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Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. I'm not sure what people

by Zikes 13y ago

Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. I'm not sure what people expect, exactly. Is pg supposed to give up all his worldly goals and possessions and live as some sort of equality monk? Should he know of and contribute to every one of the many groups and organizations involved in gender equality? And what exactly is wrong with the "I have black friends" defense? Are you trying to say that pg is friends with someone in spite of his supposed hateful nature? That he's somehow looked past the person's "shortcomings"? It seems to me more people are interested in being internet bullies than achieving true social justice.

coldtea 13y ago
>Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. That's because it's easy. The "sexism-accusers" don't have to do anything themselves to fight sexism. Anything concrete I mean. It's enough that they voice their anger and point their finger to this or that scapegoat (and ocassional real offender), and they can feel good, nay, champions of equality. Plus, they have all their similar minded peers to high five, usually all people of upper middle class upbringing, that are oh so sensitive and oh so beautiful souls that even overhearing a guy telling a "dongle" joke in private to his friend can make them feel enraged -- until is time for their fair trade coffee break that is. That leaves pg to prove a negative.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Or maybe they had something happen to them or someone they know? Maybe they had someone's head on their shoulder crying their heart out? Maybe they tried standing up for them and were fired? Maybe for whatever reason they really understand what it feels like in a world where most people don't. I'm one of those rage-queens you so happily deride here. I know it myself. I became one after I complained about a manager openly discriminating against gay employees and having everyone involved in the complaint, except for the manager in question, mysteriously being let go in the three months that followed. Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors.
  - johnjlocke 13y ago
    This is how things actually roll in the real world. You can stick to your principles, but it may cost you. I do think that the PG situation is a bit of damage control. While not having enough female founders (or founders with a foreign accent) is a symptom of what's wrong, the root problems go a little deeper. The quality of the idea, execution, and team is what should matter. Not the color of skin, not gender, sexual orientation, accents, or anything else. But here we are... We can't pretend that SWM are the only ones who can create a good product, and if our tech heroes happen to fuck up or say something that isn't right, I don't think it helps to ignore it.
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  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Or maybe they had something happen to them or someone they know? Maybe they had someone's head on their shoulder crying their heart out? Maybe they tried standing up for them and were fired? Maybe for whatever reason they really understand what it feels like in a world where most people don't. >Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors. No, those are different people you describe -- actual humans. The pg-incident style outrage is not done by this kind of people, but by finger-pointers and "champions for the cause" with ideological blinders. In my experience, it's mostly the overpriviled that champion such things -- the actual victims and women who try to empower themselves and move things forward pick fights that actually matter. >I'm one of those rage-queens you so happily deride here. I know it myself. I became one after I complained about a manager openly discriminating against gay employees and having everyone involved in the complaint, except for the manager in question, mysteriously being let go in the three months that followed.* Which sounds valid, but is quite different, I think you'll agree, to the kind of pg-gate/dongle-gate/upper-middle-class-drama incidents people make a fuss about. >Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors. I think you just proved my point. So sexual discrimination is bad, but telling people to "fuck themselves" because you disagree with their viewpoint is OK? How about a manager telling that to a female employee he disagrees with? Or do you have double standards for the workplace compared to online discussion? Would swearing/harassing at women/gays/etc online be OK to you then?
sheldoan 13y ago
http://www.quora.com/Racism/Why-is-Im-not-racist-homophobic-some-of-my-best-friends-are-black-gay-often-rejected-as-an-argument?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Racism/Why-is-Im-not-racist-homophobic-...
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Add ?share=1 as a parameter at the end to get rid of the nagging modal window.
  - sheldoan 13y ago
    Done, thanks
cynicalkane 13y ago
This is the shallowness of that kind of P.C. bullying--Paul Graham has done much more for women in technology than any Internet bully, but he will continue to be attacked because it is possible to assign uncharitable interpretations to a few things he said once. When one realizes that this whole kerfuffle is not about being pro-woman, it's about posturing such that one appears to be pro-woman, then the attackers' views make more sense. If you look at the comments below, the anti-PG crowd seems either to a) not care about YC's contributions to women in tech, or b) adopt a "so what" attitude. So what that YC has a disproportionate amount of women in high places and funds a disproportionate amount of female founders? I don't care, instead I'm gonna pick out some logical flaws in his arguments. (As an aside, there's few things more tedious than a nerd on the Internet concerned with "logical flaws" in peoples' "arguments".)
- mcantelon 13y ago
  I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism: "Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred." http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c2 http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c... I think the aim of making the tech industry friendlier to women is better served by continued outreach efforts, rather than making an example out of individuals arbitrarily.
