I had many of the same reactions as you when I read her words. But I've been trying very hard to imagine what it's like to go to PyCon as a minority, and to have someone sitting in earshot comfortably make jokes that make me feel threatened all while watching a talk on inclusiveness. While the emotional image of a little girl wanting to get into your field is up on screen.

And then to have everyone defend that person and behave like you're the one that fired him just because you voiced your discomfort publicly.

I don't agree with Adria's public tweet, and Hank got way more than he deserved (as did Adria) over it. But I can totally see how she could have been driven to do it, and I can even see how she would feel now — after all she's gone through — that she should not have to apologise for it.

From that article it sounds like she came out of this worse than Hank, who got another job almost immediately. And you have to wonder — did Hank get another job so fast because our field is dominated by men, and they are likely to feel for him and have the same initial reactions as we do when reading this article? Unfortunately there are not many people who will feel for Adria. I'm sure she knows it.

She used her status and influence in an irresponsible way, and she consistently avoids any responsibility into what happens, while blaming her victim for what happened to her. I don't see the empathy here. I can understand why she would end up like that, and she sounds like she has a lot of issues to work with. But she comes out as an extremely unpleasant person.

> From that article it sounds like she came out of this worse than Hank, who got another job almost immediately. And you have to wonder — did Hank get another job so fast because our field is dominated by men, and they are likely to feel for him and have the same initial reactions as we do when reading this article? Unfortunately there are not many people who will feel for Adria. I'm sure she knows it.

I feel for her. She shouldn't have been put through this crap when she was a kid, and she deserved none of the abuse, death threats, etc, that got poured on her. At the same time, I do think she needs to behave like an adult and realize that she has a responsibility in what happened.

Presumably you mean the tweet, not her childhood abuse, just for people who might misinterpret the somewhat ambiguous reference.

I really don't see how hearing two guys in a crowd of 800+ people talk about big dongles would make one feel threatened enough for a comment like, "Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?" She feared for her life over tasteless toilet humor in a crowded conference? Bullshit. Her Victorian sensibilities were offended over a crass joke. And now she's engaging in histrionics after the fact to justify her response.

Frankly, I'm really sick and tired of the pervasive image in America that all men are rapists and child molesters. You talk to a woman on an elevator, or you accidentally make eye contact with a child that isn't yours for a brief second, and everyone assumes you're a sexual predator because penis. Sure, I'll accept that men are more likely to be. But we're talking about 0.000011% of women versus 0.000018% of men here.

> Hank got way more than he deserved (as did Adria) over it

That we can both agree on. If anyone needs to be shamed here, it's these companies that we allow to put expediency over human lives. It's not okay to fire a father of three because someone managed to generate five minutes of buzz about them on Twitter. As consumers, this is partly our responsibility. And I for one will recommend strongly against ever using SendGrid to anyone who asks. It's too bad Hank didn't name his employer as well.

> Unfortunately there are not many people who will feel for Adria

Still, the complete and utter lack of empathy, along with playing the race card (way out of context I might add), is clearly doing her no good here. If I read her comments, I wouldn't hire her either.

And again, this is where it's good to separate your real name from your online identity. No, we shouldn't have to, but when employers behave like this, it's just proper diligence. We don't know Hank's real name here; his current employer may not even know about this incident. If Adria had done the same, maybe she'd be employed now too.

To her it's not 800+ people, it's 800+ men where you are one of the few women. That's not something I can say I've ever experienced. Personally I can't see how the joke is threatening, but I can't dismiss her feelings over this just because I find it tough — or even impossible — to imagine.

I've tried to read this article as Hank and Adria explaining their honest feelings. If Adria is being honest about her feelings, then I can see how her reaction came about. Even if I don't agree with it.

Like I said, I don't think the joke itself — or Hank himself — was the target of her anger. It was the environment, the culture, and the system which allowed Hank to make such a joke in earshot, comfortably, making her feel utterly excluded and even threatened.

You claim it's histrionics, but it might be real things she is feeling. What if she really felt this way? Shouldn't we try to understand Adria as well as we understand Hank? By dismissing her so easily we make our field more exclusive. We say, "I can't imagine that so you mustn't have experienced it. It's not a problem because I can't see it."

> Still, the complete and utter lack of empathy

Perhaps you are right in perceiving a lack of empathy. I don't think it's because she hates Hank and wishes bad things on him. I think it's because she is viewing Hank as an oblivious part of a system which puts her at a significant disadvantage.

The same Adria who herself made penis jokes on twitter a few days earlier and who was playing Cards Against Humanity at the same PyCon conference?

What happened to her is shameful and can't be condoned in any way, shape or form, but she engaged in the same (or some would say worse) behavior that she was criticizing Hank for. Double standards much?

>Perhaps you are right in perceiving a lack of empathy.... I think it's because she is viewing Hank as an oblivious part of a system which puts her at a significant disadvantage.

That's the definition of lack of empathy, Hank clearly expressed empathy for her, she didn't even consider the possibility that her public shaming could have serious consequences.

By the way, I believe she was in her right to complain about the joke to the organizers in private, it's the public tweet with the photo that crossed the line.

NSFW!?!

The dongle comment was a conversation between two people, it was not private, but it's audience was intended to be limited to two individuals.

The CAH game could offend someone that passed by (it was played in a hallway), what would have happened if someone took a picture of her playing CAH and tweeted "Not Cool Guys/Gals"and made a blog post about feeling treated at PyCon?

https://instagram.com/p/W_A1xlAacg/

Did they seek the approval of others around who weren't playing, and ensured that they felt emotionally safe?

I somehow doubt it.

She is misrepresenting her character and manipulates the public image of herself to stir controversy, drama, and in turns she actually hurting the cause she claims to champion. If anything that is the thing I don't like about what she did the most.

Why not? I can be scared of ax-wielding murderers while still enjoying a haunted house where people in an ax-murderer costume jump out at me.

You expect offensive stuff in a CAH game. You don't expect it being mumbled behind you during a keynote.

She chose to be offended. There was nothing inherently offensive about the comment as it's reported. It was apparently a private comment to a friend.

If I'm eavesdropping on some friends talking amongst themselves then I'd expect to hear all sorts of crass lewdness TBH. If I then choose to be offended perhaps the lookout is on me, that I should stop eavesdropping other's conversations.

The situation at hand — to borrow your metaphor — is like someone coming out of a haunted house, seeing someone across the street dressed as an axe-murderer (but clearly in fancy-dress), then crossing the street to harangue them because one should know axe-murderers frighten them and that some how the happenstance of your co-locality gives them the right to control over your attire.

If you don't like the content of private conversations that you can overhear, as an adult, in a public setting, then your choices are to put up with it, move out of earshot, or ask the people to censor themselves.

She chose how to act on the offense she took, and she chose irresponsibly. She chose how to handle the aftermath, and she chose questionably. But she didn't "choose" to be offended in the first place. That's a bridge too far. She was listening to a keynote presentation about women in technology, overheard some sex jokes being made during that presentation, and took offense to the jokes, perhaps especially in light of the context and the timing.

Now, I find her described rationale for the offense she took (fear of violence) a little extreme. But who am I to judge her feelings? I'm not a woman, and I am certainly not the survivor of what sounds like a horrifyingly abusive household. I have no basis by which to speak from those perspectives, and so I can't summarily dismiss them as invalid. That's not my call to make. That's not my place.

I don't agree with her actions, and I find her lack of apparent remorse very disturbing. But I don't presume to set some universal, male-perspective standard for what is or is not offensive to people. I can see how the jokes could have offended any hypothetical women in earshot at the time, and perhaps some men as well. I personally would not have been offended, but I am not every person. My perspective on what's offensive and what isn't is not the de facto norm.

Completely agree, however, that the more mature course of action would have been to confront the jokesters in person, or move away, or perhaps just lodge a complaint with the PyCon organizers. The public shaming was uncalled for, and it had disproportionately drastic consequences for all concerned.

https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/

> All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks.

> Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon.

That does really not fit well with playing CAH...

Uhh... scroll up:

https://instagram.com/p/W_A1xlAacg/

Caption on that picture, by @adriarichards, "Playing, Cards Against Humanity, #pycon" (And that picture is a hallway at the venue).

I think there's a reality here outside of anyone's feelings, which is that the jokes mentioned in the article are neither sexist nor threatening. If she feels attacked or threatened, well, that's her problem.

To be clear, I do believe there is plenty of sexism in the software industry. If there's a joke that we don't know about that Hank made which was actually sexist, then I'm happy he got fired, and I don't think Adria was overreacting. But if the jokes in the article are the full story, then she wasn't even overreacting--she was reacting to something which she shouldn't have reacted to at all. The jokes aren't sexist.

> You claim it's histrionics, but it might be real things she is feeling. What if she really felt this way? Shouldn't we try to understand Adria as well as we understand Hank? By dismissing her so easily we make our field more exclusive. We say, "I can't imagine that so you mustn't have experienced it. It's not a problem because I can't see it."

She probably does feel that way. I have no reason to doubt that she feels the way she says she feels. But just because someone feels threatened doesn't mean their feelings are right. Certainly there are people who would be threatened by a black woman at a conference: and those people can go fuck themselves. It takes more than someone feeling threatened to justify firing someone. I'd have to see some joke that they made which was actually sexist or threatening.

I think that's a bad attitude and it puts people off who might want to join us.

If she feels threatened by an innocuous joke, which seems to be the case, then we need to take a serious look at why that is. What is it about PyCon that can make a woman feel like this, and how can we help?

In my mind she and Hank are both fairly intelligent, rational people. It's not normal for her to have felt this way and I don't blame her for experiencing that.

> doesn't mean their feelings are right

But she's not a crazy person, she was a developer evangelist for a well known company. She was well spoken and calm. Her response to Hank's original Hacker News comment was quite pleasant and seemed to acknowledge that bad situations can happen even though Hank is a good guy.

Yet she felt threatened by an innocuous joke because of the atmosphere of the conference, because she was vastly outnumbered, and because we are unwilling to address this. We are unwilling even to take her feelings seriously, even for a moment. Almost everyone here dismisses them out-of-hand, how is that attractive or inclusive?

I do not think that the solution to the gender imbalance in tech is to stop calling spades spades. The jokes made were not threatening or sexist, and if she felt threatened, her feelings were not justified.

Women are just as capable of reasoning as men, but they're also just as capable of being wrong. There are real sexism issues to address in the software industry. At a conference a few years ago, a coworker of mine was followed back to her hotel room by a drunk conference attendee--THAT is sexist and threatening. At a Ruby conference, a presenter showed slides of women in bikinis and made lewd comments about them--THAT is sexism. I don't think inventing a sexism issue where there isn't one does anything to solve the real problems.

To be clear: I do think that it is productive to look at what the software industry is doing wrong in relation to women. All I'm saying is that this particular instance is a red herring.

> It's not normal for her to have felt this way and I don't blame her for experiencing that.

I don't blame her either, but I don't think there's any conclusions to be drawn from how she felt. She just was wrong. People are wrong all the time.

