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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

I don't think a single one of my friendships involve a common enemy, beyond both of us being allied against boredom. Physics is unrecognizable after being passed through the dirty lens of journalism, and I guess this is what happens when they report on fields with even messier situations.

>Game theory models predict it, real-life examples confirm it. “In order to band together, we need a common enemy,” Dr. Christakis said.

What do these models say about behavior around shared tasks? There are a lot of prisoner's dilemmas and tragic commons in the world but there actually are some cases where you can get something out of nature while other people help. Maybe that's why hackers tend to not be very xenophobic, they have something to focus on other than dividing up the morning's pie.

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> Maybe that's why hackers tend to not be very xenophobic

Actually, i respectfully question that assertion. In my limited experience, groups of hackers have actually been much more on the homogenous side than random other groups of friends or freely-associating people (recent examples off the top of my head: a recent software developers meetup, or the makeup of the engineering department i work in – spoiler: it's overwhelmingly white, male, able-bodied and middle-class, straight). And IMHO, a lack of diversity certainly signals that something is going on. You might find the term "xenophobia" too strong, but exclusion is real and happens, _especially_, i would argue, among hackers. You needn't actively say something silly like "i don't like women joining my hackathon" for there to be a very palpable jock-nerd atmosphere that will turn off many folks that aren't white/middle-class/male. I think this might be an unpopular opinion here, but i believe it bears pointing out.

A while ago i read a very thought-provoking book entitled "Unlocking the Clubhouse" by Margolis and somebody else whose name eludes me. If you're not already convinced by the unapproachable ivory-tower side of STEM fields, that book may convince you.

>groups of hackers have actually been much more on the homogenous side

>it's overwhelmingly white, male, able-bodied and middle-class, straight). And IMHO, a lack of diversity

Nice job. I think you managed to touch just about all the bases in the buzzword lottery.

These are not buzzword. The words have a precise meaning.

"You're wrong because you used buzzwords" is no better than a buzzword itself. Can you address their actual point?

What point? Let me inform you of something. When I was growing up, I remember quite clearly being teased and bullied because I liked to read a lot and I liked messing around with computers. The peer group I surrounded myself with were other people just like me who also put up with the merciless bullying. Everybody else self-selected out of my peer group and did everything they could to make me feel lesser because of my interests. But now all of a sudden the internet and smartphones catch on and now coding is "cool". And the same people that selected themselves out of my group now accuse me of being "xenophobic" and "homogeneous". The fucking gall.

The CCC Congress would be a counter example from what I have heard.

The CCC milieu has a quite heavy political bias due to the history of the organization and its people. It's not a representative sample...

You seem to have an extremely weird definition of "xenophobia".

Let's review it: "fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign".

And let's compare that with what you wrote:

1. homogenous

Nope. No fear or hatred there.

2. "IMHO, a lack of diversity certainly signals that something is going on."

"Certainly" is certainly wrong. It might signal that something is going on, and it certainly doesn't give any evidence what that "something" is.

Have you ever considered that the "fear and hatred" might be going the other way? Just the terms geek, nerd and hacker have highly negative connotations in the wider public.

3. "You might find the term "xenophobia" too strong"

It's not "too strong", it's completely wrong, victim blaming a group that is being shunned for being shunned.

4. "very palpable jock-nerd atmosphere that will turn off many folks"

And now you're completely off into the weeds. Doing things that causes other people to shun you is not "xenophobic" by the people being shunned. If anything, it's the other way around.

The (several dozen) infosec people I’ve met have disproportionately included immigrants, gays, and trans people (both directions).

I have noticed a similar trend.

> a lack of diversity certainly signals that something is going on.

Various things can cause gender imbalance. For example, more men than women are colorblind, but the numbers themselves should not be enough to call those colorblind men sexist, reasoning that if women are underrepresented in this group, there certainly must be some sexism that drives them away.

Even if you would compile a list of sexist quotes by colorblind men, or a list of stories by colorblind women how they faced sexism in their life, it still would not be a proof that the greater numbers of colorblind men are caused by sexism.

If we accept this reasoning for color blindness, why not e.g. for autism? It seems like many IT guys are (some of them more, some of them less) somewhat inside the autistic spectrum. Spending your childhood playing with toys, as opposed to social activities with other people, seems like something that half-autists would do, and also like something that can contribute a lot to being good at IT stuff.

> A while ago i read a very thought-provoking book entitled "Unlocking the Clubhouse"

I am going to read this book, to see the other side of the story. But that will take some time. Meanwhile, I looked at some reviews of the book.

