This post resonates strongly with me. I would consider myself a far-left progressive, supporting single payer health care, free schooling, absolute equal rights for all types of people, breaking up banks, heavy taxes on the rich, complete drug legalization, sane immigration laws etc.
And yet, I find myself attacked regularly and called alt-right or a Trump supporter, which is absurd to me. It's nearly impossible to go into depth and have nuanced discussion about sensitive topics even with people who would probably agree with you if they were just willing to listen. Many people get completely tripped up and misunderstand thought experiments, hypothetical situations, playing devil's advocate, considering whether the "opposition" could perhaps be right on anything at all, or meta-discussion and semantics. Like revolutionary China or McCarthy era USA, you say exactly what they want you to say, or you are a reactionary fascist.
What I've found is that the liberal base has become so polarized and uniform that any slight deviation from the narrative leads to accusation, labeling, and insults. It's like the left has acquired and autoimmune disorder and is attacking itself.
> This post resonates strongly with me. I would consider myself a far-left progressive, supporting single payer health care, free schooling, absolute equal rights for all types of people, breaking up banks, heavy taxes on the rich, complete drug legalization, sane immigration laws etc.
Ditto.
>It's nearly impossible to go into depth and have nuanced discussion about sensitive topics even with people who would probably agree with you if they were just willing to listen.
I've left a local tech channel because of this. As soon as a topic takes a serious bent and someone is upset, everyone tries to change the topic. I left when I got a 24hr ban for trying to understand why a discussion of gun laws was "keeping ladies away and making the ones here uncomfortable" and just wouldn't be satisfied with a non-answer because in Pittsburgh, it's almost 50/50 in terms of gender and gun ownership. I didn't respect that person's feelings, I was told. They derailed a nice conversation and offered no understand. I wasn't the only person left confused.
"I'm sorry, I don't like gun discussion for personal reasons" is all they needed to say, but no, it was "another" example (which they couldn't provide any others) of male culture (note most of my friends who are the biggest gun nerds are female) pushing ladies away.
Another time I had people get upset because I mentioned that certain hiring practices that are discriminatory to women (because they stereotypically do the housework) are also are discriminatory to men who take part in their household. I wasn't trying to lessen the issues of women in tech, just adding my personal frustration and that I can relate. But no, I got reamed by everyone.
> What I've found is that the liberal base has become so polarized and uniform that any slight deviation from the narrative leads to accusation, labeling, and insults. It's like the left has acquired and autoimmune disorder and is attacking itself.
Exactly, it's extremely frustrated, especially when I'm _agreeing_ with these people 99% of the time.
One of Tron guy's complaints about penguicon was the code of conduct. If you read the code you'll see it's very reasonable. It asks folks to respect each other and if there is a disagreement talk it out. If it can't be resolved escalate. If you commit harassment the con reserves the right to kick you out.
Seems reasonable. You might think you can go back to the old days without a code of conduct but with 2000 people attending there will be issues. It's best to have everything documented and rules in case something goes wrong. That's why a convention like penguicon keeps going after 15 years.
My friends both liberal and conservative enjoyed the con this year. Both sides also said fuck these guys, if they can't have a good time at a great convention which features all sorts of perspectives, then maybe they can't enjoy themselves anywhere outside of their social bubble.
> "if there is a disagreement talk it out. If it can't be resolved escalate."
Haven't read it, so maybe I'm being unfair. But why do you need to "talk it out" ? Can't people just disagree and continue living? And "escalate", what does that even mean? Do you have an example?
I should say we all said fuck these guys because of the amount of effort goes into running a convention and dealing with folks who are just never going to be satisfied.
If they'd volunteer and put the time in to organize I'd probably take them more seriously.
I was thinking about making this my first con, and I didn't go because the first thing I saw looking for info was the code of conduct. That's now The Sign. Caring too much about your code of conduct, instead of just being welcoming as the con has always been from what I've heard, means far left politics are the order of the day.
Better form committees about inclusion and rape culture too, before people accuse you of being (insert buzzword)!
Hacker groups have always been the most welcomeling places I've ever experienced for people from "odd" walks of life, and paradoxically it's people fighting for inclusion who threaten that. You tell everyone this is a culture of toxic masculinity, and guess who are the only people left in it?
You need a code of conduct when you have 2000 people drinking in a hotel, having parties etc. Someone is going to be an asshole and having policy ahead of time means you don't need to think of a solution on the spot. It's a fair system.
Read it here. It's pretty low key for a code of conduct.
Didn't those use to just be called "the rules"? I think a lot of people's resistance to a CoC is that it's a Dog whistle for a lot of the issues discussed in this post.