> But she's not a crazy person, she was a developer evangelist for a well known company. She was well spoken and calm. Her response to Hank's original Hacker News comment was quite pleasant and seemed to acknowledge that bad situations can happen even though Hank is a good guy.

One can be sane, gainfully employed, well-spoken, and calm, and still wrong. I think any sane, gainfully employed, well-spoken, calm person will freely admit that they have been wrong many times.

> Yet she felt threatened by an innocuous joke because of the atmosphere of the conference, because she was vastly outnumbered, and because we are unwilling to address this.

What about the atmosphere of the conference made her feel threatened? If there was something that happened at the conference which was actually threatening, that is the problem, not these jokes. If there is threatening behavior going on, I'd love to figure out a way to stop it. But jokes about dongles and forking repos are not threatening behavior, and pretending they are does nothing to solve anything.

Yes, she's vastly outnumbered. That is a well-known problem which I would like to solve, but I think that will require coming up with solutions, not just telling people they're right when they aren't.

I don't think we are unwilling to address this, I think we HAVE addressed this. Just because people don't agree with her doesn't mean they aren't listening.

> Almost everyone here dismisses them out-of-hand, how is that attractive or inclusive?

Sure, we can lower our standards to include people who can't differentiate between something threatening and something non-threatening, and that might allow us to hire more women. But that would defeat the purpose. Women are just as capable as men and we can include them without lowering our standards.

Pretending women are right when they're wrong is not the way to be inclusive.

Isn't that the definition of empathy? She sees Hank not as a person, but just as a part of a system, never thinks of the consequences her actions have on him, never even considers that he is going through some rough times, and that he (as a person, a human being) sometimes makes a mistake and then apologizes...

Her feelings being real don't make them acceptable or reasonable. Take the below example.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/19/male-student-banned-from-c...

In the event that you are right, and she's really being sincere, then I hope she gets help to work through her issues. Especially over the parts about her childhood at the end.

> I think it's because she is viewing Hank as an oblivious part of a system which puts her at a significant disadvantage

Yes, but the "system" isn't in any way Hank's doing, nor Hank's fault, and is no justification for a dismissal of empathy.

I often wonder what my reaction to these sorts of articles would be if the genders were reversed. And I find that I more quickly and easily empathise with males, which makes me wary that perhaps my feelings when reading these articles are not completely rational.

I believe both parties did something thoughtless, Adria more so than Hank, but the anger here and how we vilify Adria is so different to how we talk about Hank. It's almost like she's not even human, just some delusional sociopath filled with hatred. I imagine if I were a woman reading this thread I would feel very excluded.

She's like the white man who shot the black kids in Florida because he was threatened by their loud music.

Even though we know that stealing is wrong, would you feel bad for the record store?

A woman's fear of unwanted sexual advances, assault, or rape from an unknown male when she's in a vulnerable position is entirely reasonable. Many women receive unwelcome sexual advances on a regular basis. Most men have basically no point of personal reference for this fear, but we should try to be aware of how the woman might perceive us rather than whining about being unfairly slighted.

According to the CDC, 18% of women report being raped at some point in their lives, versus 1.7% of men.[1] Given that, I think it's reasonable for women to feel a need for caution when dealing with strange men talking to them in elevators.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/sv-datasheet-a.pdf

What does this ratio work out to in terms of chances any given one man is a rapist? If we ranked this as one person per allegation, that would be claiming that nearly one in five men are rapists, and that's patently absurd. If we had ~28 million male rapists in this country, our prisons would be absolutely overrun. Even if you claimed each rapist had ~10 victims, that's still an absurd number of male rapists.

At any rate, it's still bullshit that I am treated like a sexual predator. As an asexual, I'm the last person on the planet you need to worry about. It's disgusting when people single out groups based on race, on female gender, on religion, on sexual orientation, etc. It should be just as disgusting to do it towards men with regards to sexual assault.

Even with the absolutely ridiculous ~1:5 scenario, this woman was in a room with 800+ other men. There was zero chance she was in harm's way here.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_...

not always : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHCqz-J51IU&list=RDEHCqz-J51...

What is the reason for that. Seems just like such an irrational move.

Except it isn't.

It isn't because she recognized Hank was using (perhaps inadvertently) her tactics. In her eyes he was telling the world he was a victim. There is nothing more frustrating than having her own methods turning against her.

If anything, that cuts directly to her motivation and is a window into her character.

Yes. In my "other life" I work in fire and EMS, and in uniform regularly have parents stop us and point us out to their kids - "If you're ever hurt or in trouble, you can ALWAYS go to these people, they're safe.", or the look of absolute trust when someone thrusts their sick child at you, hoping for you to make it better. And that, somewhat unsurprisingly, sometimes include seeing that child in undress.

Take off my uniform.

My partner spent several years in childcare, both at centers and as a nanny. We're out in public and she sees a crying child? She goes to it, talks to it, hugs it perhaps, reassures.

Me? Not a chance. For better or worse, societal conditioning is that that is something I as a male /do/ /not/ /do/. Because it's nefarious that I'd even want to.

Here is a great thread on the parenting Stack Exchange that explains the issue: https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/18782/what-sho...

Viewing it from this perspective outlines how easily one could be hypersensitive to comments, looks, smiles because you’re already going into it with that perspective. Now add in a childhood that consisted of abuse by a father to a mother and the shame she felt in attending school, we can now begin to understand her reality.

Adria has blockages in her life that are keeping her from living a life free from the burden she is carrying around. The very same blockages that may be contributing to what seems like a lack of empathy on her part. My only hope is that she seek out the right healer.

You can understand, yes, but that hatred-- and allow me to say that again-- hatred is not something that we can excuse on the basis of race alone. Adria really hates Hank; hated him so much that when she called down the twitter brigades, she happily tweeted something along the lines of "I feel like Joan Of Arc."

Hank found a new job because, fundamentally, he was innocent. Because he did not intend for anyone to get hurt, and did not join in the bandwagon that later attacked Adria. He even apologized to Adria, who still blames him for everything and showed absolutely no remorse.

Some believe that systems of oppression don't exist and pin everything on the individual, e.g., racists. And then there are people who believe those systems are all that exist and that any action undertaken by a member of that system is the fault of the system, e.g. other kinds of racists.

Regardless of where you stand on the spectrum, there are certain actions that are inexcusable.

The intent and desire to destroy an innocent's life is one of them.

I think her view of Hank is to disregard him — kind of "Oh he'll be okay, the system's on his side." She doesn't really acknowledge him because it's not about him. We've made it about him because it's so easy for us to empathise with Hank but not with her, which is exactly part of the bias she's upset about.

I think Ronson strongly suggests that this is in fact the case.

Ronson's a great journalist for acknowledging the complexity of a situation without attempting to offer answers he's unqualified to give, imho.

> “So you’re in your new workplace…” (Hank was offered another job right away) “…and you’re talking to a female developer. In what way do you act differently towards her?”

> “Well,” Hank said. “We don’t have any female developers at the place I’m working at now. So.”

> “You’ve got a new job now, right?” I said to Adria.

> “No,” she said.

Incidentally thank you for all your comments on this article. They're really thoughtful and have helped me understand what is clearly a very big issue much better.

She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed.

If the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis!" then the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. That's all it does by itself.

All that about being offended and excluded and threatened, that is all baggage that she brought with her into that situation. She imagines that the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis ...and reminds me that we must continue to oppress all women muhahaha!"

That's her imagination. She made that part up. Hank didn't say or imply or even think anything remotely like that. And it doesn't matter if other people share her delusion - any more than it would matter if this was a religious issue and she was claiming someone had committed blasphemy. It doesn't matter that other people share the delusion that god is real.

Unfortunately that isn't how she felt. Her feelings should matter to us just as Hank's feelings matter.

> the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it.

No one is arguing that the joke is not innocuous, or that the joke is somehow sinister. I've been in Hank's shoes, I've made stupid jokes about sex.

I'm not arguing that Hank deserved any retribution for making that joke. He seems like a really nice guy. It was horrible what happened to him.

I'm arguing that there is a problem because someone doesn't feel safe when an innocuous joke is made. And a lack of diversity is the root of this problem.

Unfortunately when this topic comes up here we all question Adria's motives, we accuse her and call her delusional. We deny her feelings, and in doing so we exclude her and other women. We make the situation worse.

We should be trying to understand how she came to do something so rash and question the culture and environment that brought this horrible situation about.

We should give Adria the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is not a monster, then we will see where the real problem lies.

Now that comment is sexist, because you deny men the right to have the same feelings. It's easy to pick nits, especially in those fields.

I don't think that anybody denies Adria's right to feel offended, at least not really. Feelings are irrational, that's why we don't get to fully explain them logically (quite convenient). Actions, on the other hand, should be rational, and we are often judged by their rationality.

We can only speculate how Adria felt, and it doesn't really matter. Her actions and words are what got her into trouble. When compared to the comments she overheard on the conference, it is not just out of proportion, but completely out of direction as well.

Perhaps the worst part is that this kind of attitude actually _hurts_ tolerance instead of improving it. I'd love to have a productive black Jewish female on my team. I'd hate to have someone obsessing about racism, sexism and hurt feelings, regardless of their race and gender.

“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what?"

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”

It was unreasonable for her to feel that way and even the author of the article acknowledged that.

She can feel however she wants, but she is responsible for herself, no one else is. It is not Hanks' responsibility to make sure she isn't offended by a simple joke. It may have been inappropriate, but that's not the same thing.

There was no fairness in what she did.

All this happened because of what she _did_. And doing is different of feeling. You don't choose your feelings, but you choose your actions.

So ... a man's behavior made her feel a certain way, such that she bears no responsibility for her reactions and their consequences?

What is felt or what can be said is dependent on the circumstances of your birth, chromosomes, and DNA?

Take your argument and spin it, and you're allowing that women are responsible for men's actions based on how the women act and behave.

Or you can allow the one and deny the other. That's a hell of a double standard.

My read, from the original airing of this, and from Ron Johnson's interviews here, is that Adria Richards absolutely wasn't suited for her job. She's overtly racist and sexist, ascribing people traits, or passing judgement on what they can or cannot do or say, based simply on race and gender.

She's got something of a history of this, as Amanda Blum has pointed out: https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

She took what was, at the very worst, a slightly immature situation, and made it far, far worse. And continues to.

I've seen plenty of behavior from men (or boys) that makes me cringe. I've called it out at times. I've also seen (or received) it from women. And, for that matter, men. Truth is we're sexual creatures, and the boundaries between professional and personal do get crossed. Failure to recognize that (and behave accordingly) is a problem.

I've also had my own issues with behavior of others from time to time. Sometimes I'll comment, but if I'm at at a structured event that doesn't work (and I've met plenty of people of various stripes and persuasions who seem dead-set on finding an argument), I'll find someone who can intermediate -- an arbitrator frequently does blunt the emotions of to principle antagonists.

