Subtle -isms at Hacker School
hackerschool.com
hackerschool.com
It's one thing to recognise that systemic forms of bias and discrimination can be subtle and invisible to those trying to fix them, but all this sort of thing does is hand more keys over to a small subset of people who are less interested in making the world more equal and more interested in grabbing, holding and exercising social power.
Shaming rituals, however light in touch they are, rarely improve things. They're just another small-p political tool to be used by politically minded people to exert social control.
Since this is the top-voted comment, let me be emphatic. The assumptions the parent comment makes about the HS experience bear no resemblance to reality. A good example is the consistent theme in this thread that such a rule can't exist without a shaming ritual, or without loss of being considered an adult.
The context we're missing here is that participants at HS are self-selecting. One person in our batch quit his job as director of investment technology at a massive international bank to attend HS; another was a high school student. In all cases, participation represents serious costs of opportunity, time, and capital, and almost always, the reason they do it is because:
Fundamentally, participants already believe in the assumptions of the environment.
There is room for this theoretical debate about whether x policy extends to good rules for all of society. But realistically, the HS rules are effective because people at HS agree with them.
To have this discussion without this specific context is to miss the point entirely.
That is why the rule can be lightweight, and can still be incredibly effective. And if you don't think that's true, then I suggest you poll a nontrivial subset of HS, because almost everyone agrees.
It's not exactly embedded programming.
The first sentence of the article:
> We've enjoyed seeing our social rules spread into other parts of the tech community.
The debate here is around whether or not these rules would work in other environments.
By ignoring this context, the parent comment, and your comment here, debate a position that was never posited at all. In some sense you are debating yourselves.
Clearly, this system works for Hacker School. Kudos.
This system is also being advertised for wider implementation, possibly into communities and companies that all of us are a part of, and any broad social reform deserves a good deal of scrutiny before implementation. A key part of these rules, in particular, is the potential for abuse and the sorts of implications they have on the culture that implements them.
If they want to maintain a civil environment that's able to call out subtle -isms, then they should simply accept "no, it wasn't" just as freely as "oops, sorry".
I may tell someone to "man up and crank through the work". I didn't intend on being sexist, but someone points it out. And then I proceed to get into an irrelevant shouting match about how, in German, "mensch" is gender neutral.
If you didn't intend on being sexist or whatever, then maybe there's a better way of phrasing what you said. Or, you can find faculty later, in private, and try to come to an understanding about the situation. Anyways, I would just say "sorry" on the spot and save the debate for later.
Is it really so hard to believe that I did not say something offensive? Is it impossible to think that the person doing the call-out can be in the wrong, that they might be imagining or even willfully manufacturing an emotional distress?
Are we all now to be beholden to the whims and fancies of those that continually reshape the landscape of political correctness in an effort to exercise a modicum of control or power over their peers?
My proposed solution is simple: if someone tries the call-out method and they are in the wrong, you reply in a manner that is just as direct and non-confrontational. "No, it wasn't."
Would you?
Let's test it.
Your whole comment is a subtle -ism because I say so.
Apologize for it and retract it immediately.
I'm certainly not going to attend HS, so do what you want, I suppose. I probably won't be hiring anyone who comes out of the program, either. I can't imagine interacting with a product of this environment. So conditioned to avoid not just confrontation but plain discourse.
This is a social lobotomy.
I also think that codifying subtly is a snipe hunt. In doing so, It's conditioning people to be afraid to speak lest someone be offended. The throwaways here are evidence. It's encouraging hypersensitivity.
I'm also going to point out that rather than attacking my argument, you called my thinking sad. In my reading of the rules, that's a no-no. I'm glad we're not following those rules here, because now we can have this argument. At least until we declare a moratorium on argument.
That does not mean you would not be able to ask for clarification, concrete examples, how it has a negative effect.
> if someone told me I am being sexist or homophobic when I am not then I'm certainly not going to apologize for it.
It has not thing with being or having intent to be homophobic, sexist, etc. It is about some phrases being much more likely to have such intent and meaning in society in general.