The reviews mention stuff like "male CS students are obsessed with computers from early childhood", "boys form friendships around computers and teach each other", "girls see their fathers more interested in computers than their mothers", "boys spend more time playing computer games" -- which is coincidentally also what we would expect to see if there was a statistical biological difference between the sexes. (I am not saying this proves the difference, only that it does not disprove it.) They mention that women that dropped out of CS said that they were "not that much interested in programming", but of course the authors of the book know better, and those poor girls simply don't understand themselves. The recommendations for schools to keep more women in CS include stuff like not focusing on CS too much.

I will give this book a chance, but I suspect it will turn out to be only convincing for those people who are already convinced.

The very next graph moderates that statement: “Fortunately, he added, no model insists that the out-group must be exterminated or otherwise eliminated from the scene. “It’s possible to treat the out-group with mild dislike or even grudging respect,” he said. “Cultivating in-group distinctiveness does not require that the other must be killed.”

And look: you’re giving the perfect example of such “mild dislike”! Quote: “The dirty lenses of journalism”.

I agree that xenophobia is somewhat rare among “hackers”, but I don’t think you can easily deny some ingroup/outgroup dynamics in this scene. Social sciences and the liberal arts are routinely ridiculed. “The media” is constantly treated as incompetent (see above). And misogyny is somewhat common.

Criticism of science journalism isn't in-group/outgroup, it's a claim about the state of the world. How do we know this? If I became a science writer, I wouldn't change my mind. Likewise, I think that most of the criticism of the humanities comes from people that read that kind of stuff in college and didn't like it. I don't work at McDonalds, so is it tribalism if I say I don't like BigMacs?

There's no apology or justification for misogyny, though.

Sure... and xenophobia is just clearly seeing that foreigners are dirty. And when the Xenophobe vacations in Mexico, they still thinks these people around them are dirty.

I don't think science journalists are stupid or morally inferior, I just observe a very bad track record of confusing and misleading articles. When I tell people to take them with a grain of salt, things get better. There are good science journalists, but I can't practically pass out lists of names.

It sounds like the principle you're bringing in to play here could make anything count as xenophobic, so long as it involved a negative opinion and more than one group. This is dangerous because there are many opinions which are not xenophobic and are useful: misclassifying them as xenophobic introduces the error of "useful xenophobia," which is a very dangerous mistake.

Edit: I think I've debugged the issue. I'm treating these things like they're true and were discovered independently, and you are treating them like they're false (or at least unjustified) and spread socially. I know that in my case I've learned to not like science journalism first-hand, by reading articles while knowing about their subject matter (an incredibly surreal experience).

No, the point is that hating on journalists is a group dynamic. It’s so common on HN for example, that it is frankly impossible all of its purveyors came up with the idea independently. That’s true even if the collective complaints have a basis in fact.

People are social animals, susceptible to group-think. There’s really nothing wrong with that, as long as we’re willing to accept the possibility and don’t succumb to the firehouse effect.

It feels like the metric for "xenophobic groupthink" that's being used here could end up matching anything. It feels right because it's leading to an answer that feels right (that scientists should stop saying mean things about scholars in the broader sense, I agree they should), but that doesn't mean that it's a good principle: what about all the other cases?

>It’s so common on HN for example, that it is frankly impossible all of its purveyors came up with the idea independently. That’s true even if the collective complaints have a basis in fact.

If our complaints have enough of a basis in fact, then why would it be unlikely for everyone with the right domain knowledge to realize the same thing? The idea that something can be factual but also still somehow based in groupthink belies an understanding of the word that leads back to another common criticism of the humanities...

It doesn't matter if the bias is reasonable, it just needs an object of ire.

There's no such thing as a reasonable bias, if a belief is accurate then it's a good judgment, and if it's inaccurate it's a bad one.

In relation to this article you need to have a bias in order to create friendships, even if it's an accurate and good judgement. That's just what the article says and what I was pointing out.

More generally about reasonable biases, in real life you need to give some credence to the impossibility of knowing the accuracy of your biases. Everyone thinks their judgements are better than the rest, and that leads to historical tragedies. That's why modern thinking has evolved into being about personal freedoms and leaving other people the heck alone instead of trying to impose one's personal judgements.

Here on HN we spend a lot of time talking about business and engineering. In both cases, a successful person's career could be described as a series of judgments that were better (more astute) than the rest's. There are many areas where nobody's opinion can be distinguished from anybody else's except by counting the number of people that believe each one. One uncontroversial example would be art criticism. However, there are other areas where there are right answers to chase down.