Could there be reasons for Adria's behavior in her own personal history? I'm not a psych professional, but I've had my own personal experiences (some extremely painful, damaging, and expensive) and done a fair bit of reading (including of psych texts and manuals). Seems valid to me to conclude that it very well might. And that if she does in fact have a history of such behavior, she'd do well to receive some sort of assessment and therapy for it. And I wish that she lived in a society which made such treatment far more accessible. Her behavior certainly has interfered with her professional and personal relationships, from the evidence I've seen.

But people own their own responses and feelings. An irrational or aberrant response is just that: irrational and aberrant. A person with a mortal fear of snakes shouldn't work in a reptile exhibit, a pyromaniac shouldn't work at a firehouse. And a woman who's constitutionally hostile to white men should probably find herself a position where she's not called on to deal with them diplomatically and spread corporate good-will.

Someone whose response to everyday situations gets other people hurt, or fired, or threatened, isn't behaving normally. Adria's response in this regard is no more valid than the road-raging executive, the raving street person who attacks someone for no reason, the child who throws a tantrum, or the jilted lover who goes into a screaming rage encountering an ex on the street.

Was she rightly fired? Absolutely. Ideally she wouldn't have been hired for the position in the first place.

The threats she's received since? Uncalled for.

Her failure to own her own actions and recognize her error? Inexcusable.

Oh, and the answer to men and their behavior around women dressing or acting provocatively? That's something the men own.

Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me.

I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon and started replacing 'A's in their company logos with lambdas, etc.). I actually only went there because my friend was giving a talk about Git. That, and they had free pizza. But I digress.

Anyway, there was this guy showing an interesting library for Java, name of which I can't remember now, that was aimed at seriously reducing the amount of cruft and boilerplate one has to write, replacing common patterns with annotations. I thought it was a great idea, and wanted to congratulate him, but suddenly, the entire audience started criticizing. That it's wrong, it's not "the Java way", etc. I voiced my opinion, that it clearly improves readability, for which I heard that I "don't get the Java way of doing things". I think I might also heard someone telling me, "you're a Lisper, this is different, you won't understand".

Now should I be offended at that reaction? Well, I felt bad, but should I cry foul, and vent out on the obvious discrimination of concise languages? Should I Tweet about how misolambdic the people on that conference were? How they hate metaprogramming? Should I get someone fired from their job because they told me I'm a Lisper, and thus don't understand Java? I'm a minority after all. I can't even get a job in the field I love, and have to code PHP to earn my bread.

I don't think anyone would find affirmative answers to above questions reasonable. And yet in some cases, it's apparently fine to overhear a random joke and turn it into a mess that gets two people fired from their jobs, just because you're a part of a minority. Do we want a society that's afraid of minorities? Because in a way, it validates discrimination - when people see that the smaller group has a disproportional ability to cause damage, it makes people hate them, not welcome them.

Moreover, I believe that not being easily offended is the sign of being a mature person. You shouldn't let some passing airwaves upset you to the point of losing control.

So, if I try to understand your choice of comparisons, do you live with oppression because you're a Lisper?

Why should we be the ones who have the ability to grant power?

Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.

Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.

To cede your power to a minority is exactly to grant that power to them. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

> Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.

SendGrid didn't grant 4chan the power to DDoS them. But they surely granted the trolls power to get someone from the company fired over a stupid Twitter dispute. The next time they'll be considering whether or not to launch another attack to get someone fired, they will be more eager to go through with it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399047

I'd guess the article author didn't notice/find the HN comment, or he would have asked her about it, I'm curious what she would say (she never meant it, she was just trying to save her own job? She changed her mind? She has complicated feelings?)

[1] http://www.shakesville.com/2015/02/the-falsest-of-false-equi...

The article you link to is worth reading -- it's critiquing a different article by Ronson in the NYTimes Magazine, not the OP by the the same author in Esquire. Obviously he used the same research for both though, and the critique might apply to both. The NYTimes one indeed reduced Richards to 'an anecdote', it was not focused just on this case, like the Esquire one was, and the Esquire one is a lot more clear about the consequences Richards faced. I think he did a somewhat better job of depicting the fucked up stuff that happened to Richards in the more recent Esquire one, but perhaps it's still not fair.

Obviously Richards has actually suffered way worse 'retribution' than 'Hank', and it is indeed illustrative.

But I'm struck by Richards comment in the article you link to:

"This has been my M.O. for several years, and it's how most people who run blogs operate: You experience something that generates strong feelings; you wrote a blog post. Pretty straightforward."

Yet she blames 'Hank' for tweeting about his own strong feelings about getting fired.

I have no idea if he was wrong to tell the joke or not; I am absolutely sure she was right to complain to conference if she felt threatened by it. I think the conf hosts did the right thing -- they didn't kick him out, they just told him, hey, cool it.

It's fucked up that he got fired; and it's even more fucked up that Richards got fired, and harassed and threatened by a mob, and had her career ruined way more than 'Hank'. What happened to Richards is definitely instructive, and that women in tech _know_ that there's an internet mob of misogynists waiting to try and ruin their lives... provides some context explaining where she's coming from, for sure. I'll admit I don't think she was or is responding compassionately or entirely rationally... but I understand why.

I'm not as sure. The article posted a somewhat misleading explanation, that it was capitulation to stop DDoS attacks and other harassment of SendGrid. But it wasn't mentioned that Adria used and name-dropped SendGrid and her "power" there to vocalize the issue, and that wasn't something SendGrid authorized or employed her to do.

Yeah, this kind of argument you are making on the internet is indeed an example of how many people were piling on to somehow blame her for... following the conference's policy on such things, basically.

This is a boring debate, but it is, yes, super fucked up how Richards has been treated, and she has been treated much worse than 'Hank', who was also treated poorly and unfairly.

Both articles are adapted from a book he's writing called "So You've Been Publicly Shamed"

> But I've been trying very hard to imagine what it's like to go to PyCon as a minority

No. It is a programming conference. It is not a forced place to be, it is not torture, it a programming conference. Framing this as some kind of a jungle full of dangers, rapists and murders lurking behind their little laptops, wearing geeky t-shirts is a bit crazy.

There are real inappropriate comments, sexual innuendos, harassment, both in the workplace and during conferences but this wasn't it.

By blowing this up she is fighting against her own cause because it diminishes the importance and impact of those things. It brings them down to the level of "oh crazy irrationality, and overreacting" which is the typical excuse for dismissing them. Next time someone is really harassed, the offender can just say "Oh she is pulling an Aria on me" or something to that effect.

> — that she should not have to apologise for it.

Yes she should have. Everyone expected Hank to apologize And he did. Not expecting her to apologies further excusing her lack of empathy is discriminatory and sexist.

> And you have to wonder — did Hank get another job so fast because our field is dominated by men, and they are likely to feel for him and have the same initial reactions as we do when reading this article?

I don't wonder. I am quite sure he got a job because others realized he was a decent person, who said a stupid thing, made a mistake, apologized for it. A person you want working for you. It wasn't because he had a penis or because he was white.

Adria on the other hand showed her character and her character is not one I would want on my team. She is manipulative, lacks empathy, likes controversy, and promotes discrimination and sexism.

It's not my intention to frame it this way. Sorry for giving you that impression. My intention is to frame this as an invisible problem to us as men.

My intention is to try to help people reflect on why they are so quick to anger about Adria, but realise they are perhaps not seeing a bigger problem.

I say this as someone who initially had similar angry reactions and then took a step back and tried to place myself in her shoes.

> No. It is a programming conference. It is not a forced place to be, it is not torture, it a programming conference. Framing this as some kind of a jungle full of dangers, rapists and murders lurking behind their little laptops, wearing geeky t-shirts is a bit crazy.

I'm not framing it like that. That may not stop PyCon from feeling like that for women.

Let's say there are women who feel unsafe at PyCon. Shouldn't we be concerned about this? Shouldn't we communicate them and try to figure out how we can include them?

Most of what I see in this thread moves to dismiss such women as delusional, because obviously PyCon is not full of rapists, it doesn't matter what women feel, they should get over it.

> Yes she should have.

I think you are taking my quote out of context. I'm not saying she should or shouldn't apologise. I was trying to explain how I could understand, after all that's happened, why she wouldn't feel the need to.

We have made this all about Hank. Probably because it's easy for us to get in his head. But I don't think she sees Hank as a very important figure in her experience of this situation so far. Hank was an oblivious and unfortunate side effect of the exclusion she felt at the conference.

> It wasn't because he had a penis or because he was white.

Software is a male dominated field right now. It is so easy for men who read this article to be angry at Adria and feel sorry for Hank. Just look at the reactions in this thread. That alone gives him a great chance of regaining employment. I'm sure the original HN thread had some guys saying "get in touch, we'll give you a job!"

> Adria on the other hand showed her character and her character is not one I would want on my team. She is manipulative, lacks empathy, likes controversy, and promotes discrimination and sexism.

You've twisted her into a monster in your own head. I wish I could convince you to step back from your feelings for a while, try not to let anger cloud your judgment. I think she was a pretty reasonable person who did something a bit thoughtless out of emotion. It blew up, the employers made terrible decisions, and everyone blamed her.

My entire point in this thread has been that we should examine what makes our field so threatening to women. It's the death by a thousand paper cuts thing — women face so many tiny challenges that seem innocuous on their own, and we are oblivious to all of them.

And instead of deciding to show understanding when situations like this arise, we show blame and demonise the real people involved.

That can only go so far. I rage inside when people don't move over on a long escallator, rage when they cut me off. In my head I call them all kinds of terrible things and so on. But I don't go do anything about, I don't yell at them, don't give them dirty looks, don't do anything visibly. I then forget about. See I got offended, but dealt with it.

As someone cannot just go around taking pictures and publically shaming others because they got offended. One has to have another facility (part of brain) to look objectivly at the situation adn say "I got a offended, but I get a bit irrational about this, I better switch seats, or move over or do whatever calms me down".

What if I had the power to fire the person on the escalator. What if I am their boss? I tweet about and then fire their ass.

Will you defend my feelings of anger and my actions, or will you say "this person is not normal, they are wrong to do what they've done".

> Shouldn't we be concerned about this? Shouldn't we communicate them and try to figure out how we can include them?

Oh I agree. I have a daughter, I would absolutely hate to know that if she wanted to persue the same career these venues would be an unwelcoming place or worksplace harassment is goin to happen and how it will affect her.

But _this_ particular case is not a forum for that discussion. If anything mentioning Adria's case in general and sexism or harrasment undermines and diminishes the cause.

> Most of what I see in this thread moves to dismiss such women as delusional,

In this case nothing promoted that belief more than Adria. That is why I want to distance the discussion about harrasment and sexism away from this case.

> I was trying to explain how I could understand, after all that's happened, why she wouldn't feel the need to.

Ok I see your point. Sorry, I misread that part.

> It is so easy for men who read this article to be angry at Adria and feel sorry for Hank.

Completely disagree. If Hank was Adria and Adria was Hank. This community would be 10x more agressive towards Hank. I am not talking about death threats and other horrible and illegal things 4channers did to Adria. That is absolutely undefensible and criminal. I am talking about a forum like HN or the article we are discussing.