It is unrealistic to expect a N random someones hearing a subtl-ism to understand the speaker's internal meaning of a phrase or word. While those N random people should endeavor to not jump to conclusions about the speakers internal meaning, for the most part all they can go off of is how society uses the word/phrase.
>That does not mean you would not be able to ask for clarification....
Only if such is not going to interfere with the current discussion, instruction, or other activity, which presumably represents what you are all there for, at that time.
Which might be the reason for banning debates: "Take it offline."
Should we let everyone's internalized emotional damage be projected onto society at large? Certainly not.
If we're going to let everyone interpret our words however they wish, then the entire concept of language becomes meaningless.
The reply might be "oops, sorry", or it might be "no, it wasn't." Thats the argument here. If further debate or discussion were necessary following that exchange, I would welcome it, but "oops, sorry" cannot and should not be the default because it assumes that whomever takes the defensive first is always in the right, and that is its own "bubble" worth worrying about.
The one time I was accused of being subtly-sexist, I disagreed with the commenter and I told her so (privately). She stuck to her point, and by the end I didn't 100% agree with her and I thought she was being a little sensitive; _however_ I'll still be more careful in the future. Whether or not I agree that she should have been offended is irrelevant: I said something that offended her, she seems like a nice enough person, and making that tiny switch in my language was a small-enough sacrifice that I was happy to err on the side of caution.
Accusations of sexism in technology need to be taken extremely seriously, as just the accusation alone can be all it takes for someone to be publicly vilified[1] or even fired[2].
In today's technology culture, the accusation of sexism can be even more damaging than the sexism itself.
That's a key reason for all this debate taking place. HS is promoting this culture in a way that encourages other companies and communities to adopt it, and the potential for abuse and misuse is far too high. It's very easy to imagine a culture developing as a result where someone is accused of sexism where there is none, and they either accept it and offer up an empty apology or they deny it and are crucified.
[1] http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun
[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-...
Here's my example, and if the person in question is reading this, he/she can feel free to chime in. I posted in our internal forums about how I was planning my wedding (to another man) which "was getting very expensive, even without a bride." Someone called me out on sexist language, saying that not all women needed elaborate weddings/dresses/whatnot, and so on and so forth. We debated (privately) for a while. In the end? Honestly? I appreciated her viewpoint a little more, but I still think she was being a little over-sensitive. HOWEVER, I went back and edited my post to remove the offending remark. It was a minor change for me to make (and she wasn't totally wrong), and if it made someone feel a little more comfortable and promoted harmony, great. It ended there. It also would have ended had I _not_ gone back and edited my post. But if I made a giant stink about it, involved other people, treated her poorly thereafter, and otherwise was a giant unpleasant jerk to work with, well then yeah--I'd expect some consequences. Does she hate me now? I don't think so. Am I a terrible misogynist? I hope not. But I got reminded that people with different viewpoints and backgrounds will think differently from me, and I should respect that, and that's a very good thing.
This is exactly the kind of self-censorship through mobbing that we're trying to counteract.
It's unconscionable and it's unacceptable.
It's good that you can recognize that you are being offensive and honest enough not to let embarrassment prevent you from reacting appropriately when you are.
[Yes, I rather expected this to be down-voted.]
"You need to check for a null pointer there."
"I think what you said was subtly racist."
"Did you think about making this its own class? It might be easier to test that way."
"That was a well-actually."
The intent is to educate, not to punish; and I think the expected response is more "oh yeah, good point!" than "I'm sorry".
Both responses assume that the assessment was correct, and that's a problem. The subtly critical part of the exchange takes place in public. If there's agreement that may happen publicly, but if there's disagreement it happens privately.
FTFA:
After this, we ask that all further discussion move off of public channels. If you are a third party, and you don't see what could be biased about the comment that was made, feel free to talk to faculty.
It then become the responsibility of those around you to go find out what really went on when someone made an unfavorable claim about you.
I realize the goal is to avoid prolonged "No it wasn't" "Yes it was" exchanges but this approach is asymmetrical in favoring accusation over rebuttal.
