Comment by voodooranger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by voodooranger | Hacker News Reader

I consider the HN community to be one of the most thoughtful I've found on the web, yet am stunned by how quickly a righteous mob is formed based on an anonymous, cartoonish, and IMO barely plausible account of what it's like to work for a large US tech company.

Having spent years working at multiple SV tech companies, where even the slightest tinge of a racist or sexist affront would land you in an office in front of HR and a company lawyer, I find this account to be very difficult to believe. Slanty eye joe? Please.

We don't know if this is a (poorly written) attempt to sink Uber (which I don't happen to care for) by someone with a short position and an evening to spare, or if it has been penned by an employee with a grudge.

Please have some credulity before parading your #deleteuber hashtags and morally superior posturing so the world can marvel at how virtuous you are. There has never been a more evil force in the world than an outraged, self-righteous mob inflamed by twisted anecdotes.

And yes, I've resorted to creating a throwaway account, fully expecting the flagging and down-voting groupthink brigade to be in force. If there's a shameful story here, it's more likely this disturbing human phenomenon, not an anonymous blog post, the veracity of which we know nothing about.

I think the idea of "victim-blaming" has morphed into its own beast. We're so scared of doing it that asking for evidence or asking critical questions is now in a weird way associated with victim blaming. Everyone in this thread who's said what you said has ipso facto gotten downvoted.

I find myself suspicious of this new culture of "standing together in solidarity," "letting vulnerable people tell their narratives," "being supportive," etc. These all sound like perfectly upstanding things to do, but nowadays they dominate discourse. Facts, reason, and inquiry are now considered oppressive.

I've met some people who have asked, why is this a problem? Who cares if a couple people make things up, when there are so many people hurting out there? Well, people who make things up make real stories less believable. And it incentivizes victimhood, which nowadays carries with it the reward of not having to engage in debate, because anyone who voices doubt is considered a monster. Someone earlier got flagged for saying what you said. Not just downvoted so his post would be light gray, but flagged so his post would disappear.

And really, at the end of the day, what can trigger-happy moral outrage accomplish that a quiet sense of justice backed by reason, fairness, and determination can't?

>I think the idea of "victim-blaming" has morphed into its own beast. We're so scared of doing it that asking for evidence or asking critical questions is now in a weird way associated with victim blaming.

This is a critical point. Is there a way to express doubt, sans body language, that can further a discussion without evoking responses such as this? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13748089]

Anonymity of poster doesn't render the poster's experience unworthy of thought. If it did, I would be ignoring this comment from a throwaway account.

Cartoonish and poorly written are subjective judgements.

These experiences might seem implausible to you because they might never be happening when you're looking. In light of other, non-anonymous and fact-checked accounts of Susan's experience, I wouldn't think it is implausible.

All-in-all, while I agree in principle that one should apply fair judgement before believing someone's anonymous story, I do not think it warrants incredulity, especially and ironically from an anon account. If you believe that Amy should not have posted anonymously, I find it laughable that you use an anonymous account fearing flagging and down-voting in a low stakes environment fearing the "groupthink brigade".

Are we just trading anecdotes now? A medium size SV unicorn I worked at had at least two similar incidents shared with me by female employees whom I highly trust. Just because you personally haven't witnessed this kind of behavior first-hand doesn't mean it never happens. I think you've gone too far in denouncing this story instead of at least considering that it might merit a debate.

I'm a woman in tech, and situations like this never seemed real to me until similar things like this happened to my female friends (and, to a lesser degree, to me).

I'm downvoting this not because of the point it makes but because of the nature of the language. I think even though it's your legal right to express us-vs-them mentality "down-voting groupthink brigade", ad-hominem attacks "morally superior posturing", "outraged, self-righteous mob" I don't think it's a valuable contribution to this discussion.

This type of language is intentionally attempts to provoke emotion, which in turn reduces the ability for the community to collectively find truth. It sounds like perhaps you've had some anecdotal experiences where you feel like you're the victim of Pc-police, but if you want to convince anyone I recommend you share the data-points of your experience rather than play to emotions.

Yes, people say racists and sexist and mean things at work. Just because you haven't personally seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've seen it, personally.

Maybe it's a lie. Maybe it's not. Either way, it's definitely plausible though and that's not good.

the whole point is that Uber is _not at all_ like a typical US tech company. it seems to be much much much worse, and that is what is shocking to discover.

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