8 ms·

The first tweet, which seems to be the one that people reacted most strongly to, is pretty clearly a lampooning of Mel Gibson. I suspect most people missed that

by cheald 12y ago

The first tweet, which seems to be the one that people reacted most strongly to, is pretty clearly a lampooning of Mel Gibson. I suspect most people missed that, though. It's distasteful, but it's not exactly Dickinson himself expressing racist, victim-blaming sentiments; it's a mockery of them. The second is a pretty standard libertarian talking-point (which is more "personal responsibility rah rah rah" than "yay, starving poor people!"). The third I don't really get (but I don't really follow basketball), and the fourth I suspect you're misinterpreting as "Tech managers don't want to hire women", when I think it's more "Tech managers don't care about the gender of their developers"; the truth of the statement is debatable, but I do think it takes some willful effort to read that and be offended by it. I think Dickinson made unwise choices in how he chose to tweet, but I also think the backlash he's suffered has been orders of magnitude worse than the offense. He has been made persona non grata to the point of being unemployable over a handful of ill-considered tweets - he's unemployable now because of the extent to which people have gone to associate him and anyone associated with him with racism, rape, and sexism - regardless of the reality of his actions. On one hand, he's suffering the consequences of his decisions (see tweet #2 for some schadenfreude). On the other, because the internet loves a shitstorm, it seems that the magnitude of the consequences are way out of line with the original offense.

ForHackernews 12y ago
> the fourth I suspect you're misinterpreting as "Tech managers don't want to hire women", when I think it's more "Tech managers don't care about the gender of their developers" You're giving that the most contorted, charitable reading possible. In your reading, the reference to a "unicorn" is nonsensical. I would argue the accurate reading is: "Tech managers don't spend time worrying about hiring talented women because [like unicorns] they are mythical and don't exist." Now, the further implications behind that statement might be: a) Talented female developers are rare--we need to make serious efforts to improve the educational pipeline and get more young girls interested in programming. b) Talented female developers are rare, but it's not the tech industry's job to worry or care about that. c) Talented female developers aren't rare, but [usually male] hiring managers are too blinded by sexism to recognize them. > regardless of the reality of his actions. That's the thing. We don't know the reality of his actions. Based only on his tweets (I don't know him personally), he certainly sounds like he might be the kind of guy who would discriminate in his hiring. He might not even do it consciously, he'd just think "Well, I only hire the best" and in his mind, "the best" does not include women.
- cheald 12y ago
  If you take that tweet in isolation and read it as a comparison of female developers to unicorns, then sure, I can see how you arrive at that conclusion. I think it's a faulty conclusion, and I think that its faultiness is further illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. My reading of it is based on what I know of him, which does not consist solely of a Valleywag article and four tweets. You're exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem here; you took a tweet, extrapolated it into a full sum of a person, and then don't bother to establish any further context and have decided that the author is a racist, sexist psychopath based on a context-free reading of a one-sentence statement. That's great for feeling superior to people, but it's pretty awful for useful dialog.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    > illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. I mean, obviously he's going to say that. I'm not sure how much stock you want to put into after-the-fact PR damage control. I think actions speak louder than words, and I'd reserve judgment before hearing from some of the women developers who he's hired (he has hired women, right?) about how he was to work under, what he was like as a boss (not as a co-founder). You accuse me of "exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem" but I'm trying hard to be as neutral and generous as possible. I listed three possible implications of that tweet, only one of which is explicitly negative, and you claim I've "decided that the author is a racist, sexist psychopath". If anyone is guilty of twitter-like hyperbole in this conversation, it's you.
    - cheald 12y ago
      Well, there are both of these, in which the women who worked with him defend him (Julie Sommerville in particular): http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/ http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs/ http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs... If you didn't think that Dickinson was being a racist, misogynistic, victim-blaming rape apologist, why those tweets in particular? This whole discussion is happening in the implict context of the Valleywag article that touched this whole thing off, where those explicit accusations were made with those tweets as evidence - we aren't discussing this issue in a vacuum here. They're certainly in bad taste, but bad taste doesn't deserve the accusations that he's had thrown at him. You listed multiple implications of the tweet, but then called it "the worst" of a lot that include jokes with racial slurs about rape of a venerated religious figure, so it's pretty safe to infer that you aren't giving it any of the charitable readings; if you were, it wouldn't be anything worth mentioning! My point in all of this, relevant to the original article, is that these sorts of accusations can have a profound and disproportionate impact on those affected, even if the truth is something else entirely. I think it's unfortunate that Dickinson was fired from BI because they couldn't afford to have the accusations against him associated with their brand (and note that it was the baggage that was the issue, not him actually being a misogynist to his employees or whatnot), but I don't think it's an unreasonable response - he made a bad choice in what he said, and he suffered the consequences of it. I do think it's unreasonable that he remains effectively unemployable because of the bogeyman that has been constructed around his name in which those tweets are trotted out with accusations of racism and sexism every time someone mentions him.

