Uncertain reply-time-window dynamics enabled by the era of asynchronous/deferred indirect communication (aka "texting"/"emailing") create a situation where the psychological principles of the Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement) kick in, which, as it turns out, is the most addicting, thus creating the most drama.
I get that about right? ;)
Word to the wise (single men): Online dating apps put much more power into the hands of women than men. If you want to score something "out of your league," you're going to have to take a walk out of the ballpark, and get your hands dirty in the real world with some face-to-face time. Uncoincidentally, this takes advantage of another psychological principle, Repeated Proximity Breeds Attraction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect)
I've been on both sides of "Repeated Proximity Breeds Attraction", and that's part of the reason why I like meetups so much. It allows for that to occur naturally without imposing yourself on anyone. Just be friendly and keep showing up and over time, people tend to express interest.
I'm 43. While this is no excuse, I suppose, I grew up in a time that was not as ridiculously P.C. as it is now. I find myself increasingly surrounded by this sort of sensitivity to any (even joking) conventionally-male analogies used when dating. I'm also a US Veteran and a member of a fraternity, two bastions of male-centrist worldview.
But also, just to be clear... Disgust is a non-argument. :P
> The fact that this and my own comments are getting downvoted on this is sad.
It's because you have added nothing other that your own faked outrage at the legitimate use of scoring as a way to describe attainment of a sought after goal.
Actually my genuine concern (not outrage) is primarily that someone on HN feels that the use of the word 'something' to describe a woman is remotely appropriate. I'm calling the poster out on that because I feel like if they don't have it pointed out to them that that is inappropriate they'll continue to think it's okay. It is not okay.
This is an extremely common expression, I thought. Google seems to indicate similarly with 847,000 results for the exact expression "out of (my OR your OR their) league".
> The chauvinism in this comment is insane. Women aren't points on a scoreboard
This commenter, the type that is OUTRAGED by speech that hasn't been mangled to be politically correct, is responsible for muffling open and honest communication among people. Specific to this example, there is nothing wrong with the OP's use of scoring - the outraged expressed by the commenter above is basically trolling for a response by feigning outrage.
Well, I wasn't outraged before, but I have to admit that I may be feeling a touch of outrage now.
The "mangling" of speech to be politically correct and the "muffling" of open and honest communications that some of us are asking for is just this: changing "score something 'out of your league'" to, e.g., "meet someone 'out of your league.'" I'm not sure why people see this as so hard to swallow.
There may be someone "trolling for a response by feigning outrage" in this conversation, but I don't think it's GP.
> changing "score something 'out of your league'" to, e.g., "meet someone 'out of your league.'" I'm not sure why people see this as so hard to swallow.
The use case for language is this: You have a picture or idea in your brain that needs to be transmitted over ASCII into my brain. The conventional symbol set for this use case are English words. A priori we received a dictionary of words and their meanings that we assume is identical to all parties. Trouble is that it isn't. IF and only IF the goal of BOTH parties is to reproduce the original message with highest possible fidelity, then the receiver will obtain a copy of the transmitter's dictionary, and use the updated definitions to reproduce the transmitter's message.
However if the goal of the receiver is to discredit the transmitter or distract from the point being made, then a great tactic, akin to DNS hijack, is to push onto all receivers an alternative dictionary to the one used by the transmitter. In this case the alterative dictionary elicits outrage, discrediting the transmitter, and hijacking the original discussion.
CNN, for example, their goal is NOT to reproduce with high fidelity what congressman X said, rather, their goal is ___ (insert: make it more entertaining, make it more newsworthy, make it click-bait suitable, keep viewers watching, attract ad dollars, curry political favor, drive their own agenda, etc). In addition to pushing an alternative dictionary, they can reinforce with cutting phrases out of context, using selective historical imagery and video, bringing 'experts' to present their views.
In summary I feel that HG was using an alternative dictionary attack (akin to DNS hijack), to distract from the substantive content in the OP.
That's an interesting explanation, and it's an astute way of describing tactics that are sometimes employed in political debates. But as applied to this case, I think it fails to address some key issues.
1. What reason would HG have to distract from the substantive content in the OP's comment?
2. HG was not the only person who found OP's comment objectionable. Do we all have ulterior motivess?
3. There are, I think, objective reasons for finding parts of OP's comment objectionable, which HG, myself, and others, have thoroughly expressed elsewhere in this thread. Do you have a response to these substantive points, or are you merely concerned about HG's reasons for raising them (and, perhaps, his./her tone in doing so)?
I for one think that OP's comment is interesting, and I have no interest in distracting from its substance. But I do hope to point out how some unfortunate, casual choice of words may have inadvertently caused harm to other members of our community.
I'd also point out that, like the dictionary attack that you describe, baselessly impugning an opponent's motivations is also a tried and true tactic for distracting others from the substance of what they have to say, without meaningfully engaging with it.
I don't suspect users here have conscious ulterior motives. I think that ____ (insert one of {media, communists, political elites, liberals, aliens, etc}) have conditioned knee-jerk language-policing. This has the side-effect of taking the current thread off topic while muting substantive discourse in this and future posts.
The dictionary attack has been practiced in media for a long time. Watch a famous 50s news anchor interview an atheist author (I can think of specifics, but I don't want to bias you). Back then it was obvious they were distorting what the interviewee was saying. The viewing audience wasn't stupid, they were complicit because they didn't agree with the atheist. Today this goes on, and occurs so regularly that no one cares if someone deliberately misunderstands something in order to be outraged. Actually whats even more telling is that this technique is a standard way to "communicate" political messages - just watch the campaigners.
