gnosis didn't say anything about film or new media. I'd be really pretty surprised if gnosis believed there weren't "intellectual" (read: thoughtful) things to say about film. That said, he didn't explain why it's sad that Ebert was considered an intellectual either, so who knows.
There's nothing wrong with film criticism. Ebert's 4-star ratings are even a good heuristic for picking something to watch. All of his "great movies" are generally recognized as such. And he certainly knew a lot more details about film than probably anyone else.
The problem with Ebert's reviews is that they offer very little in the way of insight, analysis, or depth. Instead, they are generally straightforward expositions of the film crew, setting, characters, and plot. This means that you cannot read them before watching a film, unless you want to be spoiled, and afterwards, if you were paying any kind of attention, you've already grasped everything that he points out. He doesn't usually explain what he thought the central message of a film is, so it can be unclear if he got it or not. He isn't big on interpretation.
He wasn't an idiot, but he didn't do the hard intellectual work of coming up with something new to say about films. Even the most hyper-intelligent person would have a hard time coming up with "intellectual" things to say at the rate he churned through movies. I think he was writing something like one review per day by the end.
Ebert's reviews are to film criticism what Ebert's one-pot cooking is to a full kitchen. He could make something reasonable, and it would appeal to lots of people, but the structural and time constraints meant it would never have the sophistication of an in-depth treatment. Ask someone in film studies, ask someone in culinary school.
The positive side of a lack of depth is breadth, which means we have a massive number of star ratings from a single source, and as such his work is a reasonable encyclopedia of film. Much of what he details in his reviews isn't available in Wikipedia, or appropriate for it.
It's an unfortunate oversimplification to reduce Ebert to his Sun-Times reviews. They were well-written and erudite, but they weren't meant to be extended meditations on the art of cinema. His review-writing had customers, and he gave the customers what they needed and wanted. Ebert had other venues for deeper kinds of writing, and was prolific in them. Ebertfest, for instance, was well-known for frame-by-frame analyses of important movies. Or read how he arrived at and massaged his top 10 films of all time, or what he wrote about Ozu or Herzog.
But I'd pause before stipulating even that his review writing was broad. Even within the medium of mass-market reviews, Ebert was impactful. Think about how his star system worked, so that Donner's Superman shared a rating with Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and that somehow still made sense. Or the way he managed his brand, or syndicated his show with Siskel.
Yeah, I basically agree. His mainstream work is what he's known for, and it's probably why self-avowed intellectuals (academics in film studies or film theory) don't consider him an intellectual. For me it's that even with his online work, he's much more of an everyman than an ivory tower guy, which is why the label of "intellectual" doesn't quite fit. This isn't bad or good, this is just how I see it, and it says nothing about his own intelligence. Finally, I think it's quite possible for depth within a review format. I like the ones in Variety: they're deeper, yet they don't give it away. Then again, they don't have as much mass-market appeal.
If you think Ebert only wrote starred reviews and had TV shows, then you are very wrong, and you have missed out. That's what he is most known for, but his extensive writings and lectures on film go as deep as anyone else in the field.
"As deep as anyone else in the field" implies formal writing, which I've never seen by Ebert. If it exists, does it compare with what gets published in a film studies journal, or has it been published in one? Do you have a link or article name?
Cognition is layer upon layer of pattern processing, all the way down to sensory inputs. His particular pattern matching mechanism might need adjustment, but pattern matching itself is the only mechanism by which we decide anything. If you doubt me, ask yourself, do these sentences pattern match to "correct" or "incorrect"? See?
I'll give you a practical example. What specific emotions do you feel when you take a moment to consider the following two lists of five words extracted from your comment?
Answer the question (privately if you like) and you just "meditated".
Meditation is self-observation, nothing more, nothing less. If you want to learn more about how the specific "tedks" configuration of neurons works, that's what meditation (a.k.a. self-reflection, self-observation) promises, as opposed to science which by definition cannot do this. I'm pretty sure that many of the things you consider valuable already do count as meditation (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331514 ), it's just that nobody labelled them as such or built a formal discipline around them. That might be part of why meditation seems like such BS to you.
The stuff about sitting there with your eyes closed and focusing on your breathing isn't really necessary (I don't really do this anymore), all that's meant to do is help you slow your brain down so you can look at it, kind of like using a debugger. You can get kind of high from that and while fun it can be a hindrance in all sorts of other ways.
All the spiritual stuff you see is perhaps best described as a metaphor for the kinds of things people experience, since they don't have better words for it. Ultimately there isn't a particular belief system tied to meditation, kind of like there isn't a particular belief system tied to the act of debugging a program (although people do like to get into holy wars).