Edit: Instead of down voting me, rebuttal the idea. CoC are on their face not bad, but in my experienced are pushed by people with other agendas.
Is there a better word/phrase? I purposely used "dog whistle" because of the political connotations as a signal that implies more than just what's on it's face.
It's interesting that I've felt the least welcome in places that are advertised as tolerant safe spaces. This is especially true when it comes to performance art such as spoken word poetry. I've been accused of "using words that weren't yours to use" and after one open-mic, the MC reminded everyone they reserved the right to "play people off the stage."
Part of being in a society with free speech is listening to ideas you don't agree with. Being offended is part of growing as a society. It was once offensive to publish pro-homosexual magazines in Universities. It was once offensive to say God isn't real.
I highly recommend Brendan O'Neill speech on the Right to Offend. It's amazing, and you'll notice at the end, there are many who boo and disagree with him.
speaking for myself it's not ever the offense I take issue with it's the ubiquity of popular offense. that every space must be a space wherein offensive speech is permitted including spaces created to cater to other genuine concerns such as recovery from debilitating trauma. churches have been a safe space for certain kinds of thought for centuries, some churches even creating a safe space within their safe space where a person can confess to any sin without suffering the adverse social affects.
it's on this point that I think people lose their minds. the vulnerable see a world completely set against them and have no ability to create an island for themselves so they over react and become militant with time as popular social movements continually fail to understand them. I see wrong on both ends for different reasons but in a hyper connected world where everything is happening all the time, the marginalized by definition must lose out. the freedom to offend is not the only attribute worth protecting, despite how very serious our history teaches us otherwise. the world isn't just becoming smaller, it's becoming flat, and that is another dimension worth pushing against.
there are no easy positions to take here. there are no obvious answers. defending free speech is obvious and good and I'm in favor of erring on the side of caution but the longer people take a principled stand on offense and dismiss the motivations of the people pushing against it, the further this situation will deteriorate.
I agree with you, but I have a comment about the video you linked to.
O'Neill gave several examples of views that in the past were regarded as "maximally offensive", but they were all progressive - they advocated for a new idea, something that was never accepted before in that society.
But are there any examples of regressive views that were initially considered offensive but later accepted?
Yes, and my question doesn't assume universality. I'm asking about views that were considered regressive or progressive at that particular time, by the particular people that were advocating for tolerating or for suppressing those views.
I used to attend/speak Penguicon regularly but the quality of the content seems to have been lacking recently, so I was expecting some kind of call to arms here for helping bring the show back to its roots.
As I think the whole concept of a science fiction and technical conference in one is just a nice blend of topics.
Instead it's the self proclaimed shaper of "today's opensource culture" (whatever that means) complaining about bathrooms.
There seems to be a complaint about unisex bathrooms, and people who support and push for the "Contributor Convent", which I hadn't heard of before.
Reviewing it[0], I'm having a hard time figuring out what the complaint is. I wholly concede that my lack of understanding may be related to my own biases.
But recently there was a conversation that mentioned the ACM code of conduct[1], and how software engineers should be more aware of the effects of their code, and to act ethically.
Can someone speak to the differences between the two, and why one would be looked down on, but the other would be something to strive for?
> for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
They've made up their own list, and come up with something a bit odd. There's some overlap (body size is covered by personal appearance) and some gaps (no mention of neuro diversity, which would seem to be important for that audience).
> Penguicon is at risk of becoming an environment
> that is exclusionary and toxic - ironically,
> because it has bent to the demands of people
> who claim to favor "inclusion" and diversity, but whose
> methods are speech policing,
> thought policing, and the intimidation
> of any who disagree with them
I've never even heard of Penguicon, but I feel I seethis a lot. People who preach tolerance the loudest are quite intolerant of radically opposing views. And the actual tolerant people are those that, for the most part, just shut up and get on with it.
I doubt it. Many users flag these threads because classic flamewars don't belong on HN. They're tedious and violate the mandate of the site. That's a different consideration than agreeing or disagreeing with the politics of a post.
> I've already been personally accused of promoting "rape
culture" because I teach women how to shoot and fight hand-to-hand and
advocate that they should take responsibility for their own safety.
... the assumption being that his accusers are the same type of people that would demand unisex bathrooms and written codes of conduct.
> trumpeting unisex bathrooms is taking a
side, implying a public normative claim
Yeah, or, it's just making trans people comfortable at the conference in a way that impedes absolutely nobody from doing anything, other than shouting at someone for using the 'wrong' bathroom.
