flaviusb

You have not given any details, so I cannot evaluate what this nonprofit was actually doing - that is, there are two questions:

1) How much were they doing? That is, where on the scale were they from (a) just literally letting people know that saving was a thing and banks existed through to (b) actually going in with people to open accounts, making personal introductions, acting as guarantors etc?

2) Who were they helping? That is, where on the scale of 'relevance to systemic discrimination that I discussed' were their clients from (c) mostly educated white college graduates with good credit history and family money (though perhaps not much personal money) living in 'good' areas through to (d) mostly poor black lower class minimum wage workers with bad credit history living in 'bad' areas?

It is a relevent counterpoint if the nonprofit is mostly doing (a) and mostly helping (d) - otherwise, it is entirely irrelevant.

That is, because doing (b) firstly does not scale, so it only fixes the problem for a few people, and secondly agrees with what I said, about how you need these things in order to bank if you fit into category (d). And because serving (c) is entirely irrelevant to the point about systemic discrimination, as (c) are people that do not face this.

So, please either show that the nonprofit was mostly doing (a) and mostly helping (d), or retract your point, as it is wrong.

In many places, financial institutions like banks do not serve the poor. Like, in the US if you are a poor minority living in an area heavy in poor minorities, it is quite likely that banks will essentially refuse to serve you. Redlining was an example of this kind of thing. There are other, related things - low balance fees, minimum transaction sizes, the need for proof of income or a guarantor who can provide such. This is why cheque cashing places still exist in 2016 in the US - for many people, they literally will be refused service if they try to open an account so they can deposit their paycheque. Blaming this on 'poor financial literacy' is backwards - all the financial literacy in the world won't help you when banks systematically discriminate against you.

In some places, non-negotiable offers are pretty standard. Eg programming jobs in New Zealand - many hiring managers would rather kill themselves then pay more than whatever they have already decided to pay a programmer. Or negotiation will happen, but then the number on the contract will mysteriously not change, and if you complain about it you will be told that it can't be fixed now, just sign it and accept the offer and they will totally correct the number, just not right now. And once you have signed, well, verbal contracts always defer to written contracts in NZ, so it never gets fixed. There are some amazing things about NZ, but the job market as a programmer is not one of them.

If one takes Vim, Emacs, or Light Table as 'similar', then that would imply free...

Firstly, the last mile company still has QoS agreements with the companies that buy from it, and they can plausibly choose to simply go elsewhere if the last mile company does not give them good enough QoS terms; whether that means building their own network, or simply pulling out of that area. Basically, a small group of companies can more plausibly apply joint pressure to a single company than many millions of people can, purely because of coordination costs.

Secondly, part of the common carrier model is that if the government is not convinced that the common carrier is acting in the public's best interest - for example, if they are delaying needed upgrades - then the government can simply confiscate the common carrier's assets, and sell them to a company that will actually meet its QoS and upgrade obligations, or spin the whole thing off as a SoE.

This is the opposite of the common carrier model. In the common carrier model, there are many companies that you can choose from as a consumer from the get go, because the network is unbundled from a single company.

Sometimes you get sick, and you just don't want to eat (even Krispy Kremes), but you know that you have to eat to get better, so you force yourself to eat. This applies analogously with work: sometimes you are burnt out, sometimes you are bone tired, sometimes you fucked something up earlier and now have to do a messy triage, sometimes the most essential thing you could be doing with your expertise is boring scut work that no one else in your company can do... nevertheless, unless you are in a situation where you can just say "Fuck it, I'm going on holiday! See you losers when all of this is sorted out!", you may have to force yourself to work, both to get through the doldrums and also to keep being able to afford to eat.

The fact that, if sweatshops are allowed, sweatshops will be the best option people can find, does not entail that if sweatshops are not allowed, the best option people will be able to find will be worse than sweatshops. This is because markets are not magic, and the conditions of employment don't come 'ex nihilo', but are rather a function of (amongst other things) what employers are able to offer; so, changing what employers are able to offer changes what alternatives are available.

