intortus

It seems like a lot of CS programs focus more on filtering than teaching, which just intensifies the trend.

Also funny how that "better way to handle this" is "be quiet and go away."

I would imagine this has value not just to analytics. Deanonymization has a lot of value in curbing abuse. Privacy is of paramount value, though, so it's hard to reconcile. To me it's a dilemma.

For the ballet analogy to fit, you'd have to imagine that men who attended coed classes were frequently subject to a lot of negative attention, ranging from "oh my god a male" all the way up to blatant sexual abuse. You would have to imagine men generally avoiding ballet because of this.

In such a situation, I think providing some path for men to participate at all, and thus gradually shift the balance to the point where it no longer is a big deal, would trump the more abstract general concern of "let's not ever make anything about sex." I understand that ideal, but we're not there yet. We're in a remedial situation, where VC (and much of society, to be honest) is as of yet too immature to allow that to work.

Your analogy makes no sense.

If you've read any of the previous Y Combinator statements on sexism against founders, you'd know that position being taken here is one of removing inefficiencies in the system. All the women being literally chased out by male investors who are seriously abusing their power just to get their rocks off is considered to be a huge opportunity cost. A female founder conference is a workaround, and it makes you sound really out of touch to complain about it.

Good question. Who's looking after the interests of male founders?

I find it difficult to imagine a time where this would no longer need to be said. It's human nature.

Lean in!

I knew this would be the first comment. Isn't it disturbing that sexual harassment is so common that instead we're more offended by the act of self-defense?

I actually did read through the entire article in one sitting, but to be honest I'm surprised I did. My time spent is usually too fractured to permit this long a focus on anything that isn't either work or passive entertainment.

I can see how one can become dependent on more episodic consumption, designed to give clear break points and bring one comfortably back into the context at a later point when ready to continue. Those crutches would be comforting even if one ends up "binging" on the entire piece anyway.

It's plausibly deniable that you're contributing tithes specifically to take rights away from gays. It's hard to deny that if you're contributing to Prop 8.

a) When you fund "mormonism" or whatever, there is a lot of plausible deniability that you're not a bigot, as this is a huge population of people doing a mix of things, mostly good. In contrast, when you specifically fund Prop 8, you need a really good excuse.

b) Advocating for something that is purely prejudicial and hateful is deserving of censure.

As I said, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about holding people accountable for their political views in general, but I do have some rationale for leaning toward censure in this particular case.

The intent behind a financial contribution (or any other sort of contribution to a campaign) is to amplify one's vote by getting others to join in.

What makes this case so interesting is that the campaign in question is so specifically wrong. If it were for a candidate or party who has some questionable views, I'd feel inappropriate holding it against someone, but I'm not aware of any saving graces for Prop 8.

There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.

I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of political expression.

Something like this could work:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blmsaol.htm

Actually, it couldn't, except maybe for a small population. The trick is convincing a local government with major poverty issues to take a risk it probably doesn't think it can afford.

His "evidence" could just as easily be explained by the fairly common practice of fingerprinting inside information to catch leakers.

Correcting biases is actually the opposite of discrimination.

The reason why I said this is telling is because people scream and rant against attempting to correct biases as if it is about compromising on quality.

That's a good point, that it is about diversity but that it's only part of the entire picture.

I think people will complain about fairness even when they're not affected, because the tech community tends to have a strong knee-jerk reaction to this sort of thing. But it would be foolish to not consider diversity as one of many metrics to gauge how effectively one is avoiding costly biases.

What makes you think that's going to happen? Why aren't you just as concerned about the opposite bias? I think time will tell.

It's telling of the environment we're in that the author has to make such a heavy disclaimer about not doing things for diversity's sake. What would be so bad about admitting one cares about diversity? I think there's room in business to pursue one's values.

I didn't know that TechCrunch was strictly involved with reporting crime.

(Btw, TechCrunch asked.)

And Dave Chapelle walked out of a $50 million contract because something normal (a couple of white guys laughing at a funny skit) rubbed him the wrong way. Sometimes a seemingly normal occurrence can pierce through one's facade of denial so sharply that the toxicity of the environment becomes inescapably apparent. And then what are you supposed to do? Pretend like nothing matters? Hello existential crisis.

You're right, there is a preponderance of women complaining. We can only draw one conclusion: come on women, step it up!

No, people who are productive don't get harassed. Meritocracy, bro!

Nothing makes me roll my eyes harder than reverse-discrimination rebuttals. Inevitably the community focuses all its energy on character assassination to avoid sniffing its own stench.

No, let's cherrypick the easiest, most irrelevant claims so we can refute them. We're too busy and important to face the troubling and difficult issues that arise when women step out of place. We need to stay above that sort of drama, because we're professionals.

Besides, it's a proven fact that tech is a meritocracy.

Really? It sounded pretty gross to me:

"I just don't take these people seriously anymore. It seems like a uniquely north american woman phenomenon."

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