I'm for people using whatever toilet they want, but this is usually beyond what the organizing comities can do anyway. There are state laws and rules for the hotel/convention centre that they probably have to abide by. I mean there is the bigger question of why the hell do we even separate toilets by male/female to begin with? That's a more anthropological question that we could debate for hours.
I think the author was just using this as one example, and it's probably not the best one.
> I'm for people using whatever toilet they want, but this is usually beyond what the organizing comities can do anyway. There are state laws and rules for the hotel/convention centre that they probably have to abide by.
I'm not aware of any such laws, and I don't see any indication that the convention center was complaining about it - only ESR.
> I mean there is the bigger question of why the hell do we even separate toilets by male/female to begin with? That's a more anthropological question that we could debate for hours.
Honestly, this is the kind of archaic social convention that I'd expect "hackers" to be happy to overthrow. To me, gender neutral bathrooms seem like a great example of the very quote that ESR cites in his complaint:
The hacker culture’s norm about inclusion is clear: anybody who
can pull the freight is welcome, and twitching about things like skin
color or shape of genitalia or what thing you like to stick into what
thing is beyond wrong into silly.
>and I don't see any indication that the convention center was complaining about it - only ESR
The convention wanted gender neutral toilets. The hotel has existing toilets, and they're not gender neutral (I guess because of urinals and because of bins / vending machines for sanitary products, as well as signage) and so they declined that request.
I agree with you about gender neutral toilets. I don't understand why some people are so hostile to the idea.
> The hotel has existing toilets, and they're not gender neutral (I guess because of urinals and because of bins / vending machines for sanitary products, as well as signage) and so they declined that request.
Ah, my mistake. For reference, not all hosts respond that way: some recent high-profile conventions have successfully temporarily designated restrooms as gender neutral, including CCC (hacking conference) last year in Germany and the Democratic National Convention in the US.
Isn't your reaction to his complaint that switching to unisex restrooms is a deliberate political signal, and not about welcoming to trans folk part of what this post is talking about? If we can't discuss how others feel about this, if the motivation for the switch to unisex bathrooms is an overt political signal or a genuine one to marginalized groups, are we really behaving civil? Specifically because bathrooms are something that's banged into most peoples heads as gendered thing and the opposite sex in them might make them uncomfortable, for no overtly sexist, homophobic, transphobic, &c reason; it's something they've been taught very strongly, and transitions do take time.
Remember, the complaint is not that unisex bathrooms are bad, but that they're being used as a political signal to tell people who aren't comfortable with them that they aren't welcome, regardless of the reason for the uncomfort.
I followed the link, saw the name at the top of the email, and immediately went "ah, I know where this mail is going". And sure enough, that's where it went.
Personally, I'd say this is a good sign: if your conference makes people like ESR and the other posters in the linked thread feel unwelcome and uncomfortable showing up and bringing the kind of attitudes and behavior that make other people feel unwelcome, then keep it up, you're on the right track.
Why? Why is that the right track? Being exposed to people with different views is healthy, as long as the discussion is fairly civil.
I don't now much about this particular conf or the people, so maybe I'm misjudging you. But in general I believe many people are offended far to easily and we give far too much weight to them. Never being offended is not a human right.
Interesting that you say that on a blog which is mostly someone being offended at the idea of gender neutral toilets. So offended that he thinks it's a deliberate ploy to make him annoyed.
That's not how I read the post. At all. I actually think he has a point, I and don't care abut the bathrooms. Maybe he should have skipped that example..
Do you really not see how bringing up gender neutral bathrooms at a hacker conference might be a little off topic and designed to offend?
Here's a hint: I've known lots of trans and nonconforming people who use whatever unisex bathroom they feel like when they're at an event like this, and nobody cared, because these communities accept lots of "non traditional" types. That's the whole point. Let your personal flag fly.
If you come back with "Oh but that's a micro aggression against trans people"... Welcome to the problem. Just punch me in the face, I'm a Nazi. QED.
And yet, I find myself attacked regularly and called alt-right or a Trump supporter, which is absurd to me. It's nearly impossible to go into depth and have nuanced discussion about sensitive topics even with people who would probably agree with you if they were just willing to listen. Many people get completely tripped up and misunderstand thought experiments, hypothetical situations, playing devil's advocate, considering whether the "opposition" could perhaps be right on anything at all, or meta-discussion and semantics. Like revolutionary China or McCarthy era USA, you say exactly what they want you to say, or you are a reactionary fascist.
What I've found is that the liberal base has become so polarized and uniform that any slight deviation from the narrative leads to accusation, labeling, and insults. It's like the left has acquired and autoimmune disorder and is attacking itself.