"The woman who took the photograph, Adria Richards, soon felt the wrath of the crowd herself. The man responsible for the dongle joke had posted about losing his job on Hacker News, an online forum popular with developers. This led to a backlash from the other end of the political spectrum. So-called men’s rights activists and anonymous trolls bombarded Richards with death threats on Twitter and Facebook."
Wow, this almost makes it sound as if HN is a bunch of MRA losers :( A pity it's so sloppily worded (unless it's true, in which case, ugh).
I was surprised at the lapse in thorough reporting at that point in the article. It was because a few women in the tech community wrote about her history of passive-aggressive bullying. This made clear that it was not a men-vs-women issue and gave the backlash the legitimacy that led to Richards' dismissal.
I wouldn't say that HN "is" a bunch of MRA losers; HN is a big place, and there are a lot of different types of people on it.
But there are a bunch of MRA losers on HN. How many, it's hard to tell; maybe a few that are very vocal, maybe a few with many sockpuppets, maybe a lot. If you ever get involved in a thread about any issue about women in technology, programs for encouraging women in technology, or the like, you will see them come out of the woodwork (and such threads will frequently drop off the front page as the long comment threads trigger HN's algorithm that try to discourage flamewar topics).
"MRA is short for Men's Rights Activist. MRAs argue that, as human beings, men should have human rights, due process in legal matters, and should not be subject to "reverse discrimination" in favor of other groups.
MRAs typically point to men's lower life expectancy in almost every country, higher rates of incarceration, more severe penalties for similar offenses, lower rates of health care spending and health research spending on men, higher suicide rates, higher rates of being subject to violence and murder including by women and when they are children, higher rates of genital mutilation, liability to conscription, higher rates of death at work, various disadvantages in divorce and child support, and higher school and college dropout rates, as reasons why men's rights should be on the agenda."
A lot of people feel that since men are privileged in so many areas, no effort should be expended on men's issues until every women's problem is entirely resolved. Due to that scapegoating Men's Rights Activists as people who hate women is popular.
So how does any of that make you a loser? What's going on in this thread? As far as I can tell it's nothing more than a similar type of bullying the article is itself is talking about, which I didn't ever expect to see on HN, let alone tolerated.
At what point can you no longer express controversial opinions without being called a loser?
It doesn't make MRA losers. If it did there would be no reason to tack the word loser on. Being an mean, agressive alcoholic bum implies being a loser so you don't often see loser tacked on.
On the Internet, someone is already calling you a loser, possibly without your knowledge. It's best to worry more about the folks who have greater power to destroy your social standing than just simple name-calling.
And to provide a sentinel value for the previous search space, I'll just say it. You, and everyone else who may be wondering if someone on the network is calling them a loser, are all losers.
Now that's taken care of, and you can go about your business, expressing controversial opinions without worrying about incurring greater harm to yourself than has already occurred.
The reason you'll get banned for such behavior, and the whole reason why such behavior is against the rules, is because personal attacks are counterproductive to logical discussions. When HN degenerates into a group of people who go around calling other groups of people losers, that does not bode well.
It was, I admit, somewhat of an obscure joke. I realized, after my first sentence, that I couldn't be certain that it was true. So I added a sentinel value.
>As far as I can tell it's nothing more than a similar type of bullying
It absolutely is. "MRA" is a short cut to dismiss an entire spectrum of arguments and perspectives. Just as farcical, but on the opposite side, are people who declare anyone who has a problem with something like, say, "GamerGate", a "SJW".
These are shorthand for idiots. It lets you pretend that you're in a tribe and everything is black and white.
I am an advocate for men's rights for many of the reasons you cite, but I also acknowledge that there really are people who adopt the MRA label who are bitterly misogynist nutjobs who have no interest in a more just and equal society, but are rather the flip-side of those misandric feminists who believe--amongst other things--that "rape is nothing less than a conscious conspiracy by all men against all women" (likely not an exact quote as it's from memory, but Brownmiller says something with the same meaning.)
The problem is that misogynist MRAs disrupt the possibility of positive change the same way misandric feminists like Brownmiller and McKinnon do. Because they share a label with sane people, they allow the enemies of sanity to mount a trivially plausible ad hominem against any proposal to genuinely address the real injustices that men and women face due to the simple fact of being a man or a woman.