When a mistake is vague and hard to understand, there becomes a certain amount of probability involved in making a mistake. Therefore those who are the most active could end up with the most mistakes. In this case, those who engage most with those around them, will likely break the most "Subtle-isms".
This policy may simply reward the quiet students and discourage active verbal and written communication and do little to discourage borderline behavior.
I can easily imagine people making a fuss about this leading to a state of near constant self-monitoring, and I'd probably get excited and slip up on a regular basis...
If someone points out a subtle-ism it seems like it would be fine to ask for clarification and/or additional concrete examples.
They do try to address this issue by making the "social rules are lightweight" and tell students "feel free to talk to faculty."
> those who engage most with those around them, will likely break the most "Subtle-isms".
If the social rules are light then it is more important the student is learning to reduce their use of subtle-ism more then it is that it happens every once in a while.
Or to reject the accusation. That's also fine. It's fine especially when the accusation is absolute and utter bullshit.
If you think your accusation has merit, see me in court.
This makes me think you are not talking about lightweight social rules at private institution.
Shaming and defaming someone of a crime that they didn't commit, and mobbing them out of their right to defend themselves publicly (the school's policy amounts to collusion with the shamer/defamer) is most certainly illegal.
This is in no way a "shaming ritual." It isn't intended to be one, and it hasn't become one in practice.
I'm one of the founders of Hacker School. I can't stand politics. If these rules actually created the environment you're imagining, we'd get rid of them immediately. Thankfully, we have several years of experience now and we've found that having lightweight social rules makes Hacker School a much better place for everyone, and it's by far the least political environment I've ever been in.
Of course they don't, for the people you think are high status. Male losers like me get hosed, but who cares what kulaks think?
This is absolutely true. The only thing that will improve someone's manners is their mother slapping them when they got out of hand while growing up. Once they're an adult, their concepts of social roles and the appropriate ways of interacting with others are fixed. The only path of improvement is for them to die off.
We're not talking about egregious examples of bad behaviour. These subtle-isms are vague; they're hard to identify and explain; they crop up unconsciously.
It's not bad manners if you don't know you've upset someone, or you're unaware that you're enforcing damaging social norms.
We should change & we should question our moral compasses. For me, this is an absolute. But the proposed solution only works in situations where all actors are acting in good faith. It's too easily subverted. I have no beef with Hacker School for trying this, but time and again, groups that work within these frameworks devolve into politicking and rules lawyering.
Compare the word "micro-aggression". That's an accusation and the beginning of on argument. "Subtleism", by contrast, is a word to promote healing.
Am I the only one that finds this over the top?
"No 'subtle -isms' is about recognizing the ways we're unconciously [sic] making our friends' lives a little worse."
I'm sorry, if your life is made worse by a completely benign (and friendly) statement like "ok guys, have a nice weekend" then you are naive and irrational. Creating an environment that indulges every childish sensitivity does not do those individuals any favors and makes a mockery of their cause.
"For the last year, the 'No subtle -isms' rule has carried some implementation guidelines. One of these is asking people not to debate whether or not something is an -ism."
Accusing someone of (even subtle) sexism or racism is not to be taken lightly—this rule forces the accused to apologize (affirming the alleged bias) without defending or explaining themselves. This is unethical and dilutes legitimate complaints.
A proverb that comes to mind: "Those who speak most about misfortune will find it. Those who speak most about success will find it."
It is important to note that very few of the people who use these linguistic constructs are being intentionally sexist in doing so, and as such nobody is taking hurt or offense away from the use of "guys" to refer to a mixed-gender group or anything like that. This is not an exercise in respecting others' sensitivities so much as an effort to recognize the way our actions subtly reinforce the problematic and undoubtedly biased power structures that exist in our current culture. As others have pointed out in this thread, the participants in Hacker School share a common interest refusing to reinforce said power structures, and as such put rules in place to codify that commitment to helping one another change the way they interact with the world.
As others have noted, these are not accusations--which would certainly not be appropriate or productive to whip out in the middle of a meeting--but gentle reminders amongst like-minded people to watch the way their words impact the world around them.