'Able' here is a complex thing; to look at just two countervailing parts, how little can employers get away with paying, but also how much can they afford to pay?

If the sweatshops do more than break even, then the employers can afford to pay more and have better conditions for their employees - but they won't if sweatshops as they are now are legal, common, and accepted. Most sweatshops do a lot better than breaking even, so if we got rid of them, a better alternative would be able to exist. (If you believe in General Equilibria, a better alternative would be forced to exist).

You are equivocating over the word 'responsible'. His actions were the proximate cause of his death (a meaning for the word 'responsibility' which does not imply moral judgement), but others are culpable for his death (another meaning for the word 'responsibility' which does not imply proximate cause, but does imply moral judgement). So, it is perfectly meaningful to say that people who commit suicide are primarily responsible for their own deaths in the first sense, but primarily not responsible for their deaths in the second sense.

Two points:

1) The general (non-Marxist) idea is not that 'the market price is unfair, so we should set different prices ourselves', but rather that the market isn't magic, and does not appear ex nihilo, but is impacted by many things. Some of those things (such as law about hiring, firing, welfare, safety, and so on) can materially affect the negotiation in a way that is patently not fair. For example, if unions had the kinds of powers some ascribe to them (ability to set wages however high they wanted with all staff being unfirable no matter what they did, with employers being powerless slaves) that would be obviously unfair. The power dynamic in many countries (including the US) is roughly that slanted at the moment, but in favour of employers rather than employees - in the US, for example, this is the effect of things like no cause firing, binding arbitration agreements, 'temp' positions and 'internships' being allowed to be offered in place of actual jobs, no real socialised healthcare, limited unemployment insurance in most states, low minimum wages, no 'union shops' in most states, anti union laws, limited occupational health and safetly laws in many states, and so on. So, to make things 'fair', these things have to be fixed - then the market will be 'fair'.

2) The general (Marxist) idea is not that 'the market price is unfair, so we should set different prices ourselves', but rather that capitalist-worker relationships are always unfair and exploitative due to the worker always having to sell their labour for wages, rather than capital, where the capitalist simply gains more money through the actions of capital - neatly setting up a coercive power structure. The (tl;dr version of the) Marxist response is not that this means that we have to set 'better' or 'fairer' levels for wages, but that we have to destroy capitalism and abolish wage slavery.

Thank you for your kind advice. I think that you are utterly mistaken, as you will note (if you actually go through my comment history and read the comments I am replying to) that I respond to comments (or comment threads) where people show that they are sloppy thinkers, subliterate morons, shitheads or trolls (and thus already not engaging or being incapable of engaging) by insulting them, but I do not respond to reasonable comments or comment threads this way. The reason for the preponderance of insulting prose in my comments is the fact that most of the people I respond to on HN very quickly show that they are sloppy thinkers, subliterate morons, shitheads or trolls, as you have done in this thread.

However, I could be the one who is mistaken, so I will see if being more civil in future actually works, and somehow magically cures people of being sloppy thinkers, subliterate morons, shitheads or trolls.

Okay, so you make an argument, when I say it is wrong and that I am going to critique it formally you say that 'of course it was wrong, I wrote it to be ridiculous' because apparently responding to what you are saying and not just accepting it is 'starting a logic pissing contest', then you go on to reassert the thing that you have not proved where the only argument you have made for it is laughable... fuck off troll.

edit: Also you mischaracterise my entire point. Not surprising given your sloppy thinking. It isn't anything to do with 'whether an act of sexism is verifiable sexism'. It also isn't 'power dependent' - power is only an aspect or manifestation of structure that is easy to talk about. You'll note (if you can read) that in the post where I discuss power I have first an example of a simple non-symmetrical situation that is analogous to sexism (to do with exerting power), then I talk about sexism. I have nowhere said that institutional sexism is solely about power differentials or power relations.

To be pedantic: 'begging the question' is when you import your conclusion into your premises, not when you show that the logical task has been satisfied but merely assume that the material task has been satisfied. Your identification of the problems with my informal reasoning is likewise totally wrong.

