Comment by bradjohnson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bradjohnson | Hacker News Reader

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I really believe that you are approaching this in good faith, so I will do the same. I don't have time to really dig into this deeply with you so these brief justifications of my stance will have to suffice. I don't understand some of your tangents, and you will have to forgive me for not addressing the reddit or sports stuff.

> Re: tech bro

The tech bro thing comes across most apparently in the pro-VC slant of this site (inextricable, I know). There is a high proportion of believers in a fantasy meritocracy where current wealth concentration is justifiable due to the sheer genius of "founders". This is very much a tech-bro way of thinking.

The way HN regularly reduces socio-political problems into a technological gap is another tech-bro "thing". When someone suggests that a country switch its currency to crypto to eliminate state corruption, or suggests that biometrics scanners be installed at ports of entry to eliminate slavery and humans rights abuses, that is a tech-bro opinion. It is different from a blue collar environment because the people on this website are extremely insulated from the social issues that come up on here. Nonetheless, they feel like they have an obvious solution to a version of the problem that they've concocted in their head based on a 2 second glance at a headline. It reminds me of this Adam Savage video that I think is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4CKn86qGY

> Re: obnoxiously male

This is exemplified by the high confidence and combativeness in this and other similar comment sections on HN, but let's just talk about this comment section.

Commenters here are confidently asserting that the author's lived experience is wrong because of a certain interpretation of the words that they typed in the article. When she says that someone made comments that made her feel othered, the reaction here is to disbelieve and downplay. That is very much a "obnoxiously male" way of approaching things. In more balanced spaces, the presumption would be that this blog post was made for a reason and that the person who made it is valid and rational by default. Nobody here has any additional information, and they are asserting that their interpretation of her words is correct even though they are heavily influenced by their own biases of gender, class, and otherwise.

> I really believe that you are approaching this in good faith

Statements like this are a false courtesy. They imply that you have a reason to believe otherwise. Despite the stereotypes of social ineptitude, "hacker" types are often keenly aware of such things.

> There is a high proportion of believers in a fantasy meritocracy where current wealth concentration is justifiable due to the sheer genius of "founders".

As usual, the appropriate response to claims that generalize "what HN thinks" is to flag them. Also, the point is that "tech bro" is used as an insulting epithet, specifically to bring in the stereotypes you describe here, and doesn't make an actual point.

But so that it's clear: this line of complaint fails to engage with what others are actually saying. Putting aside the fact that nobody else ITT is talking about socioeconomics, "meritocracy" is not an article of faith, but rather a moral value. It belongs entirely to the category of "ought" rather than "is", so it's fallacious, and a category error, to critique others for "believing in" it.

> ... asserting that the author's lived experience is wrong because of a certain interpretation of the words... the reaction here is to disbelieve and downplay

First: This is the same category error in the opposite direction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem): "lived experience" cannot be "right" or "wrong", but rather a claim (of having experienced something) can be true or false. The phrasing "lived experience" is generally used to take for granted, and deny any opportunity to question, the simple veracity of a story.

Second: ... but no, in point of fact, nobody here is actually claiming the story to be untrue (including any specific claim about her resulting emotional state) - there is no "disbelief". Instead, the assertion is that the author's stated reaction to events was not reasonable given her description. That is a moral judgment, but it's not based on any "certain interpretation" beyond the most obvious one.

> That is very much a "obnoxiously male" way of approaching things

The entire point of many of these comments is that they are very explicitly attempting to hold women to the same standards of conduct as men, and explicitly removing gender from the assessment. Ascribing phrases like "obnoxiously male" to points of view that disagree with your own, is obviously not helping matters.

If you need more evidence that people responding this way are not in any way motivated by gender, please consider your own username. Many people have disagreed with you (or disagreed with others presenting arguments like yours, or made statements contrary to the view you describe here) ITT; I strongly doubt any of them processed the thought "ah, 'bradjohnson' must be a woman". If you need more evidence that having such opinions is not in any way caused by gender, consider the fact that you don't hold them yourself. If you want to attribute the opinions that disagree with you to masculinity anyway, I can't stop you, but I see no reason whatsoever to be convinced.

> In more balanced spaces, the presumption would be that this blog post was made for a reason and that the person who made it is valid and rational by default

That is the assumption here, too. However, default presumptions can be overturned by evidence.

> and they are asserting that their interpretation of her words is correct even though they are heavily influenced by their own biases

If a woman says "a man said X", it means that a man said X. The fact that a woman said it, doesn't change the meaning. If a man responds "saying X isn't a bad thing", that doesn't involve any "interpretation of her words". It's simply an assessment of the event described, based on the description. Words mean things.

By the way, bringing up class biases rings completely hollow. You are complaining about (and stereotyping) the conduct of men on HN, while the article discussed welders - a completely different social class.

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