Inside of the areas where external, natural forces are available to distinguish between sides of debates, no bias is necessary to form friendships or alliances. If you find yourself on the wrong side you can switch, and it won't be "disloyal" or "traitorous" because you'd be doing it to align yourself with something that isn't artificial. (For example, knowing the correct laws of physics instead of the wrong ones.)

> In [business and engineering], a successful person's career could be described as a series of judgments that were better (more astute) than the rest's.

I disagree with the premise you're basing the rest of your argument on. I would sooner say that a successful career in general (and engineering is no different) probably only hinges marginally on some intangible measure of aptitude (rephrased: aptitude is necessary but insufficient), and mostly results from some combination of coming from a privileged background (that is, encouraged from a young age that you're capable, exposed to good education, validation, having access to a professional network, etc.) and having had opportunity to thrive (for example, a lack of financial stress allowing one to pursue a risky business venture as opposed to having had to support one's family from a young age and therefore accepting a menial job straight out of high school).

Of course, one can find examples of people from underprivileged backgrounds succeeding in the sense you're referring to, but i don't for one second believe that simply "working hard" and "making the right choices" is enough to magically rise to the top of the economic dogpile. In essence, i think your statement is an instance of the just world fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis).

I've tried to be measured and objective in my reply, but i see this as a common myth that deserves to die, so my apologies if i'm sounding abrasive.

> mostly results from some combination of coming from a privileged background

> and having had opportunity to thrive (for example, a lack of financial stress allowing one to pursue a risky business venture as opposed to having had to support one's family from a young age and therefore accepting a menial job straight out of school

> and engineering is no different

That sounds like wishful thinking.

How do you counter the following data points that suggest the opposite:

1. Software development contains a disproportionate number of successful Indians who come from much less privilege than the average American.

2. Despite having strong social safety nets European countries do not dominate tech.

Even in these countries underprivileged migrants without access to the safety nets are disproportionately successful.

In fact, strong social safety net encourages people to pursue their true call rather than go into tech for $$$. Very few people naturally want to do tech. E.g. famous study why many Indian women go to STEM, while Norwegians stay in women-dominated non-tech fields.

I really do think that aptitude matters most, but that's (subtly) beside the point. Tech is not perfect, there is wage fixing and lobbyig for regulatory capture and so on, but because there is an actual task to perform there is room for things other than failure. If someone rises up for reasons unrelated to their merit, that's a mistake of the system and a fault in the mentality of the people who allowed it. I'm not saying that the good is real, I'm arguing that merit is available for decision-making and is also the right path.

> Maybe that's why hackers tend to not be very xenophobic, they have something to focus on other than dividing up the morning's pie.

But certainly tribal when it comes to technology choices.

Yep. Hackers generally don't care what you look like, as long as you use choice of emacs/vim, spaces/tabs, dynamic/static typing, FP/OO, web/native, etc.

And that's tribalism based on choices, not on immutable characteristics. And most people take it with a grain of salt.

Dressed up (suit and tie kind of dressed up) people are likely to get a stare or too though.

It's very hard to draw a line on immutable vs chosen traits. I had some people argue that communists killing rich people or entrepreneurs is fine since it's "based on choice". Although technically it is a choice, I couldn't agree that someone can drop what they did their whole life on a whim.

> Dressed up

Hmm...you can't choose how you dress?

> killing rich people ... choice

Hmm...I'd humbly suggest that the primary problem here is not the "based on choice" part, but rather the killing part. Not suggesting that's the only problem, but certainly the high order bit.

The next bit would be that previously, these were considered admirable qualities, not evil ones. So something about ex post facto laws, which tend to be broadly unconstitutional if you have rule of law.

So I don't really think it's hard to draw a line between immutable and chosen traits, and I also don't think that distinction plays much of a role, if any, in the examples you give.

> Hmm...you can't choose how you dress?

I was commenting this about "hackers generally don't care what you look like". Not "based on choice" part.

> Hmm...I'd humbly suggest that the primary problem here is not the "based on choice" part, but rather the killing part.

Personally I'm uncomfortable with killing or oppressing anybody. Some people feel that oppressing or killing "based on choice" is fine. I'm not comfortable to split traits by choices or immutable.

> dress vs. "look like"

Look like intrinsically. Color of skin, fat, thin, hair, no hair etc.

> split traits by choices or immutable

"Choices" are not "traits". Splitting by choices is generally fine, we do it all the time, for example in our judicial systems.

