
Ask HN: Has political correctness gone too far? - anon3_
It feels as if there is a mob of silent assassins lurking on twitter and media outlets looking to out anyone who says anything that isn&#x27;t glowingly politically correct. They are sort of like &quot;political trackers&quot;, except they are targeting mostly white, male programmers - but in reality - anyone who disagrees with their narrative (whatever it is) is a heretic.<p>I find it offensive that there are claims of sexism in OSS and tech. Codes of conduct. I feel like I can&#x27;t give an opinion, or even make a mistake speaking without being stared down or ruining my career.<p>I don&#x27;t want to be politically correct. But it looks like they only way to survive is to be that.<p>Am I the only one who feels like outsiders are assaulting tech for their own selfish agenda, and we were already diverse by design decades ago?<p>Someone decided to flagkill what could otherwise be a constructive discussion: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9738526, https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9741640<p>Interestingly, that is an example of the kind of censorship that is taking it too far. I would like a discussion to happen and this not to be censored. Use an anonymous account so you can speak your mind without being persecuted.
======
dang
_Someone decided to flagkill_

No one "decides to flagkill". It's a cumulative effect of individual user
flags. When this happens to an active discussion, we typically unkill the post
so the discussion can continue, but don't otherwise override the flags. We did
that earlier with
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738526),
but not
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9741640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9741640)
(hadn't seen that one). Otherwise, no moderator touched those posts.

You can't just repost something n+1 times when it has been flagkilled n times.
If we allowed that, there would hardly be much point to flagging. So we're
going to demote the current post as a duplicate, but not kill it (again so
discussion can continue).

~~~
anon3_
> we typically unkill the post so the discussion can continue, but don't
> otherwise override the flags.

Dang, I don't see any conversation on Ask HN for any of the threads made,
despite the fact it was upvoted.

That thread,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9738526),
was killed and still is.

Thanks for unkilling it, if you did. It still looks killed to me. I deleted
the 4th post.

~~~
dang
> I don't see any conversation on Ask HN for any of the threads made

Flags affect ranking on that page just as they do on the front page.

------
duncan_bayne
Not posting anonymously because - I think - my opinions on this matter are
well known by those who know me.

1) There _is_ a sexism problem in tech. I have seen it first hand.

2) It's not present in all companies all of the time, and gender balance is
_not_ evidence, in and of itself, of the problem existing in a given
workforce.

3) Sexism is not unique to the tech industry. My wife is a qualified
helicopter pilot, and was told (in 2008!) "sure, send in your resume, but I
should warn you that we run an unofficial no-chicks policy" by one outfit she
applied to as a junior pilot.

4) The issues about which you're complaining - bullying, harassment, restraint
of trade etc. - are not in any way related to either sexism or the tech
industry. It's about power. Groups who have in the past been marginalised and
oppressed are now becoming powerful, and are abusing that power in exactly the
same way as their erstwhile oppressors. It's seen as okay by them and their
supporters, because it's targeted at 'bad people'. I used to work for a
University nearly two decades ago, and saw the same pattern play out there in
fields unrelated to tech. It's just taken a while to get rolling in our
industry.

As Rand once said: "every infringement of human rights has begun with the
suppression of a given right's least attractive practitioners". Mencius
Moldbug is the example who springs to mind here.

~~~
anon3_
The people who are accusing sexism are causing more damage to tech, and the
political correct censorship will likely causing bottled-up emotions which
will stir up sexists biases.

Regarding your #3 point, that is key. Sexism definitely exists in other areas.
But your wife was a _qualified helicopter pilot_. The most vocal accusers or
sexism in tech more often than not have scant to no qualifications or flimsy
to no proof of sexism.

~~~
duncan_bayne
"The most vocal accusers or sexism in tech more often than not have scant to
no qualifications or flimsy to no proof of sexism."

Even if true - and I'd like to see some evidence, please - that fact has no
bearing on whether or not there is sexism in the tech. industry.

E.g. I can call out the sexism my wife encountered despite having no
qualifications or experience in her industry.

------
JoshTriplett
It's offensive when anyone claims there _isn 't_ sexism in OSS and technology.
If you happen to have not noticed it, there are long lists of examples readily
available that you can peruse if you feel like making yourself sick. But any
good engineer should know that "I haven't seen it" does not mean "it doesn't
exist"; do you close every bug as unreproducible that you haven't already
observed personally before the report?

