4 ms·

Those cards are the stupidest idea that I ever heard. This woman is complaining for being harrased in a place where 10000 men from 15-50 are constantly drunk, r

by aortega 14y ago

Those cards are the stupidest idea that I ever heard. This woman is complaining for being harrased in a place where 10000 men from 15-50 are constantly drunk, really. And the answer is giving out colored cards? nature forces can't be controlled with cards.

shadowfiend 14y ago
The cards hopefully shame you into changing your behavior. Your brain is what needs to be controlling you. No matter how drunk you are. EDIT: Also, being rude (a word which epically understates the kind of behavior mentioned here) is not a natural force. It's a behavior, like being polite. Which your brain controls. No matter how drunk you are.
- aortega 14y ago
  I agree, brain control over impulses is what separate us from monkeys. But we are still monkeys, and the "creeper" guy over millenia tends to reproduce more over the polite guy, and so the creeper gen get selected and survives, that's how evolution works. It sucks that womens have a bad time at confs, but the last thing that I want is a police force caring for offended people, it's bad enough that modern confs are mostly social events about who get invited to which party, the antithesis of nerd/hacker behaviour.
  - sp332 14y ago
    We don't have to wait for evolution. We have brains that can learn - during the span of our own lifetimes! I really think you didn't read the article if you think this is about being "offended". It specifically mentions Like the man who drunkenly tried to lick my shoulder tattoo. Like the man who grabbed my hips while I was waiting for a drink at the EFF party. Like the man who tried to get me to show him my tits so he could punch a hole in a card that, when filled, would net him a favor from one of the official security staff which you can read about in more detail here http://singlevoice.net/2012/07/12/sexism-redyellow-cards-at-defcon/ http://singlevoice.net/2012/07/12/sexism-redyellow-cards-at-...
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Okay, I'm dropping the politeness. I wish I could unilaterally remove you from the programming/hacker/humanity community. And Voxx. And anyone else who wants to act like it's unreasonable for women to want to go to a conference like this and not be, frankly, sexually molested. It's not "offended" people and to characterize it as such is so out of line, I'm not sure how best to express it. (edited to remove my less-less-politeness, I feel guilty using such language on HN)
    - aortega 14y ago
      Sorry, I did not wanted to offend you. I hope your understand that removing people with different opinions that yours will not help you solve any problems. Nevertheless, I still convinced that there is a problem, that the card solution to this problem is comically wrong, and that the "conference police" solution to this problem is the worst. EDIT: BTW, If you were sexually molested at a conf. you can tell the regular police. There are very clear laws against that behaviour that also are valid inside conferences.
      - knowtheory 14y ago
        Well, if it matters to you, I concur with drivebyacct2's desire, and I have a Y chromosome. Societies require enforcement mechanisms, or it is just base nature, red in tooth and claw. If you think there are problems that must be corrected, you too surely believe that there are mechanisms for coercing behavior. Exile is one such method that's been used in many civilizations over millenia. Edit: It's worth pointing out that your assumption that drivebyacct22 is a girl simply because he/she disagrees with you is really weird.
        aortega 14y ago
        Yes I removed that, I wanted to make a small joke but I realized people are too serious about this issue. Yes there are mechanisms for coercing behavior, jail for example. We already have laws governing sexual misconduct much more effective than colored cards. I hope you realize the potential of abuse that a rule against "offending" people have. EDIT: I'm sure we at least agree that most of the harrasments occur under the influence of alcohol. So what about banning Alcohol in conferences, like you know, 100% of academic conferences do. Problem solved.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    So what you're saying here is that we shouldn't be arresting people who commit sex crimes while drunk we should be euthenizing them to remove their genes from the population?
    - aortega 14y ago
      No. There is already a solution to that problem, is called police. We don't need additional police.
      - rdl 14y ago
