On 3/17/14, 18:02, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> On 3/17/2014 6:33 PM, deadalnix wrote:
>> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 22:15:25 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> On 3/17/2014 11:50 AM, Graham Fawcett wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The pervasive sexism in our profession is a serious problem, and should
>>>
>>> Pervasive sexism in programming? What a complete crock of shit.
>>
>> And all these pull request we rejected because they were made by women ?
>> HA! See!
>>
>> Oh wait...
>
> Exactly, right!
>
> People see that software development is predominately male, and they
> assume "Oh, it *MUST* be because those EVIL, SEXIST men are TRYING to
> keep women out!" That genuinely pisses me off, what the hell is this,
> 1920? When people actually *wanted* to join men's clubs and such
> post-college fraternities? For f...*couch*..."freaks" sake, one of the
> things I hate MOST about software dev is that it's such a saus...is that
> it's all guys.
>
> There's only one kind of sexism in this profession, and that's the kind
> that compels people with more many and self-importance than actual sense
> to create computer science scholarships which explicitly state: "No,
> you're not eligible *because* you're a man." Funny thing, I've never
> seen a scholarship that had a rule against women. And yet somehow
> programming is allegedly full of women-hating men? Fucking crock of shit.
>

I agree with your sentiment.

On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 23:02:13 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> People see that software development is predominately male, and they assume "Oh, it *MUST* be because those EVIL, SEXIST men are TRYING to keep women out!" That genuinely pisses me off, what the hell is this, 1920? When people actually *wanted* to

As a student I taught introductory courses in programming. There was a reasonable number of females because they needed the course for biology etc. I think the programming talent was fairly evenly distributed. But your average female student value belonging to a group of other females so when the ratio fall below a threshold only the determined, tomboyish, selfconfident or very smart females will persist. And my impression is that they tend to gravitate either towards the social side of IT or towards the mathematical side, but fewer go for the "tinkering" fields?

Of course, among the males the "tinkerers" start out in their nerdy teens in social boyish groups. So they have a five year+ head start. Female teens will have problem accessing those groups if they don't have a nerdy big brother who is kind or a very nerdy dad… Are teenagers sexist? Of course…

> rule against women. And yet somehow programming is allegedly full of women-hating men? Fucking crock of shit.

Yeah, but programming is full of awkward teenage boys who lock themselves up in their basements where the girls cannot find them. ;-)

On 3/18/2014 10:24 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>
> However, I am upset about the widespread US term "caucasian", not
> because it is a bad word, but because of the Aryan connotations that has
> some seriously bad vibes to it after 2WW and the nazi worship of
> "scandinavian genes".
>
> The term "caucasian" is incredibly bad taste, and I find it offensive. I
> cringe when I cross off "caucasian" on US papers. It is if I am forced
> to declare myself Aryan.
>

I find that interesting. This is the first I've ever heard of "caucasian" being even potentially offensive.

In the US, referring to an ethnicity by the name of a color is somewhat borderline on the offensive/inoffensive scale. And by that I mean, nobody really knows whether or not they should avoid saying it.

Two specific colors, "yellow" and "red", are pretty much accepted as "you just don't say it" because they (apparently - it was well before my time) had a history of being used as derogatory.

But "black" and "white" are less clear. Ever since the US civil rights movement, "colored" has become accepted as a term that "you just don't say" (despite still being used as the "C" in the NAACP, confusingly enough). So "black" was used to replace it. But then for some reason I'm completely ignorant of, many people started considering "black" to be taboo too, and started insisting people say "African American", which I find rather goofy since not everyone of that apperently-unnameable ethnicity is American at all.

So americans never know whether it's ok to say "black". And they know it's not ok to say "red" or "yellow" (unless you simply mean "yellow" as "afraid", but you better make darn sure nobody's going to misunderstand you, which is probably why even though "green" and "blue" are still occasionally used to mean "jealous" and "sad", "yellow" is no longer used as "afraid" unless pronounced in a clearly "Wild West" accent like "yelluh"). So all that question and taboo about colors leads to uncertainty about whether it's still ok to say "white", even though "white" is still used all the time anyway and I've never seen anyone get offended.