A lot of people seem to be concerned about the chilling effects that these policies could have. This is a valid concern, as nobody wants to be in a place where they're constantly second-guessing everything they say.
The nice thing is that we don't just have to speculate, and we can look at what has actually happened at Hacker School, and the feedback from those who have actually experienced the environment seems overwhelmingly positive, both for people who have been traditionally marginalized and for those who have been unintentional marginalizers.
disclosure: I'm not a Hacker Schooler but I know Nick and Dave well. I've seen first hand how deeply and genuinely they care about making Hacker School both extremely inclusive and also free for open discussion and transparency.
Now we are being invaded. We, like every other culture in the world, are ask to not use certain language and not have certain thoughts. If we do not comply, we are heretics. Only they don't use that term, they rather use some ism.
The wheel of history is repeating. The control freaks still want to control, they just changed one set of sins for another.
If "the good old days" were really that good, why have women been almost intentionally excluded from IT until relatively recently? Do you mean "good" for people in general, or "good" for you?
When you say "we are being invaded," who is "we"? White men? People who are already "in"? More importantly, who is doing the invading? If women say "hey, these are small, tacitly accepted things in tech culture that make people uncomfortable," do you seriously think that statement is persecuting you? They're not trying to control your thoughts, they're trying to get you to be less of an asshole.
I have never excluded women. Also IT, tech, hackers are not interchangeable terms.
>Do you mean "good" for people in general, or "good" for you?
I meant good for hackers. People with a certain world view, goals and sense of humor.
>When you say "we are being invaded," who is "we"?
Again, hackers. We never cared for race nor sexuality.
>who is doing the invading?
Control freaks.
>They're not trying to control your thoughts, they're trying to get you to be less of an asshole.
If anything, this rules make it easier to be an asshole.
If someone says "hey, we should work on addressing this sexism," and the response is, "be quiet, there isn't any sexism, you just hate fun," that seems pretty stinking sexist, doesn't it? Dismissing someone's concerns by saying they aren't real doesn't address the concerns, it just sweeps them under the rug because they aren't perceived as being important enough to give a shit about.
If some group has evolved office slang that includes saying "Quit being a ginger" to people who make dumb mistakes, and then that group hires some redheaded dude, wouldn't it be within his rights to say "hey guys, it's kind of weird to use 'ginger' as a euphemism for 'dumbass'"? Yeah, maybe he's "invading" and stepping on the group's ability to insult people at the expense of other groups, but it doesn't mean he's wrong.
Conveniently, you've also accurately described what happens when someone expresses concern about negative side effects of new social rules.
No.
Replace sexism with unicorns and reread your premise.
If somebody says, "hey, this is some bad sexism," that's a lousy argument, because it's a vague statement that can't be proven either way. You could respond with "no it isn't, shhh" and it would be just as reasonable a rebuttal as any other.
But if someone says "these are things I think contribute to an unnecessarily exclusionary environment, here's why it should change," then I think it's disingenuous to just say "meh, no" without addressing the concerns. It's basically someone saying, "I think my opinions are being written off without being properly discussed," and responding with "That's not true, discussion over, it's written off." There's got to at least be a discussion, no?
No, it isn't.
If you believe you have an actionable claim, bring it to court.
If you don't (and you know that you don't) you have no right to shame and defame people, while hiding behind some bullshit policy that prevents them from defending themselves.
They're either not capable or find it uninteresting, often both at the same time.
by whom?
>The culture we used to have didn't cared about isms or whatever you want to call them.
When? Depending how far back you go, The hacker culture attracted a very specific type of person. It was self-selective, so they themselves had similar cultural norms.
Today is very different. Hackers are more diverse, thus these issues come to light.
This brings us back to:
> Now we are being invaded.
There are going to be growing pains, but in the end, diversity is a good thing, right?
Or is this all an issue about degree?
Not sure, people who care more about a narrative of justice than technical hacks.
>When? Depending how far back you go, The hacker culture attracted a very specific type of person. It was self-selective, so they themselves had similar cultural norms.
I guess that the startup scene made us popular, which tends to attract the sort of people who like guidelines, rules and control.
