These fucktards are the people representing our profession on NPR. NPR doesn't run stories about the other apps presented at TechCrunch Disrupt. The public won't here about that, or really, much of the cool tech that goes on. They'll hear about this, and that's what they'll remember.
Why the hell doesn't someone go up on that stage and kick those idiots off? Who's the goddamn moderator that is in charge and standing their watching this go on, instead of walking up, killing the power, and getting them an escort from the building.
I don't want to be an apologist for my profession, nor my passion. Right now, I am, so it's up to us to put this shit down. Start now.
The moderators and many people in the room found the presentations funny. It wasn't until later when they tried explaining their behaviour to their mothers that they even began to understand the problems with what occurred.
It is a pretty simple rule of media: whoever the most controversial[1] member of your community is will be its representative as far as the media is concerned as long as the media is not part of that community. Which communities the media is a member in changes from media provider to media provider. No mainstream media is a member of the tech community.
1) for some definition of controversial including depraved, out-there, insulting-to-community-members, and click generating
Probably a combination of fatigue and not wanting to deal with the toxicity these type of threads tend to be utterly soaked in. "Confronting the problem" is hard in the company of reasoned discussion and nigh-impossible in the face of extremists.
*edit
And that's why I flagged it. Not because I'm some horrible sexist, or because I want women to fail, but because I don't want HN turning into Tumblr or SRS. On top of all that, they also tend to be the worst kind of predictable and boring - i.e. the complete polar opposite of what great HN content is. No thanks.
(edit: this thread has, indeed, been voted off the front page once again.)
I expect this will be voted off too, it already seems to be lower-placed than it ought to be given the number of upvotes. I posted (what I though to be) a very interesting article on Popehat about free speech and the costs contained within a few days ago:
HN has a very thin veneer of professionalism and intelligence only kept in place by the severely limited range of topics we can comment on.
If you read any political, social, gender or non-STEM science based comments (prior to the story being killed) you get the same disgusting mix of sexism, racism, and general ignorance you'd find on reddit. Luckily for HN's image the flag feature quickly hides such ugliness.
I think perhaps the problem here is a poorly defined concept of "confront the problem".
What exactly does it mean to confront the problem? I am not planning on giving a sexist presentation so... problem confronted? Am I suppose to do something to prevent others from giving sexist presentations too? I am not in a position to do that, and very few people are (how many people on HN actually run conferences?).
There's not much new that can be said, and the threads are always full of people with weird, vile, opinions bickering about what is or isn't acceptable behaviour, coming up with bizarre scenarios for why it's actually fine to call a woman a stupid cunt in the workplace.
Where I live a very out, flaming gay dev once presented an app as a joke to detect what he called gaydar and was pointing it at uncomfortable suit guys and saying stuff like "you're a faggot dude, math doesn't lie". I thought it was a hilarious small moment of anarchy in an otherwise very dull conference full of banking apps.
A Jewish programmer also had a lol app to determine holocaust survival and the outcomes ranged from 'Nazi comfort boy' to 'gassed immediately' after analyzing your picture. This was a tradeshow/conference for payment solutions. Lots of uncomfortable silence. Later found out the presenter was a comedian some casino had hired. If he had done that at a US tradeshow all of twitter would've exploded in faux outrage
I don't get the Business Insider troll tweets though. I think he forgot Twitter isn't 4chan
For years people (and yes, mostly guys) who were involved in the tech industry and engineering in general were shunned and dismissed by culture at large to be losers and sexual non-entities and therefore lacking in social currency. As a result of this mass dismissal and social rejection, and since most women aren't raised or brought up to deal with rejection and social stigmatization, while some actively participated and reinforced the stigmatization, women in general didn't feel comfortable being in or pursuing a career in a field that garnered such negative attention for a very long time.
To this day people in the tech field are often marginalized and in order to attract women to the field companies like Google have to produce promo videos that try to convince women to join the industry by suggesting that there aren't that many weirdos in the industry and that most people in the industry are "normal" as opposed to celebrating the beautiful weird male personalities that achieved great things because of their weirdness not in spite of it and helping women realize and embrace the male nerd ethic the went into building this new world:
Notice the attention given to showering and how they gloss over the fact that in reality, the current leaders in the tech world didn't bath regularly when they were building their companies. Bill Gates comes to mind.