I learned this dictionary problem while managing a startup with some employees who used a different dictionary than I. I'd say 80% of the conflict at work was due I say X while the other understood X'
Really if I had a way to efficiently and reliably transfer images in my head into theirs we would have saved countless hours and dollars
Wow. You've gone from accusing people of faking outrage, to accusing people of executing a CNN-style 'dictionary attack'(?), to suggesting an alien communist liberal conspiracy...
... and you think that OTHER people are taking the thread off-topic and muting substantive discourse?
Do you really not see the humor in political elites & aliens? Or are you just providing the readership with a textbook example of becoming outraged by deliberately interpreting things wrongly?
I strongly agree with this criticism of the language (I winced reading it), but I also agree that the way it was criticised here was unnecessarily inflammatory.
There are many people who are not sympathetic to calls for PC language, and including accusations of "insane chauvinism" isn't going to make them any more palatable.
And that's the important issue, after all. We need to make sure that people who enjoy sexist language feel welcome in the technology industry and on forums like this, because otherwise we would so rarely get to hear their perspective.
Fair enough. I agree that the comment could have been more carefully worded. Note, though, that this does not (I hope!) explain the cool reception (to put it mildly) to my own comments in the same vein.
That said, generalizing correlations of ANYTHING to gender and then trying to ACT on that, is, generally, a bad idea (just as it is to correlate with race or ethnicity or age or pretty much any other physical attribute).
I'm not outraged, just surprised that people would so heartily upvote such a comment.
People should be conscious of the language they use, and create a welcoming community for everyone.
If "scoring" women wasn't intended in the context it is usually used in, "scoring" shouldn't be the choice of words and people shouldn't encourage it by upvoting a comment that uses words so poorly.
Perhaps people find the content of the comment sufficiently high-quality that it overrides concerns about language.
It's also possible that voters don't share your opinions about what sort of language is "okay" or "not okay". Which wouldn't surprise me in a community with diverse opinions.
"Score" is a term for successfully attracting a mate. It is not a power struggle per se but dating is a negotiation of sorts in order to reach a consensus about the nature of an interpersonal relationship between two individuals.
In that sense, a girl can "score" a guy too, it isn't sexist per se.
"Score" is one thing. "Score something" is, to me, much worse. I don't mind if guys want to speak casually among friends about women as conquests. But it strikes me as disconcerting that there are people who find this way of speaking so unobjectionable that they'd use it on a public forum like hacker news where, I had thought, the general expectation is that the discourse will maintain a certain level of quality and, needless to say, women are supposed to feel welcome and appreciated for their intellectual contributions.
What's even more disconcerting is that the comment that used this expression has been voted to the top (though it is otherwise a very good comment), and comments taking issue with the sexist language are voted into oblivion (so far).
I took it to mean that the 'something' being scored was a relationship. Maybe this is some kind of sexist dog whistle I'm not hearing but I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt instead of trying to language police a substantive comment.
Hmm. Possibly. Obviously that's not how I read it, but I don't claim that my way is the only way it could have been read.
I can't say I agree with the choice you've assumed, though, between "language policing" a comment, and appreciating it for its substantive contribution. I think we're all sophisticated enough that we can recognize the substantive value of a comment, as I've tried to do, while also trying to suggest ways to build a more respectful community for everyone. In its best form, "language policing" will usually not be unconditional and vociferous condemnation, but rather a thoughtful sharing of perspectives and suggestion for incremental improvement.
This is the very ethos of this forum in so many other arenas--tech, business, often politics--but I'm often disappointed that the prevailing attitude here is so closed when it comes to issues of gender politics (for lack of a better term). Part of the issue may be that these issues are not always thoughtfully raised, and there can sometimes be an unwelcome tendency towards outrage (in both directions). But I think it would be a shame if we didn't keep trying to improve ourselves, and the tech community at large to make for a more welcoming community.
Edit: As others have pointed out elsewhere, one does not normally describe a relationship as "out of your league." That's a description typically bestowed upon people. I suspect this is why I and others have interpreted the comment they way we have. I don't think this entirely rules out the possibility you raised about the original commenter's intent, but I do think it means that my interpretation is probably correct--or at least eminently defensible.
I'd also add that the original commenter's intent does not matter much to me. I was never here to impugn his or her character in the first place. My point has only ever been that the comment, regardless of its precise intended meaning, reasonably communicates a certain disrespect for women.
Then again, you used the term "insane" inappropriately. To a certain extent, you have to accept some slang during discussion. And, in addition to the fact that power is a core concept in sociology, what dating dynamics are "meant to be" (whatever that means) doesn't really matter.
No, the scary thing here is that s/he does NOT have to accept ANY slang during discussion AND can declare my entire comment invalid (while using public shame) based on what was (to him/her) a poor choice of wording (which, perhaps it was, but disgust is not an argument)
Ideally, no. But men often use sports analogies when discussing getting a woman to actually date them, which is a quite difficult goal. I apologize for any offense.
> dating dynamics aren't meant to be a power struggle
Here you lost me. If you don't think there's often a power struggle in the early stages of dating, I don't know what reality you're living, because it's not mine.
Uncertain reply-time-window dynamics enabled by the era of asynchronous/deferred indirect communication (aka "texting"/"emailing") create a situation where the psychological principles of the Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement) kick in, which, as it turns out, is the most addicting, thus creating the most drama.
I get that about right? ;)
Word to the wise (single men): Online dating apps put much more power into the hands of women than men. If you want to score something "out of your league," you're going to have to take a walk out of the ballpark, and get your hands dirty in the real world with some face-to-face time. Uncoincidentally, this takes advantage of another psychological principle, Repeated Proximity Breeds Attraction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect)