4 ms·

Terribly, terribly sorry for the meta-comment, but I have to say, it's been thrilling lately to watch the intersection of two bubbles that are usually totally i

Terribly, terribly sorry for the meta-comment, but I have to say, it's been thrilling lately to watch the intersection of two bubbles that are usually totally isolated — the "social justice" community and the "hacker" community — and to see the naivetes of both groups exposed, especially because both groups are composed of people who usually take themselves and their own intelligence very seriously. I work as a programmer, but my social circle is mostly semi-luddite radicals and hippies. Somebody got chocolate in my peanut butter. Why this is happening is intensely interesting to me. Programmers have emerged as a highly visible priveleged social group, whose actions have huge and often unexamined social consequences. One example is the rising cost of living in San Francisco. For a group that isn't used to considering itself "priveleged" in the usual sense, it must be disorienting to suddenly be scrutinized in this way. I wonder what the response from "hackers" will look like over the long term.

Crake 14y ago
Honestly, I'd really rather the crazy social justice warriors stay on their infernally poorly constructed home base of tumblr. I find them really annoying. (Surf around for 20 minutes there and you'll see what I mean. Age is a "social construct"? Come on. And no, you are not "transabled" or "transethnic" or whatever's in style this week.) I do agree that the rise of programmers as they become rich and enter a new social group has created a very interesting class of people that I believe merits further study. Still, denigrating the efforts of intelligent people who have impacted society in a positive way just doesn't seem like sound strategy to me if you're trying to raise awareness of something.
- beatpanda 14y ago
  HAHA! THERE IT IS! I've "surfed around" those discussions IRL, and believe me, the ignorance comes on strong from both directions. (By "there it is" I'm talking about the assumption that "the social justice community" is mainly represented by a handful of Tumblogs, and dismissing decades upon decades of serious academic research as "poorly constructed", although you might have just been dissing Tumblr. Not to insult you, it's just a lack of knowledge on both sides.)
  - Crake 14y ago
    Yeah, I've gotten an earful of it IRL too, though. I'm liberal and hang with a mostly liberal crowd, so any liberal extremism usually comes from direct interaction (and/or horrifying stuff from the hellhole known as tumblr) and I just watch the conservative craziness on the news. I don't deny that there is some relevance of gender studies to reality, but now it seems that "privilege" and "trigger warnings" are being thrown around as insults so much that they've lost all of their meaning. As someone who would benefit from those words not being diluted to the point of absurdity, I wish that the crazy tumblerites would kindly shut up and not presume to speak for people like me. I 100% do not condone phrases like "die cis scum." Hatred towards cis people is just as gross as hatred towards GLBT persons. Just because you're GLBT doesn't make it ok to start hating on other people for their gender/sexual orientation. The goal is to get discrimination based on these things to stop, not just reverse the polarity. :/
clarkm 14y ago
I am glad you made this post, because recently I've been having similar thoughts. I don't know if it's just because I visit sites that occupy a singular cluster in webpage-space [1], but it seems like the evidence of increased conflict between the social justice community and the hacker community is popping up everywhere. Is this because the social justice community has finally reached critical mass on the web (a traditional hacker domain) and is speaking up, or did something in one of the communities recently change to trigger this? And is this collision / conflict something that we'll see more of in the future, or will the fervor on each side die down? Either way, I think the hacker community's long term response will be really interesting. When looking for historical examples, I can really only see one clear path -- the path taken by industries whose employees already consider themselves privileged, namely those in finance and banking. They've had ongoing conflicts with the social justice community for a while now, and we've seen their response. Will the hacker community respond similarly? Hackers seem to value non-conformity and despise credentialism, so I doubt it. So, I think the long term path of the hacker community will probably be unique. Suppose the hackers recognize that they might be privileged in some ways (e.g. high IQ). Will we see a restored sense of noblesse oblige? I doubt the social justice community let that stand. Maybe the hackers will undergo a cultural transform that satisfies them? Though I'd like to believe this is possible, no examples come to mind that give me any confidence. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspace/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspa...

Crake 14y ago

Honestly, I'd really rather the crazy social justice warriors stay on their infernally poorly constructed home base of tumblr. I find them really annoying. (Surf around for 20 minutes there and you'll see what I mean. Age is a "social construct"? Come on. And no, you are not "transabled" or "transethnic" or whatever's in style this week.) I do agree that the rise of programmers as they become rich and enter a new social group has created a very interesting class of people that I believe merits further study. Still, denigrating the efforts of intelligent people who have impacted society in a positive way just doesn't seem like sound strategy to me if you're trying to raise awareness of something.

beatpanda 14y ago
HAHA! THERE IT IS! I've "surfed around" those discussions IRL, and believe me, the ignorance comes on strong from both directions. (By "there it is" I'm talking about the assumption that "the social justice community" is mainly represented by a handful of Tumblogs, and dismissing decades upon decades of serious academic research as "poorly constructed", although you might have just been dissing Tumblr. Not to insult you, it's just a lack of knowledge on both sides.)
- Crake 14y ago
  Yeah, I've gotten an earful of it IRL too, though. I'm liberal and hang with a mostly liberal crowd, so any liberal extremism usually comes from direct interaction (and/or horrifying stuff from the hellhole known as tumblr) and I just watch the conservative craziness on the news. I don't deny that there is some relevance of gender studies to reality, but now it seems that "privilege" and "trigger warnings" are being thrown around as insults so much that they've lost all of their meaning. As someone who would benefit from those words not being diluted to the point of absurdity, I wish that the crazy tumblerites would kindly shut up and not presume to speak for people like me. I 100% do not condone phrases like "die cis scum." Hatred towards cis people is just as gross as hatred towards GLBT persons. Just because you're GLBT doesn't make it ok to start hating on other people for their gender/sexual orientation. The goal is to get discrimination based on these things to stop, not just reverse the polarity. :/

clarkm 14y ago

I am glad you made this post, because recently I've been having similar thoughts. I don't know if it's just because I visit sites that occupy a singular cluster in webpage-space [1], but it seems like the evidence of increased conflict between the social justice community and the hacker community is popping up everywhere. Is this because the social justice community has finally reached critical mass on the web (a traditional hacker domain) and is speaking up, or did something in one of the communities recently change to trigger this? And is this collision / conflict something that we'll see more of in the future, or will the fervor on each side die down? Either way, I think the hacker community's long term response will be really interesting. When looking for historical examples, I can really only see one clear path -- the path taken by industries whose employees already consider themselves privileged, namely those in finance and banking. They've had ongoing conflicts with the social justice community for a while now, and we've seen their response. Will the hacker community respond similarly? Hackers seem to value non-conformity and despise credentialism, so I doubt it. So, I think the long term path of the hacker community will probably be unique. Suppose the hackers recognize that they might be privileged in some ways (e.g. high IQ). Will we see a restored sense of noblesse oblige? I doubt the social justice community let that stand. Maybe the hackers will undergo a cultural transform that satisfies them? Though I'd like to believe this is possible, no examples come to mind that give me any confidence. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspace/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspa...