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Comment by oskarth | Hacker News Reader

There's a world of difference between being excluded because you are of a certain gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation and because you don't like a certain beverage.

Hey, I don't like the naive techno-optimist prevalent in many technology events, but that doesn't in any way make me excluded. It just means I might have a different attitude and hold a minority opinion compared to my peers, and that I find myself bored and wanting to leave listening to some Singularity Guru. Same thing goes with alcohol: if you don't like, don't drink. If you feel like the event is too immature, don't show up or organize your own events.

The reason there's so much alcohol (though I haven't really come across the binge drinking he's talking about) is because it acts as a social lubricant, which turns out to be useful for many people, plus it's a nice freebie for companies, just like pizzas (don't eat it if you don't like it).

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> If you feel like the event is too immature, don't show up or organize your own events.

I don't know how you meant that, but it reads very much like STFU or GTFO to me.

> The reason there's so much alcohol is because it acts as a social lubricant.

Except that alcohol is more than just a social lubricant; it's a disinhibitor.

That in and of itself creates an exclusionary environment for many women, because they can't rely on physical dominance to counteract the dangers that come with a large group of uninhibited men.

Apart from that; the simple fact that it might not be appealing to a large group of people you wish to involve in your community should be reason enough in- and of itself, much like how insisting on things like dirt-bike racing for team activities might be considered exclusionary for certain groups whom this would appeal less to.

This is a fair argument.

I have not seen the binge drinking the author brings up other than once at a hackathon but I can see how people could feel discomfort with really really drunk people.

People drink at conferences and meetups but I feel that you could listen to all of the talks without being made fun of for not drinking (to be fair: in in my experience).

Not hanging around after the talks or whatever is over isn't that weird, even finding the people who do not "binge drink" and staying and talking to them wouldn't be impossible.

That said, I feel that it's a different story when it comes to drinking at your workplace.

There is more to it. Drinking establishments are great places for unstructured social engagements. There are not a lot of other venues that are similar.

When I was in Pune, I was speaking with people (hi Mayank!) who were trying to set up regular hacker meetups. Scheduling formal lectures was easy. But unstructured social engagements was much harder to set up. I suggested that we did it in bars in NY/London, but due to the cultural issues surrounding drinking in Maharashtra bars were out. This made organizing unstructured meetup time really difficult.

Of course; drinking establishments make good money on these events so they have a lot of incentive to make this as easy as possible.

Come to think of it, that's actually a really good example of an area where we can put in a bit more effort to create more inclusive events.

In general it's about finding a format which lets attendees personally contribute to the venue's revenue, which sounds like a problem we should collectively be able to tackle.

Personally I'm happy with bars and it seems like most people in the west are, so I'm not going to expend a lot of efforts fixing a non-problem. We don't need the alternative to have a tech community, and the fact of the matter is that any cultural choices we make will "exclude" some people.

(I put "exclude" in scare quotes because it's self-imposed exclusion.)

But if you find a good solution that might be deployable in India, let me know. Pune has a good tech scene but regular unstructured social events would definitely improve it.

I find the degree to which you're comfortable using generic statements to define the issue a non-problem for the entire industry quite disheartening.

That you personally don't feel the need to spend energy on these issues I perfectly understand however since it would do little to advance your personal goals. When it comes to those my comments to jiggy2011 might help get you started.

Just like what it would take to make tech events more inclusive; in your case it's also just about finding an existing pattern of behaviour your target demographic already displays which you can most easily latch on to and co-opt to help advance your personal goals: tighter interpersonal integration within the Pune tech scene.

It's late here so I can't ask my Indian co-workers, but I'm fairly confident that their culture also already has patterns to enable spontaneous social interaction. My guess is that it involves food somehow ;)

The goal is to find something good enough for 80% of people - in the US bars are it and they are easy to organize. So for the US, it's a non-problem. In Pune, it's actually a bit more difficult to organize things.

Whatever group activity you pick somebody won't like it. Last year my company had a relaxation day and went to a baseball game. I hate baseball. Rather than whining like a spoiled child about how it's unfair that they excluded me, I just hung out with a pretty girl, watched Dark Knight Rises and ate some Indian food.

What would a more inclusive event look like? Going to a bar and having people socialize with a no-alcohol policy? That gives off a weird puritan vibe.

More formal/structured activities are likely to be more exclusionary since people have different ideas about what is fun. Or may not feel comfortable participating in things because of disabilities etc. In a bar at least people are free to make their own fun and come and go as they please.

Something that would quickly come to mind is something like dim-sum or high-tea adapted to evenings and crowds of varying size.

Probably just changing the focal point from the bar to the buffet and encouraging seating instead of standing would create a completely different atmosphere.

Another variable you could consider playing with is moving from self-service to being served; where the waiters are instructed to dial down the frequency when guests get too far along.

Ironically enough unlimited drinks is something that could work fairly well in this context, as long as the implication that excessive boozing is discouraged and will not be enabled by the waiting staff.

>they can't rely on physical dominance to counteract the dangers that come with a large group of uninhibited men.

I cannot think of a single occurrence of physical violence or rape that occurred at a technical conference. Your projections over all women here are unwarranted.

Maybe you feel this way because men are much more aggressive with other men? That would be a fair statement here.

You aren't paying attention then. There was a very high profile case of sexual assault within the tech industry, and at one of these booze filled conference parties as well, only a few months ago.

While the danger of physical violence might not be significant, I can imagine that a big group of drunk men might be very intimidating for some women. We've all read complaints about unwelcome advances, harassment, inappropriate comments and sexist jokes at tech conferences. How much worse would it be with drunk men? How safe from harassment would you feel if you were woman? Imagine if you're in a group conversation and one guy keeps making dirty jokes and staring at your breasts when he says the punchline. Or if a guy is really overly friendly and keeps getting really close and bumping into you "by accident". Or if a guy keeps giving you overly personal compliments that are creeping you out, no matter how much you try to brush him off. In a room full of drunk strangers, you'd probably feel quite isolated, since you wouldn't have anyone you could reliably turn to for help. I can imagine all that being a bit intimidating, especially if you've experienced unpleasant behaviour from men at tech conferences in the past.

There's plenty of actual harrasment to be found in this list of incidents: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Timeline_of_in...

Keep in mind that this is just the subset of women who were strong and determined enough to come out and risk retribution and damaging their career prospects.

It's hard to take seriously a list of incidents that starts with "a model was photographed, and the photo was later cropped and used as a test image in image processing." Jumping to the very bottom, I see the Paul Graham non-incident and gendered pronouns.

(Admittedly, I didn't read too carefully after seeing obvious nonsense everywhere I looked. Perhaps a list which is curated and has silliness removed would be a more useful citation, or at least pointing out which incidents on this list you feel are serious.)

How about this one from October 2013 where a 25-year old woman gets talked into doing a body shot in a bar and ends up getting fingered by her boss while lying on the bar? http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Codemash_sexual_assault

That's when limiting myself to bar-related incidents in direct technology events. If you include conferences here's a full on attempted rape from last year: https://web.archive.org/web/20130627000201/http://georgiawei...

I'm even excluding the comic cons because they're arguably not that tech-related but harrasment there seems even more prevalent.

Notice how they also all refer to archive links? That's due to a mix of for fear of the consequences of having these posts be at the top of Google when searching for the victims name and straight-up libel suits being initiated by the perpetrators.

It's not really like insisting on dirt bike racing. The article is like complaining that everyone else likes dirt bike racing and you don't and that makes you feel excluded.

edit: Although I can see the point about men drinking being potentially intimidating towards women.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have multiple events where the vibe is different, a less boozy conference might attract people who would otherwise go to the boozy one if it results in a more productive outcome etc.

Once your community is big enough it gets increasingly unlikely that a single planning committee will be able to design an event that appeals to everyone and that is ok, nobody has a monopoly on Javascript conferences.

>> If you feel like the event is too immature, don't show up or organize your own events. >I don't know how you meant that, but it reads very much like STFU or GTFO to me.

Well, when you want to change how MOST (by his admission) other attendants have fun, it's really par for the course, isn't it?

>>Except that alcohol is more than just a social lubricant; it's a disinhibitor. That in and of itself creates an exclusionary environment for many women, because they can't rely on physical dominance to counteract the dangers that come with a large group of uninhibited men.

I've never seen women have much trouble attending dance clubs, bars, concerts and the like -- places full of men and women drinking. A conference, if anything, sounds much safer than those.

Are we talking 1950's Alabama women here?

I know that you're not particularly sensitive to these issues, but there's a huge difference between attending a bar by choice for personal reasons and having to attend a bar to be able to fully participate in all parts of professional events.

As for how much safer it is; I've already commented a bit on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7155984

This is an embarrassingly facile response.

Many religious and cultural minorities avoid alcohol-based gatherings, because their background forbids or strongly disapproves of such behaviour. Most recovering alcoholics avoid environments where drinking is taking place. As other commenters have said, a lot of women aren't comfortable being alone in a room full of drunk guys; Thanks to the tech industry's problems with gender, they probably already have plenty of good reasons to feel uncomfortable at a tech conference. If your conference is boozy, then a whole bunch of people are going to stay at home for that reason.

Do you not see a problem with booth babes at expos, or game companies who in the past have organised launch events at strip clubs? Would you argue that people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of scantily-clad women being used as props should simply avert their gaze? What if we replaced alcohol with a different drug? Would you be fine holding a tech event in a cannabis cafe or a crackhouse?

If you want to throw an after-party at your conference, fine. Most conferences inevitably have plenty of late-night drinking at the hotel bar and I'm not going to argue with that. But if you allow that drinking culture to encroach on the event itself then you're marginalising a large group of people, you're invoking all the dreadful fratboy stereotypes that the tech industry so desperately needs to shake off.

A lot of people are vegans for all kinds of reasons. Does that mean meat shouldn't be served at conferences? Frankly, that's ridiculous. The absolute majority of people are ok with alcohol in moderate doses (I still don't know what kind of binge drinking events he's talking about, since I haven't been to one. I presume I'm not missing much, and neither is anyone else who chooses not to go). I am not going to comment on the straw man arguments.