kyro 13y ago
PG is high profile. His companies and their founders are high profile. For as long as I can remember there's been a thick thread of schadenfreude woven throughout this community's reactions to various stories that have come out about YC, from Dropbox to Airbnb to PG's supposed racism and now sexism. Trying to defend yourself or setting the record straight is almost useless when everyone's already made up their mind before entering the debate, especially here where there is this odd presumption that PG et al are money-grubbing fools willing to sacrifice their morals. No benefit of doubt is given. I've met PG briefly, have been to Startup Schools and can say that all the YC folk I've met seem like genuinely great people. Unfortunately, I don't have a citation handy. This place as usual reads like a den of rabid pussycats.
- theorique 13y ago
  pg is neither a racist nor a sexist, but because he does not jump to support every pet cause of every self-described "social justice jihadi", he is lambasted as such. Well, guess what? pg is his own person. He's just a guy who invests in startups, not some sort of idol upon whom you can project all your transformational, social-justice dreams for the tech industry. Is there racism and sexism in tech? Sure. Is that pg's fault? No. Has he done things to mitigate this? Sure. Are the "social justice jihadis" appreciative of this? No.
  - crassus 13y ago
    Everybody is a little racist and sexist. It's quite normal for you to react differently depending on the visible characteristics of a person you are talking to, it's ingrained through millions of years of evolution. What's important is that you're not a dick about it, and you give people a fair shot in situations where those characteristics shouldn't matter. The cashier at the local taco shop speaks to people in Spanish or English depending on whether or not they look Mexican. Is that a problem? I don't think so.
    - theorique 13y ago
      Sure, but for most people "racist" or "sexist" aren't the first words that come to mind when they think of pg - that would be "investor" or "writer", for example. Bssed on his writing he seems like a reasonable, fair, and unbiased person. Misquoted out of context, you can make someone say whatever you want to further your agenda, of course.
alecdbrooks 13y ago
>And what exactly is wrong with the "I have black friends" defense? Are you trying to say that pg is friends with someone in spite of his supposed hateful nature? That he's somehow looked past the person's "shortcomings"? The critics I've read aren't saying pg has a hateful nature. They're saying that he hasn't fully accounted for his unconscious biases. Given that everyone's friends have actual shortcomings, it doesn't seem a stretch to say that people are friends with people they imagine to have shortcomings because of an unconscious bias.
- crassus 13y ago
  Nobody can ever account for all unconscious bias. It's the original sin doctrine of the social justice warrior community.
  - alecdbrooks 13y ago
    "Nobody can ever account for all bugs. It's the original sin doctrine of the programming community." I'm not saying Graham should drop everything until every last bias is gone. I'm saying he shouldn't act as though sexism is a solved problem at YCombinator just because the percentage of female founders is up and it has women as partners.
    - csallen 13y ago
      How is he acting as though sexism is a "solved problem"?
      - alecdbrooks 13y ago
        The reasons I wrote "he's acting as though sexism is a solved problem at YCombinator" are because none of his suggested solutions are about sexism at YC and this line: "More thoughtful people were willing to concede YC wasn't biased against women." Edit: He is willing to do more about the problem generally, and I give him credit for that.
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
adventured 13y ago
The goal of a lot of the bumper sticker justice crowd is anything but justice: it's the promotion of a cause they're leeching off of, for the benefit of their own ugly vanity. It's identical to people putting a save Tibet bumper sticker on their car, while not actually doing anything meaningful. It's about the least amount of effort to pose as an activist. I find that most good intentioned movements have more than their fair-share of the equivalent of fair weather fans. They don't understand the core of what the movement is about, they don't take the time to understand the best way to accomplish positive outcomes, and they use an as-seen-on-tv / mimicry approach in their activism without the fundamentals to support it. It's like putting up a simple search engine page layout, copying Google, without the engine behind the scenes to power it.
Tycho 13y ago
I misread 'equality monk' as 'equity monk.' Now there's an interesting term... for startup founders and early stage employees perhaps.
crassus 13y ago
Accusing others of being witches shows off your own moral purity. It also gives a feeling of power, a critical mass of the American tech crowd comes from the PC left that is large enough to set off a mob. The ultimate feeling of importance comes when a witch is burned (fired from his job). PG is a poorly chosen target in some sense, since he will be extremely hard to fire - although public humiliation is also satisfying to SJWs[1]. It is not all bad. One of the classic phenomena of witch hunts is when the hunt comes back to bag an original instigator. This is rich in irony and entertainment value. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
- philwelch 13y ago
  > One of the classic phenomena of witch hunts is when the hunt comes back to bag an original instigator. Like Robespierre?
xiaoma 13y ago
The thing that sticks out most is this: Of the very angry people who were repeatedly tweeting attacks at him after the Valleywag article, I haven't seen even one apologize. It's just sad. Edit: @antics, I just reread the stream of angry @paulg tweets from Dec. 28th and have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe I missed tptacek's tweet both times. Please don't attack me over it.
- antics 13y ago
  Then you truly weren't paying attention. At the top of comments section re: one of the articles explaining that the interview with pg left out an entire question, tptacek's apology was the top-voted comment. Insinuating yourself into a discussion you have not been following carefully to accuse another party of hubris is pretty much the apex of bad discussion behavior. It is not in good faith, please don't do it.
