7 ms·

I have a seething hatred for weev, his clique and anyone who behaves similarly. I hope to think they're a small minority of people but it's amazing how many wom

by song 12y ago

I have a seething hatred for weev, his clique and anyone who behaves similarly. I hope to think they're a small minority of people but it's amazing how many women they've tried to turn off tech with their idiocy, their defamation, their death threats and their abuse. When I see what happens to women in tech and a lot of the abuse they have to withstand, I admire those that can stand the trolls. I don't think I would be this resilient faced with this abuse. I wish we could be in a world where everybody would be accepted in the tech community regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. I hoped before that due to the relatively higher education level of tech workers, people would be more tolerant but it seems that's not the case. PS: Now, in the case of weev and his AT & T conviction, I of course support reversing it and support the work that EFF is doing defending him but that's despite weev. It's because, in this particular issue, he's innocent. That doesn't stop him from being an horrible person.

jacquesm 12y ago
Horrible people are the best touchstone for principles. If you can stand up for the rights of horrible people then you're probably doing ok. EDIT: It's weird, I'm so conflicted about 'weev'. I have serious problems with him going to jail the way he did (and I know he's been released), but at the same time I feel that I'd probably be A-ok with him serving jail time for the wanton destruction of other peoples lives (and then pretending he never did it whereas he first proudly claimed he had) that he inflicted with so much carelessness, some of which is detailed in this article. He's right up there with the child pornographers. I recall my frustration with the way /. got overrun by weev and his buddies in their eternal quest for negative attention and griefing. Total jerks, the lot of them.
- tomp 12y ago
  So wait, in the first paragraph you're saying that we should stand up for horrible people's rights, and in the second, you're saying he should go to jail because he's a horrible person. Which one is it? Personally, my principles are perfectly clear: just because I disagree with someone's opinions or behaviors, that doesn't mean they should go to jail (actually, that shouldn't even be a debate!). As long as he has not physically harmed anybody, he should be a free man. If we start jailing people for the psychological harm they cause, we would jail a lot of people (including most of the politicians). It's better if we (as the society) learn how to ignore the trolls, and give less fuck about what other people think/say/do. Thankfully, that's mostly the problem in USA, not in Europe so much. We don't freak out every time someone curses on TV or shows her boobs. (On the other hand, we have other issues, e.g. xenophobia, gag orders, lack of free speech, ...)
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    > If we start jailing people for the psychological harm they cause, we would jail a lot of people (including most of the politicians). Perhaps we should, then.
    - tomp 12y ago
      I didn't think I would need to explain this... The problem with that is that it's a very slippery slope. Everything you do, someone will complain, and be hurt. You're pro choice? You hurt Christians. You're pro life? You hurt women. You're pro immigration? You hurt domestic workers. You're against immigration? You're hurting foreigners living in oppressive countries. Most any binary choice will have some people pro and others against, and unfortunately everybody can pretend they're emotionally hurt, which effectively means you'll be jailing people whose opponents are the loudest.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
        "Pretend to be emotionally hurt" If we were just talking about mere offense and hurt feelings (which are still serious), I wouldn't be talking about jail time.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        I'd be interested to know how you would cope with the persistant vicious attacks from people like Weev, lasting many years. And what you'd actually do in that situation, now what you'd think you'd do.
      - wpietri 12y ago
        It is not particularly slippery. In theory, I could also have you arrested because your sleeve accidentally brushed mine in a crowded elevator. "Assault!", I cry, while I flop to the ground like a soccer player. But that's not a big problem because it turns out that legislators and prosecutors and judges and juries are not total idiots. The flopping thing has been attempted, seen as a problem, and generally dealt with. It's also not even a slope. Blasphemy has been a crime in plenty of places, but we're moving away from that. Ditto crimes like insulting the king or harming the state. We move away from it because we get better at discerning actual harm from societally valuable dissenting speech.
- knowtheory 12y ago
  Kathy Sierra made her feelings on the subject very clear on twitter before she left. Weev is a horrible person, and probably he even deserves to go to jail. But he does not deserve to go to jail based on bullshit. We should never forget that injustice done to Weev is not the same as justice for the things he done.
  - geographomics 12y ago
