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Comment by Tehnix | Hacker News Reader

I generally feel like there's a kneejerk reaction from people (especially in the tech community) to be "PC compliant", at the level where you almost can't have any discourse because it's such a minefield (can't imagine a rational person whoms first intepretation of the tweets is "that's sexist" to be pleasant having a conversation with).

I almost feel in the minority (or just a silent one?), but I honestly don't care what kind of political views, personal preferences, outrageous statements or whatever problems a speaker at a conference might have, as long as he gives a good talk/presentation.

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I can relate to the feeling of being a 'silent' minority. As an introverted white guy who lives in a foreign country, I feel that I am being discriminated against all the time.

I literally have to force myself to act extroverted in order to succeed in the workplace. People just assume that if you're a guy, you're just a confident hussler.

I know several introverted white guys who are extremely qualified but missed out on job offers because they were honest about their qualifications and didn't talk themselves up like some other guys do.

Being introverted, shy or weak isn't necessarily a female attribute. The fact that someone assumes that makes THEM the sexist one.

> As an introverted white guy who lives in a foreign country, I feel that I am being discriminated against all the time.

This is, literally, what it feels like to be a minority in the US and most European countries. Everything about you is questionable, you get slighted all the time, and you're the representative of an entire ethnicity. So whatever you do or opinions you hold are representative of the entire group.

Except if you make it to "fame/success status". Then you can use the minority card all the time in your favour.

Kind of like MLK, or Malcolm X, or Marcus Garvey, etc. etc.? What about those minorities wrongfully imprisoned for long periods of time for nothing short of suspicion before being released with no charges (or worse)?

I'm pretty sure their public removal was a little harsher and unfair without a so-called minority card to play.

>Kind of like MLK, or Malcolm X, or Marcus Garvey, etc. etc.?

No, kind of like in 2016.

>What about those minorities wrongfully imprisoned for long periods of time for nothing short of suspicion before being released with no charges (or worse)?

What about them? I've talked about famous people.

More likely they are invoking their famous card. The minority card had no advantages.

Chris Rock pointed out that in being a black actor he is not allowed to make a bad/questionable movie. He makes one bad film and and all of black Hollywood is out of work for a year.

>More likely they are invoking their famous card. The minority card had no advantages.

I think if you're famous/succesful, the minority/victim card can be played to your advantage too.

If you're a poor/unknown minority, nobody gives a fuck.

The same way few care or write indignant posts for sex trafficking victims or exploited immigrant people, but if some minority member at some $1000/person conference hears something they that hurts their feelings, it warrants a small media/social-media storm.

It's the upper middle class minority version of "white people's problems".

The quantity of white males who are removed from their position in a possibly career-ending way without trial or due explanation (e.g. Mozilla CEO, GitHub CEO, various conferences, colleagues), plus the quantity of government aid and help that are offered based on people's gender, and not based on people's weaknesses, now makes me uncomfortable. White males who work hard deserve a life too.

22 points on the comment above (which I can't edit anymore). As the 74th comment on a page (of 640 points), it's a pretty good score: I would say that gender justice is a feeling shared by many people.

> I honestly don't care what kind of political views, personal preferences, outrageous statements or whatever problems a speaker at a conference might have, as long as he gives a good talk/presentation.

I find it interesting if a speaker has vastly different preferences, political views and makes outrageous statements that I'd never make.

That doesn't mean I'm always comfortable with it, but it's interesting to think about how people came to be different than me. It's interesting to see their interaction with others. I might learn something, even if I disagree.

Having all people be "my way" on the other hand, sounds really numb.

I feel there's a knee jerk reaction from people in the tech community to minimize very legitimate concerns about bias and about making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

I think it's easy to look past someone's personal preferences and outrageous comments when you're already part of the club. But respect that that isn't everyone's experience.