- girvo 13y ago
  'tptaeck didn't tweet, it was a comment on HN, just FYI. I think you two are taking about two different things.
  - crassus 13y ago
    I remember this guy, for starters. Nobody's holier than him: https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417914396745031680 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41791439674503168... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417904927411679232 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41790492741167923... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417775835467096064 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41777583546709606...
    - reinhardt 13y ago
      What's embarrassing is that this self-righteous, guilt-tripped social justice douchebag is a BDFL of Django. I wouldn't be surprised if some current or potential Django users or contributors get sick of his jihad and turn to to a different developer community.
darklrd 13y ago
So true, in the end, it's not pg's fault if there is sexism and racism in the tech industry. They are doing their bit to improve the situation. Others should also try and do the same.
- crassus 13y ago
  How much sexism and racism is there really in the tech industry? Most tech companies are quite the rainbow - 5 or 6 different native languages in a small company is not uncommon.
  - darklrd 13y ago
    Yes, I agree with you, I don't think there is much specially in startups (although I don't have any proof to support this claim).
  - aragot 13y ago
    Only woked in 3 companies in 7 years but on the field, women in IT benefit a lot from positive discrimination. In fact they're promoted to managing jobs much sooner after they ask than men as far as I saw examples. Sexism is much more of a problem in the food industry and so on, so I would recommend IT jobs to girls if they want a great career with few hassles. In fact I recommend IT jobs to everyone. The social inabilities that goes with programming is a repellent for everyone, but c'mon, we get to travel everywhere in the world, sit all day and watch gmail all the time. There couldn't be a more luxury job. So a problem is, articles about sexism don't match the observations I've made on the field. Edit: Added the last sentence and figures about my experience.
    - supersystem 13y ago
      "I would recommend IT jobs to girls if they want a great career with few hassles." I wouldn't, at least not compared to many other high ranking fields where women are respected to a larger extent. I would even say that if you, as a women, want a career in technology you have a better chance with a degree and experience in another field.
Zenst 13y ago
Indeed you can word something that could become misinterpreted and taken out of context and hung for it for all effect and thats even when you zoom out the context for the offended party. In part and I'm going to be blunt, women have historicaly been a bit repressed in some areas by some mindsets/people and those who have not read about others in such situations. There offended and rightly so, they can then sometimes see the worst and become overly deffencive and I can understand that as it is human nature to compensate and intellegent to learn from others mistakes. Sadly though the written word and conversations out of context can easily be seen as bad when the intention was never even there. We all make mistakes, sadly though the mistake is often badly phrasing or being snap-shot sampled in a way that allows a different, wrong perspective upon what was said and intended. It is a form of PC over compensation which you get and had/have with the race card. Heck even talking about such subjects without being 100% behind the offended party can be deemed by some mindsets as being as guilty as the deemed offender and easily mis-labeled. Another way to view this and see how it happens is take TSA for example or traffic wardens. The mindset people have is that from a efw bad examples all TSA and traffic wardens (meter maids they are called in some parts - lets say meter people now or as I prefer traffic wardens and avoid misconception of sexual biased even if not intended and I'm typing this extra overhead just to avoid a non intended issue right there :|). So TSA and traffic wardens, they are often looked down upon and pre-judged or any action deemed persecution, even when they are just doing there job and are not like the few examples that get passed on. You can get equaly good and bad news about say a traffic warden and people will remember the bad and apply that to all people with that job title after reading a few examples. It is how news works sadly and the mindset of the populus that take this news in, biasing the bad against all and the good only to a individual. I won't even try to understand that but that is how it is for most people. People sadly just love to label and bias bad news - heck even saying that is a bias/labeling mindset train of thought and is that wrong or am I just being honest about I see many situations happen which need not of happen. That all said whilst it is good that the bias some people have towards women is being tackled, I do worry as somebody who treats people as people that a unfairness is arrising for women with regards to IT at the stage that a bias in favour of women arises in many areas now from training access, special progroms only available to women with no man equivelant and the like. These are to compensate the deemedbias in the past. But to new people into this World growing up in such situations who are unaware of a bias being needed, will grow up seeing a bias against them if they are male and with that create the bias all a new for a whole new generation and all due to them being descriminated against due to them not being a women. DISCLAIMER: Just so we are clear I'm being totaly pragmatic and honest and and bias against or for any gender is not my intention nor will it ever be so if you read into it otherwise then it is your unopen closed mindset that is reading words in a different voice than intended. Though please do point them out if grammer or badly worded, though not intended I'd like to learn how to avoid the whole issue so replies like that greatly welcome and apprecieated.