The reason why you get push-back from males from the industry when it comes to involving more women in tech isn't because they have some "jock, locker room, and frat" mentality that women are somehow mentally inferior to males and aren't capable of understanding tech. Actually, women in science and engineering classes at major universities tend to be the top students in those classes. Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza. While most tech experiences these days don't involve this sort of lifestyle, the anti-social behavior and culture that are associated with the lifestyle still exist and instead of women decrying these prevailing attitudes in tech they should embrace these traits.
Case in point, Elon Musk's ex-wife. Instead of dealing with his borderline autism for what it was, in her blog she attacked him being arrogant and uncaring. Elon Musk is a weirdo and natural introvert who forces himself to be an extrovert to be able to do the interesting and unique things he wants and needs to do in life.
Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza. [...] instead of women decrying these prevailing attitudes in tech they should embrace these traits.
You really don't see the inherent contradiction there? The first half says the problem is assumptions by men about what women will or will not do. The 'solution' buys into this assumption without examining whether it is in any way true.
Who says women do not have the fortitude to not shower for days and live off cold pizza?
This was more or less the argument against women in the armed forces, too. You know, it's not that they're stupid, it's just that they're just too dainty and precious for our rough and tumble profession.
> The reason why you get push-back from males from the industry when it comes to involving more women in tech isn't because they have some "jock, locker room, and frat" mentality that women are somehow mentally inferior to males and aren't capable of understanding tech.
> Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza.
So what you're saying is that the tech industry is sexist because you need fortitude, not intelligence? Or you're saying that the tech industry prizes fortitude over intelligence?
> Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza.
Sorry for being harsh. This has to be just-about the stupidest comment I've seen on HN in quite some time.
Where does fortitude come into the discussion? Should I parse this "(the fortitude) nor the willingness to not shower" or "(the fortitude nor the willingness) to not shower"?
If the former, the fortitude to do or not do what? If the latter, I don't really regard it as fortitude. I've worked with people who didn't shower for days, and it wasn't in a computer lab--once it was on a loading dock.
Freedom of speech isn't relevant in this situation. The government isn't saying that you can't make a "stare at boobs" apps. The issue is about what behaviors we want to encourage and endorse in a private (EDIT: private as in not part of the government) and professional environment.
It's not a freedom of speech issue - it's just about avoiding doing things that detract from other people's experience of the event/the industry/etc.
If someone had come to the conference and broadcast music that was far, far too loud and which obviously impeded people's experience of the conference, nobody would be defending them. What these guys are doing isn't a lot different.
The kids angle is fairly important - I got a lot of value from hanging out at os2 and linux user groups when I was young. Professional orgs and conferences can be an escape from the heavily stratified world kids are stuck in for most of their lives, and help people develop interests early.
"[...] the remedy to someone saying or writing or showing something that offends you is not to read it, or to speak out against it." (ephasis original)
I have yet to see much (if any) advocacy for making disgusting, sexist, immature apps illegal (which would then make this a freedom of speech issue). I have, however, seen plenty of advocacy for keeping this crap out of our community. Which is, incidentally, exactly what the article you linked advocates (see the quote above).
We're all (supposed to be) adults, and we (should) know better than that.
These guys are idiots and there is definitely sexism in the IT industry. But every time I see these stories saying there is sexism in IT I think compared to what? Finance (Wall Street!)? Marketing? Law? Government? Military? Manufacturing? Construction?
I guess the disturbing part is what makes these guys think they can be this open about it. Wall Street has rampant sexism but I'm thinking they are smart enough not to show it is a public forum.
Not sure this adds much to the story, but I think it's noteworthy that this was covered in a mainstream news program. I heard it on the radio yesterday.
The whole thing is sad, but hopefully this sort of exposure will have the 'training' effect that folks won't seriously expect us to believe the excuse "Hey, its just a joke, I didn't mean it." which works fine if you're comedian doing a comedy act, not so well if your venue is more serious than that.
I heard the story too, and I was most offended that the reporter said that I would be offended by what we were about to hear. Also, what do they know about locker room attitudes? My locker room attitude is to get out of the locker room and into the gym, pool, etc. Calling it sexism seems sexist to me, since I'm a guy who wouldn't normally do that kind of thing.
The only thing I found offensive about this story was the environment in which the app was presented, which was definitely inappropriate. If the app was presented by Daniel Tosh on his TV show, we'd probably all have a chuckle and move on.