by cheald 12y ago

ForHackernews 12y ago

> the fourth I suspect you're misinterpreting as "Tech managers don't want to hire women", when I think it's more "Tech managers don't care about the gender of their developers" You're giving that the most contorted, charitable reading possible. In your reading, the reference to a "unicorn" is nonsensical. I would argue the accurate reading is: "Tech managers don't spend time worrying about hiring talented women because [like unicorns] they are mythical and don't exist." Now, the further implications behind that statement might be: a) Talented female developers are rare--we need to make serious efforts to improve the educational pipeline and get more young girls interested in programming. b) Talented female developers are rare, but it's not the tech industry's job to worry or care about that. c) Talented female developers aren't rare, but [usually male] hiring managers are too blinded by sexism to recognize them. > regardless of the reality of his actions. That's the thing. We don't know the reality of his actions. Based only on his tweets (I don't know him personally), he certainly sounds like he might be the kind of guy who would discriminate in his hiring. He might not even do it consciously, he'd just think "Well, I only hire the best" and in his mind, "the best" does not include women.

cheald 12y ago
If you take that tweet in isolation and read it as a comparison of female developers to unicorns, then sure, I can see how you arrive at that conclusion. I think it's a faulty conclusion, and I think that its faultiness is further illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. My reading of it is based on what I know of him, which does not consist solely of a Valleywag article and four tweets. You're exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem here; you took a tweet, extrapolated it into a full sum of a person, and then don't bother to establish any further context and have decided that the author is a racist, sexist psychopath based on a context-free reading of a one-sentence statement. That's great for feeling superior to people, but it's pretty awful for useful dialog.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  > illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. I mean, obviously he's going to say that. I'm not sure how much stock you want to put into after-the-fact PR damage control. I think actions speak louder than words, and I'd reserve judgment before hearing from some of the women developers who he's hired (he has hired women, right?) about how he was to work under, what he was like as a boss (not as a co-founder). You accuse me of "exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem" but I'm trying hard to be as neutral and generous as possible. I listed three possible implications of that tweet, only one of which is explicitly negative, and you claim I've "decided that the author is a racist, sexist psychopath". If anyone is guilty of twitter-like hyperbole in this conversation, it's you.
  - cheald 12y ago
    Well, there are both of these, in which the women who worked with him defend him (Julie Sommerville in particular): http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/ http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs/ http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs... If you didn't think that Dickinson was being a racist, misogynistic, victim-blaming rape apologist, why those tweets in particular? This whole discussion is happening in the implict context of the Valleywag article that touched this whole thing off, where those explicit accusations were made with those tweets as evidence - we aren't discussing this issue in a vacuum here. They're certainly in bad taste, but bad taste doesn't deserve the accusations that he's had thrown at him. You listed multiple implications of the tweet, but then called it "the worst" of a lot that include jokes with racial slurs about rape of a venerated religious figure, so it's pretty safe to infer that you aren't giving it any of the charitable readings; if you were, it wouldn't be anything worth mentioning! My point in all of this, relevant to the original article, is that these sorts of accusations can have a profound and disproportionate impact on those affected, even if the truth is something else entirely. I think it's unfortunate that Dickinson was fired from BI because they couldn't afford to have the accusations against him associated with their brand (and note that it was the baggage that was the issue, not him actually being a misogynist to his employees or whatnot), but I don't think it's an unreasonable response - he made a bad choice in what he said, and he suffered the consequences of it. I do think it's unreasonable that he remains effectively unemployable because of the bogeyman that has been constructed around his name in which those tweets are trotted out with accusations of racism and sexism every time someone mentions him.