Is it really honest? Anonymous discussion tends to bring out the bigots - there's even some of it in the linked thread - but is it their genuine opinion, or could it be that it's just bored teenagers trying to rile someone up for a laugh?
I see this kind of "shock" throughout the techy mainstreamy politcally correct communities. It seems to me that the people that take issue with bigotry are themselves somehow weak through some kind of insecurity manifesting itself as a desire to fix this perceived "injustice". Because, you know, muh feels.
4chan just doesn't care about your feels. It's funny to say this (see how I am distancing myself from 4chan to add validity to my argument?); but I do think more communities could learn something from 4chan in this aspect.
On a related note; I saw that outrage thread linking in the 4chan post about this black chick getting some dude fired and what not about a non-PC joke at a conference. Then, in the HN thread [1], to my pleasure, at least the top comments were mostly absent of the typical reddity/facebook etc. white knighting "This is why women arent in tech!" nonsense.
Being empathetic is a weakness?
Outrage is definitely a weakness.
I'm afraid I'm not following your logic. Care to explain further?
Basically, if I can get you to react with misogyny, I have a level of control over you.
"Trolling" is about power. People do it because being able to push somebodies emotions one direction or another lets them play with that person like a marionette. Making people upset is a power trip for trolls.
It would not suprise me if many (not most by any means, but many) trolls are in fact psychopaths who are 'practicing' in a way. Running low-risk experiments on how to control people.
The solution is not to innoculate yourself against emotional response. Trust, but verify. Be emotional and empathetic, but do your homework and don't be a sucker.
Such an approach would allow yourself to empathize with the targets of bigotry without exposing yourself to the hypothetical psychopathic affirmative action boogeyman. And I am far more afraid of decades of social justice being undone by the normalization of bigoted attitudes in society than I am of a few scheming manipulative social justice warriors.
Hey there, privilege.
"4chan just doesn't care about your feels."
Which is precisely why it's predominantly white males.
I can also assure you that no one in that thread started with the idea to rile HN up.
Once that thread got bigger, I wasn't surprised it was posted here though. I can also say that despite it being totally illogical and pointless, there is a bit of showboating that happens on 4chan. So... take from it what you will, I doubt the intention of the thread is to make anyone on HN mad.
I don't get the impression anyone on HN is mad. Much of the commentary in the thread is entirely accurate, and many folks here at HN are pointing out the really funny and really accurate ones...and I've seen some of the same jokes here at HN in the past. And, I've had conversations with tons of folks about the Silicon Valley echo chamber; and there's serious discussion happening pretty regularly about what's broken about this culture we're in. A lot of it's actually quite funny.
But, even a thread about HN brought out some of the bigotry of 4chan. Not the bigots against the mostly middle class (or wealthy, or even filthy rich) white people on HN...that's irrelevant. It's not about people being mad, riled up, or outraged. It's just about calling people on their shit. I know it's senseless to do so on 4chan (I have more than passing familiarity with the place), but I can hope that HN is willing to consider the cost of continuing thousands of years of oppressive language and behavior and societal norms, and what that means for our community. I think we'd be better off with more women and people of color and LGBTQ people in our industry; people who casually make sexist, racist, and homophobic jokes do not agree with me, and they express that opinion freely...even here and on reddit, which are merely pseudonymous, casual use of oppressive language and support of oppressive behavior goes unnoticed or encouraged much of the time.
Gratuitous racial slurs are racist. But racial crime statistics are also racist. If a worldview is afraid of some facts, then it has some holes in it.