussions on public services/websites. Many legends in the field were quite accessible on public sites and mailing lists. My life would be much worse if I hadn't had those experiences and it feels like a lot of younger people that don't have connections to the SV bubble are now going to miss out on similar experiences. This isn't to say that we should be tolerant of everything but it definitely feels like we've swung too far in the opposite direction.

remarkEon 6y ago
Not saying I do this, necessarily, but friends of mine who are active in policy circles write for various publications under pseudonyms now for this reason. The development of the idea happens in private group chats, where everyone is using their IRL name, but the publication happens under a pen name. I really don't know if this is a positive change for how policy gets made, but it is happening actively right now.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Can you link to some examples of policy papers written under pseudonyms?
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    Obviously no? That would defeat the purpose. I understand what you're getting at though. I just made a claim that people in policy circles are writing things under pseudonyms. You want evidence for this (justifiably), but this would require me to essentially out the pen names. Sorry, not going to happen.

geoduck14 6y ago

I respectfully disagree. Feedback is best received when you relate to the person who is giving it and you trust the giver has your best interest at heart. While the "current environment" may make it so women are more weary of men (and thus less likely to receive feedback) - I think there is a stronger current. White male investors see people outside of their social group and realize that their advice might not be well received- not because of a flame war, but simply because they don't look like them. I'm fully convinced this effect is visible with all mixes of social groups (race, gender, religion, national origin, job family). This effect sucks, and we should be looking for ways to unite ourselves to other people so that we can receive hard advice and also give hard advice.

johnrichardson 6y ago
Hogwash! Cultural enrichment has no downsides, ever! We just aren't diversifying hard enough, comrade.

foobiekr 6y ago

The risk of the unpredictable, catastrophic risks that children face when they roam lower than it has ever been. The risk of an unpredictable, catastrophic event for a man is higher than it has ever been. I don't think that's a good analogy.

deleted 6y ago
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Natsu 6y ago

It's a sort of similar to the prisoner's dilemma. It's hard to keep a community cooperative when there are defectors about and our impression of how likely others are to defect on us influences how willing we are to cooperate. That's why you see people looking for smaller, more trust-bound online communities to associate with.

rapind 6y ago

"Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner." They're called cars. Houses are packed tighter and there's more cars per household than when I was growing up (maybe due to everyone being double income now). Streets are also narrower and most have street parking, creating visibility issues. Go check out a development than went up 40-50 years ago compared to one that went up in the last 5 years. The difference is pretty stark and pretty hostile to kids running around doing kid stuff. I don't think media's focus on bad guys has nearly the impact that the enormous increase in cars has had.

fastball 6y ago
Honestly, this is pretty trivially avoided. My parents drilled it into my head to look both ways before going into a street. I always look ways before going into the street. It's really not difficult.
- jefftk 6y ago
  It is trivially avoided once the kids are old enough, but there's a long period during which kids would be safe enough to roam around in the absence of cars, but aren't in the current environment. We live a block from the playground, close enough that I can almost see it from our window, but you can't get there without crossing the street. So our kids (7y, 5y) can only go there with a grown up. I've worked on teaching them how to cross the street safely, but they're just not good enough at checking for cars yet.
  - fastball 6y ago
    I'm still not buying it. I lived in Switzerland for a while where kids walk themselves to school starting at like 5 years old, and there are loads of cars.
    - catmanjan 6y ago
      Whats the speed limit? In Australia there are a lot of 60kmh roads near parks

rocqua 6y ago

One explanation here is certainly the media being sensationalist for sensation's sake. An alternative is that some in media might think the crackdown on sexism is bad. Hence they focus on the bad effects. Whether this is explicit propaganda or honest reporting on what they consider the more important issue almost seems like a semantic question. I suspect both elements play a role. How big a role I have little idea.

sneak 6y ago
> One explanation here is certainly the media being sensationalist for sensation's sake. Sadly I think it may be for profits, for survival's sake. The media business is very different now than it was pre-Zuckerberg.