There are lots of good reasons to talk about issues affecting men, but sadly the bad parts of the MRM far outweigh the good at this point. I'd say it's 85% bashing feminism, complaining about women's sexual power (e.g. The Friendzone), denying and minimizing rape as a social problem, etc. and only 15% talking about fathers' custody rights and boys' education issues.
I don't think HN is a bunch of MRA losers, but it's certainly closely connected to places that are. (as in, lots of people participate in HN who also participate in places that could be characterized as such)
She tried, very intentionally, to use the social media "machine" to punish what she deemed deviant behaviour, the fact that that same machine turned on her is both unsurprising if you're paying attention, but also a little deserved.
While the original joke was childish, I cannot think of one adult working in any industry who's never said something in a similar vein (or pointing out someone else's phasing might have a double meaning, and so on). It really has nothing to do with gender politics, she was just on a quest and picked up any small examples she could find.
Nobody should have been fired. That's on the employers. However if anyone was going to be fired she deserved it the most, simply because she started this ball rolling on purpose, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I can't really blame SendGrid for thinking that a tech evangelist who deliberately publicly shamed a couple of developers over an unfunny private joke is maybe not a good fit. This doesn't justify all the abuse that followed, though.
Also, her job at the time was as a developer evangelist. The high-profile name-and-shame she had engaged in would have made any developer within a hundred miles hesitant to deal with her at all, making her far less effective at her job.
She dog-whistled the mob, no doubt that mob gave death threats.
People lose their shit when anonymous trolls send death threats to prominent women, but typically completely ignore the same happening to men. Perhaps women get more because they react more? Perhaps people shouldn't feed the trolls?
Please don't reply to this with a pithy feel-good response like "nobody should send death threats!". It's like saying "there shouldn't be war in the world!". It's an obvious goal that everyone agrees on, but there is no way to achieve without use of totalitarian control over the world/internet - something I'm sure we can agree is unacceptable.
You seem to be confused about what "dog whistle" means. She wasn't using secret SJW shibboleths.
> no doubt that mob gave death threats
"No doubt"! What a convenient way to assert that something happened without having to provide evidence for it.
> typically completely ignore the same happening to men
No doubt you have evidence of this, too. No doubt you have evidence that this happens to as many men as women, and as often, so as to warrant equivalent reactions.
> but there is no way to achieve without use of totalitarian control over the world/internet
You need to have a very limited imagination and near-total ignorance of history to think that positive change only comes about via totalitarian means.
It's surprising how many have fallen for the "MRA" thing. In the case of Adria Richards, she bullied a person and misrepresented a situation to the point of getting a man fired from a job, torch mob in close pursuit. I don't care if such bullies are men or women, be wary living by the sword because, as Adria learned, often you'll "die" by one (metaphorically...though someone somewhere will declare that a vile death threat from the oppressors).
Torch mobs are an atrocity. They were against a gentleman making a lame but benign joke. They are against someone posting some random thought-crime tweet. They are against the people who send the torch mobs in fast pursuit.
And equally to blame are people in positions of power who bend so easily to torch mobs. If you immediately fire someone for something that would be at most a warning, all because a mob demands it, you are the problem, and a coward to boot.
HN isn't completely made up of MRA types, but if you've been noticing there are a lot of them here (along with your more typical "SJWs out to get us" types).
HN is in general no longer held with the same regard it was a couple of years ago. Note the number of progressive, well-respected regulars who've left this place behind.
There are other avenues to discuss tech and tech issues without ancaps, MRAs, and anti-SJW crusaders trying to internet-fight you at every turn.
> HN isn't completely made up of MRA types, but if you've been noticing there are a lot of them here (along with your more typical "SJWs out to get us" types).
This much is true.
> HN is in general no longer held with the same regard it was a couple of years ago.
This may be true in some circles, but I don't think its generally true. Its probably true that HN is seen by some who participated in it earlier as less of an exclusive club of like-interested folk as it has gained popularity, but that's going to happen with any narrow forum over time that doesn't have an exclusionary wall for membership (and exclusive walls of membership have their own problems which will can erode the image of a forum over time in different ways.)
> Note the number of progressive, well-respected regulars who've left this place behind.
