> If, however, we are still talking about the case of censoring out profanity, you know my opinion. The people who are filtered out (or constitute the "less diversity") are the sort of people who get offended by me making use of a basic freedom (the one of speech). I am not interested in meeting people like that - frankly I hope they stay as far away from me as fucking possible.
This is interesting. My instinctive reaction to someone trying to censor me is pretty damn negative, and I can swear like a sailor. On the other hand, what you wrote reminded me of a super sweet, gentle guy that I worked with once who was just genuinely freaked out by my profane manner. From a different country, deeply religious, etc. etc. I found out from a third party that the guy was weirded out by the way some of us carried ourselves, since the guy was a gentleman and wouldn't/couldn't say anything.
Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general. He was always nice to me and a very, very skilled worker, someone I respected, so it would have seemed churlish to me to do otherwise.
> If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I'm not sure what we should do with the guys who aren't clever enough to pick up on such signals but I'm open to a Soylent Green sort of option. (attending the average hacker event seems like a punishment all its own to me, so I'm useless for envisioning rules for something like that. Punish them by making them attend more hacker events?)
> More and more we live in a culture where people think it's their right to feel offended for anyone saying anything that makes them fell that way to just be shut up by someone (some faculty department for instance).
Um, it is someone's right to feel offended, you can't control how anyone else feels. Now others can determine whether someone taking offense at something is reasonable in the situation, but people have the right to feel whatever they feel.
Now sometimes it becomes problematic when people who feel offended attempt to shut down discourse, that much is true.
> It is becoming basically a Politically Correct culture of censorship and we keep seeing opinion texts (just like this one) that appeal to that censorship like if it was a good thing.
I don't see it as more and more people becoming jerks, I see it as more and more people becoming thin skinned.
Or maybe there are whole groups of people who had to accept unkind behavior in the past in silence, who now are demanding better treatment. Women in the workplace have had to (and still do) put up with all manner of misogynist nonsense and more women and men are saying this is no longer acceptable. To that, some will complain that things are becoming too 'PC' but the fact is that poor behavior that was tolerated in the past is no longer tolerated.
Same deal with race. A few decades ago it was ok to refer to a grown black man as, "boy" in any context. It was okay to disparage other races openly at home, at work, in public, now it largely isn't. Some will cry 'Censorship!' or whatever but the fact is that social norms of decency are relegating those attitudes to history. The people complaining are the ones who refuse to accept that those attitudes belong in the past.
> This is an indicator of the bubble you're living in
And your comment is the epitome of another very common bubble: the language police / SJW bubble.
You come across as if you think that censoring strangers on the internet (for what is actually the most common usage of a most common English word) is actually going to bring about some positive change in the issue of sexism. And you do it with the utmost arrogance, as if you were the messiah of equality.
If you talked to people like that in real life, noone would give you the time of day. I know I wouldn't.
> It might be worth taking a step back and asking yourself what other things you consider normal might actually be disrespectful.
> so the non-asshole thing to do is to just use their preferred pronoun.
I agree. I completely agree. I myself call the transgender people in my life by their preferred pronoun.
I also find compelling someone's speech by threat of banning them to be disgusting. Especially when there's a block button available. If you don't like what someone's saying, you can literally ignore everything they say.
Herein lies the conundrum for me - for, what seems to be, an increasingly large group of people, its not enough to simply stop interaction with people they don't like, those people have to be removed from the landscape altogether. I just do not see this ending in any positive way.
> Post enough slurs about queer people and somehow the harrasment happens without anyone having been explicitly told to do it. Post enough slurs about Muslims and someone will eventually shoot up a mosque in New Zealand.
They'd do that anyway.
Personally, as a gay woman, I prefer letting people say slurs because then I know who to avoid. (Which isn't to say that I think services/people can't set their own rules - Cloudflare and DDoS-Guard are within their rights to drop KF as a customer). Stopping people from calling me a dyke or carpet-muncher doesn't make them not homophobic, it makes it harder for me to suss out who to avoid.
