Crake

In my experience, it's always about offending people. But only theoretically, of course. It's hard to find significant quantities of people who are actually offended, which is in itself deeply ~problematic.~

>their impression is that the community here closes ranks to shout her down rather than accepting the legitimacy of her experience

It does say a lot about you and your friends that they assume that anyone who disagrees with them isn't coming from a legitimate experience of their own. Why is it only you and your friends that are Designated Spokepersons for All Women? Not everyone on here is biologically male, you know. Some of the people who think Adria Richards is an idiot happen to be women. Quite a few, actually, since oversensitive feminists make life much harder for women in tech to be taken seriously.

> brilliant, fun, unflappable women

Sure.

>But that means that Hacker News (and to some degree, tech in general) doesn't get the benefit of their participation.

Anyone this upset about the word "bro" isn't someone I want to spend time around anyway.

Gay men, maybe. Lesbians, probably not so much.

>Does anyone think that this is really creepy?

No.

>I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already,

Wow.

>but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid?

Do you realize what site you're on?

>That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex.

Uh...how, exactly?

Ah, more anecdotes. Of course.

They're a success in most first world countries. Like health care, the US bungled the handling of it something awful. Still, there have been some successes. NYC's housing programs have been (for the US) relatively competent. This was in large part because they didn't do what another commenter wrote about chicago's system: corral all the poor people into a place with no transit so that the rich didn't have to look at them. NYC sprinkled its housing projects here and there, and it turned out much better (or at least, much less worse) as a result.

>I think you need to shut the hell up.

Dissenters are just so problematic, aren't they?

>Nobody says this. Nobody. >feminists in the 90s

More like 2009.

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-sch...

>This wasn't feminism, this is the NYT spreading their usual ignorant filth about the tech industry.

Feministing, Jezebel, and the like seem to have a lot to say on the subject. Hell, so do a lot of HN comments about how "toxic" and "hostile" tech workers are towards women.

Also, anyone can call themselves a feminist. It's not up to you to decide who is or isn't one.

>Are you a woman?

That shouldn't matter. Why do you need to ask about my genitalia in order to decide what to say to me? You should treat me the same way, whether I'm male or female. Address my brain, not my body.

>If not, shut the hell up

So, I'm either allowed to speak or not allowed to speak based exclusively on something I was born with and have no control over.

I guess if I have the "right" genitals, I only have to "shut the hell up" once instead of twice. Either way, it seems you don't want anyone to disagree with you--even if they are a woman, you'd still prefer them to think what you think women should be thinking.

Telling me to just "shut the hell up" isn't exactly a convincing argument. I'm not a kid, and you're not my parent. "Because I told you to" isn't a valid argument for this sort of exchange.

Be funnier if half the people complaining about SWMs weren't SWMs. Ha.

I don't know what's gotten into the water lately.

People need to have it at least slightly together mentally to successfully rent a place, even if they have money. It seems like it would be more effective to provide the housing directly, given that inability to do this is part of why they are homeless in the first place (especially true in the case of mentally ill homeless). Many homeless have attributes that make them a turnoff to landlords, so even with a basic income, they might still end up on the streets.

You could probably negate resentment from the working poor/other people working hard just to survive by making the facilities kind of basic, but available to everyone. People who want something prettier, in a better location, or with more amenities can pay for that experience. People in desperate situations will likely take whatever they can get.

Yeah! Who doesn't love the homeless bum taking up four seats on the subway? We can't let such a valuable part of urban scenery disappear!

>would probably have ended up homeless or dead if some family members...navigate the system on his behalf.

This is what I've observed as well. Part of the reason I feel like I have to move out of the US as soon as I possibly can is that I have no blood relations to take care of me if I become fully disabled again. It's absolutely terrifying.

Yeah, even something like that would work (maybe a little more spread out in places that aren't so urban). It's just appalling to me that so many people don't even have a place to stay out of the snow in this day and age. I wonder how many homeless you could house for a month for the cost of [insert luxurious iProduct here].

Probably, but it doesn't mean the idea is flawed--just the execution. Also Africa has a rather horrific corruption index, IIRC. I'd almost be surprised if things were planned ahead properly there. With some laudable exceptions, their governments and politicians tend to have a remarkable and depressing lack of foresight.

I wish more states would implement this. It doesn't have to be a house, just an apartment. It doesn't even have to be a big one. Even just a single mattress in a small room or a studio with a kitchen is a huge quality of life improvement--and relatively inexpensive, as it seems they've found. Kicking them off of park benches is about as helpful as sloshing water around within the same bucket and then looking surprised that the contents haven't appreciably depreciated. Homeless are not going to just disappear. (Unless they die, which I suppose is what people like the sledgehammer guy in the article would prefer...)

