8 ms·

Reality check I got after being accused of having anti-minority opinion while arguing for protection of all categories of people, just without double standards

Reality check I got after being accused of having anti-minority opinion while arguing for protection of all categories of people, just without double standards and without giving priority to some over others. This got me instantly banned from a community I had professional interest and participation in, which made me realize the damaging effects of culture wars that are about to get worse for major corporations. Without accountability checks, people can and will use the positions of power to police the companies, communities and whatever they can to further their own agenda regardless if it hurts everyone else involved in the process. It's important we start valuing maturity and ability to exercise nuance in thought process lest it will all go south.

_8j50 4y ago
How is this even relevant to tech work? Minority, inclusion,etc... do you work in HR, legal or PR? If not how does writing code or engineering systems include that subject? Honestly curious.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  > "Honestly curious, wink-wink" A follow-up comment in the response above addresses your question. It's a situation online, not in a workplace. However, it is similar to what I tend to notice at work more and more, with a small number of employees having major negative impact while the majority stays silent and does nothing. Humans are good at dealing with crisis when it's apparent and happens quickly as it triggers our fight or flight response. This crisis I think is slow, which we are notoriously bad at mitigating (case in point: climate change). This means that we could expect seeing major resistance once the situation becomes intolerable even to otherwise agreeable people. My fear is when this happens, irreversible damage to fundamental freedoms will already be done and we'll be back to the cycle of bad times -> struggle -> good times.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    No idea what you are talking about. Did you reply to the right comment?
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  There is nothing in the question that seems to imply that we should keep it strictly about tech work, and various answers do not seem to be about it either.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Fair enough, I assumed wrong since this is HN.
    - mettamage 4y ago
      HN is tech + everything else that's interesting. That basically includes "everything possible" (under quotes because it needs to have some basis in science / empirical knowledge)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pasabagi 4y ago
I think there are two points: first, 'all lives matter' is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist, even if you are not. If you're going to argue that line, you have to try and put some clear water between you and them. The second point is that, in an unjust society, not accounting for the effects of that injustice on people (say candidates for a job position) compounds that injustice. So like, if you were an employer in post-abolition America, and you refused to employ ex-slaves because they had no history of employment, on the one hand, it's formally fair, because that's a criterion you can apply to all applicants. It is still, however, materially discriminatory. That's the observation at the root of a lot of affirmative action stuff.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- neonsunset 4y ago
  That's the core of the issue. Instead of addressing rhetoric at a face value, people put their projection of disagreement into your words and judge you by that. After all, what is the difference between people who use "all lives matter" as a thinly veiled excuse for discrimination and people who use "it's a pride month and you're homophobic" as an excuse to attack you when asked to stay on technical topic? Addendum: I believe "affirmative action" is a major step towards dismantling freedom of speech. It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate.
  - mavhc 4y ago
    The point is to do both, acknowledging that certain people have inherent (dis)advantages, and that established perspectives are usually the perspective of the establishment, which isn't representative of the whole
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate Don't confuse mostly American language and culture with "Western". The UK sometimes follows some of these things, but not always, and the rest usually don't. For instance in France It's forbidden for government entities to categorise people by how they look. There are no quotas or statistics per skin colour. There's still racism here and there of course - be it in some police actions/accidents, or political parties, or whatever. There are poor neighborhoods (which tend to be prevalently with immigrants or close descendants of immigrants, be they from Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe), and there are efforts to help the people living there ( improve schools, provide jobs, etc.), not "people from Arabian/Western African descent living there".
Giorgi 4y ago
It was on Reddit, was not it? I got banned from a sub just because of having opinion that contradicted OP, when I asked which rule did I broke, My account was suspended on whole Reddit... I have been member since Digg exodus and never had any problem till that day. Unfortunately Reddit is ruled by moronic mods who can perma-ban your account, and admins can't be bothered. If your opinion is not in line, your IP is going to get blacklisted, so either you are extremely left wing, or you are out. and it is sad, because I really liked the forums, discussions and occasional memes here and there, now they are just pushing ideas that can't be discussed, which is propaganda.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  It was Discord but the behavior matches the one you've described about Reddit. Unfortunately, it's not used for in-depth technical discussions relevant to my sphere and you can't use WayBackMachine on Discord to preserve knowledge which is unfortunate. It's funny that while discussing the incident, some other people would get agitated when you mention that unjust bans are by all means should be evaded. Never understood people who ready to jump on anyone disobeying the law in letter but could never care less about actually following it in spirit.
- gaws 4y ago
  > your IP is going to get blacklisted This is easily circumvented by resetting your router and starting fresh with an account. Who cares about "karma" anyway? > so either you are extremely left wing, or you are out. Or don't participate in political/culture war subreddits that encourage idiots on two sides to sling text feces at each other all day.
  - neonsunset 4y ago
    Many providers assign IP addresses statically. In my country, many ISPs give you public static IP by default.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    > Who cares about "karma" anyway? Until you can't post in your favorite subreddit because it has a minimum threshold.
usrn 4y ago
I think it's probably too late for this and you're better off bracing for the inevitable conflict.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  I am. That's why these messages are posted :) It's important to not stay silent thinking conflict is pointless because it means that tolerance to things you consider harmful only invites more of that in the future. Naturally, pick your battles and all, but voicing your opinion encourages other people agreeing with you to do the same. And, in the end, you are no longer alone in your protest.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
atc 4y ago
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_8j50 4y ago