In other words I am convinced this is about injustice. Attaching this to feminism or women's rights in the workplace is what Adria did, but in reality it has very little to do with it, I believe.

> I think she was a pretty reasonable person who did something a bit thoughtless out of emotion. It blew up, the employers made terrible decisions, and everyone blamed her.

Sorry, I got a bit emotional about it. Not because I hate women but because of the part where she wanted Hank to remove his comment about how he lost his job. Let's stop for a while and think about it. That seems like a small hotheaded move, kind of insignificant. But it very significant. It shows something very revealing about her character, which is those things that I wrote -- lack of empathy, manipulation, hyporcrisy. Did you figure out the significance of that request? The significance is that she thought Hank would be using the same tools she was -- presenting himself as a victim. And for her, from the very first moment, it was a about public controversy, about PR, about stirring drama. When she read his response she realized she lost her gamble. This did not look like a bit of thoughless emotion. This was a well thought out operation on her part.

Maybe you can rationalize it or see her side better. But I think I see her side as well.

> My entire point in this thread has been that we should examine what makes our field so threatening to women.

100% agree with that sentiment, but disagree that this particular case should serve as a discussion platform for it.

I could understand if she tweeted about 'two men' making those jokes/whatnot and complain about it, BUT without a picture. With it, I honestly believe she got off easy... If it was me (regarding of it being a joke that was taken out of context or not), posting my picture like that would make me try and do everything to get damages from her, and her employer if she was there in any official capacity.

I believe we should be inclusive of women in tech in all capabilities, and even admit it was an unfortunate joke, which I probably wouldn't make in that scenario, but what she did was actually a set back to the 'women in tech' movement. She was selfish and after the whole mess, still unapologetic. I'm sorry to say, but I'm pretty sure this brought even more doubts to folks wanting to hire women in their companies, let they now get another Adria.

From the article:

> Someone sent Adria a photograph of a beheaded woman with tape over her mouth. Adria’s face was superimposed onto the bodies of porn actors. Websites were created to teach people how to make the superimposing look seamless — by matching skin-tones. On Facebook someone wrote, “I hope I can find Adria, kidnap her, put a torture bag over her head, and shoot a .22 subsonic round right into her fucking skull. Fuck that bitch, make her pay, make her obey.

See my previous post about proportionate response; this ain't it. Even if Adria is not making herself a likable person, by shaming Hank in public and failing to accept any blame for the backlash, this is not something that she deserved because of that.

Not so much because it adds unnecessary words and gets tedious after reading slight variations of it for the umpteenth time.

But because we as a community, no matter how much we quarrel and bicker about everything, wouldn't ever endorse such harassment.

Not a single one of us. And no reader, inside or outside the community, could ever be mistaken and think a single HN commenter would.

But maybe you all are right, and it is needed. I'd just like to think it isn't.

> But maybe you all are right, and it is needed. I'd just like to think it isn't.

I think it still is—the harassment, after all, did occur. And while it would be nice to think that none of her harassers are active on HN, I really don't believe that's the case.

Instead, she chose to deny them the right of any defense, and publicly shamed them on the Internet, including their picture. And somehow, this is supposed to be OK? Why? Because she's part of certain minorities, as she's so keen to point out (jewish, black)? Because of her gender?

If a "white male" had done anything like this, how do you think the world would have reacted? He would have been labeled as a "hacker", "doxing" an innocent and defenseless minority member and as opening the flood gates for anonymous online assault and abuse.

Obviously, what happened in retaliation by the anonymous legions of idiots on the Internet is terrible and even worse than what happened to Hank, and she certainly didn't deserve anything like this.

I realize this is a publication targeted towards a male audience, and it is clearly coloured to favour Hank's side in this. But if the depiction of Adria in this article is even close to genuine, I have a very hard time feeling bad for her. Some of her quotes are just out of this world, and often based on nothing but conjecture:

- Quote: "Maybe it was [Hank] who started all of this. No one would have known he got fired until he complained. Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired. Maybe he secretly seeded the hate groups." - Without giving any kind of tentative evidence, she's accusing him of funding hate groups, and downplaying her fault in his bad fortunes.

- She claims she feared for her life after hearing Hank make a silly forking joke. In a crowded audience, she thought he was going to kill her, right there. What the hell is that about?

- Quote: "Hank’s actions resulted in him getting fired, yet he framed it in a way to blame me. If I had two kids, I wouldn’t tell ‘jokes’" - Seriously, if every father who ever told a mate a poor joke with some sexual innuendo were to get fired, we'd all be out of a job. Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.

- She snarkily claims that Hank is devoid of sympathy or empathy towards other human beings, while ironically being incapable herself of empathizing with his plight. She just goes on to repeat that all of this is his fault, including both of them losing their job, and all the threats she has received.

- It also sounds (especially at the end) like she blames him personally for being born into an unfair world, where he was born with more privilege and opportunity than her, but that's bringing us a bit to far off topic.

Anyone have her Github? Is she even any good? I would expect with the size of the chip on her shoulder it would be difficult to work.

I don't know her but her issues seem to be deeply psychological. I would be afraid to work anywhere near her brand of hatred. Ironically, according to the article, she posted a penis joke. The gent in the store merely used a puerile entendre and she flips out? I suggest that she seek professional help.

Also, for one that says "I can't speak for her" and "I don't know her," you seem quite willing to go all out to discredit her as being the stereotypical irrational woman. [1] She herself isn't necessarily present in the discussion. What is the point in eviscerating her as you've done? Playing armchair psychologist does nothing to make workplace interactions better. This whole situation seems like a great place, at the unfortunate expense of Hank and Adria, for the tech industry to meet in the middle between "making dongle jokes is cool, get over it" and "the white-male hegemony needs to be dismantled."

[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HystericalWoman

But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article:

“Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me.

“You felt fear?” I asked.

“Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”

I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.

I can't imagine what it is like to crave for a cigeratte. If our industry were full of nonsmokers, would we then have to go out of our way to accommodate people who want to smoke in their offices?

The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him. She still seems to be in denial. Did she have to eavesdrop on a conversation that she wasn't a part of? She doesn't represent women. She represents herself and the high horse she commands.

I'd never hire her for anything related to developer relations. No sensible company should after her demonstrated lack of responsibility.

In this case, the metaphor would be more accurate the other way around. If the industry were full of smokers, would it make sense for them to accommodate people who don't smoke? We definitely should, and we do, because secondhand smoke is damaging.

The person in the minority is the one that was being hurt. Restraining yourself from telling silly jokes won't hurt anyone; feeling threatened in an unsafe environment does, and this is how it is perceived an industry where women are in the minority. "Grow a thicker skin" is a legitimate reply up to the point where you accept them to tell you: "Right, but tone down your behavior". You can't expect the other party to be the only one to agree with everything you do, if you are not willing to concede something as well in return.

You can and should be able to set up as many private venues where you can behave in as rude ways as you want, as long as all people participating in them have accepted those norms. But at public places, open for all, it's good to know that there are expectations of polite behavior, and people should respect those limits.

> The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him.

Quite right. That's why her behavior is not acceptable either, because the expected conduct between adults is to handle personal grievances in private. But the way she handled the situation doesn't make her concerns invalid, and we should not conflate the first with the second.

> You can't expect the other party to be the only one to agree with everything you do, if you are not willing to concede something as well in return.

Yes, you can. Are you really saying that I can't tell jokes to my friend for the fear of offending an eavesdropper? Yes, we need to do more to encourage diversity in cs. No, I am not willing to watch my every word for fear of triggering an eavesdropper.

PC has gone too far.

That would ring true if the persons asking for a middle ground weren't expressing severe concerns of distress, and the point you defend was somehow meaningful and essential. When the side you defend is "I want to tell dirty jokes in public" and the other is going "I am reminded of rape threats because we have proof that people in similar settings tend to commit hostile behavior", your side doesn't come up very sympathetic.

> Are you really saying that I can't tell jokes to my friend for the fear of offending an eavesdropper?

In the middle of an ongoing talk at a conference??? No, you can't tell jokes there that can be overheard (why wouldn't you just whisper to his ear?), as you shouldn't do it at the cinema while the movie is going on. That's called basic respect - the other people went there to listen to the speaker and do some networking. Or if you do, the least you should do is have the decency to apologize when someone else tells you off.

> No, I am not willing to watch my every word for fear of triggering an eavesdropper.

You can tell jokes to your friends at the pub, or at the office café, or any place where social rules are relaxed. That's not being PC, it's common courtesy to adapt your behavior to the social setting. If you can't or won't control your behavior at more formal venues and distinguish where it's proper to behave informally and when it's not, people would be right to avoid being around you.

Social rules are there to avoid friction, and allow everyone involved to find a compromise they can live with. You are not entitled to behave as an insensitive asshole, in particular when people is asking you to stop. You can legally do it, but it doesn't mean it's morally right. There are venues where you can tell bad jokes to your friend, please limit yourself to doing it at those places.

I absolutely agree with this point. I'd just replace the last sentence with please don't put up private conversations of people with photographs and identifying information on Twitter or another public forum for everyone to see.

Not to mention the part where she herself tweets dick jokes.

I feel really bad for Hank, he totally did not deserve it. I also feel really bad that Adria felt so uncomfortable that she did something so rash.

Both of their actions and reactions seem so natural to me. The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.

More like shooting someone in the back.

> I also feel really bad that Adria felt so uncomfortable that she did something so rash.

That is where we differ. I do not believe her explanations. Not when she tweets the same kind of joke herself.

> The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.

This particular situation was avoidable. But yes, diversity is a big issue.

> Both of their actions and reactions seem so natural to me. The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.

Everybody makes bad call. The difference is in how you handle your bad decisions, and what lessons you draw. Adria does not even begin to recognize that she acted wrongly towards these two guys, and generally gave a bad name to feminists.

I think that brings up a very good point. You can make these jokes when you feel safe.

Hank felt safe at PyCon, it was easy for him to joke right there in earshot of many like-minded people.

Adria felt safe tweeting such a joke from her own computer.

Adria did not feel safe at PyCon. This should be a huge problem for us. We should be questioning this, not Adria's mental capacity.

I don't believe Adria is a sociopath, or delusional, or any of the number of things she has been accused of being in this thread. I believe she is a rational individual, much like Hank, and that she felt intensely uncomfortable at PyCon due to her minority status. I believe she feels how she described — just like I believe Hank feels how he described.

> Adria does not even begin to recognize that she acted wrongly towards these two guys, and generally gave a bad name to feminists.

I don't think Adria is very focused on these guys, and for a lot of people that comes off as hatred or a lack of empathy — especially because we, as guys, empathise in particular with Hank. So her lack of acknowledgement is so easily felt as cruel.

Those actions shouldn't be praised, but they also shouldn't be judged outside of their context. It's really hard for people like us in a position of relative privilege* to empathise because we're put in these situations so much less often, if ever.

It's so important for us to recognise our internal biases and confront them. Until I read these comments I didn't realise just how much better I'd empathised with Hank just because he's way more similar to me than Adria is.

