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1005 points femfosec | 2 comments | | HN request time: 1.786s | source
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jxidjhdhdhdhfhf ◴[] No.26613220[source]
This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner.
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pron ◴[] No.26614300[source]
Imagine a woman were to say, if we don't put an end to casual sexism, the end result we're heading for is that men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon.

A much more realistic and likely outcome, and a far less hysterical perspective than yours, is that the needle was way too far one way, now people are learning to cope with it shifting, and if we try to be more empathetic, perhaps getting help when we need to, we can shift it to a better place than it was before.

How do I know this? Because identical dynamics play over and over, change is scary, even if it is for the better, and people have opposed it on similar grounds -- it would lead to absurdities and worst outcomes for everyone involved -- since time immemorial. For example, see some arguments against women suffrage from just over a hundred years ago [1]:

> Because the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices. It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities.

> Because Woman Suffrage is based on the idea of the equality of the sexes, and tends to establish those competitive relations which will destroy chivalrous consideration.

And, of course, women do not want the vote [2]

The belief that we can -- and must -- work tirelessly change the world by, say, allowing humans to fly and even reach other planets, but when it comes to how people should speak to one another, well, that's too difficult to change, there's no point in trying, and if we try then the outcome will obviously be bad, just seems so bizarre.

[1]: https://www.johndclare.net/Women1_ArgumentsAgainst.htm

[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1903/09/why-wom...

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dang ◴[] No.26614516[source]
> men will take any woman they see, kidnap her, and lock her in a dungeon.

> And, of course, women do not want the vote

Please keep this sort of flamebait out of your HN posts. It's guaranteed to make everything worse, and you can make your substantive points without it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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pron ◴[] No.26614577[source]
The second was a quote from numerous reasoned arguments (which I linked to) posted in similar forums in the ear 20th century. Anyway, this thread is so terrifying (and brings back bad memories from my time in SV) that the natural reaction should be to scream in horror and not make any "substantive points." I am even more worried and, frankly, hurt that you don't see that. The most I could manage is try to hold a mirror up so that some people might see what they sound like to others.
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dang ◴[] No.26614677[source]
Usually when people describe their internet comments with phrases like "hold up a mirror" they're coming across as far more aggressive than they think they are. Everyone always feels like they're just playing defense while the others are committing outrages.

As for how shitty this thread is, I've spent the last several hours posting dozens of comments, feebly trying to do something about that. All I'm asking you (and others) is not to make it worse yet. Gratuitous provocation takes discussion straight to failure modes. We're all worse off if that happens.

How that's a reason not to make substantive points, or what it has to do with SV, I'm not following. The vast majority of HN is far away from SV, all over the world, and I've never seen a correlation between posts being shitty and posts being from SV. On the present topic there is probably a mild negative correlation, just because people in SV have been through so many iterations of this discussion, for so many more years than most places, that they're less likely to get activated with naive outrage.

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1. johnnycerberus ◴[] No.26619633[source]
To be fair, there are more people from UK and Eastern Europe (Russia, Romania, Poland, Ukraine) posting here than SV, probably because the majority of the software devs congregate in these countries.
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2. dang ◴[] No.26627714[source]
FWIW, I don't think that matches the numbers either.