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Comment by quineoa | Hacker News Reader

I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke. But with your username, replying to a comment about “{GROUP} feels that they are unreasonably asked to prove themselves” with your reply of “can you prove to me that {GROUP} is allowed to feel that way?” is more than a little ironic.

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You comment is structured so as to imply an identity or equivalence that doesn't exist. A claim was made without evidence. The respondant made a valid argument for the improbability of the claim being true, given that gender is normally not evident, and simply asked for evidence to justify the claim. There is no irony here, simply an attempt at objectivity.

We should ask for evidence to justify claims like this.

The problem is that the claim is most likely subjective so it doesn’t need evidence. And the act of always being asked for evidence in various situations, and not being respected for knowing what is going on was one of the subjective claims being made.

Someone doesn’t have to justify their feelings or opinions or observations of how they are being treated. If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.

There is a major problem of ambiguity at every level of this conversation. At least one person (reasonably) interpreted the claim to be that women are more likely to experience a particular kind of response in a particular forum. This is not a subjective claim. It may be hard to test, but it is either true or not true.

If it is not true, but the person believes that it is true, they may even be harmed by their false belief.

In general, we should take great care not to confuse our subjective impressions or our emotional experiences with objective reality.

> If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.

Listening to a person (or even caring deeply for another's experience) is not mutual exclusive to taking steps to determine if their emotional responses are rooted in actual reality, or just their perception of reality. Both can happen together, by the same person, in the same conversation.

Presenting this as a choice of mutually exclusive options does everyone a disservice.

In my opinion, there are situations where you should prioritize a person's emotional experience, and situations in which you should prioritize the facts.

Sure, you can prioritize the facts. But OP asked for the challenges experienced, and how they could help. I gave them that answer. If you then want additional facts, that's your problem, not mine or OPs.

I would agree with you that you are under no obligation to reply to any of the questions, if that is what you are saying. Emphatically.

In my opinion, everyone should be encouraged to question the evidentiary basis of any of your beliefs and claims which deal with objective reality, not be discouraged from doing so, and not have this conflated with invalidating your experience.

I am not conflating the two. I'm asking for the person posing the question to do the most basic research themselves. Their questions clearly indicate they haven't done so. So I opt out of continuing the conversation.

My objective reality is that they're not interested in actually having a conversation, but instead trolling. I require proof of work that that's not so.

I apologize if my prior statement, made as a direct response to your prior-prior statement, implied that you specifically were conflating an investigation with invalidating your experience. I was just trying to briefly sketch out my position and motive in the overall conversation, which has involved many people and an array of views. I respect your choice to opt out.

I did my most basic research: I went to the websites and saw the interface and concluded that the interface does not distinguish between the gender of the members. That sounds like quite an evidence against your claim.

I have another comment on this same line, which I'll add separately rather than editing my prior comment:

> If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.

I think it is important to be precise, to reason correctly on this issue. What is it, exactly, that they are always experiencing? The simple fact that they were treated a particular way, or the experience of a disparity of treatment? Those are two completely different types of experiences to discuss, and should be treated differently.

Consider this from the big picture perspective, in which a community of people wants to care for its members but wants to do so on the basis of reality, not just indulging whoever, for example, tells the best story. If I have the strategy of jumping between subjective and objective types of claims, and then refusing to give evidence when an objective claim is questioned by invoking my right to have my emotional experience validated - at what point will you learn the difference between what is objectively true, and what is simply my unsubstantiated belief?

By insisting that everyone's lived experiences are always fully validated, while simultaneously suggesting that a factual investigation is invalidating of that experience, then we have made it impossible, as a group, to discover the truth.

Allowing any specific benefits to a single group, based solely on their own reports of their unreasonable experience, without any proof or any other information would indeed be quite stupid, don't you think? Should the society just give in to any group with any claim about their group identity, without any checking?

Also what does my name has to do with this conversation?

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