* I hate to use the p-word because of its stigma but I really can't think of a better word

Imagine that you live in a bad part of town, and that you have been assaulted before. Somebody takes out a pocket knife and starts carving a figure on a tree. You lash out and kick them in the crotch. Congratulation, you completely overreacted. I expect that most people would apologize and feel kind of bad for having taken out their frustration/fear/whatever on somebody harmless. Especially when they had a long time to think about what they did.

I don't know what to think of her explanations, which may or may not be sincere, and may or may not have been made up after the fact. Lack of non-white males in the tech industry is definitely a larger issue than this individual case.

> I don't think Adria is very focused on these guys, and for a lot of people that comes off as hatred or a lack of empathy — especially because we, as guys, empathise in particular with Hank. So her lack of acknowledgement is so easily felt as cruel.

I wouldn't go as far as hatred, but lack of empathy, certainly. Judging from her "I wouldn't make jokes if I had kids" comment, she clearly believes he had it coming.

That comment really hit me too when I first read it. Because I have kids and I would make jokes like that. I thought it was insensitive.

But then I tried to see things from her point of view and maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about Hank. He got a new job quickly, he didn't get death threats.

And maybe she doesn't have kids, so she's just spouting off some opinion about how you should behave as a parent without really knowing. But so what? Why should we be so angry about this and vilify her?

I think much of the anger directed at Adria in this thread is irrational — our feelings are telling us to make this a big deal when it isn't, the problem is elsewhere.

Has she ever claimed to be a feminist?

Only Jews can tell Jew jokes. Only black people can tell n* jokes. Only a woman can tell dick jokes without shame?

But. If she was so tightly wound that a dongle joke caused a sense of danger so profound that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, then she's probably dealing with personal psychological issues. We shouldn't confuse the mental state of one person with the situation of all women in technology. I don't think anyone is happy with the current levels of gender imbalance and sexism, but that seems like it might be a separate issue.

There's a such a thing as too much empathy. If someone is exhibiting abnormal behavior then the best thing to do is to focus on getting them the help they need, and then question what factors in society might be contributing to their mental state. The majority of women can sit in a room full of men and overhear a dumb joke without feeling the need to publicly shame people. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but this seems to be an issue about this particular woman and her psychological state. I do feel some empathy for her in that respect, but she's still responsible for her actions.

I believe she genuinely felt the way she describes, but I don't think she felt it because of her gender.

I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.

I find it more likely that the feeling had something to do with the trauma associated with her father knocking out her mother's teeth with a hammer when she was a kid, as detailed in the last part of the article.

An innocuous joke that triggered a disproportionate emotional response, seeded by past trauma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_trauma#Symptoms

I can attest to this. My friends in computer science - both male and female - make bad sex jokes all the time. We all laugh at them.

I don't think it's fair to assume that only men can enjoy dumb jokes.

This psychological point is the key issue which seems to have unfortunately been missed in a lot of the HN discussion.

When people of your racial/religious group are murdered and attacked and harassed (and anti-Semitism is still a thing) her perception of threat is no doubt heightened.

It's unreasonable to expect her to confront people making dumb jokes if she feels threatened by them.

(However, her actions are not acceptable. She could have sought out conference organisers and told them.)

The interesting thing that happened: A bilious internet mob.

The thing being discussed: The legitimacy of an individual's mental state. Not even the reasonableness of their reaction to the mental state, the mental state itself.

I can certainly empathize with feeling fear that I am perfectly aware is irrational, looking at pictures of people up high makes me queasy and I stop looking before I break into a cold sweat. Pictures!

Nobody can imagine how would a random nerd from a 800-people conference would feel over a joke. Shall we ban joking? Fine people that use "dirty" words? "Your tone of voice makes me feel deeply offended, thus I have all the right to sue you" ? Where does this road end?

What makes me feel extremely annoyed is the whole political correctitude and feeling-catering that slowly turns normal human communication into bland, tasteless pulp.

Why would that be your take-away from this?

The problem is the lack of diversity in our field leads to these horrible, unfortunate situations where people feel threatened and jokes which are not intended to be harmful are felt to be much worse.

It means that we shouldn't be dismissing Adria and feeling for Hank because that's what always happens and what will keep causing these situations to happen in the future.

If we want to feel safe about making bad sex jokes then we need diversity in our field. We need everyone to feel safe just being there before we can all act like we're safe and comfortable enough to be ourselves.

People have very different sense of humour. As long as people are expressing that sense of humour via jokes, there will be jokes that are not seen as funny by the others that (over)hear them. I think it's safe to say that there will always be sex-related jokes as well. Thus, unless we stop joking completely, I don't see a way how we could completely avoid bad sex-jokes in private conversations. And if there are such jokes, there's always the risk of the wrong person hearing them and feeling offended just because the joke is a) bad and b) about sex.

I fully agree that we are lacking diversity, and there are things that we could do better to make the tech field more open. Self-censoring our private talks is NOT one of those things.

If she truly had this kind of response to an innocuous joke, I think that says more about her own insecurities than about the behavior of Hank. Feeling danger in response to a bad joke in a crowded room is not a reasonable response to have. It's grossly over-proportionate.

How far should we go to cater toward the irrationalities of others?

I don't expect other people to cater towards my fear, but acknowledging that it's real and that it happens is important. Ridiculing it won't make it go away.

It's not irrational. I'm a man and I avoid groups of people at night, too. It's an absolutely reasonable precaution. I avoid other men because I don't want to put my life in danger unnecessarily, and I avoid women mostly because I don't want them to be alarmed by my presence.

These are what I would call rational fears, because they're about minimizing risk. It's also very clear that, say, if I required sudden medical assistance, I would probably trust any stranger I come across in the city at night to do the right thing 99.9% of the time. These are the mechanics of false negatives vs. false positives.

> I don't expect other people to cater towards my fear

Exactly. This is an important point because being afraid of something another person might do doesn't necessarily mean it's an accurate reflection of that person's intent.

And this is the fundamental breaking point where I think reasonable people start to feel a disconnect in the flow of the dongle story, because Richards is asserting both now and then that her life was in danger, and while it's easy to at least consider this feeling was real, the main question becomes did those guys do anything to cause that fear?

Because if they did not, it's unreasonable to blame them for causing this fear. I don't think a lot of people would say this fear itself is unjustified, but using it to attack someone who apparently did nothing to cause it is, and this whole disaster is a missed opportunity to talk about the factors that cause it.

This is not to detract from the stupidity of genital jokes in general, which amazingly both parties appear to be fond of.

Now on another level, I'm a very bashful person, so I have a hard time looking at people in the eyes when I talk to them. Therefore my eyes are pointed at a 30 - 60 degree angle downward towards the floor. And guess what is in that line of site if I happen to be talking to a woman at work? So I learned to just stare straight ahead, or start messing with my phone, whenever a female coworker passes me in the hall. Just to avoid giving the impression that I'm looking her up and down, due to my natural instinct to avoid eye contact by shifting my gaze downward towards the floor after seeing someone make eye contact with me (which, as mentioned, can be taken the wrong way, and land me in HR).

Certainly not. It's a very complicated issue that starts with the common popular stereotype that all men are sexual predators. We live in one of the safest times in human history, yet the news has us all believing we are in constant, imminent danger.

But you are in fact thousands of times more likely to be hit by a car while jogging than raped. Yet almost nobody feels immense fear when a car drives by them.

I have OCD, so I deal with irrational thoughts all the time. I can truly empathize with how difficult they are to dismiss, even when you understand just how irrational they are.

The ridicule here is because Adria acted on her irrationalities and ended up costing a guy his job over them.

The fear itself is reasonable, perhaps not fair, but reasonable. But if the fear is so strong for you that you can't even feel safe in the above description it's an issue with you and not them.

On the plus side, the queues for the loos are always short. ;)

Here's a true story for your consideration, a little while ago, walking home through the park which is unlit, after working late, I came across a female jogger lying unconscious on the ground. I did some basic first aid, called an ambulance, and waited with her until help arrived.

If she'd seen me in the distance and veered off the track because MEN she would have collapsed in the bushes and died of hypothermia probably that night. Have faith in people and they will be there for you when you need them.

If we can't acknowledge this woman's feelings seriously then we can't include her. That's not good enough.

I've seen Adria called "delusional", and "in need of therapy" in this thread. It makes me sad to think how quickly and easily we dismiss her.

The joke was innocuous, and I agree that her response was over-proportionate. I agree with you. The difference is I don't blame her for those actions because I think I can see how she felt in that situation. Same way I don't blame Hank for making a stupid joke because I've been there too.

I'm asking if you acknowledge the existence of some norm in our society for the reasonableness of being offended. Is there a point beyond which we as a society say, "No reasonable person would ever be offended by that, so we're sorry you're experiencing negative emotions and rising hair on your neck, and we're sorry you feel like murder is imminent, but this is not actually a problem and there is a negligible probability of you being killed based on a joke about the king's sleeves."

Note that a consequence of denying such a norm is that we must frequently reorganize our society to please myriad extremists of many stripes, many of whom have mutually exclusive demands.

Conversely, if you admit the existence of such a norm, is this controversy just a discussion about how to construct an algorithm for calibrating it? I'm genuinely asking these things, not being snarky.

Open AND closed spaces should be forbidden due to agora- and claustrophobia. The problem is with surrounding, not the sufferers, right?

Then think of how terrified she must have felt when she was laughing and joking with a beer and surrounded by men playing Cards Against Humanity, with all those sexual and racial jokes. Poor "black, jewish" girl! Maybe we should expose the names of all those men in the photo and get them fired too ? I mean, She felt fear!!!

When a woman in our field says "I felt this way" we say "No no, she's delusional, therapy is in order." Instead of asking why and trying to understand what led to these feelings. This sort of behaviour doesn't help us become more inclusive.

If she felt in physical danger when in reality she very much wasn't, then yes, that's delusional, almost by definition.

There are tons of cases where people have been made to feel uncomfortable by their peers in the software industry because of their race and/or sex. Racism and sexism are definitely problems in the software industry.

But this specific case is just ridiculous. Look at the actual jokes involved. "That hardware has a really big dongle"? "I would fork that guy's repo"? The butts of these jokes were a fictional piece of hardware and a (probably white) male, respectively. There's nothing in those jokes that could logically lead a woman to believe that the jokers would cause her harm. Just because a joke is sexual doesn't mean it's sexist. This wasn't even an overreaction: it was a reaction to something that wasn't sexist.

Internet feminism is a particularly poor representation of modern feminist thought. Most modern feminists say that women are just as sexual as men, and that women don't express their sexuality because of social pressure--an assertion which is gaining some scientific evidence. Ironically, Adria is enforcing a stereotype that anything sexual is anti-female. From that perspective, Adria's actions are the sexist ones, not Hank's.