Finally, there's this joke that says all Buddhists are either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating. So if someone is telling you that you "should" meditate they are quite possibly projecting some of their own guilt about their own spiritual practice onto you. Of course had they been practicing meditation by being "mindful" in the conversation with you (this is just code for "paying attention to their own thoughts and feelings while not sitting in silence somewhere"), they would see that this is what their feelings were doing and they'd probably choose not to pressure you like that.
For reference, I deleted a comment which said, "Personally I believe nobody benefits from abuse, because it is not a zero-sum game." or something very close to that.
For me sexism implies discrimination, and discrimination implies abuse. But it's kind of a side topic, so I'll try to stick to sexism.
The reason I think nobody benefits from sexism is that I don't look at it as simply man vs. woman. The healthiest situation is where a man and woman have a balanced relationship with each other. If a man takes some of the woman's power (by abusing his own), that relationship is weakened. Thus, although he may have more power, he actually loses overall because the cost of his imbalanced relationship with her more than offsets the gain in power. That's all I mean. Extrapolate from this as much as you like, ultimately I believe that relationships are what matter.
Please be civil. I asked you nicely when you were complaining about death threats and you ignored it. I've flagged that comment and the three comments since then. This isn't the place for sarcasm, all-caps, insults, or flame wars.
Hi rmrfrmrf. I went through your recent comments. By and large, they're highly inflammatory. Ease off on the vitriol and your life might get a bit easier.
To be precise, these are the comments that I find inflammatory:
> Because anti-woman and anti-black hate groups are trying to game HN with mass account creation and upvote spam.
> SendGrid would have come out stronger from weathering the storm as a defender and promoter of women in tech. Instead, they're giving in to terrorism. Anyone feeling a sense of relief out of this situation is out of their mind.
> I hope she sues the shit out of them and gets enough money to spend the rest of her life advocating for women in tech without fear of retaliation.
> No, this situation is the worst thing for women in tech. I can't begin to imagine the waves of misogyny that're about to run rampant through the tech community knowing that any woman who speaks out will be fired.
> Please take your special snowflakery elsewhere.
> No. (without explanation)
> In other words, it's OK if men do it, but not if a woman does it. (which was a complete non sequitur)
> I can't even begin to explain how fallacious this argument is. (without explanation, and it wasn't fallacious)
> Is it really that hard to act like a professional adult while you're at work? The simplest solution is to simply stop telling penis jokes at work.
> Still unfunny and tasteless. Imagine that.
> Really? All it says to me is that people in the tech field are so against a woman standing up for herself that they're actually willing to bring down the company she works for. It's disgusting.
> (cont.) Will you also feel schadenfreude when they hack her bank account?
> I bet he won't make the same mistake again. Perhaps we're all so used to going through the 6 month HR-slap-on-the-wrist process that we have lost touch of what it actually takes to change a person's behavior. (supporting mr-hank getting fired)
> Thank you -- all of these hate-laden comments are making me lose my mind.
> Since when is Twitter the same thing as a professional conference? Why are the majority of the commenters on HN completely missing the point?
> She @-replied pycon staff. Compare that to the HN and Reddit communities out for Adria's head.
> "We're not choosing your company because we believe in the right for men to tell dick jokes."
> (cont.) I'd quickly e-mail back: "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
> Thank you, Adria, for fighting the good fight. I hope that the voices of support for you drown out the rampant hate that you're receiving. Seems like HN turns into a complete shithole the second a woman "has the nerve to choose to be offended" or whatever bullshit these misogynist assholes peddle.
> (cont.) The benefit that I always see from situations like this is that it empowers the women who, in the past, have been too nervous to call people out on their shit. Just know that you're doing amazing work and are paving the way to creating an environment of gender equality.
I initially wrote a snarky comment along the lines of "that you disagree with a comment does not make it inflammatory", but looking at your comment history, it appears that you've actually tried to play the voice of reason for the whole forky-dongly "scandal". So good for you. You seem to be alone (if you ignore all the cowards - like me - who just decided to be quiet).
I don't find the above comments to be very inflammatory, though. There's a not-totally-insane POV from which Adria's actions were not only reasonable, but commendable, and necessary to disrupt an inherently hostile environment. (I don't agree with this point-of-view, and think it addresses superficial problems with culture rather than attack fundamental problems with education, but whatever.) From that same point of view, these comments are entirely reasonable - the fact that Adria is being treated as she is is only another incarnation of appalling systematic misogyny. Adria, by posting those guys' photos to twitter, was standing up to that perceived culture (if you buy into this - I personally think she was just power-tripping), and attacking Adria for doing that sounds a lot like someone saying "shut up, sit down, stop causing trouble" to someone reporting a fire.