So that uncertainty leads americans to use "caucasion" (apparently derived from the extremely academic term "caucasoid", or so I've been told) just out of paranoia, since it's seen as far too pedantic and technical to possibly be offensive.

But then, the African-descendent counterparts of "caucasion" and "caucasoid", ie "negro" and "negroid", are taboo because they sound too much like the word we're expected to refer to as "the N word" (even though rappers of that ethnicity have famously tossed it around like it's nothing - which I always assumed was partly done to dispel the negative connotations, but I guess some people would rather keep it as offensive - personally I don't give a crap, I just wish people would make up their minds). But of course, in many languages, "negro" is literally the word for the color "black", so go figure.

It's all a rediculous mess, really. I say we just refer to ALL groups as "jackass", because I think really we all deserve it :)


>> the world: "Uhh, what's the big deal?" Personally, I think it's
>> positively bonkers to worry about kids being scarred by seeing
>> something they themselves used to suck on, but whatever.
>
> Actually kids are more scarred by being told that such things are taboo.
> Being relaxed about the human body of others is a good path to feeling
> good about your own body.
>

Yea, but according to some, we're supposed to feel ashamed of our bodies. ;)

>
> (Again, just about all american I've met has expressed that they have no
> problems with nudity themselves, and I believe them.

Heh, There was one time I was in the locker room for some swimming pool, and an elderly gent was right in the middle of changing. He was in no hurry to finish, either. There were similar situations with my first college roommate too, an [american-]football player who wasn't exactly shy before/after showering. I actually found both of those cases slightly disturbing and the mental images still haunt me ;)

But that said, I still find both examples as completely insufficient justification for bans on nudity. Fact of the matter is, I like to use both as shining examples of "Just because you don't want to see something doesn't mean it should be banned".

> But I've been told
> that I cannot go swimming in my boxer shorts that look like swimming
> trunks because they are underwear and I could get into trouble over
> that… i.e. someone MIGHT be offended. Which is kinds of odd, cause in my
> own country I can go swimming naked and basically nobody would be
> offended, if spotted they might be amused, but not offended.)
>

Yea, I find your stance on that much more sensible. I guess one could make an argument about questions of sanitation, but in a pool, if someone isn't clean I'm not sure swimming apparel is really going to make a huge difference.

Admittedly, certain parts of the US are moving around to a more european-like attitude, albiet slowly (Particularly on the west coast which has always been known for being the most liberal part of the country.) I've heard of a court case (IANAL, of course) in San Fransisco where non-disruptive, non-sexualized public nudity was ruled legal. And it's either there or maybe Portland that has an annual non-clothed bicycling event. And I've heard that some court case in New York City ruled non-disruptive toplessness legal. Something similar in Canada too, IIRC. It's still nothing like certain other parts of the world, but still, baby steps.

'Course, that said, there's other matters I care much more about. After all, I'm in Cleveland, even if it were permitted here (I'm not aware of it being allowed), it'd be too damn cold half the time anyway ;)

On 3/18/2014 12:20 PM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 23:02:13 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> People see that software development is predominately male, and they
>> assume "Oh, it *MUST* be because those EVIL, SEXIST men are TRYING to
>> keep women out!" That genuinely pisses me off, what the hell is this,
>> 1920? When people actually *wanted* to
>
> As a student I taught introductory courses in programming. There was a
> reasonable number of females because they needed the course for biology
> etc. I think the programming talent was fairly evenly distributed. But
> your average female student value belonging to a group of other females
> so when the ratio fall below a threshold only the determined, tomboyish,
> selfconfident or very smart females will persist. And my impression is
> that they tend to gravitate either towards the social side of IT or
> towards the mathematical side, but fewer go for the "tinkering" fields?
>

Yea, there's always been one or two women in almost any computer science class or programming team I've been in. I've never taken a programming course that was required for people outside the CS major, although from what I remember of the "intro to programming" tutoring I did, there does tend to be a...less uneven...mix in the introductory courses.

In any case, there's definitely a "group effect" regardless of gender. Men do become nurses these days, but most people who pursue nursing are still women. And yet, I've never heard of anything actually trying to keep nursing a "women's club".