> But you can't tell me that censoring talking about them won't have a backlash.
Yes, exactly my point. I find it very strange to fight a stereotype by acting in a way that could easily be casted into the said stereotype. If anything this will even make it stronger.
> I've seen first hand other Latinos completely over-react and get defensive in situations which were completely uncalled for.
> Someone makes a joke about Mexican food and they feel 'belittled and insulted'. Then because they are so insanely sensitive and tend to take everything personally, other co workers ignore them. To me, that's the logical conclusion of what happens to people with a victim mentality. I'm Latino and feel they were wrong for being sensitive. Am I wrong too?
This is a personality difference. Who's wrong depends on the unknowable intentions of the different people you interact with. In a more practical sense, who's wrong depends on who gets better results from their interactional style. You seem to be saying that these other people are suffering penalties for their heightened sensitivity; on that analysis, you're right and they're wrong.
> Both of these are 'sexual harassment'. One of them would warrant a VERY strong response. The other... not so much so. I think some people when they read sexual harrasment think one extreme while others think the other. But this only leads to people talking over each other without understanding. Using words with specific and concrete definitions is necessary for communication.
> At some point in the last century, words related to victims and attacks became so open ended that it's really hard to understand what is being discussed.
These terms are intentionally vague for diplomatic, coalition-building purposes, in the same way that an important treaty between premodern Russia and China was drawn up in Latin, so that the treaty could avoid clearly stating anything that either side didn't want to see in there. Clear communication isn't the goal, it's something that people are actively trying to frustrate.
Compare this discussion from Mary Beard's SPQR:
>> The first word of the second book of Livy's History, which begins the story of Rome after the monarchy, is 'free'; and the words 'free' and 'freedom' are together repeated eight times in the first few lines alone. The idea that the Republic was founded on libertas rings loudly throughout Roman literature...
>> But how was Roman liberty to be defined? That was a controversial question for the next 800 years, through the Republic and into the one-man rule of the Roman Empire when political debate often turned on how far libertas could ever be compatible with autocracy. Whose liberty was at stake? How was it most effectively defended? How could conflicting version of the freedom of the Roman citizen be resolved?
>> All, or most, Romans would have counted themselves as upholders of libertas, just as today most of us uphold 'democracy'. But there were repeated and intense conflicts over what that meant.
No, you don't. By your extremely aggressive tone, I can see that not only you completely misunderstood my post, but also was offended by it.
Not only that, you don't even seem to think that maybe you don't know, that there are different ways to voice and interpret messages.
I'm not making an appeal to emotion, I'm explaining that perhaps you can't comprehend why people act in a certain manner because you're not in their place. That is normal, we all do it. It has nothing to do with gender or skin color, just with not being in the place of the other person.
I even tried to make it very clear:
> Also, please don't think that I'm judging you or saying that you're a bad person because of it. We all share the same difficulties, and that doesn't make us better or worse, just humans.
But you just chose to ignore it and believe in your own truth.
So not only you don't know what I meant, you intentionally ignored my clarification and decided to create your own reality. And I'm sure that no matter what I say, you'll continue to claim that I just mean to offend you.
> Do you know why i ignored it? Like, when im with other adults, the tone is much harsher sometimes, especially when we are drunk. So you need to have the skin for that, which is generally a useful trait in life. So i assumed your argument featuring a fragile cis man was due to a lack of social experience.
Generally speaking, 'having thick skin' doesn't give you carte blanche to be an asshole to someone else. If you're an asshole to a coworker and you tell them to get thicker skin, you're likely going to be fired at worst if not reprimanded. That has nothing to do with fragility, that has to do with people not wanting to associate with you. As an aside: Having 'thick skin' means effectively not standing up for yourself when someone's being a dick which is generally a not useful trait in life. There's a balancing act between being getting angry at the drop of a pin and letting someone abuse you.
> Did i stereotype an entire group? I explicitly stated that i have problems with a specific behaviour from a part of a group, and explicitly told that parts of the group don't exhibit this behaviour. You ignored that.