It's fine if you don't want to spend your career actively trying to solve this
particular problem; there are many other important problems to work on.
However, there's a big difference between "this isn't what I want to spend my
time fixing" and refusing to acknowledge that the problem exists, even when
there are plenty of people providing mountains of evidence to the contrary.
And at a minimum, it's worth taking the time to learn how to not further
propagate the problem yourself.

"we were already diverse by design decades ago"? No, that one is trivial to
refute; go look at the numbers.

Codes of conduct are a more formal way of saying "we're no longer willing to
put up with awful and abusive people just because they write good code". And
quite a few people have held that up as good policy in other contexts as well,
such as hiring.

Claiming that you "can't give an opinion, or even make a mistake" is
hyperbole. Sure, there are some topics you might want to be careful about; as
a general rule, it's a good idea to not pretend you're an expert in a topic
you know very little about, or you might embarrass yourself. There are also
various places you can go to ask introductory questions and learn, on topics
you're genuinely curious about. As for mistakes, it depends on the type of
mistake; a genuine mistake can often be handled with a genuine apology, while
a "mistake" of the form "I didn't mean to reveal that I'm a terrible person"
is unlikely to be swept under the rug. But if your complaint is that you want
somewhere you can be sexist or discriminatory without repercussion, find
another planet please.

~~~
anon3_
Where is the hard proof and evidence there is sexism?

~~~
JoshTriplett
Try
[http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents)
for a start, and other resources on the same wiki for more systemic issues.

------
KingMob
> we were already diverse by design decades ago

I would suggest actually asking (not talking) with minorities in tech about
how diverse/tolerant the tech industry appears to them. Part of being in a
privileged group is blindness to the experiences of those outside the group,
so without conversation, we live in an echo chamber.

Discrimination is rarely an intentional thing, but caused by our _unexamined_
attitudes and beliefs. I don't consider myself racist at all, but my half-
black fiance routinely points out blind spots I'd never noticed.

> I find it offensive that there are claims of sexism in OSS and tech.

This statement sort of assumes the claims are groundless. But until you ask
outsiders for their experiences, how can you be sure? What basis do you use
that you are so sure you're right?

~~~
anon3_
> Part of being in a privileged group is blindness to the experiences of those
> outside the group, so without conversation, we live in an echo chamber.

That's interesting. I haven't see it that way before.

> This statement sort of assumes the claims are groundless. But until you ask
> outsiders for their experiences, how can you be sure?

Good point, perhaps they will have stories where they have been judged by
their race. How can it be demonstrated it's not merely their own perception?
The court systems and the internet are both open, can anyone here point out
instances of discrimination?

However, asking for experiences without a process to vet the facts may lead to
the best data. Doesn't everyone sort of think they come out of unfair
circumstances one way or another?

~~~
JoshTriplett
> That's interesting. I haven't see it that way before.

If you're interested in reading about perspectives other than your own, the
Geek Feminism wiki is a good place to start; they've got a pile of resources,
as well as well-documented incidents.

Your first instinct in reading many of those may be some degree of shock,
denial, or a search for mitigating factors. Examine that reaction carefully,
resist the natural urge to reject data that contradicts your current views or
information, and keep reading.

And since it looks like you're taking either a scientific or legalistic
viewpoint in terms of seeking evidence, consider the term "preponderance of
the evidence". When you have enough incidents and enough perspectives arguing
that sexism is a thing, perhaps you should examine why you're attempting to
"debunk" it or make entitled demands for proof rather than listening.

------
blowski
One person's 'political correctness' is another person's 'being respectful'. I
have seen situations where a group of young white men make offensive jokes
about girls "because there were no girls in the room".

Be polite. Be nice. Be respectful. It would make the world a better place.
That means thinking about whether something you are saying or doing is making
other people uncomfortable, and then not doing it.

I think it's John Rawls who suggested thinking about the world you want to be
born into if you had no idea which gender or ethnic group or sexuality or body
type you would be born as. It's a sad truth that I would not want to be born
as a female with an interest in programming, and that makes me think there's a
sexism problem in programming.