> Look like intrinsically. Color of skin, fat, thin, hair, no hair etc.

Clothes do change a lot like someone looks like though. On top of that, changing hair is almost as easy as dress. Thin/fat ain't rocket science to change either. Even skin of color is changeable.

Splitting by choices is generally not fine. Like my previous example - splitting by poor/rich or career choices.

Judicial system is splitting by immutable traits too. If someone has a pathology which causes him to do harm to society, he won't be let go because it's immutable.

OK, you are trying your utmost to willfully misrepresent what I wrote no matter what I do to clarify. One last time:

Yes, you can change your look by choice. That's why I clarified that I meant those parts of "look" that aren't easily amenable to choice. And yes, you can always find extreme cases where choice can influence these types of attributes, but give it a rest. Exceptions prove the rule.

Splitting by choices is absolutely fine, it's how society operates.

We absolutely split by poor/rich: the rich have more money, with all that entails, and the poor have less money.

We also split by career choice: those that choose specific careers will most likely be in those careers, and have the rights and responsibilities that go along with those choices.

And the judicial system does not split by immutable traits. If you have a specific immutable trait but do not act on it, nothing happens. And it is your choice whether to act on it. Once you have acted on it, psychological problems may dictates whether you can be released. However, the diagnosis is re-evaluated and people are released when the diagnosis changes.

All kinds of splits are happening all the time. People are damn good at grouping everything. What I'm saying neither choices nor immutable traits shouldn't be basis for judgement that are not reasonable and/or not directly related to specific situation.

What I was talking about judicial system is the other way. When it looks the other way because of immutable trait it's seen as natural behaviour. Wether it's treating psychos lightly, because it's a condition or looking the other way from certain crimes because of skin color.

P.S. Would you say "poor have less money, with all that entails"? I bumped into many people who think shitting on rich is fine, since it's part of the pack. Yet they go completely bananas if I do 180 and say the same about poors :) That's exactly the unreasonable judgement I was talking about.

Yeah, i think that's the distinction between cooperative and non-cooperative games. Though the formal definition might be a bit different from the naive interpretation of those terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_game_theory

> Maybe that's why hackers tend to not be very xenophobic, they have something to focus on other than dividing up the morning's pie.

There was a study (I don't have it handy, I'm afraid) showing that women were a much higher percentage of programmers in the earliest decades of computing, and those numbers fell swiftly and kept falling as the field became established and commercial.

That at least implies to me that women felt the pressure of an increasingly unwelcome environment in computing, as the field matured and expectations stratified.

Hackers, in my experience, are less xenophobic than many groups, but I wouldn't hold them up as a bastion of acceptance either.

> I don't think a single one of my friendships involve a common enemy, beyond both of us being allied against boredom.

Similar here. The "common enemy" in my friendships typically refers to something impersonal, such as the universe or sickness or falsehood; but often something much less dramatic, such as boredom or being alone.

Maybe this is just a way to reuse the ancient brain circuits that evolved to create coalitions against human enemies. But the evolutionary purpose of something, and how I use it in my everyday life, those are often two different things.

Maybe most people only use those ancient brain circuits the old way, dunno. That sounds horrible, but I guess it could explain some horrible parts of reality. But it's definitely not the only way.

This is a little bit of a tangent but I was just listening to a program on NPR about baboons and their relationships. Specifically, the toxic effect of being the alpha-male. While I couldn't catch the whole program, I did hear they mentioned that while baboons have tumultuous lives surviving, mating, and dealing with alpha males, they do have a small opportunity for friendship with one another. One of the surprising findings from a study on baboons was that the baboons who were friendlier/not alpha-males tended to have more offspring than the alphas. A case of nice guys winning and friendship being more meaningful than dominance.

Here, I'd gander that it's less about game theory and more about evolution of a cohesive unit. And that's my baboon tangent.

It has also been shown that alpha makes, in business, tend to lose money owing to short sighted thought processes.

In fact, the guy who originally coined the idea that humans have an alpha male concept pulled back on the notion, saying that he was mistaken in comparing human hierarchy to wolves.

Humans aren't actually hierarchical. We believe in equality and because of this can form many different kinds of social structures (which is where political struggle comes from, i.e. democracy, Communism, socialism, etc.)

It's nice when someone steps up and volunteers to do all of the work though.

The customer, whoever that may be, is certainly an out group in that case

Poor hackers still face same dividing the pie problem. Thats like saying people who got a hobby are less xenophobic. Which I doubt is true. More like rich people don’t care about daily issues of poor people and then there’s a divide resulting in Trump.

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