Eh, same info, tidier writing. I'd forgotten about it for a while.

Man, SJWs really take anything involving the word "privilege" seriously, even when it's obvious sarcasm. Anyone have any theories as to why their sense of humor is so underdeveloped?

And for trans people who don't conform to the gender binary, no option whatsoever: there's only "male" and "female" as an option. Now, I'm not asking for that crazy xe and xir stuff, but if you're going to go to a conference where their main claim to fame is being gender themed, you should be able to put down "other" or "prefer not to specify" (the latter of which may be preferred even by some people who are firmly on one end of the gender spectrum). One big problem I have with events that are either thematically or exclusively gender segregated is that all it really does is reinforce gender roles. You've got to pitch in with one camp or the other, so that the privilege checkers know how many points to assign you. I don't like it. My computer doesn't care what my gender is or isn't, or what's between my legs. That's actually one--of many--things that has drawn me to tech.

That said, these are all good questions.

You do realize the language being employed in your examples is from the side arguing in favor of the gender segregation themed conference, not against it, right?

>the facts are all against what you were saying

This would probably be more convincing if actually you provided any, instead of just vaguely referencing anecdotes. Without it, you have just an opinion, not an argument.

It's a sjw themed joke.

Who am I? You told me what I am in your comment, so I guess I'll have to bow to your superior expertise on the matter. Interesting how you think you know all about what sort of person I am without knowing anything about my background, my life experiences, or the circumstances and fields of work that I have/have not encountered sexism in.

SJWs always think they know everything about people who disagree with them, just by the virtue of the fact that the person dared to disagree. Perhaps it is for this reason that you and others of your ideological persuasion seem unable to resort to anything aside from hostile yet awfully generic (and as result--often hilariously inaccurate) personal attacks.

Rude remarks and mistaken assumptions about my genitals aside, no, I am not in the 18-22 year old age range, and haven't been for some time. Sad as it may seem to you, there are indeed people of all ages who believe in egalitarianism.

But that would benefit poor people of all colors! We can't help out white people--1 homeless straight white male already has more privilege than ALL black millionaires COMBINED!

I don't like them and hope they go away as quickly as possible. I dislike segregation on principle, generally speaking.

>This thread made me want to cry....

Ah, estrogen privilege.

Thank you.

Feminists are probably the #1 force for scaring away women from tech. If you say something is true enough times (All men might rape you! Programmers all hate women!), especially from a position of power and political influence, people will start to believe it. Encouraging and (in some cases, like donglegate) inducing both an atmosphere of fear and paranoia in and towards women is incredibly detrimental towards the general humanitarian goal of bettering society.

There are isolated instances of sexism, but women don't really have it hard at all in tech. I'd say the sex discrimination in favor of women ("affirmative action") massively outweighs any lingering discrimination against women.

There are women in YC, as seen in comments above. Nice of you to declare their input absolutely worthless.

You'll be more successful if you don't hallucinate sexism where there isn't any. Plenty of women in the tech field manage to do this. There's no reason you can't, too. I hope you come to feel more comfortable with your place in tech in the future, because the "all men are out to get us" mindset espoused by modern mainstream feminism has a very severe and debilitating effect on women's careers.

>You know what I'd love to see the next time one of these inflammatory gender-related posts comes up?

>One thread that only men are allowed to post to. No women to challenge them, play devil's advocate or otherwise defend their privilege. Just one place for us to say our piece without being downvoted into oblivion, where our voice can be heard (in all its glorious heterogeneity).

>Because that's what's missing in this conversation about men in tech. Men.

>Carry on femsplaining your way through it girls... I'll be over here building things.

Do you think you'd react well to a comment written like this? Expect hostility--it's deserved. Sexism isn't pretty, and that goes for both misogyny AND misandry.

I actually hate Lego. The only Lego thing I ever wanted was Mindstorm.

I did have a crazy amount of K'nex, though, and built all sorts of race cars, roller coasters, bridges I could put between two chairs and make an adult sit on, etc. I still like K'nex a lot more than Lego--you can do many more things, and with far fewer pieces.

The sad thing is that it's very likely that sjws will embark on some sort of crusade against her for not fitting into their worldview. Anyone who exists in a way counter to their ideology is marked an enemy to be destroyed in the most high school styled manner possible. Ironic, considering that they claim that their goal is to further the cause of women in tech, etc.

Naming and shaming is something sjws do, not suffer through. Equal treatment would be sex/rac/heterosex/ist!