Yes you did.
> I don't wish to work with self-identified transgender people due to this anymore. They take everything so personal even if its not about them.
Is stereotyping. Replace 'transgender' with 'black' and you'd be racist instead of transphobic.
> I said that i was leaving communities due to this behaviour. I'm the one leaving, not the transgender people. I'm, at most, ostracizing myself.
Usually I find when people say this, they don't actually leave the community. They're usually chasing off other users, often causing other drama in their wake.
> And then you come and go accuse me of arguing in bad faith. Seriously. You are just looking for something to get offended about.
Because you are arguing in bad faith. The fact that you choose to think that I'm 'looking for something to get offended about' just further proves my point.
> I got that too (not on HN), even though it didn't have anything to do with sex. It is terrible that some people can't engage others without trying to dismiss the opposing point of view as product of some kind of flaw in other's mind, which is not worth discussing on merits but only considered how to eliminate it.
Which slurs do people use when they call your employer and neighbors? What strategies did you employ when someone threatened to swat your workplace describing you as the gunman?
> I would really appreciate if you did not attribute to me something that I demonstrably never said. That would make the discussion much saner.
I attribute to you the behavior you're exhibiting AND the behavior you're willing to stand up for and defend. You've taken the position of owning both here.
Why do I do this? Let me quote an example of what you invoke without any actual ties to the CoC or the discussion at hand:
> I know to behave myself and I do so without any PC police around. I have done so for years before some of the PC police members were even born, let alone learned to log in to Twitter. The sad part is not "behaving", the sad part is conflating "behaving" with not veering even to a iota from the ever growing demands of the dominant orthodoxy,
Really. Even an "iota" of veering from "the dominant orthodoxy." See: you can't have this both ways. You can't restrict the conversation when it's suitable but continue to throw these little zingers in there. If you know how to "behave yourself" then this CoC is meaningless to you. A codification of rules you find reasonable. But you consistently invoke the specter of being penalized as a serial harasser, so you're offering to defend that position even if you don't exhibit those behaviors here.
> There's nothing wrong with anonymity.
Not when used responsibly. I believe this argument is used with guns as well? And we're told to blame people, not the tools? And part of that blame and penalization mechanism is a revocation of privileges for bad and abusive actors.
So what are you actually complaining about?
> But if somebody gets into a debate with you about something you care deeply about, and takes an opposing view - no, doxxing them, or trying to get them removed from their job, or trying to cause them other financial or physical harm is not the right answer. Even if you feel really deeply about them being wrong.
Ahh yes. "I'm very sorry these people are doing awful things to you that I say are wrong, but that has nothing to do with me. And I don't believe you when you say it happens because these people you accused deserve the benefit of the doubt even in an anonymous fashion, so I won't condemn them even as I condemn you for being too mean."
Sure, they suffer minor inconveniences and immediately forgiven career setbacks and I suffer threats to my life, physical intimidation and property damage but isn't it all the same in the end?
> They are people with names, jobs and livelihoods, that get destroyed because they made a joke once or disagreed with somebody on a hot political topic, or have some interests that are not mainstream enough.
Which is a overwhelmingly a polite euphamism for, "A joke casually dehumanizing someone, implying they're not entitles to the full rights of citizens, or invoking a dark history of oppression and genocide." You know, things you're invested in laughing about.
> It's their project as much as others. They are part of the community, and have a voice just as any other member of the community would.
And it has been rejected as a cruel minority who's contributions do not outweigh their harassment. We all know this. They voted, they lost. Fork Linux.
> The people who felt unwelcome before CoC could fork it too, couldn't they? But you wouldn't accept that as a solution, would you?
Actually, "go work on another project" has been the solution for women, LGBT people and introverts interested in that project. This is simply a shift in the window of acceptable behavior. This is how Linux governance is DESIGNED to work, and in the absence of finite property rules as per land consumption, it's literally the game theoretic optimal.
What you're actually defending is harassers having control of the resources and attention of the Linux project, of course. I get that.