How is this even relevant to tech work? Minority, inclusion,etc... do you work in HR, legal or PR? If not how does writing code or engineering systems include that subject? Honestly curious.

neonsunset 4y ago
> "Honestly curious, wink-wink" A follow-up comment in the response above addresses your question. It's a situation online, not in a workplace. However, it is similar to what I tend to notice at work more and more, with a small number of employees having major negative impact while the majority stays silent and does nothing. Humans are good at dealing with crisis when it's apparent and happens quickly as it triggers our fight or flight response. This crisis I think is slow, which we are notoriously bad at mitigating (case in point: climate change). This means that we could expect seeing major resistance once the situation becomes intolerable even to otherwise agreeable people. My fear is when this happens, irreversible damage to fundamental freedoms will already be done and we'll be back to the cycle of bad times -> struggle -> good times.
- _8j50 4y ago
  No idea what you are talking about. Did you reply to the right comment?
annyeonghada 4y ago
There is nothing in the question that seems to imply that we should keep it strictly about tech work, and various answers do not seem to be about it either.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Fair enough, I assumed wrong since this is HN.
  - mettamage 4y ago
    HN is tech + everything else that's interesting. That basically includes "everything possible" (under quotes because it needs to have some basis in science / empirical knowledge)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pasabagi 4y ago

I think there are two points: first, 'all lives matter' is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist, even if you are not. If you're going to argue that line, you have to try and put some clear water between you and them. The second point is that, in an unjust society, not accounting for the effects of that injustice on people (say candidates for a job position) compounds that injustice. So like, if you were an employer in post-abolition America, and you refused to employ ex-slaves because they had no history of employment, on the one hand, it's formally fair, because that's a criterion you can apply to all applicants. It is still, however, materially discriminatory. That's the observation at the root of a lot of affirmative action stuff.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
neonsunset 4y ago
That's the core of the issue. Instead of addressing rhetoric at a face value, people put their projection of disagreement into your words and judge you by that. After all, what is the difference between people who use "all lives matter" as a thinly veiled excuse for discrimination and people who use "it's a pride month and you're homophobic" as an excuse to attack you when asked to stay on technical topic? Addendum: I believe "affirmative action" is a major step towards dismantling freedom of speech. It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate.
- mavhc 4y ago
  The point is to do both, acknowledging that certain people have inherent (dis)advantages, and that established perspectives are usually the perspective of the establishment, which isn't representative of the whole
- sofixa 4y ago
  > It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate Don't confuse mostly American language and culture with "Western". The UK sometimes follows some of these things, but not always, and the rest usually don't. For instance in France It's forbidden for government entities to categorise people by how they look. There are no quotas or statistics per skin colour. There's still racism here and there of course - be it in some police actions/accidents, or political parties, or whatever. There are poor neighborhoods (which tend to be prevalently with immigrants or close descendants of immigrants, be they from Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe), and there are efforts to help the people living there ( improve schools, provide jobs, etc.), not "people from Arabian/Western African descent living there".

Giorgi 4y ago

It was on Reddit, was not it? I got banned from a sub just because of having opinion that contradicted OP, when I asked which rule did I broke, My account was suspended on whole Reddit... I have been member since Digg exodus and never had any problem till that day. Unfortunately Reddit is ruled by moronic mods who can perma-ban your account, and admins can't be bothered. If your opinion is not in line, your IP is going to get blacklisted, so either you are extremely left wing, or you are out. and it is sad, because I really liked the forums, discussions and occasional memes here and there, now they are just pushing ideas that can't be discussed, which is propaganda.

neonsunset 4y ago
It was Discord but the behavior matches the one you've described about Reddit. Unfortunately, it's not used for in-depth technical discussions relevant to my sphere and you can't use WayBackMachine on Discord to preserve knowledge which is unfortunate. It's funny that while discussing the incident, some other people would get agitated when you mention that unjust bans are by all means should be evaded. Never understood people who ready to jump on anyone disobeying the law in letter but could never care less about actually following it in spirit.
gaws 4y ago
> your IP is going to get blacklisted This is easily circumvented by resetting your router and starting fresh with an account. Who cares about "karma" anyway? > so either you are extremely left wing, or you are out. Or don't participate in political/culture war subreddits that encourage idiots on two sides to sling text feces at each other all day.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  Many providers assign IP addresses statically. In my country, many ISPs give you public static IP by default.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > Who cares about "karma" anyway? Until you can't post in your favorite subreddit because it has a minimum threshold.

usrn 4y ago

I think it's probably too late for this and you're better off bracing for the inevitable conflict.

neonsunset 4y ago
I am. That's why these messages are posted :) It's important to not stay silent thinking conflict is pointless because it means that tolerance to things you consider harmful only invites more of that in the future. Naturally, pick your battles and all, but voicing your opinion encourages other people agreeing with you to do the same. And, in the end, you are no longer alone in your protest.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

atc 4y ago

[dead]