I suspect that some people misinterpret their own natural, often subconscious, apprehension towards entering a "predominantly different from me" group as being "They don't want me there."

And then sometimes they may try to over-compensate for that, which in and of itself can be rather off-putting to other people (perhaps triggering a negative feedback cycle?)


> Of course, among the males the "tinkerers" start out in their nerdy
> teens in social boyish groups. So they have a five year+ head start.
> Female teens will have problem accessing those groups if they don't have
> a nerdy big brother who is kind or a very nerdy dad… Are teenagers
> sexist? Of course…
>

Heh, teenagers can be all sorts of unsavory adjectives ;) I was quite uncomfortable around teens back when I was one - many of them were real...well, better not to finish that thought.

Ehh, but it's true of adults, too. The local public libraries around here intentionally segregate off the teenagers (which is asinine in and of itself) citing concerns over noise. And yet, I've been a *very* frequent patron of those libraries for several years and the *only* people I've ever seen failing to grasp the whole "library == quiet" notion were middle-aged. One of them was even some upper-manager for the very library he was loudly blathering on in. Even more bizarre was the nature of his noise: He was very loudly boasting how he'd arranged the library so that the noisy teenagers were shoved off into a remote corner. And yet, at no point had I ever come across noisy teens there despite, for several years, being regularly there (including visiting the "teen" section because that's where the library decided manga belongs) twice a week at exactly the time of day when teenage traffic was at a peak. The teenagers: Dead silent. Various parents: "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!"

And then I see people carefully whispering in bookstores, or order "Mc"Nuggets at Wendy's, etc, and loose all hope for humanity...

>> rule against women. And yet somehow programming is allegedly full of
>> women-hating men? Fucking crock of shit.
>
> Yeah, but programming is full of awkward teenage boys who lock
> themselves up in their basements where the girls cannot find them. ;-)

Hmm, something about that sounds very familiar...almost as if I know someone...someone I know very, *VERY* well who...oh wait...nevermind. ;)

On Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 07:51:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> But "black" and "white" are less clear. Ever since the US civil rights movement, "colored" has become accepted as a term that "you just don't say" (despite still being used as the "C" in the NAACP, confusingly enough). So "black" was used to replace it. But then for some reason I'm completely ignorant of, many people started considering "black" to be taboo too, and started insisting people say "African American", which I find rather goofy since not everyone of that apperently-unnameable ethnicity is American at all.

Nor is everyone who is "African" "black" in the sense outlined above (cf. Northern Africa). The problem is that as long as a group is discriminated against (overtly or covertly), it doesn't matter what new name you make up in order to sound less offensive, it will soon be perceived as derogatory. That's why you have negro > colored > black > African American. It only shows that discrimination has never really stopped.

[...]
> even though "white" is still used all the time anyway and I've never seen anyone get offended.

QED. "white" has no negative connotations simply because the majority of people are white. The thing is as long there is racism and discrimination against minorities (be it ethnicity or sexual orientation or religion), people will always feel uneasy about it and it will always result in twisted minds (political correctness is a symptom, and proof, of the madness of racism and discrimination). There is no way out _within_ this framework (that's why pc has failed), the only way out is to leave the framework. Yes, we are all jackasses!

On 3/19/2014 6:08 AM, Chris wrote:
> On Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 07:51:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> [...]
>> even though "white" is still used all the time anyway and I've never
>> seen anyone get offended.
>
> QED. "white" has no negative connotations simply because the majority of
> people are white.

The majority of people are Asian. The majority of Americans are white. But I'm being pedantic. :)

Of course, if I want get *really* pedantic, I'm not certain if those are actual "majorities" (ie >50%) or simply just the largest (erm, I mean most numerous) ethnic groups. But I don't want to get that pedantic ;)

But you make a good point. If one group has historically been treated badly, then any reference to them has a certain chance of being interpreted as derogatory. I've noticed that the more fresh the memory of ill-treatment, or the more such memory is maintained and cultivated, the more likely things will be interpreted, or misinterpreted, as offensive.