I consider my profession fantastic, with a lot of beautiful and exceptionally smart people. I haven't encountered this nearly as much. It must be happening more in Silicon Valley and NY more, but generally I can't see sexism as a part of culture in our profession. I am in Chicago if that matters, as a consultant I changed a lot of companies.
On other hand, developers, both male and those few females are not the most eloquent people, however women were always welcomed, especially developers.
"Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex."
Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism. It may be inappropriate for a professional environment (especially if kids are around) but it is not sexism; there is no discrimination nor an intent to put someone else down.
So while the Business Insider story was just in tech circles I can image everyone's favourite brogrammer Pax Dickinson may have been able to casually sidestep into another sector.
With it hitting NPR, I suspect this has irreversibly damaged his professional reputation.
I don't think they should make such broad generalizations about the tech industry because of three 20-something guys from San Francisco, New York City, who aren't even employed by any large, reputable technology company.
Unsurprisingly, the guys who demoed "Titstare" are part of AngelHack - they are from the "Hate-You Cards" team which was accepted into AngelHack's "pre-accelerator" program.
[+] [-] cognivore|12 years ago|reply
These fucktards are the people representing our profession on NPR. NPR doesn't run stories about the other apps presented at TechCrunch Disrupt. The public won't here about that, or really, much of the cool tech that goes on. They'll hear about this, and that's what they'll remember.
Why the hell doesn't someone go up on that stage and kick those idiots off? Who's the goddamn moderator that is in charge and standing their watching this go on, instead of walking up, killing the power, and getting them an escort from the building.
I don't want to be an apologist for my profession, nor my passion. Right now, I am, so it's up to us to put this shit down. Start now.
[+] [-] parfe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|12 years ago|reply
1) for some definition of controversial including depraved, out-there, insulting-to-community-members, and click generating
[+] [-] awj|12 years ago|reply
That said, I agree. I don't want to have to apologize for my profession.
[+] [-] babs474|12 years ago|reply
A stubborn refusal to confront the problem is what helps these attitudes fester.
[+] [-] Karunamon|12 years ago|reply
*edit
And that's why I flagged it. Not because I'm some horrible sexist, or because I want women to fail, but because I don't want HN turning into Tumblr or SRS. On top of all that, they also tend to be the worst kind of predictable and boring - i.e. the complete polar opposite of what great HN content is. No thanks.
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
I expect this will be voted off too, it already seems to be lower-placed than it ought to be given the number of upvotes. I posted (what I though to be) a very interesting article on Popehat about free speech and the costs contained within a few days ago:
http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/
Unfortunately it talked about the Business Insider issue, so was immediately flagged off the front page.
[+] [-] parfe|12 years ago|reply
If you read any political, social, gender or non-STEM science based comments (prior to the story being killed) you get the same disgusting mix of sexism, racism, and general ignorance you'd find on reddit. Luckily for HN's image the flag feature quickly hides such ugliness.
[+] [-] jlgreco|12 years ago|reply
What exactly does it mean to confront the problem? I am not planning on giving a sexist presentation so... problem confronted? Am I suppose to do something to prevent others from giving sexist presentations too? I am not in a position to do that, and very few people are (how many people on HN actually run conferences?).
I don't see any actionable call to arms.
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsxwolf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dobbsbob|12 years ago|reply
A Jewish programmer also had a lol app to determine holocaust survival and the outcomes ranged from 'Nazi comfort boy' to 'gassed immediately' after analyzing your picture. This was a tradeshow/conference for payment solutions. Lots of uncomfortable silence. Later found out the presenter was a comedian some casino had hired. If he had done that at a US tradeshow all of twitter would've exploded in faux outrage
I don't get the Business Insider troll tweets though. I think he forgot Twitter isn't 4chan
[+] [-] nubb|12 years ago|reply
For years people (and yes, mostly guys) who were involved in the tech industry and engineering in general were shunned and dismissed by culture at large to be losers and sexual non-entities and therefore lacking in social currency. As a result of this mass dismissal and social rejection, and since most women aren't raised or brought up to deal with rejection and social stigmatization, while some actively participated and reinforced the stigmatization, women in general didn't feel comfortable being in or pursuing a career in a field that garnered such negative attention for a very long time.