Your attempt at informal logic is also pretty laughable. I'll try to give a better response than this tomorrow though in another reply, as you seem to be actually engaging with this, which is actually super awesome (it also doesn't hurt that my degrees were in Logic, and I hardly ever get to bust that stuff out in forum comments).

So, you can't read then, and you also can't understand that people who are not exactly like you exist?

When you are with your close friends in public do you 'speak however you like' in such a way that it disturbs those around you? If yes, you are an asshole. The public spaces in conferences are much the same - and in the true Pythonic way (explicit is better than implicit) they even spelled out what the social norms were for the 'public spaces' at PyCon. If you call that crazy, you don't understand Pythonicity.

As for 'profession' - yes, programming is a skilled activity, and being paid to program usually involves being in a workplace with norms of behaviour - hence, a profession. You can say "I still don't consider it a profession", to which my reply is "that's nice; it still is one though".

edit: Urgh, I didn't see your edit when I posted. Your edit actually makes your post more stupid. Oh well.

No. That isn't what happened at all. (Specifically, she didn't 'single two male developers out'). Also, that characterisation does not match up with your previous characterisation without applying rather more charity than one should be expected to ('provided no evidence/proof while burning them at the stake online' is not the same as 'Take their picture and put it on twitter in an inflammatory way', 'was fired for it' is not the same as 'then get fired by SendGrid for the resulting situation').

So, you demonstrate (at the very least) sloppy thinking.

Regarding point (2), you are completely wrong. You are saying that because lots of people harassed Adria, therefore she was a jerk and deserved it. That is trivially disproved by noting that ethics as such exists, and is not simply whatever a group of people does. The reason this is happening is because people like you are shitheads who are doing bad things or enabling other shitheads to do bad things.

You seem not to understand words, logic, or evidence.

edit: That is, what you are saying does not accurately characterise what happened at all, and is also not really a point that follows from your previous post. Like, at least have premises, the application of logical laws, and then a conclusion.

Conferences are generally professional environments, which means that some degree of strictures on behaviour is normal. Conferences that are trying to be welcoming to groups that historically have found them unwelcoming try to limit the things that make them unwelcoming. Things like 'Dongle jokes' have been identified as one of those things. The Pythonic way is 'explicit over implicit'. So, Pycon's code of conduct. Can you understand this?

Can you even read?

No, context matters. Just as it is fine to be undressed when you go to bed but not when out on the street, it is fine to engage in innuendo with friends if that is what you and your friends do, or to be crass on Twitter to your followers who presumably opted in to reading your crassness (but not in @replies to people who don't follow you), but not at a professional conference in a public space. Can you understand that these situations are different?

If person A has power and person B does not, then A exerting their power against B and B exerting their (lack of) power against A are not symmetrical situations, even though both A and B are people. The 'instance level' sexist act may be the same in both cases, but the problem is the 'structural level' sexism which is reinforced only by one of those acts. So, saying that 'sexism is sexism' is an equivocation, and not a symmetrical situation. Does that make things clearer?

Not a double standard, because the situations are not symmetrical.

Adria's behaviour wasn't deplorable - it was fine. The response of the two men involved's workplaces (ie firing them for essentially bad PR) was less than fine, but not deplorable. The response of the hordes of screaming shitbags making death threats has been deplorable. Fucking deplore the actually deplorable, not the fine.

Or, we could do things that encourage this burning desire, perhaps?

It certainly seems possible to teach in a way that kindles a life long love of programming, rather than leaving things to blind caprice - most groups just don't even seem to realise this might be a good idea.

Haha, no. You are conflating two things (tell vs ask - ie unrestricted flirting vs social SYN, SYN ACK, ACK). The former can be good, but has massive externalities when allowed at (for example) tech conferences, or any are where you want a 'safe space', whereas the latter is fairly safe, and is not what is usually under discussion. This is a classic coordination problem, which has been solved by game theory. You see, there are actually places that people go to in order to flirt, where that is the primary (or a specific secondary) purpose; singles bars, mixers, dance clubs - there can even be spaces for this kind of stuff inside of other spaces where it would be otherwise inappropriate, for example 'work mixers', or 'geek mixers' at tech conferences. Unrestricted flirting in those locations does not have serious negative externalities, and so is not harassment.