by Zikes 13y ago

coldtea 13y ago

>Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. That's because it's easy. The "sexism-accusers" don't have to do anything themselves to fight sexism. Anything concrete I mean. It's enough that they voice their anger and point their finger to this or that scapegoat (and ocassional real offender), and they can feel good, nay, champions of equality. Plus, they have all their similar minded peers to high five, usually all people of upper middle class upbringing, that are oh so sensitive and oh so beautiful souls that even overhearing a guy telling a "dongle" joke in private to his friend can make them feel enraged -- until is time for their fair trade coffee break that is. That leaves pg to prove a negative.

mtrimpe 13y ago
Or maybe they had something happen to them or someone they know? Maybe they had someone's head on their shoulder crying their heart out? Maybe they tried standing up for them and were fired? Maybe for whatever reason they really understand what it feels like in a world where most people don't. I'm one of those rage-queens you so happily deride here. I know it myself. I became one after I complained about a manager openly discriminating against gay employees and having everyone involved in the complaint, except for the manager in question, mysteriously being let go in the three months that followed. Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  This is how things actually roll in the real world. You can stick to your principles, but it may cost you. I do think that the PG situation is a bit of damage control. While not having enough female founders (or founders with a foreign accent) is a symptom of what's wrong, the root problems go a little deeper. The quality of the idea, execution, and team is what should matter. Not the color of skin, not gender, sexual orientation, accents, or anything else. But here we are... We can't pretend that SWM are the only ones who can create a good product, and if our tech heroes happen to fuck up or say something that isn't right, I don't think it helps to ignore it.
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- coldtea 13y ago
  >Or maybe they had something happen to them or someone they know? Maybe they had someone's head on their shoulder crying their heart out? Maybe they tried standing up for them and were fired? Maybe for whatever reason they really understand what it feels like in a world where most people don't. >Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors. No, those are different people you describe -- actual humans. The pg-incident style outrage is not done by this kind of people, but by finger-pointers and "champions for the cause" with ideological blinders. In my experience, it's mostly the overpriviled that champion such things -- the actual victims and women who try to empower themselves and move things forward pick fights that actually matter. >I'm one of those rage-queens you so happily deride here. I know it myself. I became one after I complained about a manager openly discriminating against gay employees and having everyone involved in the complaint, except for the manager in question, mysteriously being let go in the three months that followed.* Which sounds valid, but is quite different, I think you'll agree, to the kind of pg-gate/dongle-gate/upper-middle-class-drama incidents people make a fuss about. >Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors. I think you just proved my point. So sexual discrimination is bad, but telling people to "fuck themselves" because you disagree with their viewpoint is OK? How about a manager telling that to a female employee he disagrees with? Or do you have double standards for the workplace compared to online discussion? Would swearing/harassing at women/gays/etc online be OK to you then?