Because many in tech approach things with a very logical almost cold manner... They brush off emotional responses like offense, because being offended isn't a logical or useful response... Its emotion, it's random, and for many it's too much chaos to deal with.

My experience than many in tech like to believe that they are logical, while actually being as prone to bias and emotional reasoning as anyone else. Just more in denial of it.

> I think it's easy to look past someone's personal preferences and outrageous comments when you're already part of the club. But respect that that isn't everyone's experience.

What specifically did Crockford say that was outrageous?

I have no idea. The conference organizers said people privately voiced concerns and other speakers threatened to pull out over his presence.

I was addressing the parent comment's point about inclusiveness in general.

As it looks now, the people who voiced concerns and threatened to pull out were the same person.

which begs the questions: 1) whom 2) why

and it's rather "put-up or shut-up" time, I'd say.

I've never heard of this conference. I've read Crockfords books, and while any given person on earth may be a total bear to deal with, I'm not buying this greasy smarmy "he'd been uninvited for undisclosed reasons but we'll imply lot's of socially-disapproved-of reasons without confirming nor denying any of them"

what a kafka-esque load of nonsense.

the conference organizers are in the wrong and are doing further damage with every greasy fart they let out by way of explanation.

disgusting.

They're free to invite and disinvite whoever they please. You're free to not attend. I don't think airing private grievances will help anyone.

Yes but if you are going to give half-assed reasons for uninviting him, then you are going to have to defend yourself. If they had said: " Unfortunately Douglas Crackford will not attend the conference for unforeseen circumstances", we would not be in this outrage. If you are going to publicly shame someone and possible harm their career, you better have proof that he has done some very horrible things or comments. Listing a possible twitter message calling someone stupid does not sound like a reasonable cause too me. That is why we are voicing our concerns, and why hardly anyone here is agreeing with you.

The problem is that they stopped being private grievances when they were used to remove a speaker from a public conference.

Way back in the good ol' days, this was exactly the sort of thing used to oppress the minorities: an unknown group of well-connected men would get together to black-ball someone for being the wrong sort of person, with no explanation, recourse, or accountability.

Like I have said before: choose your enemies carefully; you become them. The faces may have changed, but the behavior hasn't.

"They're free to invite and disinvite whoever they please. You're free to not attend."

For the millionth time, this isn't about what people are legally allowed to do. This is about what it's right to do.

Clearly these other people are in the club and Crockford is most definitely not. If this other person can get Crockford removed from the conference on a whim with no explanation the power and abuse of it is in the hands of the other person.

"I removed comments from JSON because I saw people were using them to hold parsing directives, a practice which would have destroyed interoperability. I know that the lack of comments makes some people sad, but it shouldn't.

Suppose you are using JSON to keep configuration files, which you would like to annotate. Go ahead and insert all the comments you like. Then pipe it through JSMin before handing it to your JSON parser."

https://plus.google.com/+DouglasCrockfordEsq/posts/RK8qyGVaG...

I'm now significantly less salty about the lack of comments in JSON.

That is pretty outrageous. They were to right to disinvite him to speak: he's said enough.

>I feel there's a knee jerk reaction from people in the tech community to minimize very legitimate concerns about bias and about making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Maybe people shouldn't be so precious snowflakes that should always feel "comfortable" and "welcome"? Maybe they should have the courage to be challenged?

I blame it on the BS "you are so special" mode of baby boomer parenting...

I grew up with "you're so special" parenting, sort of, but I also was raised with tolerance and acceptance. Looking back, it makes sense, because if everyone is a unique snowflake, they have to learn to be tolerant and accepting of all the other unique snowflakes in the world.

Most parents seem to teach their children that, but looking at the millennial generation, of which I am unfortunately part, you're supposed to be "accepting" and "tolerant", unless someone else's uniqueness hurts your feelings or makes you feel uncomfortable.

The former is just plain childish, and the latter is just too vague to base an ideology off of.

Your view is nowhere near a minority on HN and reddit.

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