> There are going to be growing pains, but in the end, diversity is a good thing, right?
I just do not see why we need rules. Specially rules we are not expected to bend.
This reads like a 4chan teenager's manifesto. Alright, a bunch of nerds in their basements who are just so edgy and can say whatever they want. Badass! Well, you might be pleased to know that you're totally free to carry on the misanthropy club in plenty of areas of the internet. But here on Hacker News, and apparently especially at Hacker School, a lot of people that are actually coming from within the culture would like to see some change.
When I read this article, I too was annoyed. I felt it was over the top, way too politically correct. But then I read the comments here, and it's basically all these people coming out of the woodwork and vaulting right over the spirit of understanding in their haste to defend their right to be acerbic assholes.
They're not trying to silence you, they're just trying to implement guidelines that foster inclusion and collaboration. Is that really so awful?
How can you talk that way and the next moment talk about fostering inclusion?
That whole spiel is most unsubtly ageist.
I can't help but laugh sometimes. Good thing all the rich white women feel comfortable!
But seriously, how is it possible to have so few Asians? Usually the "problem" is that there are far too many. Maybe we need affirmative action for Asians, for once?
"Ok, so the client contacts the server and receives the result, but half of the result is missing, so...."
"Well, actually, the client uses DNS to look up the server's address first."
"Ok, thanks. Now I know."
A well-done well-actually is a brilliant demonstration of superiority.
There is no hard-and-fast rule for figuring out what is and is not a well-actually, but the biggest factors (at least for me) are (1) did it derail the conversation, (2) did my correcting someone make it less acceptable to not know something, and (3) was my motivation to do something like show off?
I've been guilty of all 3. Anecdotally, I found that the effect of this lightweight rule was that at HS it was very much ok to not know something, and let me tell you, adjusting to the real world, where that is subtly untrue, is a trial.
As for the "parachuting in" problem, that's essentially the gist of a different lightweight social rule, "no backseat driving". :)
Hallelujah! Someone who understands! :-) [1]
I've done it as well, and I hate it when I realize I am.
I suspect the worse part of HS' policies is exactly that "adjusting to the real world, where [it was very much ok to not know something] is subtly untrue, is a trial." In the typical business environment, appearing not to know something is a very unsubtle weakness.
[1] I'm completely unrelated to Hacker School.
It looks immensely easy to fall into a trap of caring too much about the rules and not caring enough about the code, and I can imagine a large group of people trying to play along rather than try to become better "hackers". "Ohh, I'm sorry, you did actually just save us from three hours of bashing our head into a wall by recommending a specific algorithm, but you also broke the rules. For shame!"
Seriously, anyone who manages to take offence at a mixed group being greeted with "you guys" really needs to find something better to do. It doesn't consciously or unconsciously make anyone's life worse. It's just a couple of words that are a convenient greeting.
We Southerners tried to solve that problem ages ago with "y'all" but the rest of the country apparently doesn't care for it.
Frankly, I sometimes use "y'all" in print, but as a non-Southerner feel like a poser saying it out loud.
If someone's being a "subtle" racist, they're just being racist, and you can deal accordingly (likewise for the rest of the "subtlisms"). Beyond that, if you want people to act with maturity, you have to treat them like adults, which these rules certainly don't do.
If you think the social rules don't treat people like adults, you're fundamentally misunderstanding them. The purpose of the rules is to make us all aware of the ways that we can unintentionally frustrate and hurt each other, not to shame people. The rules are not enforced top down, nor do you get in trouble if you break one. The way you treat a person like an adult is by being honest with them when they make you feel frustrated or uncomfortable and having an adult conversation about it.
Our job is to build an environment where everyone at Hacker School feels safe to focus on becoming a better programmer. I don't think you could find a single Hacker Schooler who would disagree that the social rules made for a better environment, and there've been well over 350 so far.
[1] cf. https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/28-treating-people-like-ad...
On top of this, there's this idea of "subtle racism", which could include things that should be allowed if "suble racism" is defined by extremely politically correct people, or which could include only things that actually are racist according to some decent arguments.