sheldoan 13y ago

http://www.quora.com/Racism/Why-is-Im-not-racist-homophobic-some-of-my-best-friends-are-black-gay-often-rejected-as-an-argument?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Racism/Why-is-Im-not-racist-homophobic-...

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Add ?share=1 as a parameter at the end to get rid of the nagging modal window.
- sheldoan 13y ago
  Done, thanks

cynicalkane 13y ago

This is the shallowness of that kind of P.C. bullying--Paul Graham has done much more for women in technology than any Internet bully, but he will continue to be attacked because it is possible to assign uncharitable interpretations to a few things he said once. When one realizes that this whole kerfuffle is not about being pro-woman, it's about posturing such that one appears to be pro-woman, then the attackers' views make more sense. If you look at the comments below, the anti-PG crowd seems either to a) not care about YC's contributions to women in tech, or b) adopt a "so what" attitude. So what that YC has a disproportionate amount of women in high places and funds a disproportionate amount of female founders? I don't care, instead I'm gonna pick out some logical flaws in his arguments. (As an aside, there's few things more tedious than a nerd on the Internet concerned with "logical flaws" in peoples' "arguments".)

mcantelon 13y ago
I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism: "Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred." http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c2 http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/resources/fc/unabe2.html#c... I think the aim of making the tech industry friendlier to women is better served by continued outreach efforts, rather than making an example out of individuals arbitrarily.

kyro 13y ago

PG is high profile. His companies and their founders are high profile. For as long as I can remember there's been a thick thread of schadenfreude woven throughout this community's reactions to various stories that have come out about YC, from Dropbox to Airbnb to PG's supposed racism and now sexism. Trying to defend yourself or setting the record straight is almost useless when everyone's already made up their mind before entering the debate, especially here where there is this odd presumption that PG et al are money-grubbing fools willing to sacrifice their morals. No benefit of doubt is given. I've met PG briefly, have been to Startup Schools and can say that all the YC folk I've met seem like genuinely great people. Unfortunately, I don't have a citation handy. This place as usual reads like a den of rabid pussycats.

theorique 13y ago
pg is neither a racist nor a sexist, but because he does not jump to support every pet cause of every self-described "social justice jihadi", he is lambasted as such. Well, guess what? pg is his own person. He's just a guy who invests in startups, not some sort of idol upon whom you can project all your transformational, social-justice dreams for the tech industry. Is there racism and sexism in tech? Sure. Is that pg's fault? No. Has he done things to mitigate this? Sure. Are the "social justice jihadis" appreciative of this? No.
- crassus 13y ago
  Everybody is a little racist and sexist. It's quite normal for you to react differently depending on the visible characteristics of a person you are talking to, it's ingrained through millions of years of evolution. What's important is that you're not a dick about it, and you give people a fair shot in situations where those characteristics shouldn't matter. The cashier at the local taco shop speaks to people in Spanish or English depending on whether or not they look Mexican. Is that a problem? I don't think so.
  - theorique 13y ago
    Sure, but for most people "racist" or "sexist" aren't the first words that come to mind when they think of pg - that would be "investor" or "writer", for example. Bssed on his writing he seems like a reasonable, fair, and unbiased person. Misquoted out of context, you can make someone say whatever you want to further your agenda, of course.