> You seem to be under impression that majority equals being right, Didn't you just describe yourself as being a part of a minority?
The way I know you're not arguing in good faith is that you compose these smallworld arguments in the isolation of a paragraph or two, often losing the larger plot. I'm an non-binary individual who likes Bayesian statistics and Haskell. I'm acutely aware that a being in a minority group can hold a valid but rejected opinion. Obviously.
But it's rhetorically convenient to suggest that I'm allied with some oppressive, uncaring majority that has historically oppressed your people. And it's nonsense in the context of the Linux CoC, because it is an ideal democracy. You can always win the vote by forking the community and the primary incentive of aligning with the majority is to pool resources.
The truth is that more resources (in both humans and dollars) will go to the project with these changes, and that more people will be happier there. And that's why it's going to work. And that's why folks like ESR are trying to use threats and violence and galting to stop it.
>> The worst case I saw of this so far was an event organised by my workplace, for teaching programming. But straight white men were banned. If you were a white man you had to show photos from Facebook to prove you were gay.
Wow I never experienced anything like that.
I do find some things in popular media offensive though nowadays.
For example, I saw on Netflix there was a show called "Dear white people" and I find the title kind of racist. I'm white, I work ridiculously hard (I have no life) but at this stage in my life, I'm basically a loser (and I'm still working very hard to try to change this) so I feel hurt when other people insinuate that white people like me have it easy and don't understand real life. It's rubbing salt into the wound.
I think if there was a show called "Dear black people" or "Dear working single moms", there would rightfully be a massive backlash.
> Many people don't want to accept the position that they were purposely insulting other people when these terms were in widespread use.
True, but I think it's important to notice that you're not purposely insulting people until you start defending this terminology that can be oppressive for some people. Everyone in this entire thread had the opportunity to go "you know what, if this makes someone feel unwelcome, I get that. Perhaps a good idea to change it". It's when people start defending something that is both "so unimportant that they don't understand" but also super important that it doesn't change just gives a really weird vibe.
I just can't seem to understand why people are so unwilling to just be a little bit more welcoming, even if it is hypothetical according to them.
> Even more interesting is your attempt to shut down the conversation because it offends you.
That brings up an interesting issue for me. It's a somewhat popular trope, that there is an equivalence between Amy offending people and Bob asking her to stop. It's really a rhetorical tactic -- an attempt to disrupt Bob by forcing him to philsophically justify what is obviously and intuitively true to everyone.
There may be a question of whether something is offensive or otherwise does harm to others, of course. But absolutely if someone finds something offensive, they should stand up and say so -- and not be shut down by the new political correctness (i.e., the frequent knee-jerk reaction to people who point out issues of race, gender, etc.).
| I have seen worse pictures on the side of a bus shelter
So? That makes it any less wrong?
| Society suffers when everyone has to tiptoe around some
deranged minority's wacky list of things to be outraged about
Do you have evidence about this? I think that's quite the contrary. Surely free speech is important, having personally experienced the aftermath of a communist regime, and not being allowed calling a turd for what it is surely sucks. But this is a different story.
And I think that deranged minority you're speaking of are the women.
| I could not care less if a small number of easily-offended
prudes are scared away by a mild show of skin.
What ever happened to manners?
Personally I don't care about looking professional. I don't like the term, because "professional" means working for money, and I happen to enjoy what I do.
But this isn't about being professional or not. This is about respecting other people. It's about showing courtesy to others, such that the others can do the same for you. I don't know in what society you live in, but I'm fed up with the racist, antisemitic and generally foul language in the one I live in. Maybe you've been spoiled? ;)
> Well that's really the only bar we have for offensive language, isn't it?
We can construct any bar we'd like.
You seem to completely dismiss concern for the bar being too low, why is that? Lots of people might feel sort of offended by women showing their hair -- should we accept that bar?
> People need to grow far thicker skin when it comes to words.