Sure, there are baying mobs going around social networks who will attack just
about anybody for anything. But there are also good people rightly calling
people out for saying things that are totally unacceptable given their
position.

~~~
eevilspock
> _I think it 's John Rawls who suggested thinking about the world you want to
> be born into if you had no idea which gender or ethnic group or sexuality or
> body type you would be born as._

This is the cognitive dissonance of our selfish nature. People are willing to
buy home insurance because they don't know in advance whether they are in the
unlucky group whose homes will burn down, or the lucky group. They don't feel
jilted when their home doesn't burn down, and their premiums go to those whose
homes did. But since men know from the outset they are in the lucky gender,
many of them kick and scream when anything is taken away from them to help
level the playing field.

------
thaumaturgy
You couldn't get the community to be engage a topic you considered important
the first two times, so you're just going to keep re-posting it? Oh goody.

There might or might not be a reasonable discussion to be had on this subject.
The place for that is almost certainly not HN.

------
pi_neutrino
I'd partially agree that PC hasn't, as such, "gone too far", as much as the
loudest people pushing it have too much of a one-dimensional mindset. With
topics like this, there's never just one issue in play - there's a whole group
of similar issues, each of which is important in its own right, and I'm sure
we've all been in arguments where we've felt "How dare the other person avoid
the issue most important to me!"

duncan_bayne and JoshTriplett are right to point out that there's been a hell
of a lot of sexism around, and I think we can all agree it's hugely important
we fix that and move on as an industry. On the flipside, with any group
arguing any issue, you always get this moderate-fanatic spectrum, and people
pushing for political correctness aren't any different. It's not a PC thing,
or a SJW thing, it's a human thing. Happens to everyone. And that's what
anon3_, our OP, is talking about - the loudest people pushing this stuff tend
to (1) have a brittle, one-dimensional view of their subject matter, and (2)
outshout all the other people who are doing their damndest to combine staunch
support with tact and diplomacy, and both together create this oppressive
atmosphere that OP's talking about. Outrage culture. I don't mean to have a go
at them, much of the time it's because they've been on the receiving end of
some really traumatic prejudice, and anyone in their shoes would find
themselves reacting the same way - but there's just no getting away from the
fact that it damages their ability to communicate these issues with skill.

That's the thing - both issues, resolving topics as important as
institutionalised sexism, and the counterproductiveness of those who shout
about it the loudest - they're both true at once, and both important. I think
the question here isn't so much "how much should we dumb down any
complex/subtle opinions we might have so as not to inflame the SJWs?", but
rather "How do we best reconcile these topics?" The Short Short Short answer
is, probably, listen, and do your best to understand everyone, even if you
disagree with them.

~~~
anon3_
> hell of a lot of sexism around, and I think we can all agree it's hugely
> important we fix that and move on as an industry.

"Fixing sexism in tech"

1.) Sexist, Compared to what? 2.) At what cost? 3.) What are the hard facts?

------
meira
No. I think that some people went too far believing that the internet was
their own private club.

------
tomasien
The fact that there are people waiting to pounce on every mistake people make
is a bad thing. It is not helpful and we should give people room to be wrong
and to learn.

However, the parallel you seem to be trying to make between that and the
reality (that, in your opinion, there is no sexism problem in tech/OSS) is
equally wrong and probably much more destructive. I hope you continue to think
about that opinion, listen to those who it hurts when you can, and change your
mind eventually.

------
paulhauggis
"I don't want to be politically correct. But it looks like they only way to
survive is to be that."

It is the only way to survive. If you say the wrong thing, even if you aren't
attacking anyone, you could have your career or life ruined. Just look at the
ex-Mozilla CEO for a good example of this. He donated a small amount of money
in a cause he believe in, but because it didn't go along with the community
narrative, he was bullied online until he was forced to resign.

If it had been the reverse and he donated to a pro gay marriage fund and the
company was extremely religious, the same community would be on the side of
the CEO. This is what tells you it's all about politics and has nothing to do
with what people tell you (freedom, etc).

I just don't understand why we can't just live and let live.