I agree that both Adria and Hank got worse than they deserved in this situation. Certainly losing their jobs is too much, and nobody should ever have to experience death threats. But I find it a lot harder to be sympathetic to Adria in this case. If I were her employer I'd definitely be having doubts. If my engineers are making sexist comments I will fire them, but someone who accuses people of making sexist comments when they aren't making sexist comments is a liability.

Of course, there may be more to this story we don't know. Maybe Hank made some other jokes that were actually sexist.

Turning around and asking them to stop would have been enough. If they didn't (by shrugging her off, or laughing at her request, or whatever) that would have been grounds to publicly shame them.

It doesn't matter who got off easier or worse. There could be a million reasons why Adria didn't get another job: the male-dominated industry is one. Here's a personal challenge, which of these would you hire:

* A female registered sex offender.

* A male who avoids tackling problems head-on and instead appeals to authority in order to get those problems removed.

I don't see a gender issue here, I do however see excuse and justification issues. Things still work out the same way in the end if you switch the genders around.

I can understand angry, but not threatened. None of the comments I heard come close to a threat and everyone involved admits they weren't directed at her.

* Hank did a private joke while Adria took the issue to the public (tweeted to her 10,000 followers) * Hank was a developer while Adria was a developer evangelist, so she officially represents the company publicly. It's important to note that a lof of her Twitter followers probably followed her because of her position at Sendgrid.

Which is why I can understand Sendgrid's decision, but less Hank's employer's decision. Not based on the blackmail, but because it became hard for such a dividing personality to assume a position that involves public communication with a developer community that may or may not agree with everything you think.

This. Young netizens need to learn the meaning of "proportionate response". There were two adequate courses of action given the offence:

- Confront the guys, and shame them face to face for their behavior.

- If the goal was to change such misogynistic behavior of men at that kind of events (which is a reasonable and even courageous thing to do), the proper action should have been to describe the incident withholding the identities of the guys, precisely to not get them in such trouble. “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, as they say.

Doing the later would have achieved the desired goal while avoiding the whole nightmare to all involved. But linking their names to the notice of wrong behavior was an irresponsible thing to do; in particular, performing such public shaming on the internet, which never forgets and where things can go viral and turn against the one doing the shaming, as it happened.

Edit: Not to mention the disproportionate reaction of the employer, and of everyone that started bombing a company over this. Seriously guys, what's wrong with people when they're online?

Many women in the tech industry have stated a legitimate concern that, being in a minority, they feel very disturbing a "bro culture" in professional settings where sexual innuendo is unabashed, even when those are not directed at women - if not for other things, because that culture encourages some black sheeps to perform regrettable actions which are misogynistic, like unwanted sexual advances while discussing a business deal.

After being made aware of such frequent and repeated complaints, the responsible way to behave in such contexts, when there are women present, is to restrain yourself and avoid such comments even if you don't agree that they are misogynistic, unless you're 100% sure that all the women present are OK with them.

Making a sexual innuendo about dicks or whatever isn't misogyny. Please, tell me how talking about dicks is an exhibit of contempt for women. The "joke" doesn't even have to do with women.

This makes her racist and sexist at the same time.

/s

[1] https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858

Hank's joke was perhaps inappropriate (it's impossible for those of us that were not there to even apply our own personal standards, volume, tone, etc. all factor into such things, and they are impossible to describe objectively).

Adria's response is similarly hard to judge. I don't think the incident as she described it deserved much remediation. Certainly not beyond the resolution internal to the conference where he apologized. But I also think that there needs to be room to make mistakes. Sometimes people really are jerks, and they should be called on it, even if sometimes there is not wide agreement that they were jerks.

But somehow, instead of focusing on the bile and rage that many internet participants see as part an parcel of participation, which are clearly inappropriate and not in any way useful, here we have dozens of comments picking at the details of what happened at the conference.

Oh get off the racism/sexism card already.

If Hank were the black woman and Adria were the white male, then I swear on my honor I would feel exactly the same way toward both parties here.

I must say I'm more concerned about the combination of her father beating her mother to pieces with a hammer, and her writing an upbeat and loving letter to him some 20 years later... To me that's the heartbreaking story here.

UPDATE: Edited to clarify that I think there's room to empathize with Adria.

Nice quote here. As you say, it really does make Richards look empathetic. /s

But seriously, this is not good for her image.

He lost his job and got a new one "right away" (according to the article). She also lost her job, was bombarded with all kinds of threats (death, rape, etc.), had to go into hiding and still doesn't have a new job (at least as of her interview for the piece).

I'm sure she could improve her image if she were better at faking some empathy, but I understand why she wouldn't feel much.

She lost her job for tattling on a private joke shared with a friend that she overheard. She then tried to get the claim that she cost someone a job taken down, blamed the victim for his own problems, and blamed the victim for her problems. She is also quoted being quite racist and sexist. She may also have used her PR position to cause much of this (I've heard but have not seen conclusion evidence that the account she used was officially associated with her company.) Her line of work is, at the core, PR.

That one was hired and the other wasn't should not be a surprise.

Lots. The "broader context" is that people who aren't Hank harassed her. As a result, she suggests that Hank organized that harassment.

i.e. she isn't sympathetic to Hank because of a ridiculous excuse she invented.

I understand you want to have sympathy for a victim. Fine. Sympathize with Adria for the abuse she got. But also point out that her lack of empathy for Hank is itself a red flag.

But you could think of it in the opposite way as well: Perhaps our empathy should be directed more towards those that have it toughest in life, and less towards those with whom we can easily identify? In that case I'd say it's the 4chan guys that are "irreparably damaged", and the HN crowd obsessed with Hank's restitution... well, "damaged" but perhaps not "irreparably". ;)

While I agree with most of your post I don't agree with this statement. In my opinion hiding behind a username not tied to your real identity is nothing more than a stopgap, eventually someone will link "byuu" with who you really are or more likely you will make a slip up and expose yourself. DPR did everything he could to conceal his identity while running SR and he still screwed up. Even if you don't make a mistake I believe that we aren't too far off from computers being able to analyse written comments/posts/tweets/etc and then link identities together based on writing style, posting time, and other metadata. It is because of this and the following two reasons that I nearly always post under "joshstrange".

1) I stand by what I have said and when I find out I'm wrong I like to publicly admit that. I'm not going to pretend I'm perfect, none of us are.

2) By posting under my real name I am less likely to say something that I will have to backtrack on, it would be a lot easier to spew off the cuff responses (which I'm still not perfect from doing) thinking that I was hiding behind some username that would never be linked to me.

Pretty much I think that one day all my other identities will be easily linked back to me so why try and hide?

being liberal in a conservative community, for example.

There is a great deal of self-censorship that I do because I expect every comment I make to come back later be it positive or negative. It's less of "Oh I won't post that comment" and more of "I won't go near that forum/board/community in case I were to get doxxed". It's just that trying to be anonymous is so hard and even people that think they are doing a good job slip up all the time and get doxxed. If people trying their best fail what hope do I have?

DPR screwed up by running the largest drug trafficking system in the world. I make software to play old video games. While I'd love to flatter myself into thinking I were that important, I doubt I'm going to get the force of the entire US government trying to link my identity over my perfectly legal online actions.

But yes, anyone can eventually screw up. The nice part is that my real name is also really common. I can just make a new pseudonym if I have to. Changing your real name, still doable, but not quite as easy.

Agreed and I understand that it was the government that linked his identities I think that while they may currently be the only one's able to do that today I don't trust that they anyone won't be able to do that in a few years time. Look at how old/bad/cracked encryption can be decrypted in hours on even your parent's desktop computer and how things thought secure just years ago can be cracked with supercomputers or cloud computing today.

Did you read to the end, about her childhood?

She quite obviously has mental issues.

The guy simply shouldn't have gotten fired over a such a childish remark. His former employer is the one who made the real mistake here and who should be at the center of any public shaming.

Worse? One (presumably) could've had a ruined business due to DDoS which could've led to much more layoffs than just one-I'm-very-sorry-for Adria. Hanks' employer could've had much more troubles than simply loosing money - by having a "black-jewish-feminist-hater" in his staff.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_danegeld.htm

I believe exactly the opposite. People say horrible things hiding behind anonymity. Those of us who freely identify ourselves actually attempt (albeit sometimes feebly) to talk to others as if we were in person. If we just treated each other on-line like we did in person, most of this shit would never happen.

- Proud self-identified member of Hacker News for 8 years. (see profile)

EDIT 1: I love engaging others on-line when I know who they are (the way HN was for a long time) much more than anonymous strangers. I would be phony if I felt this way and remained anonymous

EDIT 2: Why would anyone want to work for someone who would fire them for gossip, on-line or otherwise? Firing is almost always an extreme overreaction and a clear demonstration of one's inability to run their business. Fuck 'em. Find another job with someone a little more righteous. (FWIW, things I say in person in the workplace are probably much more offensive to those who don't get it than anything I'd ever say on-line.)

Exposing that you are a woman via your name over the internet results in harassment. Same with being black, Arab, or Asian. Same with Gay, TG, etc.

If you'd like to experience this effect, create a fictional profile which publicly advertises you as a "furry", and try and interact with the internet. You'll be amazed (and repulsed) by the responses.

Unless you're totally, totally vanilla, and can guarantee that you will never express a controversial thought or opinion, there is little reason to take the risk of attaching your Real World identity to your comments and leaving an opening for the online mobs.

Now here's the real thing: not only did Eich back those reprehensible politics, he by all indications continues to do so. Heck, I'm probably one of the more vocally left-wing posters here, and I was a proud libertarian nutter ten years ago. My politics have wildly shifted and I am personally embarrassed by some of the idiotic beliefs I once held--but I'm not ashamed of the journey I took to get here and I own the whole damn thing. "I believed it then, with the best information I had, and when I got better information, I changed my mind." If Eich had been a neutral actor, had mildly believed something and shifted with those public mores instead of financially supporting them, had said "you know, I believed that then, I've grown as a person, and because of X and Y I no longer believe it"? Nobody would have had a beef. But he'd supported it concretely, and apparently picked that hill to die on in his moral calculus. So he, metaphorically, did.

There is a lesson of the Internet to be learned here, though: you will be viewed through the lens of history and you will probably be viewed through it during your lifetime. You don't have to be uncontroversial. But you do have to be just, be generous, and be good in your dealings. Or you will be judged harshly, and I'm honestly pretty okay with that.

I feel like a large number of people didn't seem to grasp this, I agree with everything you posted here and said similar things when that whole ordeal happened.

> My politics have wildly shifted and I am personally embarrassed by some of the idiotic beliefs I once held

I too have experienced this and I too will not try to hide or whitewash my history. I was who I was then, for better or for worse, and that doesn't mean I'm the same way now. In fact I like to try to correct my previous self as publicly or more so than the original statement so it's easy to see that that opinion was old and has changed since if stumbled across.

> "you know, I believed that then, I've grown as a person, and because of X and Y I no longer believe it"

I would have been the first to defend him if he had done this and would have been outraged if the same outcome had happened under these new circumstances. He didn't, and so I'm not.

> There is a lesson of the Internet to be learned here, though: you will be viewed through the lens of history and you will probably be viewed through it during your lifetime.

