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Comment by invadedby | Hacker News Reader

This is a throwaway account. I feel we are being invaded. The culture we used to have didn't cared about isms or whatever you want to call them. It developed through text were it hardly matter who was on the other side of the connection, only skills and thoughts mattered. Those were the good old days, when we were free.

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.

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The "no debate" thing seems really odd and control-freakish on their part, I'll give you that. But if you look at people trying to make tech a more inclusive community and call it an "invasion," you're reflecting the exact view that made movements like this pop up.

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.

Women have never been excluded from IT.

They're either not capable or find it uninteresting, often both at the same time.

>why have women been almost intentionally excluded from IT until relatively recently?

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.

You say you've never excluded women, but you are aggressively dismissing an attempt -- it seems, mostly from women -- at improving what they perceive as sexist undertones in the workplace.

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.

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.

Conveniently, you've also accurately described what happens when someone expresses concern about negative side effects of new social rules.

> 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?

No.

Replace sexism with unicorns and reread your premise.

That's silly -- a unicorn's presence is, for the most part, a measurable binary, it's either there or it isn't. Sexism is subjective, or at least more up for debate than "is the unicorn in the room or is it not."

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?

> Sexism is subjective,

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.

> I feel we are being invaded.

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?

>by whom?

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.

Enforced diversity that lowers average competence is a very bad thing, both for the industry and for human civilization as a whole.

The culture we used to have didn't cared about isms or whatever you want to call them.

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?

This reads like a 4chan teenager's manifesto. a bunch of nerds in their basements

How can you talk that way and the next moment talk about fostering inclusion?

The guy calling "let's strive for inclusive language" an invasion by thought police probably doesn't get to drive the hypocrisy bus.

You do have a point - I did succumb to the temptation to hyperbolize, which made my argument weaker. But the point still stands.

What do you have against teenagers?

That whole spiel is most unsubtly ageist.

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