        At conferences and other private events, it basically goes like this: Someone behaves inappropriately. Event organizers and/or their security designees and/or venue security request that the offender leave for whatever reason. Depending on venue, level of intoxication, threat, etc., the person may be escorted off the premises (how much force can be used depends on legal situation, too). If someone is unwilling to leave, police may be called and offender charged with trespassing. Attempting to re-enter would be trespassing, and police may be called. Attempting to assault security or event staff leads to police and ambulance being called. It's pretty normal for conference venues to have their own security (for fire safety as well as physical security), and for conference organizers to have security (mainly for crowd control and access control, but also for responding to things like fires caused by cellphones...). Having a conference-affiliated security person request that you leave an event is less damaging to you than having casino security formally ban you from the premises forever, and either is better than having police come and criminal trespassing charges filed.
        pyre 14y ago
        Some of the examples we're presented with are of physical harassment (i.e. groping). I think the implication is that the police should handle these incidences rather than trying to police them outside of the law.
        rdl 14y ago
sp332 14y ago
I don't think those cards are just for being hit on, really.
- cyber 14y ago
  Right. They are for being hit on badly.
antoko 14y ago
From the article The cards are a hilarious way to raise awareness of the problem of brutal sexual harassment at DEFCON and similar conferences. Unfortunately, it will take more than raising awareness to make hacker conferences safe for women. We’re waiting to hear about the first[2] hacker conference to adopt a specific, enforceable, well-planned policy protecting women from harassment – and then we’re going to promote the hell out of it. Did you really just get bored and stop reading when you got to the colored cards? You were already 80% through the thing!
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Excuse me (it's more polite than what I'd like to say.) I'm a man and I don't get drunk and think that I have a right to grope other women or other men. Natural forces tell you that groping women is okay? edit: Further more, if someone does manage to become so uncivilized from the amount of alcohol it takes for them to get to such a state, maybe, just maybe they shouldn't do that. In public. Around people that they can't seem to help but grope. Jesus, is this a real conversation I'm having?
- pbiggar 14y ago
  Can I recommend referring to "groping" as "sexual assault? It won't help with the trolls here, but it does help focus the discussion a little bit.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
"Nature forces". Right. So we should all just rape, murder, pillage, steal, and throw our feces around because those are natural impulses? I'll pass on that world, I like my humans with at least a modicum of civility.
rdl 14y ago
I agree that the cards are a pretty ineffective way of dealing with the problem at events. They're only effective for people who don't know they're doing something inappropriate, but do care when told. I think that's a very small percentage of offensive people. Selfishly, I care more about getting the (admittedly very small number of) hacker females to attend and contribute to events more than unrestrained free speech by attendees. If kicking out a few obnoxious drunken guys, and convincing others to behave reasonably, is necessary, fine. That seems a lot more effective than cards handed out by attendees. Naming and shaming people who act like idiots would also be effective I suppose, but probably more potentially open to drama and consequences than quietly ejecting them for the rest of the event.
- pyre 14y ago
  > Naming and shaming people who act like idiots would > also be effective I suppose A "Wall of Creeps" next to the "Wall of Sheep?" (or maybe the threat of "poor impulse control" tattooed to your forehead? ;-)
- britta 14y ago
  There's something interesting about these cards - they're helping DEFCON people adopt a usable vocabulary for talking about harassment, an addition to our jargon. Here's an example. A few days ago I was part of a Rio elevator full of DEFCON people when it stopped at a floor where a non-attendee woman was looking to get in. There was obviously no room inside, but one of the guys hollered at her to "get in anyway - you're a cute woman - we love women - this ratio needs to be improved!" She instantly disappeared. As the elevator door closed, another guy looked at him and said "dude, yellow card." Silence the rest of the way down. It's a small thing, but I was the one DEFCON woman in the elevator, and I appreciated that verbal yellow card - in other words, while I was in the middle of mentally processing what had just happened and whether creepy attention would shift to me, a fellow attendee had quickly and effectively reset the tone of the elevator to basic civility. This is good.
  - selenamarie 14y ago
    Thanks for sharing this story! :)
micahflee 14y ago
It's ridiculous and harmful to think sexual harassment is justified just because you're in a large group of drunk men. Also, there aren't 10,000 men that go to DEFCON. A large percentage of the attendees are women.
aortega 14y ago
This post really set people off. Guess what, the cards were such a retarded idea, apparently in Defcon there were contests about who got more red or yellow cards, this actually caused lots of harrasment.