Exactly, I have full confidence that comments I've made under usernames I used prior to using my real name will one day be linked to my current identity. So much that I've seriously considered linking them myself now and disputing any views expressed that I may no longer hold in a couple of blog posts. It's why I switched to my real name, it's a constant reminder that my name is attached to everything I write even if I don't use my real name.

>You don't have to be uncontroversial. But you do have to be just, be generous, and be good in your dealings. Or you will be judged harshly, and I'm honestly pretty okay with that.

Agreed.

I'm always disappointed when my colleagues don't understand that I'm not against Eich for his opinions. This isn't a free speech issue. I'm against him for donating money for the express purpose of harming other people [1]. And he (and others) did, for five full years. And popular opinion certainly doesn't justify it.

It pains me just as much that the Mozilla board chose to promote him to CEO, knowing his past already.

[1] just like corporations aren't people, money isn't speech. Ridiculous rulings can change the laws, but they can't alter self-evident truths. We have a warped Supreme Court at the moment that also thinks racism is over, and that 170-year (or ones beyond the heat death of the universe) copyright terms are okay because the constitution only bars infinite terms.

Eich is obviously of a different opinion vis a vis the harm caused by Prop 8. The question is, if one political fasion can be successfully characterized as "exclusively harmful" by its opponents, is it worth the risk of having your Real Name attached to any political comments?

Since we don't know now what will one day be considered a "lens of history"-style retrospective, perhaps the most prudent course of action would be to engage in discussion anonymously only. If we believe that one should be able to express political opinions without reprisal, we should deeply value the protection of anonymity.

The entire affair recounted in the article shows that if you make the wrong person mad and they have the right friends in the right places, you will face very real consequences merely for expressing a different opinion. In the case of the article, the difference in opinion was whether juvenile jokes like "fork my dongle" are funny. In the case of Eich, the difference in opinion was whether Prop 8 helped or harmed. Who knows what it will be when they come for you?

Eich's forced resignation is a free speech issue. We can't value free expression or free speech if we witch hunt everyone who refuses to recant their contrarian political positions. You're pretty OK with this now insofar as you, for whatever reason, happen to agree with Eich's shamers, but please be aware there's no guarantee that your political opinions will always be in favor. Would you be singing the same tune if you'd been dragged in front of the McCarthy Committee and/or blacklisted for being "vocally left-wing"?

I don't want to imply that private entities are not within their rights to choose not to hire someone with whom they disagree politically. They are within their rights to do so, but that doesn't mean it's good behavior. If we value meaningful freedom, we need to take a serious look at our shaming, revisionist political culture and do what we can to curb jumps to hostility, incivility, or shaming. Sometimes people disagree, and that's OK.

Suppose someone does oppose the Civil Rights Act. Should this person be stripped of their right to work? Should they be placed in prison for holding a "dangerous" or "exclusively harmful" political position? Is it OK if they oppose it on procedural grounds, i.e., they believe the Civil Rights Act has good ideas implemented incorrectly or suboptimally? What if they actually reject the modern racial narrative? How do we tell which oppositional arguments are legal and which aren't? Will you be publishing a guidebook on this soon so that we can make sure we never get caught on the wrong end of the "lens of history" (which, by the way, for any meaningful value of history, can't be viewed in the lifetime of the author)? Should annual endorsement of the Civil Rights Act become a precondition for the maintenance of American citizenship?

What really troubles me about this conversation is that you are persistently trying to reframe attacking the basic humanity of other people as "disagreeing". This is far, far more substantiative than a disagreement. Eich and his weird tribe are welcome to believe, in their heart of hearts, that gay people are lesser and unworthy human beings. They do not get to hurt people who've done them no wrong. Eich decided it was his place to put his money on the line and fight against the rights of people who demanded them, and you don't get to call off a fight you picked and agree-to-disagree when the fight goes against you.

Pity the man. He's not allowed to be the CEO of Mozilla. At least we all agree he's a human being, even if he can't do that for the people he'd have had reporting to him.

I think most people agree that morality isn't defined by consensus. We're not talking about morality in the objective sense, to the extent that such a thing exists. We're talking morality as perceived by others and the very real consequences that can flow from remaining consistent in one's moral perspective, while the rest of the community's view shifts. When that view turns against you, is it really fair to say that you shouldn't be allowed to do your job anymore? You may be OK with economic martyrdom if it comes down to it, but it's unlikely you actually want that to disrupt your life.

You're acting as if there is an objective test that proves your perspective is moral by definition. No such thing exists. That's why people disagree on these issues and it's why it's important that we maintain decorum and civility while disagreeing -- good, moral people can have differing opinions. Very few people are truly evil.

It's extremely unlikely that Brendan Eich would argue gay people are "not human beings", or even that they are "lesser human beings". That is not the premise of Prop 8. The fact that you can't see it any other way just shows how effective gay rights advocates have been at radicalizing a substantial portion of the population.

Homosexuality is a behavior. Gay marriage is the question of whether the government should subsidize or sponsor that behavior in the same way it subsidizes and sponsors heterosexual behaviors. These aren't questions of identities, they're questions of practicalities. People can disagree on them and still be good people.

You understand that only a few short decades ago, your position would've been the one that got people fired, right? It's cool that you think it's objectively right, and it's your prerogative to believe that. But you should acknowledge that differing viewpoints on these matters should be tolerated as a valid form of free political discourse. Free speech means we tolerate the contributions of our fellow citizens, even if we strongly disagree. I would suggest that depriving fellow citizens of income they're currently receiving specifically because they disagree on a political issue, whether it's gay marriage or the humor in dongle jokes, is not respectful of the basic freedoms that allow a democratic society to function.

This conversation is great supporting evidence for the argument for anonymity when discussing any significant controversial issue. PG's essay "What You Can't Say" addresses this also; unless your life's goal is to rehabilitate the particular social taboos of your time (that is, unless martyrdom is your goal), it's probably best not to get directly associated with that rehabilitation effort.

I understand what you're saying, and I would certainly be outraged if Mozilla fired a CEO for supporting equal rights.

The problem is you seem to view everything as relative shades of gray worthy of equal merit. This is patently false. There is a such thing as clear, objective, unambiguous, right and wrong in this world. Slavery? Wrong. Misogyny? Wrong. Anti-miscegenation? Wrong. Segregation? Wrong. Bigotry over sexual orientation? Wrong. What do these all share? Immutable human traits that cannot be changed nor chosen, that harm no one. They're examples of hatred and derision, of treating others as "lesser" human beings instead of as equals.

Now if you want to discuss something like abortion ... we can have a really meaningful conversation, because there are no perfect solutions to these problems. One's rights trample on another's, and vice versa.

This is not such a case. I don't care what the popular opinion is at any given time, what Eich did was absolutely reprehensible.

> Gay marriage is the question of whether the government should subsidize or sponsor that behavior in the same way it subsidizes and sponsors heterosexual behaviors

As always, if it were about kids and reproduction, we wouldn't allow infertile and senior couples to marry.

The government should clearly not be subsidizing relationships at all, but since it is, it must do so fairly. Even our insane Supreme Court realized this vis-a-vis DOMA. The 14th amendment is very clear.

>I suspect the only taboos that are more than taboos are the ones that are universal, or nearly so. Murder for example. But any idea that's considered harmless in a significant percentage of times and places, and yet is taboo in ours, is a good candidate for something we're mistaken about.

Again, from his essay on taboos. [1] Most everything you've cited as an objective wrong was practically universally considered an objective good nary 60 years ago. The morality around slavery was so murky that a years-long civil war was fought between the opposing sides on that issue. Are we just supposed to believe that everyone that lived south of the Mason-Dixon line was naturally insipid, evil, and amoral? As PG states, unless it's universally regarded as evil across all (or nearly all) civilizations, it's very likely that a particular taboo does not cross into the "objectively evil" territory. Slavery has been pretty widespread throughout human history, so that should clue you in that there are possible morally sympathetic readings of it (which usually hinge on the belief that the enslaved group is naturally inferior and couldn't survive without the master group).

>As always, if it were about kids and reproduction, we wouldn't allow infertile and senior couples to marry.

I disagree based on two important elements. Heterosexual couples could become fertile at any time; you never know when infertility will reverse itself if the couple is otherwise healthy and under 40. Post-menopausal women or other permanently sterile heterosexual partners are OK because they are examples that reinforce the need for permanent heterosexual coupling and family structure, even if they are unable to produce children on their own, and secondarily, they can provide a natural parenting context with male-female parental duality, as biologically mandated, if they ever obtain a ward. Homosexual sexual activity can never result in reproduction and can not provide the male-female parental duality that is necessary to produce a child by natural means.

Marriage is really about all of society, and not really about the couple that gets married. It is fine for one to believe that gay marriage is beneficial, but it's not fine to pretend like there is no change in the behavior endorsed and that opposition is based solely on discriminatory motives. Whatever you say you are, or whatever you actually are, heterosexual coupling and homosexual coupling are two different behaviors that could have differing ramifications on society as a whole. Thus, the cost-benefit is worthy of some consideration, and differing opinions are fine, even using a standard that disallows all "discriminatory" rationale (which standard can't really be considered an objective good either).

I'm not really trying to escalate this into a debate on gay marriage, but I think it's important to delineate the logic that gay rights campaigners fight hard to obscure. Gay rights advocates don't want a conversation to get started; they just want everyone to believe that their opponents are naturally evil, so they go around and make a frowny face until it gets people like Brendan Eich kicked out of jobs, and they can then point at Eich and say "He was so evil he got fired! Only evil people would dare oppose us".

Perhaps you don't believe a male-female parental duality is important. Perhaps you don't believe that marriage is an institution that deserves state protection or benefits. Perhaps you don't see any meaning in the evolutionary imperative that children can only be produced by opposite-sex partners. All of this is well and good. You are welcome to your beliefs. The important thing is to accept that others are welcome to their beliefs too, even if they differ from yours, and that that doesn't automatically make them "lesser human beings" (or "bigots", the currently popular shorthand).

>The government should clearly not be subsidizing relationships at all, but since it is, it must do so fairly. Even our insane Supreme Court realized this vis-a-vis DOMA. The 14th amendment is very clear.

The 14th Amendment is anything but "very clear", and again, the fact that there have been so many differing interpretations of it is evidence that its meaning and implications are debatable by reasonable persons. It's a bad, broad law.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Again, it doesn't matter what the popular opinion was on this. PG stops at murder. I stop at looking at other human beings as inferior life forms based on immutable traits.

I am supremely confident that in 60 years, my specific views won't be viewed as bigoted by future generations.

> Are we just supposed to believe that everyone that lived south of the Mason-Dixon line was naturally insipid, evil, and amoral?

Everyone that lived south of the Mason-Dixon and believed that black people were property? Which would be a majority, but certainly not every single person in the south then? Yes. Yes they were.

> which usually hinge on the belief that the enslaved group is naturally inferior and couldn't survive without the master group

Black people seemed to be subsisting just fine in Africa before being dragged over here on slave ships.