What about subtile elitism?
It's one of the biggest subtile -isms I've run into. If you didn't go to a top ten university, you're sort of in a lower echelon in the tech world. In practice this subtilely selects for people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and/or people who have an "academic-oriented" learning style as opposed to an autodidact or self-directed learning style. It also contributes to America's regional class system... the top ten schools are by and large on the coasts. If you're from, say, Kansas or Ohio you are less likely to attend one of them than if you're from California or Massachusetts.
My impression for a long time has been that a significant chunk of the tech world is a top ten universities only club full of Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc. graduates hiring, funding, and promoting other top university graduates. You could play a drinking game on sites like AngelList: take a shot every time someone lists "attended MIT" or "graduated from Stanford" as their sole qualification for being a founder or seeking a job.
Racism and sexism definitely exist, but from what I've seen socioeconomic elitism is the most powerful discriminatory -ism in the tech world. It's not an either-or thing of course. It just adds yet another barrier that outsiders must overcome. Barriers are kind of additive... each barrier reinforces the other pre-existing barriers by adding another point of resistance.
I've got to admit that this is a personal gripe. I'm from the flyover country, and I'm also not an academic type. I hated school for the most part. I just don't learn that way. But for some reason listing things like "has single-handedly conceived, designed, implemented, and shipped the following products..." or "taught myself 6502 assembly language at the age of ten using only the appendix of the Commodore 64 extended manual" just doesn't carry the same weight as "graduated from Stanford." Even if I could say "graduated with honors from the University of Cincinnati," I doubt this would carry near as much oomph as "attended MIT" even if my grades at MIT were poor.
I can't imagine being female or black/hispanic and not having the top ten degree. I feel like without "MIT" or "Stanford" I have to be twice as smart and work twice as hard. It feels like it's exponential. If I were not white and male I'd have to work... what... sixteen times as hard?
Edit: HN won't let me comment on this thread any more, so I'll put my responses here:
Re: elite universities equalizing admissions: no, it doesn't matter. There are 300+ million people in America and 7+ billion on Earth. Your odds of getting "tapped" by one of these kingmakers is vanishingly small regardless of how smart you are or how hard you work. Tweaking the selection bias of a tiny choke point does not change the overall size of that gate.
Re: the thread in general: whenever these kinds of threads come up, I find myself disagreeing with both the PC police and the hordes of right-wingers that materialize out of the ether. I really say a pox on both their houses. The wingers are hopelessly naive about the realities of discrimination. The PC police sort of have their hearts in the right place, but the problem is that PC stuff addresses the wrong causes. Women don't find it uncomfortable to work in tech because of phrases like "man up" or "hey guys." They find themselves excluded for more subtile reasons of cliquishness and in-group selection. These cliquish mechanisms are the same ones that give rise to top ten university bias, racial bias, cultural bias, etc. It's a microcosmic manifestation of what on the larger social stage is called the "old boy network." Playing language police is a lot easier than trying to really break up the cliques. The latter is incredibly difficult, as humans are tribal and cliquish by nature.
Still unable to post. I'm not going to forcefully assert some kind of soft-banning since as far as I know I'm being fooled by randomness, but I have noticed that "you are posting too fast" tends to appear in a way that seems uncorrelated to how fast I'm actually posting. Maybe it's just a strange algorithm with weird edge case behaviors. But... I did want to post this:
http://www.broadstreetreview.com/cross-cultural/Demise_of_An...
It is highly relevant, as I think it illustrates how PC policing can lead to a kind of "Animal Farm" scenario. While the rhetoric might be all about diversity, the reality is that diversity rhetoric can be used as another mechanism for the real power clique to maintain its dominance.
While that might be true, there's also a population density issue. CA, NY, and MA have large urban populations, so more students are likely to attend those elite colleges.
That said, I know for a fact that admissions officers and student volunteers from these schools literally spend months driving around the country to recruit prospective students from traditionally underrepresented states. They are well aware of this perception of elitism and want to combat it. One of my good friends from MIT was from Montana. (Yeah, anecdotes != data, but this issue you mentioned is very legitimate and something that Top 10 universities are actively trying to address.)