I prefer this viewpoint: "a culture where the only people able to contribute to the national conversation are thick-skinned, insensitive, white, straight males who can repel or ignore this ugly trench of abuse is not a culture any thinking person should want to live in." http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/laurie-pen...
I also suspect that turning this into a conversation about spam and how this happens to everyone would be classed as "derailing"
> What? Sure they do. They were clothing that puts them in a particular group. (Or do you feel you'd have a hard time identifying punks or businessmen?) Or they'll wear religious symbols. Or speak with an accent. Or carry a firearm. Or any number of other external identity markers beyond gender.
None of that is control, and it would be equivalent of a transsexual choosing their dress and appearance - which they already do.
It isn't that these requests are unreasonable, it is simply that this is a situation that goes well beyond basic politeness. This is asking society to change how it uses language.
And this change being achieved by bureaucratic fiat rather than because everyone thinks it is a good idea. It may or may not work out, but it just isn't basic politeness - there is real change being pushed here.
> You aren't the one who gets to decide when other people feel uncomfortable.
> it's other people feeling oppressed
Seems a bit hypocritical doesn't it? You are sort of correct.
The only person who gets to decide if "he/she" (notice the political correctness?) is offended is "himself/herself." Just as you cannot tell someone he/she is offended, you cannot tell anyone he/she is being offensive. The only person who can label someone as offensive is the person who is offended by the words.
Stop getting offended over pointless shit. Nothing can be offensive without offensive intent. 99% of the time, the problem lies with the person getting offended, not the person doing the offending. Nobody has an obligation to feel like they are walking on glass when he/she opens his/her mouth.
On the contrary. It’s the very context you wrote about is often missing in online conversations. Your anecdote beautifully illustrates the absurdity trap too much well-meaning tolerance eventually trips.
I’m reminded of a Red Dwarf episode (Timewave, S12E03). A crew of a space ship decided to outlaw all criticism on board, going so far as too construct a machine extracting “the inner critic” from
everybody. The Red Dwarf crew encounters them and wants to leave immediately after, because, quote: “nothing works here, especially the people.”
It’s quite straight-forward that the posts’ author struggles with mental health issues. By their own public admission (and accounting for preferred pronouns) it is transgender, hates its body and is rather inconsistent and confrontational. All fine by me. I don’t care how you find happiness or whatever else. But it should be entirely possible to remark upon those facts without experiencing retribution.
Yet somehow any remark regarding their mental health state gets self-censored by the first mention of insensitivity, no doubt fearing said retribution.
>If you wanted to tie yourself in knots, you are succeeding.
I'm actually being sardonic. The political correctness police are a bit tiresome. My point is that, if one wishes, they can analyze any statement to be as sexist, racist, homophobic, etc... Including yours.
>The degradation that I saw was that, in the analogy, women are sexually objectified
If women are 'sexually objectified' by other women is it a problem?
Why did you overlook the completely racist message in his analogy? Assuming most men prefer blonds assumes white culture, which is racist since I doubt black and asian men feel the same. I don't know, maybe I'm racist for doubting that assumption?
Also if a character's gender isn't identified in a story, is it sexist to assume that character's gender is the same as the storyteller? I was guilty of that one too.
This where the P.C. police trip over their own logic and fall into the pile of B.S. they've created.
This is interesting. My instinctive reaction to someone trying to censor me is pretty damn negative, and I can swear like a sailor. On the other hand, what you wrote reminded me of a super sweet, gentle guy that I worked with once who was just genuinely freaked out by my profane manner. From a different country, deeply religious, etc. etc. I found out from a third party that the guy was weirded out by the way some of us carried ourselves, since the guy was a gentleman and wouldn't/couldn't say anything.
Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general. He was always nice to me and a very, very skilled worker, someone I respected, so it would have seemed churlish to me to do otherwise.
> If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I'm not sure what we should do with the guys who aren't clever enough to pick up on such signals but I'm open to a Soylent Green sort of option. (attending the average hacker event seems like a punishment all its own to me, so I'm useless for envisioning rules for something like that. Punish them by making them attend more hacker events?)
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