    I'm surprised weev hasn't been prosecuted for the numerous campaigns of individual harassment he's instigated and been involved with. Does the USA not have any law against such behaviour? He's been responsible for deliberate and persistent personal abuse, causing much alarm and distress, and has bragged about it openly. Does this genuinely come under the protections of "free speech", as is claimed by those who defend him?
    - knowtheory 12y ago
      Yeah. So there's a lot going on with harassment charges. First things first, i'm not a lawyer. I'm just a dude who cares about civics. The internet makes harassment considerably more problematic. Even setting aside constitutional defenses of speech, just trying to figure out which agency should be in charge of investigating and prosecuting harassment is confusing at best. Do you go to your local police? Do you go to a federal agency? Which one? Even when you do approach a law enforcement agency after receiving threats, do they think its worth their time to investigate? (Amanda Hess's piece on harassment is an interesting for her interactions w/ the police alone: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/ http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar... ) Revenge porn is an analogous (but not identical) problem, and even in that case, where basically everyone can agree it's a bad thing, it's clear first that states don't have statutes which they can use to prosecute (until very recently at least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn#U.S._laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn#U.S._laws ), and in several cases some of the laws being written are complete clusterfucks. The truth of the matter is that you can get away with a whole lot of bullshit before anybody starts trying to drop hammers on you. And harassers live in that space between what is legal and what is enforceable (a lot of other interesting stuff lives in that space too).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
calibraxis 12y ago
Reminds me of what Grigori Perelman (who quit math professionally) said about mathematicians: "Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." Sometimes you see programmers mulling over why someone would leave math over this. Unfortunately, it doesn't strike them to use their own profession's lack of ethics as an analogy: racism and sexism. Many more leave programming over this. (Or at least stop helping their fellow programmer, because they don't like them overall.)
yummyfajitas 12y ago
I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of people off? Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X? Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is a topic of humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0 Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be something else at play. [edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number". This better expresses what I meant to say.]
- empthought 12y ago
  Idle speculation: tech attracts more than its fair share of introverts relative to those career choices, and for someone who needs just a little positive social interaction from time to time, the risk of extremely negative social interaction being the norm is too great.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    This is definitely an issue. One of the people I mentor is a shy young woman. She will make an awesome developer. A few weeks back I had to sit her down and have The Talk explaining that if she rose to prominence, she could well be the target of hideous attacks where guys would have no problem at all. Her eventual conclusion was to stay in the field, but it was definitely something she had to weigh. I've talked with a number of women with established tech careers who have been questioning whether their work to get women into the field is even a good idea. Women drop out of the field at twice the rate men do.
    - empthought 12y ago
      This could be a third-rail question, but I wonder how that "dropout" rate compares to any arbitrary field when measured by the same yardsticks. Women are still the primary caregivers for 95% of infants born, and hence will always show up as more frequent "dropouts," so that statistic really needs to control for this factor somehow to be compelling. Without that control, the anecdotes are more convincing than the statistic, so why bother with the statistic?
ZeroGravitas 12y ago
Weev's own words are probably the best way to expose him: http://weev.livejournal.com/409913.html http://weev.livejournal.com/409913.html The fact that he goes to such lengths to sound reasonable and yet fails adds a very dark cast to the whole affair and appropriating the "politically correct" language of what he considers the enemy is a big part of Gamergate too. He struggles to keep it up for long periods of time though, e.g. his reponse to a comment question, "do you support gamergate?": "As much I can support a bunch of beta faggots crying about vidya. I agree that feminist nutjobs are ruining the tech industry, of which I suppose the video game development industry is a subset. I'll agree that #GamerGate probably has moral superiority to a bunch of useless whores whining about shit that they profess to dislike yet still want to dominate and destroy anyways. However, probably all of the /v/ and /gg/ faggots need to be more admirable and brutal in their tactics. This reasoned and polite dialogue that they are attempting with these degenerates and their histrionic shills is obviously not going to work. They need to start putting jackboots on the ground."