To this day people in the tech field are often marginalized and in order to attract women to the field companies like Google have to produce promo videos that try to convince women to join the industry by suggesting that there aren't that many weirdos in the industry and that most people in the industry are "normal" as opposed to celebrating the beautiful weird male personalities that achieved great things because of their weirdness not in spite of it and helping women realize and embrace the male nerd ethic the went into building this new world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Notice the attention given to showering and how they gloss over the fact that in reality, the current leaders in the tech world didn't bath regularly when they were building their companies. Bill Gates comes to mind.
The reason why you get push-back from males from the industry when it comes to involving more women in tech isn't because they have some "jock, locker room, and frat" mentality that women are somehow mentally inferior to males and aren't capable of understanding tech. Actually, women in science and engineering classes at major universities tend to be the top students in those classes. Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza. While most tech experiences these days don't involve this sort of lifestyle, the anti-social behavior and culture that are associated with the lifestyle still exist and instead of women decrying these prevailing attitudes in tech they should embrace these traits.
Case in point, Elon Musk's ex-wife. Instead of dealing with his borderline autism for what it was, in her blog she attacked him being arrogant and uncaring. Elon Musk is a weirdo and natural introvert who forces himself to be an extrovert to be able to do the interesting and unique things he wants and needs to do in life.
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
You really don't see the inherent contradiction there? The first half says the problem is assumptions by men about what women will or will not do. The 'solution' buys into this assumption without examining whether it is in any way true.
Who says women do not have the fortitude to not shower for days and live off cold pizza?
[+] [-] esw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|12 years ago|reply
> Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza.
So what you're saying is that the tech industry is sexist because you need fortitude, not intelligence? Or you're saying that the tech industry prizes fortitude over intelligence?
I guess it's good to know where we stand.
[+] [-] robomartin|12 years ago|reply
Sorry for being harsh. This has to be just-about the stupidest comment I've seen on HN in quite some time.
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafard|12 years ago|reply
If the former, the fortitude to do or not do what? If the latter, I don't really regard it as fortitude. I've worked with people who didn't shower for days, and it wasn't in a computer lab--once it was on a loading dock.
[edit: added missing quotation mark]
[+] [-] gametheoretic|12 years ago|reply
Replace, and I'll delete this one.
[+] [-] cbr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zalew|12 years ago|reply
app is sexist yeah, but how is looking at tits misogynistic?
[+] [-] dexen|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-...
[+] [-] slg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cturner|12 years ago|reply
If someone had come to the conference and broadcast music that was far, far too loud and which obviously impeded people's experience of the conference, nobody would be defending them. What these guys are doing isn't a lot different.
The kids angle is fairly important - I got a lot of value from hanging out at os2 and linux user groups when I was young. Professional orgs and conferences can be an escape from the heavily stratified world kids are stuck in for most of their lives, and help people develop interests early.
[+] [-] eli|12 years ago|reply
http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/
[+] [-] todesschaf|12 years ago|reply
"[...] the remedy to someone saying or writing or showing something that offends you is not to read it, or to speak out against it." (ephasis original)
I have yet to see much (if any) advocacy for making disgusting, sexist, immature apps illegal (which would then make this a freedom of speech issue). I have, however, seen plenty of advocacy for keeping this crap out of our community. Which is, incidentally, exactly what the article you linked advocates (see the quote above).
We're all (supposed to be) adults, and we (should) know better than that.
(edit to indicate emphasis is not mine)
[+] [-] JulianMorrison|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] efa|12 years ago|reply
I guess the disturbing part is what makes these guys think they can be this open about it. Wall Street has rampant sexism but I'm thinking they are smart enough not to show it is a public forum.
[+] [-] eli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xdeadbeefbabe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmfrk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcuspovey|12 years ago|reply
The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"
[+] [-] JonFish85|12 years ago|reply
On an 100% unrelated note, Adria Richards has transitioned from "Technology Evangelist" to "Programmer"?
[+] [-] MattyRad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] desireco42|12 years ago|reply
On other hand, developers, both male and those few females are not the most eloquent people, however women were always welcomed, especially developers.
[+] [-] bcheung|12 years ago|reply
Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism. It may be inappropriate for a professional environment (especially if kids are around) but it is not sexism; there is no discrimination nor an intent to put someone else down.
[+] [-] alexholehouse|12 years ago|reply
With it hitting NPR, I suspect this has irreversibly damaged his professional reputation.
[+] [-] pjbrunet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] scc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] option_greek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gametheoretic|12 years ago|reply
/provocateur