In the end, it means that people like me that ordinarily just want to live and
let live now have to resort to under-handed tactics (like getting people fired
and ruining the lives of people) to make the world right.

~~~
orionblastar
I propose we call this the Brandon Eich Effect. Where if you hold an opinion
or donate to a charity that the community of social justice warriors doesn't
like, you can be removed and have your career ruined.

Most of these SJWs are left-wing so any right-wingers like Conservatives get
targeted and driven out of the industry. You kind of wonder why liberals
dominate tech, and then so see that anyone who doesn't hold liberal views gets
driven out of the industry.

I kind of liked the tech industry before politics became a major factor.

~~~
wfo
Politics are always a factor in every industry and every facet of life, it is
naive to think otherwise, politics are what happens when a large enough group
of people have to be led, be it in a company or a country.

As far as Eich is concerned there are three things to keep in mind: 1) He was
the public face of the company, he was supposed to represent Mozilla's values;
there was NO problem with Eich when he was an engineer or simple employee of
the company 2) It was a non-profit dedicated to openness and freedom and
inclusion on the internet 3) He refused to qualify or repudiate his hate
speech. It would be like appointing someone who had fought against multiracial
drinking fountains the head of the ACLU. Organization over.

Really it's the fault of the board who selected him without a thorough
vetting. Hateful and publicly expressed views like that have no place in the
public face of any inclusive organization; knowing your leader and boss wants
to take your rights away because he doesn't approve of who you have sex with
always creates a hostile work environment. They were just able to do something
about it because Mozilla stands for something and operates based on principles
rather than a top-down dictatorship like most corporations.

And honestly if he had explained how he planned on reconciling his hateful
views with managing gay employees and their marriages, etc. he may have been
allowed to stay.

~~~
BrendanEich
FYI, I co-founded Mozilla, helped spin it out of AOL, picked the founding team
that did Firefox and Thunderbird, led them as chief architect and then long-
term CTO, and finally led all of Engineering as Senior Vice President.

That you wrote "an engineer or simple employee" shows some lack of familiarity
with the history. Also, at what point prior to my taking CEO was I "ok" as a
boss and leader?

As for "repudiate his hate speech", I never uttered hate speech. A donation in
favor of Prop 8 is not on its face "hate speech" by any legal or sane
definition of the phrase. Nice try, though.

As for "take your rights away", that's also a disputed matter of definition,
not some ground truth to assume because you heard it somewhere. California had
Domestic Partner law to grant certain positive rights already granted to
Conjugal Marriage. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_California).

That wasn't enough, but many people including me, for religious and other
reasons, do not agree on redefining marriage as the best solution to any
remaining inequities.

To turn this history into "an engineer or simple employee" and "hate speech"
and me as CEO out to "take your rights" is grotesquely misleading.

~~~
wfo
One by one:

I would argue you're not the public face of the company until you are the CEO,
or a PR officer. While your primary job is involved with engineering or
architecture, you have a technical role, but as CEO your role shifts to become
primarily political and managerial. These roles do of course all blend
together at smaller companies, but the spotlight appears certainly the moment
you assume the mantle of CEO. You are right I don't know the history by heart
(certainly not as well as you do) but I think there's an argument to be made
that in most companies there is significantly less concern about the
politics/personal beliefs of non-CEO employees than the appointed public face.

While I certainly agree the donation doesn't fit the legal definition, I'd say
it falls under a very sane definition of hate speech, at least in the context
under which the proposition existed at the time and the movement it
represented. Prop 8 was an initiative designed as a symbolic gesture by anti-
gay (read: hate) activists to codify in law the explicit removal ("re-
removal", in the words of the judge who ruled on it) of rights from a
marginalized group of people. Vocal support for it is hate speech. Monetary
support is similar but more extreme. I don't think this characterization is
far off though I will admit it is unnecessarily incendiary because of the
unintended conflation with the legal term. So I will give you this; it is a
speech action, and it is hateful, but I shouldn't have characterized it as
hate speech.

And for many "take your rights away" exactly characterizes this initiative.
Though in California domestic partnerships exist which give the same rights as
a marriage, it's codifying in law that a gay relationship is 'less than' a
straight relationship. Removing the actual rights associated with the
partnership happens to be politically untenable in California, though it isn't
in many other states and so they have done exactly this; prop 8 was a symbolic
gesture to many that said "We can't take your rights away much as we'd like
to, but remember there are still a whole lot of anti-gay people in
California".