If anything, tech is better because the barrier to entry is low and you can relatively easily prove yourself with your code. Like... have a great idea for a most types of businesses? Great, you just need millions in funding and then you can start. Have a great idea that for a business that can be done mostly in software? Great, get to work.
So, I got almost no work done today, and I'm all sorts of grouchy and irritable because of this discussion. I probably didn't convince anyone, and no one convinced me. So what did this debate accomplish? Who feels better now? All HS wants to do is keep this sort of nonsense from happening. Person A says something, Person B objects, Person A either apologizes or doesn't, and they move on. If they really need to discuss, they don't bring in People C through Z and ruin their days and productivity as well. Whichever side you're on, that seems like a pretty good idea to me.
Furthermore, we all make innocuous comments that are ignorant of another group's situation. When someone asks me about my wife, I don't flip out and call them a homophobe for assuming I'm straight. But if they fight me when I point it out and refuse to acknowledge the fact that maybe they could stand to broaden their experience, I start to wonder why they're fighting me so much and what prejudices they're hiding.
These rules work in Hacker School. They work because they're lightweight and no one feels like a terrible person for breaking them. If other communities are organically adopting them because the structure has been successful, I don't understand why you'd fight it so much.
https://www.hackerschool.com/feedback
Eventually, everyone stops communicating and just says nothing to avoid the possibility of saying the wrong thing.
I believe this is wrong. Catering to marginalized people do not make those people less marginalized. In fact, it can make situation worse: http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended...
I think that one should provide insistence on some important criteria evaluation instead of banning something outright.
This is from basic psychology - provide positive idea to focus on.
A bit dishonest, to be sure, but I just want to have a chance to demonstrate in person that I'm not the kind of insensitive, entitled dickbag that makes comments like the ones in this thread.
Downvote away, guys, because hey, I'm engaging in some SHAMING here. Frankly, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
You demonstrated the exact opposite just now.
Either (a) you meant it or (b) you didn't mean it. If (b), a gentle nudge from a Hacker School pal is good, in the same sense of a friend telling me my fly is open. If (a), well, fuck you.
As everybody knows on the internet: The real bigotry is pointing out bigotry.
A real solution is to have an opinion as an organization about specific classes of offense, and a process to deal with them. Not saying what an "-ism" is seems like the opposite of that plan. Instead of creating a minefield, build a path. Kick out anyone who doesn't follow it after having been warned.
Will you be reprimanded for saying something about Libertarians? If not, how about Democrats or Republicans? If not, how about war spending, religion, oil pipelines, or Social Security? Be specific about what the policy prohibits, and why the organization has drawn its particular line.
If you want to encourage a specific culture you do this by starting with a small set of people who have this culture in their bones, then growing slowly and assimilating more people into that culture, addressing deviations swiftly and letting people get back to their work afterwards, without skipping a beat.
Not by writing manuals, and then stressing everyone with looooong, reaaaaally long and exhausting "we need to talk" style posts, where we hold hands, talk about how it's so difficult to open your mouth and say something that's not offensive, and how we're far from perfect, and in fact, we're all sinners.
It's not that the intent is wrong. But this way of going about it is so extremely taxing on everybody, creating an atmosphere where everything people say is judged on the "-isms" scale.
It means when you talk, you're terrified of what you're saying.
When you listen, you listen for someone to say something so you can point your finger at them.
A culture may be selective on very different criteria. It can easily be blind to gender, race, age, religion, nation and many more, yet have certain very specific values. And letting people in who have the opposite values are toxic to that culture.
You can't have a culture that's "open to everything". It means you have no culture, you just adopt the zeitgeist unmodified. Everything goes. If this was the goal, this thread wouldn't exist.
Are you trying to say that the field of technology development in general or programming specifically would be toxicly harmed if certain groups of people, identified by "gender, race, age, religion, nation and many more", are allowed in to it? Or are you trying to say that objecting to people attacking others on the basis of gender, race, age, religion, nationality, etc., would be toxic to the culture of the field?
It's fascism.