alecdbrooks 13y ago

>And what exactly is wrong with the "I have black friends" defense? Are you trying to say that pg is friends with someone in spite of his supposed hateful nature? That he's somehow looked past the person's "shortcomings"? The critics I've read aren't saying pg has a hateful nature. They're saying that he hasn't fully accounted for his unconscious biases. Given that everyone's friends have actual shortcomings, it doesn't seem a stretch to say that people are friends with people they imagine to have shortcomings because of an unconscious bias.

crassus 13y ago
Nobody can ever account for all unconscious bias. It's the original sin doctrine of the social justice warrior community.
- alecdbrooks 13y ago
  "Nobody can ever account for all bugs. It's the original sin doctrine of the programming community." I'm not saying Graham should drop everything until every last bias is gone. I'm saying he shouldn't act as though sexism is a solved problem at YCombinator just because the percentage of female founders is up and it has women as partners.
  - csallen 13y ago
    How is he acting as though sexism is a "solved problem"?
    - alecdbrooks 13y ago
      The reasons I wrote "he's acting as though sexism is a solved problem at YCombinator" are because none of his suggested solutions are about sexism at YC and this line: "More thoughtful people were willing to concede YC wasn't biased against women." Edit: He is willing to do more about the problem generally, and I give him credit for that.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago

adventured 13y ago

The goal of a lot of the bumper sticker justice crowd is anything but justice: it's the promotion of a cause they're leeching off of, for the benefit of their own ugly vanity. It's identical to people putting a save Tibet bumper sticker on their car, while not actually doing anything meaningful. It's about the least amount of effort to pose as an activist. I find that most good intentioned movements have more than their fair-share of the equivalent of fair weather fans. They don't understand the core of what the movement is about, they don't take the time to understand the best way to accomplish positive outcomes, and they use an as-seen-on-tv / mimicry approach in their activism without the fundamentals to support it. It's like putting up a simple search engine page layout, copying Google, without the engine behind the scenes to power it.

Tycho 13y ago

I misread 'equality monk' as 'equity monk.' Now there's an interesting term... for startup founders and early stage employees perhaps.

crassus 13y ago

Accusing others of being witches shows off your own moral purity. It also gives a feeling of power, a critical mass of the American tech crowd comes from the PC left that is large enough to set off a mob. The ultimate feeling of importance comes when a witch is burned (fired from his job). PG is a poorly chosen target in some sense, since he will be extremely hard to fire - although public humiliation is also satisfying to SJWs[1]. It is not all bad. One of the classic phenomena of witch hunts is when the hunt comes back to bag an original instigator. This is rich in irony and entertainment value. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

philwelch 13y ago
> One of the classic phenomena of witch hunts is when the hunt comes back to bag an original instigator. Like Robespierre?

xiaoma 13y ago

The thing that sticks out most is this: Of the very angry people who were repeatedly tweeting attacks at him after the Valleywag article, I haven't seen even one apologize. It's just sad. Edit: @antics, I just reread the stream of angry @paulg tweets from Dec. 28th and have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe I missed tptacek's tweet both times. Please don't attack me over it.

antics 13y ago
Then you truly weren't paying attention. At the top of comments section re: one of the articles explaining that the interview with pg left out an entire question, tptacek's apology was the top-voted comment. Insinuating yourself into a discussion you have not been following carefully to accuse another party of hubris is pretty much the apex of bad discussion behavior. It is not in good faith, please don't do it.
girvo 13y ago
'tptaeck didn't tweet, it was a comment on HN, just FYI. I think you two are taking about two different things.
- crassus 13y ago
  I remember this guy, for starters. Nobody's holier than him: https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417914396745031680 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41791439674503168... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417904927411679232 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41790492741167923... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/417775835467096064 https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41777583546709606...
  - reinhardt 13y ago
    What's embarrassing is that this self-righteous, guilt-tripped social justice douchebag is a BDFL of Django. I wouldn't be surprised if some current or potential Django users or contributors get sick of his jihad and turn to to a different developer community.