And since writing my original post I learned more about the history of the
incident, read your blog post on inclusiveness in response to the incident
which I found very passionate and compelling and changed my mind; I am still
vehemently opposed to prop 8 or any measure like it and I still think it's a
hateful and ugly thing to support, and that the public face of a company that
supports inclusiveness has no business issuing public statements in favor of
it, but I agree you were victimized by a crusade, the boycott was out of line
and inappropriate, and have no problem with the appointment.

So many news stories pass us by and all we retain from them are snippets of
blogspam or clickbait articles or comments on social media and we all get our
own impressions of how things occurred, often times they are horribly
distorted one-sided glimpses we have into the histories of actual events. I
think in general people in this age, myself especially included, are too quick
to condemn in situations they don't fully understand so I apologize and I
appreciate all the work you've done for Mozilla, and freedom and openness on
the internet.

~~~
BradCantrell
When gays talk about how they are being discriminated against by being
prevented from equal rights of marriage that straight people have, I think
this is kind of a 'me too' knee jerk reaction and I dont think most gays have
put any thought into what marriage really is. Marriage is not just a man and
woman committed to living together in a monogamous relationship, thats nothing
more than a formalized relationship. A marriage is a contract where a man
promises to provide for a woman and the children he has with her. Despite all
the talk of 'feminism' and 'patriarchy', we live in a society where women
still expects the man to provide for a her and the children they have
together. Where does this sense of morality come from? There are societies in
the world where men are not tied to women and children are raised as part of a
community. The fact is that the laws of marriage uphold an idea of the
christian family unit. All this hoohaw that gays make about how they can get
married too now is really just a cheap shot at gaining benefits for married
couples that are designed to offset the huge expense of having children. The
vast majority of gays dont have children so this is whole idea of them getting
married is just for show and to cash in on money they dont need. Heterosexual
men are the providers of the children of this country whether or not they get
married due to the child support laws that exist. There is a reason that many
countries call the 'marriage' between gays a civil union, because the vast
majority of the time thats all it is. These marriage and child support laws
are based on christian morality despite how much divorce lawyers would argue
that it grew naturally out of some kind of innate sense of justice.

~~~
BobNNN
So why don't you folks fight for changes in the law to only convey the
benefits of marriage to couples with children? Surely you'd include gay
couples in that if you did, right?

~~~
BradCantrell
Thats exactly what is GOING to happen, there is going to have to be legal
separation between married couple with and without children. In the past there
were financial benefits given to everyone who was married rather than waiting
till they have children to encourage couples to have children. Also because in
western culture we are raised with the idea that a man will support a woman so
she can stay in the home whether or not they have kids. All these implicit
assumptions are gone now that gays are married. Gay couples are much more
likely to be self-sufficient and not have one partner who relies on the other.
When a heterosexual couple divorces, the wife takes half even though most
often she did not contribute financially to the marriage because there is an
implicit idea here that the man is providing ALL the financial support in the
relationship. Tax and work benefits also make this assumption and so now we
are going to have a lot of gays trying to cash in on all these marriage
benefits even though they are most usually not supporting their spouse nor
ever going to have children. These issues did not come up in the past because
there were hardly any married gays, but now that gay marriage is federally
legal you are going to see more legal and statistical definitions
distinguishing between marriages where a spouse supports their significant
other and possibly children and and marriages who dont. Guess what, you are
going to find that 95% of the time that gays fall into the second category.

------
anonamuss
We won the Cold War. And now we've also lost the Cold War.

The whole political correctness thing and the social justice warriors who are
destroying everything decent in the world -- are simply the fruits on the neo-
marxists of the Frankfurt School.

Critical Theory.

Look it up. And while you're at it, look up The Frankfurt School.

It was always their plan to destroy capitalist society through the simple
strategy of complaining about shit without offering any solutions - and
creating class warfare on every possible front.

So the social justice warriors who play the oppression olympics are generating
classes of oppressors and oppressed out of thin air.

It is after all, impossible to wage class warfare without distinct classes.
One must always be the oppressor. Another must be the oppressed.

It's brilliant.

Evil.

But brilliant.

It's the new witch hunt. The new Spanish Inquisition. The new McCarthyism.
Tail-gunner Joe was an amateur.

 _Nobody expects the PC Inquisition!_

~~~
theorique
Cultural Marxism is no joke.

[http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-
correctness...](http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/)