So, the solution is to seriously restrict flirting at tech conferences as a form of harassment, but allow SYN, SYN ACK, ACK exchanges, and have people who want to flirt go to singles bars or 'geek mixer' events.

Can you understand this?

Please read what I actually said.

There is a discipline which deals with this stuff. Being initially ignorant of that is fine - no one knows everything - but when people say "Look, there is a discipline that deals with this stuff, and here is how the terminology works and here is why" then replying (as you have done) "No, ignore that and use the colloquial usage when talking about this stuff" without watertight explicit reasoning as to why either that discipline does not apply, or some other discipline is a better fit, or the discipline is somehow flawed in a way that makes this terminology wrong, is stupid and also both morally and practically bad.

Do you understand this now, or do you think that the word 'page' should only be used to mean either 'paper' or 'position analogous to squire, but for either knightly or political office' even when we discuss webapps?

As I have said elsewhere, the terminology is relevant because it is the terminology of the disciplines that deal with this stuff. I can accept that people will want to talk about this stuff without knowing anything about it at first - that makes sense, and without already knowing that it has already been studied how would they know? When people learn that there is actually a prior literature and well developed disciplines that deal with this stuff however, then deliberately turning their back on even the most basic part of the literature and the discipline when there are people who are literally explaining it in front of them is rank anti-intellectualism worthy only of contempt and scorn.

When looking at issues of gender in history, modern history does use the language of privilege - ie sexism might be talked about as manifest in terms of what records or history is recorded and treated as important by the people who are being studied. When discussing issues of gender, modern Philosophy has to deal with system level analysis - hence the use of ideas of systemic sexual discrimination as sexism. Recent sociologists seem to non-controversially use this terminology also.

I'm not calling people trolls for no reason, though I take your point that in some cases (such as perhaps this one) it is not the correct response. So, my apologies.

However, we are still discussing the subject matter that things like Women's Studies and Sociology deal with, so using the terminology makes more sense than not using the terminology, especially when people who are going to actually be able to say anything useful about this will mostly either already know the terminology or quickly learn. Getting exasperated at people who will not use the correct terminology even after it is explained to them seems justified to me, in the same way that if some people kept saying that a "page" obviously only refers to either a piece of paper or a trainee knight or a trainee legislator, "because common English usage and anything else is Orwellian psyops" (quote marks indicating aggregate ranting of the hypothetical other), when we were talking about single page applications in the context of webapps, and they resisted correction, exasperation would be justified, and accusations of trolling would not be remiss.

So, I think that insisting on using the correct terminology from the disciplines that deals with something makes sense where we can, whenever we want to actually talk about something in a useful way, and people who insist that using the correct terminology is somehow a conspiracy or evil or whatever (to be clear, you have not suggested that, but others in this thread have) are totally trolls.

If we were talking about astronomical phenomena, and we said that these formations were not very large (because they were smaller than the Sun), and you said that they were super large (because they were bigger than a breadbox), you would be obviously trolling. It is similar here; when discussing this stuff, we do it with the vernacular of the fields that study it, and objecting that it doesn't match up to colloquial usage is just trolling. Please stop being a troll.

You are aware that disciplines exist, right? And that within those disciplines, words often are used as technical terms, with meanings that do not exactly map on to colloquial usage? For example, when physicists talk about 'energy', they are not talking about a state of mind that people can have (eg "I'm really full of energy today"). That doesn't mean that physics is wrong or orwellian, it just means that you need to get an education before making pronouncements about it. In the case of "sexism", when we are talking about it here we are usually talking about it from within the disciplines that actually deal with it (either sociology, gender studies, modern history, philosophy or etc). Within all of these fields, sexism is a technical term that means (with slight variations between fields) exactly what steveklabnik above summarised it as.