by song 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

Horrible people are the best touchstone for principles. If you can stand up for the rights of horrible people then you're probably doing ok. EDIT: It's weird, I'm so conflicted about 'weev'. I have serious problems with him going to jail the way he did (and I know he's been released), but at the same time I feel that I'd probably be A-ok with him serving jail time for the wanton destruction of other peoples lives (and then pretending he never did it whereas he first proudly claimed he had) that he inflicted with so much carelessness, some of which is detailed in this article. He's right up there with the child pornographers. I recall my frustration with the way /. got overrun by weev and his buddies in their eternal quest for negative attention and griefing. Total jerks, the lot of them.

tomp 12y ago
So wait, in the first paragraph you're saying that we should stand up for horrible people's rights, and in the second, you're saying he should go to jail because he's a horrible person. Which one is it? Personally, my principles are perfectly clear: just because I disagree with someone's opinions or behaviors, that doesn't mean they should go to jail (actually, that shouldn't even be a debate!). As long as he has not physically harmed anybody, he should be a free man. If we start jailing people for the psychological harm they cause, we would jail a lot of people (including most of the politicians). It's better if we (as the society) learn how to ignore the trolls, and give less fuck about what other people think/say/do. Thankfully, that's mostly the problem in USA, not in Europe so much. We don't freak out every time someone curses on TV or shows her boobs. (On the other hand, we have other issues, e.g. xenophobia, gag orders, lack of free speech, ...)
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  > If we start jailing people for the psychological harm they cause, we would jail a lot of people (including most of the politicians). Perhaps we should, then.
  - tomp 12y ago
    I didn't think I would need to explain this... The problem with that is that it's a very slippery slope. Everything you do, someone will complain, and be hurt. You're pro choice? You hurt Christians. You're pro life? You hurt women. You're pro immigration? You hurt domestic workers. You're against immigration? You're hurting foreigners living in oppressive countries. Most any binary choice will have some people pro and others against, and unfortunately everybody can pretend they're emotionally hurt, which effectively means you'll be jailing people whose opponents are the loudest.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      "Pretend to be emotionally hurt" If we were just talking about mere offense and hurt feelings (which are still serious), I wouldn't be talking about jail time.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      I'd be interested to know how you would cope with the persistant vicious attacks from people like Weev, lasting many years. And what you'd actually do in that situation, now what you'd think you'd do.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      It is not particularly slippery. In theory, I could also have you arrested because your sleeve accidentally brushed mine in a crowded elevator. "Assault!", I cry, while I flop to the ground like a soccer player. But that's not a big problem because it turns out that legislators and prosecutors and judges and juries are not total idiots. The flopping thing has been attempted, seen as a problem, and generally dealt with. It's also not even a slope. Blasphemy has been a crime in plenty of places, but we're moving away from that. Ditto crimes like insulting the king or harming the state. We move away from it because we get better at discerning actual harm from societally valuable dissenting speech.
knowtheory 12y ago
Kathy Sierra made her feelings on the subject very clear on twitter before she left. Weev is a horrible person, and probably he even deserves to go to jail. But he does not deserve to go to jail based on bullshit. We should never forget that injustice done to Weev is not the same as justice for the things he done.
- geographomics 12y ago
  I'm surprised weev hasn't been prosecuted for the numerous campaigns of individual harassment he's instigated and been involved with. Does the USA not have any law against such behaviour? He's been responsible for deliberate and persistent personal abuse, causing much alarm and distress, and has bragged about it openly. Does this genuinely come under the protections of "free speech", as is claimed by those who defend him?
  - knowtheory 12y ago
    Yeah. So there's a lot going on with harassment charges. First things first, i'm not a lawyer. I'm just a dude who cares about civics. The internet makes harassment considerably more problematic. Even setting aside constitutional defenses of speech, just trying to figure out which agency should be in charge of investigating and prosecuting harassment is confusing at best. Do you go to your local police? Do you go to a federal agency? Which one? Even when you do approach a law enforcement agency after receiving threats, do they think its worth their time to investigate? (Amanda Hess's piece on harassment is an interesting for her interactions w/ the police alone: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/ http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-ar... ) Revenge porn is an analogous (but not identical) problem, and even in that case, where basically everyone can agree it's a bad thing, it's clear first that states don't have statutes which they can use to prosecute (until very recently at least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn#U.S._laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn#U.S._laws ), and in several cases some of the laws being written are complete clusterfucks. The truth of the matter is that you can get away with a whole lot of bullshit before anybody starts trying to drop hammers on you. And harassers live in that space between what is legal and what is enforceable (a lot of other interesting stuff lives in that space too).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

calibraxis 12y ago

Reminds me of what Grigori Perelman (who quit math professionally) said about mathematicians: "Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." Sometimes you see programmers mulling over why someone would leave math over this. Unfortunately, it doesn't strike them to use their own profession's lack of ethics as an analogy: racism and sexism. Many more leave programming over this. (Or at least stop helping their fellow programmer, because they don't like them overall.)

yummyfajitas 12y ago

I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of people off? Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X? Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is a topic of humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0 Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be something else at play. [edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number". This better expresses what I meant to say.]

empthought 12y ago
Idle speculation: tech attracts more than its fair share of introverts relative to those career choices, and for someone who needs just a little positive social interaction from time to time, the risk of extremely negative social interaction being the norm is too great.
- wpietri 12y ago
  This is definitely an issue. One of the people I mentor is a shy young woman. She will make an awesome developer. A few weeks back I had to sit her down and have The Talk explaining that if she rose to prominence, she could well be the target of hideous attacks where guys would have no problem at all. Her eventual conclusion was to stay in the field, but it was definitely something she had to weigh. I've talked with a number of women with established tech careers who have been questioning whether their work to get women into the field is even a good idea. Women drop out of the field at twice the rate men do.
  - empthought 12y ago
    This could be a third-rail question, but I wonder how that "dropout" rate compares to any arbitrary field when measured by the same yardsticks. Women are still the primary caregivers for 95% of infants born, and hence will always show up as more frequent "dropouts," so that statistic really needs to control for this factor somehow to be compelling. Without that control, the anecdotes are more convincing than the statistic, so why bother with the statistic?

ZeroGravitas 12y ago

Weev's own words are probably the best way to expose him: http://weev.livejournal.com/409913.html http://weev.livejournal.com/409913.html The fact that he goes to such lengths to sound reasonable and yet fails adds a very dark cast to the whole affair and appropriating the "politically correct" language of what he considers the enemy is a big part of Gamergate too. He struggles to keep it up for long periods of time though, e.g. his reponse to a comment question, "do you support gamergate?": "As much I can support a bunch of beta faggots crying about vidya. I agree that feminist nutjobs are ruining the tech industry, of which I suppose the video game development industry is a subset. I'll agree that #GamerGate probably has moral superiority to a bunch of useless whores whining about shit that they profess to dislike yet still want to dominate and destroy anyways. However, probably all of the /v/ and /gg/ faggots need to be more admirable and brutal in their tactics. This reasoned and polite dialogue that they are attempting with these degenerates and their histrionic shills is obviously not going to work. They need to start putting jackboots on the ground."