by aortega 14y ago

shadowfiend 14y ago

The cards hopefully shame you into changing your behavior. Your brain is what needs to be controlling you. No matter how drunk you are. EDIT: Also, being rude (a word which epically understates the kind of behavior mentioned here) is not a natural force. It's a behavior, like being polite. Which your brain controls. No matter how drunk you are.

aortega 14y ago
I agree, brain control over impulses is what separate us from monkeys. But we are still monkeys, and the "creeper" guy over millenia tends to reproduce more over the polite guy, and so the creeper gen get selected and survives, that's how evolution works. It sucks that womens have a bad time at confs, but the last thing that I want is a police force caring for offended people, it's bad enough that modern confs are mostly social events about who get invited to which party, the antithesis of nerd/hacker behaviour.
- sp332 14y ago
  We don't have to wait for evolution. We have brains that can learn - during the span of our own lifetimes! I really think you didn't read the article if you think this is about being "offended". It specifically mentions Like the man who drunkenly tried to lick my shoulder tattoo. Like the man who grabbed my hips while I was waiting for a drink at the EFF party. Like the man who tried to get me to show him my tits so he could punch a hole in a card that, when filled, would net him a favor from one of the official security staff which you can read about in more detail here http://singlevoice.net/2012/07/12/sexism-redyellow-cards-at-defcon/ http://singlevoice.net/2012/07/12/sexism-redyellow-cards-at-...
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Okay, I'm dropping the politeness. I wish I could unilaterally remove you from the programming/hacker/humanity community. And Voxx. And anyone else who wants to act like it's unreasonable for women to want to go to a conference like this and not be, frankly, sexually molested. It's not "offended" people and to characterize it as such is so out of line, I'm not sure how best to express it. (edited to remove my less-less-politeness, I feel guilty using such language on HN)
  - aortega 14y ago
    Sorry, I did not wanted to offend you. I hope your understand that removing people with different opinions that yours will not help you solve any problems. Nevertheless, I still convinced that there is a problem, that the card solution to this problem is comically wrong, and that the "conference police" solution to this problem is the worst. EDIT: BTW, If you were sexually molested at a conf. you can tell the regular police. There are very clear laws against that behaviour that also are valid inside conferences.
    - knowtheory 14y ago
      Well, if it matters to you, I concur with drivebyacct2's desire, and I have a Y chromosome. Societies require enforcement mechanisms, or it is just base nature, red in tooth and claw. If you think there are problems that must be corrected, you too surely believe that there are mechanisms for coercing behavior. Exile is one such method that's been used in many civilizations over millenia. Edit: It's worth pointing out that your assumption that drivebyacct22 is a girl simply because he/she disagrees with you is really weird.
      - aortega 14y ago
        Yes I removed that, I wanted to make a small joke but I realized people are too serious about this issue. Yes there are mechanisms for coercing behavior, jail for example. We already have laws governing sexual misconduct much more effective than colored cards. I hope you realize the potential of abuse that a rule against "offending" people have. EDIT: I'm sure we at least agree that most of the harrasments occur under the influence of alcohol. So what about banning Alcohol in conferences, like you know, 100% of academic conferences do. Problem solved.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  So what you're saying here is that we shouldn't be arresting people who commit sex crimes while drunk we should be euthenizing them to remove their genes from the population?
  - aortega 14y ago
    No. There is already a solution to that problem, is called police. We don't need additional police.
    - rdl 14y ago
      At conferences and other private events, it basically goes like this: Someone behaves inappropriately. Event organizers and/or their security designees and/or venue security request that the offender leave for whatever reason. Depending on venue, level of intoxication, threat, etc., the person may be escorted off the premises (how much force can be used depends on legal situation, too). If someone is unwilling to leave, police may be called and offender charged with trespassing. Attempting to re-enter would be trespassing, and police may be called. Attempting to assault security or event staff leads to police and ambulance being called. It's pretty normal for conference venues to have their own security (for fire safety as well as physical security), and for conference organizers to have security (mainly for crowd control and access control, but also for responding to things like fires caused by cellphones...). Having a conference-affiliated security person request that you leave an event is less damaging to you than having casino security formally ban you from the premises forever, and either is better than having police come and criminal trespassing charges filed.
      - pyre 14y ago
        Some of the examples we're presented with are of physical harassment (i.e. groping). I think the implication is that the police should handle these incidences rather than trying to police them outside of the law.
        rdl 14y ago