This does not mean a individual conference couldn't be better with less alcohol, just like a dress code might help in some contexts (see every other industry). This is a choice that every conference maker is free to make, and does every time they organize an event - unlike the complain club supporting members. I for one would love a tea room style conference, but I am not gonna complain about someone not arranging it for me.

There are religious and cultural minorities that don't believe in men mingling with women who are not their wives or relatives - do we restrict women from attending for fear those minorities would be uncomfortable?

I know a number of recovering alcoholics - some will avoid situations where alcohol is available altogether, some will happily go to a bar and drink a club soda all night, or somewhere in between. You can't generalize about a group like that.

And personally, I don't like strip clubs, never have. In various jobs, there have been a lot of sales dinners and the like that ended up at a strip club. I always left before we got there. I didn't feel put out, or uncomfortable, I was just frank about my dislike for them, and encouraged everyone else to go have a good time.

To a certain degree, I agree with you - if an event is ostensibly about topic X, but is really about getting hammered, that's unfortunate. But almost all of the conferences I go to have technical talks, and then a cocktail hour/binge drinking session for networking. Or it's a meetup/user group meeting at a bar, in which case, those who are uncomfortable in bars should just not go.

I dispute that drinking at conferences is "marginalizing a large group of people". I think there should be a balance, but ending the practice entirely is silly.

>Many religious and cultural minorities avoid alcohol-based gatherings, because their background forbids or strongly disapproves of such behaviour.

Yeah, should we encourage that too in tech conferences?

Exactly. If you don't want to drink, don't drink.

There is a world of difference between being excluded, and feeling excluded. Ryan feels excluded, but I genuinely doubt that people are shunning him because he doesn't have a beer in his hand. He isn't being forced out of interesting conversations because of his sobriety.

I've never once seen binge drinking at a conference. Drinking, sure, but binge drinking implies that people are doing kegstands or something similar.

Now, I don't know Ryan personally, and maybe I'm missing the bigger point, but this blog post reminds me of an Elizabeth Taylor quote: "The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."

I think this is the correct response. If you don’t like it, don’t do it, and if it makes you uncomfortable, don’t attend. People are not doing Jaeger bombs in the convention center aisle during a presentation, and I feel like the author is trying to make that argument.

Nobody is being forced to drink, but I have a feeling that if the author were to make his own conference, drinking would be explicitly forbidden. That’s the biggest problem with prohibitionists of any type (whether it’s alcohol, recreational marijuana, or whatever). It’s not enough that something is optional and they’re not forced to partake. They must force you not to partake.

What about recovering alcoholics, people who avoid alcohol for religious reasons, and people under the drinking age ?

There are clearly groups who don't or can't go to events because alcohol plays a prominent part (i.e other people drinking impacts them).

There's obviously trade-offs between different groups of participants, but they need to be made consciously with awareness of the consequences rather than because they're the default.

There are also a bunch people, like me, who can't (or shouldn't) drink because of medical conditions.

At the same time though, it doesn't bother me when people are drinking in moderation and not set on getting hammered.

> At the same time though, it doesn't bother me when people are drinking in moderation and not set on getting hammered.

The OP describes a situation where it seems that moderation is being actively discouraged.

Is he? He presents pics with a couple cases of beers as if twas evidence of getting hammered.

There was alcohol on the couple conferences I've been to, sure. Everyone had a beer or two. It facilities relaxed discussions, makes brain storming much easier. I haven't seen anyone get drunk.

Clearly there is a group of non-drinkers that do feel excluded from drinking events, even if that feeling is imagined. One possible solution that doesn't take away drinking events would be to explicitly welcome them.

"If you don't drink, there will be plenty of sodas, water, juices, etc. at the bar. We want to hang out with all of you regardless of what you're drinking. :)"

Two years ago, as a non-drinker who felt a lot of non-existant peer pressure, just that line would've made me much more comfortable in attending one of these social events. If nothing else, it's a good first step that costs nothing more than the breath to say it out loud.

There's a world of difference between being excluded because you are of a certain gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation and because you don't like a certain beverage.

An analogy would be a conference where the evenings entertainment is a competition to see who can piss up a wall the highest. It wouldn't exclude women per se, because they don't have to join in if they don't want to, but you can reasonably see why they might not feel welcome, and why they might complain about it. If a conference wants to appeal to a broad range of people it's the organisers job to make sure the entertainment isn't based around one thing that only appeals to one group, even if that group is a majority.

It seems reasonable to assume that there are far less women interested in, as you say, "pissing up a wall" then there would be women who enjoy drinks and beer; this doesn't seem like a fair analogy.

I also can't think of any adult men who would be interested in a pissing up a wall contest, so it's a particularly pointless analogy.

this post brought to you by the bad-analogy-so-I-can-force-my-pet-peeves-onto-others-dept

To be fair, OP makes it very clear that his concern is minor compared to gender/ethnic exclusion.

I think he's talking about The Rule of Drunken Disparity: to a [drunk|sober] person, the most annoying person in the world is a [sober|drunk] person.

But certain beverages can exclude certain genders, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations :)

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