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I took a totally different message away from the story. It was a story -- one you don't often hear -- of someone who discovered their trans tendency was a resul

I took a totally different message away from the story. It was a story -- one you don't often hear -- of someone who discovered their trans tendency was a result/coping mechanism borne of early trauma. I don't think the club sounded any more/less douchey than a place like HN (the owner notwithstanding). It sounds like a place where a certain group of people complain about the issues that affect them. Like all specialized groups, their complaints sound ridiculous to non-members. For comparison, consider this complaint: "We just can't afford a house in Palo Alto, all we can spend is $800k and anything halfway decent is at least $2MM" -- that conversation probably happens 100x daily in the Bay, but it sounds ridiculous and hopelessly disconnected from reality to anyone not living here. Perspective.

mercer 12y ago
I'm not sure if the message you took from the story was intended, but you do raise an interesting point. Because of a number of reasons I've always spent a lot of time around people who struggled with their gender/sexuality in society, and there were more than a few individuals, mostly gay men, where I strongly suspected that they were gay, at least in part, by choice. Now just to be clear: I think it can be dangerous, damaging, offensive and ultimately pointless to make such a judgment, but as a (private) observation it fascinated to me. (On the other hand, I've also met a number straight men of whom I suspected that they could be comfortable gay or bisexual, but 'chose' the more orthodox, straight identity.)
grmarcil 12y ago
To reinforce your point about HN being not so different than the club, especially in context of the author's observations about men spending their time condescending to one another: fully 1/3 of the replies to this very well-written piece are dedicated to a subthread filled with HNers condescending to one another about their scientific knowledge of ice.
wpietri 12y ago
> I don't think the club sounded any more/less douchey than a place like HN (the owner notwithstanding). I think it sounded a lot worse, but maybe I'm blinded by my contempt for people who think spending $2000 on a jacket is somehow a good idea. But using HN as a benchmark is not so great. I participate because high-tech entrepreneurs are my people, but there are plenty of good folks who hold HN in contempt for the stuff that gets said here. It has improved some in the last year or so with better moderation, but I just expect 50% or so of my interactions here will be awful. In contrast to say, Quora, where it's 5% awful, or well-moderated mailing lists, which are under 1%.

mercer 12y ago

I'm not sure if the message you took from the story was intended, but you do raise an interesting point. Because of a number of reasons I've always spent a lot of time around people who struggled with their gender/sexuality in society, and there were more than a few individuals, mostly gay men, where I strongly suspected that they were gay, at least in part, by choice. Now just to be clear: I think it can be dangerous, damaging, offensive and ultimately pointless to make such a judgment, but as a (private) observation it fascinated to me. (On the other hand, I've also met a number straight men of whom I suspected that they could be comfortable gay or bisexual, but 'chose' the more orthodox, straight identity.)

grmarcil 12y ago

To reinforce your point about HN being not so different than the club, especially in context of the author's observations about men spending their time condescending to one another: fully 1/3 of the replies to this very well-written piece are dedicated to a subthread filled with HNers condescending to one another about their scientific knowledge of ice.

wpietri 12y ago

> I don't think the club sounded any more/less douchey than a place like HN (the owner notwithstanding). I think it sounded a lot worse, but maybe I'm blinded by my contempt for people who think spending $2000 on a jacket is somehow a good idea. But using HN as a benchmark is not so great. I participate because high-tech entrepreneurs are my people, but there are plenty of good folks who hold HN in contempt for the stuff that gets said here. It has improved some in the last year or so with better moderation, but I just expect 50% or so of my interactions here will be awful. In contrast to say, Quora, where it's 5% awful, or well-moderated mailing lists, which are under 1%.