sp332 14y ago

I don't think those cards are just for being hit on, really.

cyber 14y ago
Right. They are for being hit on badly.

antoko 14y ago

From the article The cards are a hilarious way to raise awareness of the problem of brutal sexual harassment at DEFCON and similar conferences. Unfortunately, it will take more than raising awareness to make hacker conferences safe for women. We’re waiting to hear about the first[2] hacker conference to adopt a specific, enforceable, well-planned policy protecting women from harassment – and then we’re going to promote the hell out of it. Did you really just get bored and stop reading when you got to the colored cards? You were already 80% through the thing!

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Excuse me (it's more polite than what I'd like to say.) I'm a man and I don't get drunk and think that I have a right to grope other women or other men. Natural forces tell you that groping women is okay? edit: Further more, if someone does manage to become so uncivilized from the amount of alcohol it takes for them to get to such a state, maybe, just maybe they shouldn't do that. In public. Around people that they can't seem to help but grope. Jesus, is this a real conversation I'm having?

pbiggar 14y ago
Can I recommend referring to "groping" as "sexual assault? It won't help with the trolls here, but it does help focus the discussion a little bit.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

"Nature forces". Right. So we should all just rape, murder, pillage, steal, and throw our feces around because those are natural impulses? I'll pass on that world, I like my humans with at least a modicum of civility.

rdl 14y ago

I agree that the cards are a pretty ineffective way of dealing with the problem at events. They're only effective for people who don't know they're doing something inappropriate, but do care when told. I think that's a very small percentage of offensive people. Selfishly, I care more about getting the (admittedly very small number of) hacker females to attend and contribute to events more than unrestrained free speech by attendees. If kicking out a few obnoxious drunken guys, and convincing others to behave reasonably, is necessary, fine. That seems a lot more effective than cards handed out by attendees. Naming and shaming people who act like idiots would also be effective I suppose, but probably more potentially open to drama and consequences than quietly ejecting them for the rest of the event.

pyre 14y ago
> Naming and shaming people who act like idiots would > also be effective I suppose A "Wall of Creeps" next to the "Wall of Sheep?" (or maybe the threat of "poor impulse control" tattooed to your forehead? ;-)
britta 14y ago
There's something interesting about these cards - they're helping DEFCON people adopt a usable vocabulary for talking about harassment, an addition to our jargon. Here's an example. A few days ago I was part of a Rio elevator full of DEFCON people when it stopped at a floor where a non-attendee woman was looking to get in. There was obviously no room inside, but one of the guys hollered at her to "get in anyway - you're a cute woman - we love women - this ratio needs to be improved!" She instantly disappeared. As the elevator door closed, another guy looked at him and said "dude, yellow card." Silence the rest of the way down. It's a small thing, but I was the one DEFCON woman in the elevator, and I appreciated that verbal yellow card - in other words, while I was in the middle of mentally processing what had just happened and whether creepy attention would shift to me, a fellow attendee had quickly and effectively reset the tone of the elevator to basic civility. This is good.
- selenamarie 14y ago
  Thanks for sharing this story! :)

micahflee 14y ago

It's ridiculous and harmful to think sexual harassment is justified just because you're in a large group of drunk men. Also, there aren't 10,000 men that go to DEFCON. A large percentage of the attendees are women.

aortega 14y ago

This post really set people off. Guess what, the cards were such a retarded idea, apparently in Defcon there were contests about who got more red or yellow cards, this actually caused lots of harrasment.