Interestingly enough, it makes no difference whether the discrimination is still happening or not: As long as people remember that is *has* happened, there will *always* be a higher chance of someone interpreting a statement as derogatory, even if it wasn't intended to be. Choose to believe discrimination exists and it will *always* be found *somewhere*, even if it has to be subconsciously fabricated in order to fulfill the preconceived belief that it still exists.

Great example of this phenomenon is Resident Evil:

Several games, one after another, involving battle for survival against hordes of people-turned-bloodthirty-zombies (infected by an evil entity). First game set in an American mansion, battling white American zombies, everything's ok. Next game set in an American town, battling more white American zombies, everything's ok. Three more games, all fine. Then one set in Spain with (obviously) Spanish zombies. Everything's *still* good.

Then, the same *non-American* developer, Capcom, makes the unfortunate mistake of doing a North American release of a new Resident Evil taking place in...Africa. Obviously, any zombies in Africa would be...uhh...African? Oh, holy shit, *now* all hell breaks loose. Surprise, surprise, *now* some crazed fucking nutjob climbs out of the woodwork and starts squawking all over about how overtly racist this game suddenly is. Same fucking game as the rest of the decade-old series, just different location. But no, *now* it's racist. So where the fuck was she when the rest of the series was made? Off deciding "Oh, well it's obviously ok if they're killing whiteys!" or some such? Bah. In any case, so much for equality.

Nobody (at least in the US) discriminates against Italians or Irish anymore. Oh, they used to get a lot of crap. Hell, they got *plenty* of shit from people. All ethnic groups in the US did at some point in time. But then it was dwarfed by the whole African slavery thing, and civil rights and women's lib, etc so everyone forgot to continue worrying about Irish discrimination, Italian discrimination, etc. *That's* what killed it off. Not some idiotic, self-perpetuating, discrimination witch hunt.

Anti-white derogatory stuff no longer exists *because* we all just shrug it off. Nobody's choosing to be offended, therefore it can't offend. It has no teeth. Because we've given it none.

This happened for one reason: Because we lost all our remaining excuses to be offended. Hell, as americans, we're all too busy playing guilt trip anyway over some crap that was pulled (in *part* of the country) by some grossly unethical asshats who none of us have ever even met (let alone *been* one) because they've all been dead and gone for over a century.

Point of all this being, and history has proved this, discrimination will always be kept alive in the hearts of people who insist on forever being offended by it. It might still exist. Or it might not. But whether or not it exists has long since stopped being relevant, and if/when it ends we'll never even notice anyway. Because as soon as it does go away, it will only continue living on as a specter, built and maintained by those who choose to believe in it, all because they're too afraid to relinquish their comfortable, familiar self-identity as a "victim" of some vague, conveniently hidden, indentity-less, anyone-or-anything villain.

On Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 13:08:00 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> On 3/19/2014 6:08 AM, Chris wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 07:51:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> [...]
>>> even though "white" is still used all the time anyway and I've never
>>> seen anyone get offended.
>>
>> QED. "white" has no negative connotations simply because the majority of
>> people are white.
>
> The majority of people are Asian. The majority of Americans are white. But I'm being pedantic. :)
>
> Of course, if I want get *really* pedantic, I'm not certain if those are actual "majorities" (ie >50%) or simply just the largest (erm, I mean most numerous) ethnic groups. But I don't want to get that pedantic ;)

The dominant culture is white, or rather WASP. It doesn't matter if the majority is actually white. The WASP culture is still the one that defines that standards.