Such as...?
> There are other avenues to discuss tech and tech issues without ancaps, MRAs, and anti-SJW crusaders trying to internet-fight you at every turn.
Well, I suppose you could have a forum with a political litmus test for membership or heavy-handed pre-publication moderation of comments, but given how much the tech community overlaps with the ancap, MRA, and anti-SJW crusader communities -- and, perhaps more importantly, the reaction many outside those communities would have to the kind of approaches necessary to eradicate the unwanted comments -- you'd probably lose some value for actual tech and, particularly, tech issues discussions.
Ahah, not about to name names - the trouble with openly naming people who are opposed to MRAs/anti-SJWs is that the demographic is also very, very adept at launching internet lynch mobs.
Sadly the events of the past half-year or so have succeeded in silencing some people who would otherwise speak, for fear of being doxxed, swatted, or otherwise harassed (where harassment goes above and beyond receiving angry messages of disapproval).
If the people who have left HN because of the toxicity want to make themselves known, they should do that. It's not my place to direct the people they want to avoid straight to their doorstep.
A good place to start would be the top posters list and seeing who's still around. Many of these folks still read HN but no longer participate in comments. Many read HN and have their commentary elsewhere. I know some of them, I certainly don't know all of them.
> "you'd probably lose some value for actual tech and, particularly, tech issues discussions."
Yeah, this is where idealism and values run head-first into the brick wall of reality, and no one really knows how to fix it.
We like freedom of speech, we dislike heavy-handed moderation especially when it comes to things that inform our views. At the same time we have real instances of abuse, and we have even more instances where extremists in one camp can simply shout down any dissent (extremists, for some reason, have a lot more time to comment on the internet than the rest of us).
I don't think anyone really knows the right answer to this. We want to preserve intelligent discussion, but at the same time give minority views held in good faith a fair shake. The solution thus far has been for people to abandon communities with toxic demographics, but that hasn't really solved the core problem - it's just hit the reset button until the new community itself attracts the wrong crowd.
> Yeah, this is where idealism and values run head-first into the brick wall of reality, and no one really knows how to fix it.
That's the thing. We do know how to fix it. We just don't know how to fix it in a way that preserves social mechanisms such as public shaming of people you disagree with.
If you're internet-dogpiling people or taking creepshots and getting people fired for jokes not even directed at you, I will happily internet-fight you for being an awful person.
It's amazing how self-described "progressives" can come in here and happily defend this kind of behaviour. I hope you find a nice new website and never have your views challenged again.
I... what? Hold your horses, there's an awful lot of projection here.
I haven't come in here to defend internet lynch mobs - there's literally not a word in my post condoning it.
The bulk of tech progressive aren't the ones spoiling for a Twitter fight, they're the silent majority that's reading posts on HN, rolling their eyes, maybe sighing a little bit, and moving along with their lives. They're not orchestrating backlashes, brigades, or downvote chains, or any such devices. The most they're doing is emailing a link to some comment to their friends with a "sigh, HN again" quip - and I've received many such messages.
Heck, I know people who read HN - but only the links - knowing what a cesspool the comments are going to be. Heck, this is me on most days.
These are the people I'm talking about - the ones who've largely left this place behind because the tone of the community has shifted to one where any talk of race, gender, or even age (or in fact any talk of institutional problems in the industry) is automatically the work of professional victims (and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior") out to oppress techies. The general tenor of the community here now has a very distinctly reactionary twist, which has caused people to bail for greener pastures.
I'm sorry, I was overreaching. Your reply seemed to support the OPs idea that Adria Richards was harassed for no reason by "MRA losers".
>These are the people I'm talking about - the ones who've largely left this place behind because the tone of the community has shifted to one where any talk of race, gender, or even age (or in fact any talk of institutional problems in the industry) is automatically the work of professional victims (and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior") out to oppress techies.
I won't deny that the MRA side is often reactionary, but you must admit that the "social justice" side is just as bad. The internet of today is designed for reactionism, makes it so easy to react and so easy to find controversial conversations.
This is something I've noticed a lot - both sides are as bad as each other. Both claim to be better people, but both are so mired in faeces that they haven't even noticed they're throwing it themselves. (I've been up for 36 hours that's the best I can come up with).