darklrd 13y ago

So true, in the end, it's not pg's fault if there is sexism and racism in the tech industry. They are doing their bit to improve the situation. Others should also try and do the same.

crassus 13y ago
How much sexism and racism is there really in the tech industry? Most tech companies are quite the rainbow - 5 or 6 different native languages in a small company is not uncommon.
- darklrd 13y ago
  Yes, I agree with you, I don't think there is much specially in startups (although I don't have any proof to support this claim).
- aragot 13y ago
  Only woked in 3 companies in 7 years but on the field, women in IT benefit a lot from positive discrimination. In fact they're promoted to managing jobs much sooner after they ask than men as far as I saw examples. Sexism is much more of a problem in the food industry and so on, so I would recommend IT jobs to girls if they want a great career with few hassles. In fact I recommend IT jobs to everyone. The social inabilities that goes with programming is a repellent for everyone, but c'mon, we get to travel everywhere in the world, sit all day and watch gmail all the time. There couldn't be a more luxury job. So a problem is, articles about sexism don't match the observations I've made on the field. Edit: Added the last sentence and figures about my experience.
  - supersystem 13y ago
    "I would recommend IT jobs to girls if they want a great career with few hassles." I wouldn't, at least not compared to many other high ranking fields where women are respected to a larger extent. I would even say that if you, as a women, want a career in technology you have a better chance with a degree and experience in another field.

Zenst 13y ago

Indeed you can word something that could become misinterpreted and taken out of context and hung for it for all effect and thats even when you zoom out the context for the offended party. In part and I'm going to be blunt, women have historicaly been a bit repressed in some areas by some mindsets/people and those who have not read about others in such situations. There offended and rightly so, they can then sometimes see the worst and become overly deffencive and I can understand that as it is human nature to compensate and intellegent to learn from others mistakes. Sadly though the written word and conversations out of context can easily be seen as bad when the intention was never even there. We all make mistakes, sadly though the mistake is often badly phrasing or being snap-shot sampled in a way that allows a different, wrong perspective upon what was said and intended. It is a form of PC over compensation which you get and had/have with the race card. Heck even talking about such subjects without being 100% behind the offended party can be deemed by some mindsets as being as guilty as the deemed offender and easily mis-labeled. Another way to view this and see how it happens is take TSA for example or traffic wardens. The mindset people have is that from a efw bad examples all TSA and traffic wardens (meter maids they are called in some parts - lets say meter people now or as I prefer traffic wardens and avoid misconception of sexual biased even if not intended and I'm typing this extra overhead just to avoid a non intended issue right there :|). So TSA and traffic wardens, they are often looked down upon and pre-judged or any action deemed persecution, even when they are just doing there job and are not like the few examples that get passed on. You can get equaly good and bad news about say a traffic warden and people will remember the bad and apply that to all people with that job title after reading a few examples. It is how news works sadly and the mindset of the populus that take this news in, biasing the bad against all and the good only to a individual. I won't even try to understand that but that is how it is for most people. People sadly just love to label and bias bad news - heck even saying that is a bias/labeling mindset train of thought and is that wrong or am I just being honest about I see many situations happen which need not of happen. That all said whilst it is good that the bias some people have towards women is being tackled, I do worry as somebody who treats people as people that a unfairness is arrising for women with regards to IT at the stage that a bias in favour of women arises in many areas now from training access, special progroms only available to women with no man equivelant and the like. These are to compensate the deemedbias in the past. But to new people into this World growing up in such situations who are unaware of a bias being needed, will grow up seeing a bias against them if they are male and with that create the bias all a new for a whole new generation and all due to them being descriminated against due to them not being a women. DISCLAIMER: Just so we are clear I'm being totaly pragmatic and honest and and bias against or for any gender is not my intention nor will it ever be so if you read into it otherwise then it is your unopen closed mindset that is reading words in a different voice than intended. Though please do point them out if grammer or badly worded, though not intended I'd like to learn how to avoid the whole issue so replies like that greatly welcome and apprecieated.