> But you make a good point. If one group has historically been treated badly, then any reference to them has a certain chance of being interpreted as derogatory. I've noticed that the more fresh the memory of ill-treatment, or the more such memory is maintained and cultivated, the more likely things will be interpreted, or misinterpreted, as offensive.
>
> Interestingly enough, it makes no difference whether the discrimination is still happening or not: As long as people remember that is *has* happened, there will *always* be a higher chance of someone interpreting a statement as derogatory, even if it wasn't intended to be. Choose to believe discrimination exists and it will *always* be found *somewhere*, even if it has to be subconsciously fabricated in order to fulfill the preconceived belief that it still exists.
>
> Great example of this phenomenon is Resident Evil:
>
> Several games, one after another, involving battle for survival against hordes of people-turned-bloodthirty-zombies (infected by an evil entity). First game set in an American mansion, battling white American zombies, everything's ok. Next game set in an American town, battling more white American zombies, everything's ok. Three more games, all fine. Then one set in Spain with (obviously) Spanish zombies. Everything's *still* good.
>
> Then, the same *non-American* developer, Capcom, makes the unfortunate mistake of doing a North American release of a new Resident Evil taking place in...Africa. Obviously, any zombies in Africa would be...uhh...African? Oh, holy shit, *now* all hell breaks loose. Surprise, surprise, *now* some crazed fucking nutjob climbs out of the woodwork and starts squawking all over about how overtly racist this game suddenly is. Same fucking game as the rest of the decade-old series, just different location. But no, *now* it's racist. So where the fuck was she when the rest of the series was made? Off deciding "Oh, well it's obviously ok if they're killing whiteys!" or some such? Bah. In any case, so much for equality.
>
> Nobody (at least in the US) discriminates against Italians or Irish anymore. Oh, they used to get a lot of crap. Hell, they got *plenty* of shit from people. All ethnic groups in the US did at some point in time. But then it was dwarfed by the whole African slavery thing, and civil rights and women's lib, etc so everyone forgot to continue worrying about Irish discrimination, Italian discrimination, etc. *That's* what killed it off. Not some idiotic, self-perpetuating, discrimination witch hunt.

One of the reasons why Irish (and Italian) immigrants stopped being discriminated against was because they would find the lowest (indeed very low) common denominator, i.e. giving out about blacks. At least they were white (the Italians less so, but still not really black), albeit Catholic.

> Anti-white derogatory stuff no longer exists *because* we all just shrug it off. Nobody's choosing to be offended, therefore it can't offend. It has no teeth. Because we've given it none.

That's easy, if you are part of the dominant culture. Also, "white" is too broad a term so every white person can choose not to identify with it and point somewhere else (we're not rednecks here in NY!). But if you attack a certain set of beliefs held by the dominant culture, hell will break loose. Within the dominant group, it's not an ethnic thing, it's about beliefs. If you question them, you won't have an easy life.

> This happened for one reason: Because we lost all our remaining excuses to be offended. Hell, as americans, we're all too busy playing guilt trip anyway over some crap that was pulled (in *part* of the country) by some grossly unethical asshats who none of us have ever even met (let alone *been* one) because they've all been dead and gone for over a century.
>
> Point of all this being, and history has proved this, discrimination will always be kept alive in the hearts of people who insist on forever being offended by it. It might still exist. Or it might not. But whether or not it exists has long since stopped being relevant, and if/when it ends we'll never even notice anyway. Because as soon as it does go away, it will only continue living on as a specter, built and maintained by those who choose to believe in it, all because they're too afraid to relinquish their comfortable, familiar self-identity as a "victim" of some vague, conveniently hidden, indentity-less, anyone-or-anything villain.

On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 21:01:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
snip
>
> Heh, case in point - there was a gentleman going by "Ramon" at a point in this forum who flew off the handle taking offense at something I said (no idea what exactly that was).
>

"Destroy" was the offending expression I believe.

Now, why can I remember that, but I have to constantly use Google to look up any programming structure that I use only semi-frequenlty?  :o(

On Wed, 19 Mar 2014 09:07:54 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> Of course, if I want get *really* pedantic, I'm not certain if those are actual "majorities" (ie >50%) or simply just the largest (erm, I mean most numerous) ethnic groups. But I don't want to get that pedantic ;)

The word you are looking for is "plurality"

-Steve

On 3/19/14, 10:13 AM, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 21:01:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> snip
>>
>> Heh, case in point - there was a gentleman going by "Ramon" at a point
>> in this forum who flew off the handle taking offense at something I
>> said (no idea what exactly that was).
>>
>
> "Destroy" was the offending expression I believe.
>
> Now, why can I remember that, but I have to constantly use Google to
> look up any programming structure that I use only semi-frequenlty?  :o(

Same here. I do remember that wasn't the peak of it. That happened when I tried to explain something as a "cultural difference". Probably it was taken as "cultural inferiority/superiority".

Andrei