> you never know when infertility will reverse itself if the couple is otherwise healthy and under 40

So you support banning marriage after the age of 40 then, got it.

> Post-menopausal women or other permanently sterile heterosexual partners are OK because they are examples that reinforce the need for permanent heterosexual coupling and family structure, even if they are unable to produce children on their own

... or not.

What an unbelievable load of horse shit you are spewing. I can't honestly believe you typed that with a straight face.

If you're going to be this fatuous, then I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your post.

But just so you don't claim this is an ad hominem attack: the APA (and most every other unbiased organization that have studied this issue in depth) disagrees with your bigoted narrative: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/10/adopted-children.aspx

It doesn't matter anyway, you've already lost on this issue. The USSC is going to reverse the last 17 states holding out this summer. You can go pout about it with the anti-miscegenation crowd.

I guess your argument is "the APA says they're wrong", and that therefore, they should not be tolerated? No one could ever rationally doubt the APA? I don't know if you're familiar with the history on it, but the removal of homosexuality as a disorder from the DSM was based purely on politics; there was no paper that triggered scientific reconciliation, there was no new data. Since the APA has insisted on calling into question the licensing of persons who may dare to contradict it on this matter, you can't honestly believe that the issue has been thoroughly explored or reviewed, just as we don't believe that the 99.9% election results in favor of third-world despots actually reflect the will of the people. Regardless of your personal feelings, a person can't look at this process, decide they disagree with the APA's conclusion, and continue to have the right to work?

Personally, agreement with all APA policies is not one of the fundamental requirements I look for in my job candidates that have nothing whatsoever to do with the field of psychology, but to each his own, I guess. Remember, you're not just saying these people "are wrong" or "have lost", but that their beliefs are so troublesome that they shouldn't be protected in their freedom to work.

American principles of tolerance and civil discourse are greatly imperiled by the rising prominence of such hostile positions, and democracy itself is threatened by this behavior.

PG stops at murder because it's one of the only moral standards that is practically constant. You stop at "lesser human beings" because it's convenient for the line of propaganda you've swallowed. Should we allow the mentally disabled or decrepit full freedom lest they be considered "lesser human beings"? Should all parents of Downs Syndrome or other profoundly retarded children be deprived of their supervisory and guardianship privileges over adult children lest these be classified "lesser human beings"? Why is it OK for them to be lesser but not others? There are very few answers you can provide here that are consistent with the moral box you've crafted for yourself.

Consider where your assertion that most antebellum Southerners were frankly evil leads. Where did it lead? People in both the North and the South got worked up about this and stirred to believe things like you just claimed about the opposite side. What's the logical result if you honestly believe "a majority" of persons that adhere to an opposing ideology are frankly evil?

Aren't you automatically classifying people as "lesser human beings" by stating that their opinions are not worthy of basic respect, and wouldn't that make you a hypocrite? Should anyone who holds these opinions be executed?

If we acknowledge that almost all significant world religions espouse very different perspectives than you've expressed, would you support doing something about that? Perhaps we should outlaw these religious groups. What should we do with the people who refuse to recant their religious traditions? Should they be incarcerated? Perhaps a labor camp of some type would be useful for this. What do you say? How much value is the work of frankly evil people, like those who express a belief in Abrahamic tradition, anyway? Wouldn't you always be afraid they were going to do some sneaky, evil thing? The uses for this class are rapidly dwindling. What next?

This sort of hate always leads in the same direction. Do not make the mistake of believing that while everyone who has done similar things throughout history was bad, YOUR beliefs are objectively righteous, and that makes it OK for you. It really doesn't matter what the beliefs are or whether they are objectively right or not once they infect someone with the actual hatred you've expressed (not the "hatred" that your camp claims motivates anyone who dissents for any reason), the results are never pretty. I hope you awaken to this before it's too late.

EDIT: Also, how Brendan Eich is an argument for on-line anonymity again? All the actions that led to him getting fired were tied to his off-line identity.

If you get into an argument with someone, they can read through your history to determine eho you are, where you work, what your family life is like etc and then use this against you regardless of whether what you did was wrong or not. So whilst I agree in principle in reality it is unworkable.

Using your real name doesn't win you any points. I could easily lie and say my real name was John Thomas. It sounds real enough. I could lie in real life with a fake name, too. Conversely, I have 18+ years of history using my pseudonym. It may not be a name chosen for me when I was born, but it has a very real reputation attached to it.

The lack of empathy you speak of is a consequence of hiding behind text over great distances, not of hiding behind fake names. People act more respectable when there's even the slimmest of chances the other person could physically harm them for their words; and/or when they can actually see the harm their words cause to another.

If you really have a pressing need to let your interviewer or employer know of your online achievements, speak to them in person about it with no audit trail.

The people who use anonymity to say horrible things are going to do so anyway. Go and search Google for "byuu 4chan". Now replace byuu with my real name. Why would I want my employer to be able to find those things?

But really this isn't even relevant in this case. They guy got fired because he was on the photo, and the girl was a developer evangelist, which by the very job description requires you to tie your face to your on-line presence and company. If either of them was otherwise anonymous on-line, it wouldn't help them anyway.

But yes, it's really scary that this guy's employer found out about what he said over a photo on Twitter, and still fired him for it.

1. it makes me remember that behind all comments there's a real person just like me

2. i cant behave like a shithead. everything i say i say with my name attached to it, so whatever i say i have to own it -- just like 'in real life'.

I would like to think that if I ever become an employer I could allow the Adrias and trolls of the world keep on doing what they do in the off hours, so long as they don't implicate the company. And when people want to complain and boycott I could have the courage to tell them to fuck off because I have no input an an employees private life and I only care how well they do things at work.

I know this cannot work in practice, but I'd like it to be that way. People are complicated, they are not monolithic personalities, they are conflicted, I think we need to understand that. We also need to understand that people who are perfect are only so because their indiscretions have not be on public.

There's no rebuilding from the kinds of public shaming that went on through history or even right now in the rest of the world. Imagine being a pariah in the only small village you've ever known in a world where every other village won't accept you at all. Even what Adria went through was tame compared to that.

Hank's life wasn't ruined. Adria's life has been most damaged, no employment for a long time, death threats, and this article will probably cause her a lot more grief. How many people in this thread have taken it upon themselves to send more abuse her way?

Why is this article even on hacker news? To support the down-trodden software developers?

Agree on Hank. Adria's case is more complicated. With regard to Hank, I know this is going to be unpopular but if the threats of physical violence (and, even, the actual fact) were directed at those who turned their backs on Hank, I'd support it, because morality demands enforcement sometimes, and abandoning someone in his time of need is unacceptable.

Adria fucked up, but she was the wrong target. She did something bad, and stupid, and wrong, in hot blood. The people who decided to abandon Hank in cold blood are the ones who deserve to be brutalized and terrorized into future decency (or oblivion).

Adria's case is more complicated because firing her was the right decision (she was in a PR role, and a fuckup that ruins another person's reputation is unacceptable when PR is your job) but I bet it was a sleazy tech-company firing where there's no severance or contractual positive reference, and where the person is often singled out and humiliated. They also picked the wrong time to do it. They should have eased her out with a 6-month "you don't work here, but we'll support you in landing on your feet" period, and unless there's something unusual that I don't know about, they didn't. So they're almost certainly dirty as hell and I almost hope she reads this, gets treatment for her issues (described below) and also sues the hell out of them, not for firing her (they had to remove her from a PR role) but for firing her, a person with disability (I'll get to that) in a damaging way at a damaging time.

Her lack of empathy is absolutely staggering. And, "if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes"? Seriously?

I'm going to say this non-judgmentally. I have cyclothymia (mild bipolar) and panic disorder and... I know it when I see it. She's mentally ill, and the most dangerous kind of it, because she doesn't know that she's ill. Instead, she justifies her horrible, mistaken actions by pretending she's some kind of SJW rather than someone who panicked in a crowd and fucked up.

I didn't join the Adria-hate bandwagon, originally, because I saw her as someone who fucked up rather than someone to hate. And I found the hatred rising as I read this interview. Then I got to the part about the abuse, and stopped hating her, because it made sense: she has PTSD, doesn't know that she's ill, and has a lack of empathy because severe mental illness makes you selfish, not out of a character flaw, but by necessity. So, I found myself not hating her at the end (although she should still get the courage to apologize for fucking up).

She, almost certainly, has PTSD because she was abused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. That's how normal people react to awful experiences. She had what sounds like a (mild-to-moderate, because she was still able to type) panic attack. For evidence, this quote:

“Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me.

“You felt fear?” I asked.

“Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”

(Trigger warning: this paragraph.) She was in a crowd. The people around her were annoying her. (When you have an anxiety disorder, lots of small things annoy you.) At some point, her nerves blew out. Again, nothing to be ashamed of. It happens. I've had hundreds of the fucking things. And panic can make you an asshole, like when you're in line for water (to stop the dry-throat-feels-like-it's-closing-up feeling) and you're screaming at the people in front to "stop taking so fucking long". (I screamed at someone, mid-panic, for using what I thought was a credit card for a $3 purchase and "holding up the line". EBT, or "food stamps". Huge dick move on my part; thought she was a yuppie who couldn't be bothered to carry cash, I was wrong. Had to apologize profusely after that one.) So I am generally sympathetic to people who fuck up because of mental illness, even though posting a Tweet about the guys behind me wouldn't be my strategy for dealing with a panic attack. I fail to see how it would resolve the episode.

What galls me about her is that she refuses to admit that she fucked up. I've seen enough not to demand empathy from the severely ill, but human decency is non-negotiable, and her self-righteousness is off-the-charts. Then she has to fall back on "he's a white male. I'm a black Jewish female." No, Adria, it's not about that; he was never a danger to you, and you are someone with an intensely painful, but fortunately treatable, medical condition. You freaked out and ruined someone's life in addition to your own, and that makes you hazardous. I have a lot of sympathy for people who suffer from mental illness, but not if they refuse to recognize and take responsibility for the problem.

"Just because I didn’t live at home didn’t mean I had escaped the past. I carried it with me. I realized I had to change this. It took years of work through therapy, reading, journaling and prayer. My big breakthrough year was 2006. That was the year I woke up. The year I snapped out of the fog I had been living in. I was diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD."

And this,

"Because of my experiences growing up, I have triggers. This means that I’m always scanning for danger; for situations that seem like something from the past that could hurt me. When I recognize something that matches, I can overreact and feel intense fear, anger or anxiety. This is something I’ve worked on a lot. It’s much better now than 10 years ago but there are some things that send me over the edge."

She has had a difficult life. Given her history I think her reaction understandable if not "appropriate". After all the attacks, and all she has gone through, I don't think she can step back from the situation and look at it how most outsiders would. I'm not sure it's fair to ask her too. It's a sad situation and I hope she can find a more felicitous path in the future.

What I find less understandable are commentators who choose to make Ms. Richards a symbol for woman in technology. It doesn't do Adria any good and it certainly doesn't do woman in STEM any good.