> (and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior")
That's a very opinionated statement. Unfortunately, few agree on the definition of SJW, so everyone makes up their own. Pretending that there isn't a clique of 'progressives' in the tech world doing their best to cause trouble is just fantasy. Look at Adria's creepshot/dog whistling, the elevatorgate thing, that time Ben Noordhuis was forced out of the Node community because of a SJW hate mob enraged over a pronoun, or this thing: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32778.html. SJWs exist, and have done plenty of damage to the industry.
They've also no doubt scared many young women away from STEM careers through their wild stories about misogyny and dudebro cultures in the tech world. Would you, as (possibly) a woman, want to work in an industry frequently proclaimed to be an unaccepting boys club? Funnily enough, the proclaimers of such always seem to benefit personally from such attacks, landing cushy "developer relations" jobs and hefty sums on patreon. That's where the "professional victim" label comes from.
Also, it's worth noting Ben Noordhuis wasn't forced out of the Node community - just the core contribution team (although I do believe he chose to take a break afterward). His company, StrongLoop, would go on to be the owners of the Express repo, and Ben Noordhuis is one of the contributors to IO.js.
I see a lot of what you're saying happening, and subjectively, it has gotten worse. One interesting thing is that I see this popping up in comment sections and forums far removed from HN - neo-monarchists, redpillers, neo-objectivists, and their loosely related ideological ilk have spread far and wide. At the same time, the ILM does seem out of control, both on the SJW and anti-SJW sides. The Internet has become an excellent hate amplifier.
Another interesting thing is that the same thing happens on the other side. For many others (like myself) who are on the liberal / progressive / pro social justice side who couldn't take the influx of inchoate, unfocused rage (along with all the other fun stuff like oppression olympics, tone policing/anti-tone policing, fights over trigger warnings, slugfests over performativity, implosions over minor transgressions causing a space space to turn into an unsafe one and all the rest) that has become prevalent in various online SJ communities - they also left, looking for said greener pastures (or just hang around and don't comment - that's generally what I do in those spaces.) Michelle Goldberg wrote a good article on this a while back:
Anyway, if you know of any places for technology discussion with a good signal-to-noise ratio and low on hate and warriors/conspiracy theorists from either side (and a liberal bent would be even better), I'd appreciate hearing about it. I saw Slashdot rise and fall. Sad to think it could be happening to HN, too. Where do we go next?
>neo-monarchists, redpillers, neo-objectivists, and their loosely related ideological ilk have spread far and wide
Those are widely different viewpoints who have more in common with mainstream viewpoints than with each other - it is dishonest to label them together, please don't do so.
I'm fully aware of where and how they differ, and I'm aware of the strident disagreements both within and between - but to deny an overlap today I think is misguided.
That is a slander piece. If you are going to come up with a source then at a mimimum I expect the author to know the http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-fa... and be able to tell me with a straight face that that is what those who (like me) believe fathers should have better custody rights.
Oh and how PUAs and MRA are part of the same moment when PUAs look down on MRAs, how PUAs want a class of alphas with more social responsibility like the NR.
To me your argument only works if you adopt a you are either with us or against humanity attitude for political correctness and associated belief with _is_ inline with what many SJW think.
I will give you this much: about the only thing these people you have grouped together do agree on is that feminism and modern leftism has gone a little too far: but since they do not agree on how much (wiz MRA wanting more custody rights to NR wanting James of Stuart as king) nor what to do about it they in fact have more in-group and out-group variance.
Of course the fact that they disagree at all is enough for some (such as the author of that hit piece) to wrap them all together, we should be above such simple mindedness here on hacker news.
Edit: removed unecessary and counterproductive anger, added call to unity.
That's weird, I'm the opposite--I read HN specifically for the comments.
It's not true for articles like this, which I generally don't read. But when the link is a programming article expressing an opinion on _______, I definitely want to read what HN has to say.
Holy crap, I haven't been there in awhile. It's almost torture to see such trash on the front page. Soon I will go there to get my TMZ updates about the hollywood stars or rappers who did something, maybe, possibly tangentially related to tech?
Wow, this almost makes it sound as if HN is a bunch of MRA losers :( A pity it's so sloppily worded (unless it's true, in which case, ugh).