That rmrfrmrf's comments were taken as inflammatory (by you) seems to me to be less of an indicator of the vitriol in his rhetoric, and more a measure of the gap between the two sides of this debate. (A gap this fiasco has apparently done nothing to bridge, sadly.)
That rmrfrmrf's comments were taken as inflammatory by those who sent the death threats / dismembered baby pics, on the other hand, is a good measure of the number of complete idiots who frequent HN. Hopefully not too many.
Lastly, please do /not/ tell someone who has received (or claims to have received - just to be fair) death threats to take a metaphorical chill-pill, or otherwise imply that he/she ought to correct his/her own behavior to make the death threats stop. That /is/ inflammatory.
I don't find the dongle jokes offensive, but obviously Adria did. My advice to guys at conferences would probably be, don't make dick jokes in public, because it seems somebody might overreact and you might get hurt. That has nothing to do with whether or not I think the dongle jokes are appropriate or inherently offensive. Similarly, I don't find rmrfrmrf's comments to be super inflammatory, probably because I don't feel like my position, if any, is being attacked, but if I was way polarized on the antagonist's side of things I almost certainly would.
Do we want to encourage crazy volatile feminism at conferences? Obviously no. Do we want to encourage even crazier volatile misogyny on the internet? Obviously no. Is it unreasonable, or unkind even, to encourage someone who is complaining about the negative attention they are receiving, who I perceive to be actively encouraging that negative attention without realizing it, to tone it down a little? Personally, I don't believe so, but if it falls on deaf ears, it falls on deaf ears. I just don't think that the anxiety of receiving death threats is good for anyone, and that level of anxiety can cause people to make choices that have big long term consequences. Adria has already demonstrated a predisposition to overreaction that has already led to long term consequences, and death threats are significantly more serious than whatever happened at the conference. It is not unreasonable to assume that someone actively defending her position might also overreact.
There are lots of things that I do everyday that I wouldn't do in an ideal world, but that nevertheless make existence tolerable, good even. I was simply trying to share that experience.
Hi georgeorwell. I just went through your one comment above.
You just told somebody who complained of getting death threats because of his comments here to watch how he comments so "his life might get a bit easier?"
I can't imagine anything more cowardly that you could have possibly posted.
I'm not sure why it's cowardly to suggest that. Could you elaborate? I thought it was good advice. If inflammatory comments are even possibly leading to death threats (and it seemed to me like they might be), it's probably a good idea to not post inflammatory comments. I mean, surely nobody wants to receive death threats. Are you saying that his/her comments are not inflammatory?
My standard for cowardly posting is verbal abuse and death threats, but YMMV.
These comments support somebody I absolutely disagree with, but two rights don't make a wrong. Just like it might not be a good idea to say something offensive to somebody else, does not mean you deserve death threats for it.
It should be OK to express your support for unpopular ideas on HN, like saying Adria Richards was right or that the people prosecuting Aaron Schwartz did the right thing. On the other hand, people sending threats... To quote the original poster, "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." You disagree with stuff? Fine. Downvote and move on, or reply to it and explain why. Don't play anonymous coward.
> If inflammatory comments are even possibly leading to death threats (and it seemed to me like they might be), it's probably a good idea to not post inflammatory comments.
That's 'victim blaming' and fairly inflammatory. That's not your intent. It's no different then telling women not to wear provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped (And before people suggest it, I'm not equating rape to anything here).
Basically, your intent is sound (how not to receive death threats), but your approach is insulting. The result is, the persons you are talking to are more likely to dismiss what you say because, in effect, you are blaming them for the death threats.
You seem to actually care about helping. I wish I could offer some direct advice about how to approach this different, but I can't think of any at the moment. I just know that this approach is confrontational, and completely in the opposite direction of which you seem to want to go.
> That's 'victim blaming' and fairly inflammatory.
That's ridiculous. If I play in a busy street everyday, you'd blame me when I eventually got hit by a car even though cars are always supposed to be driven under control. There are actions that victims take that increase or decrease their chances of being victimized.
> it's no different then telling women not to wear provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped (And before people suggest it, I'm not equating rape to anything here).
What about if it is telling women to go out with their friends and look after each other when they are at bars? To be aware of their surroundings? Is that victim blaming to prepare your daughter for the realities of the world?
> If I play in a busy street everyday, you'd blame me when I eventually got hit by a car even though cars are always supposed to be driven under control.
Context. You are supposed to comment on HN. You are not supposed to play in the street. If you played in a park, I'd expect you not to get hit by a car. If someone does get hit by a car while playing in a park, you don't suggest to that person they should avoid playing in the park.
> What about if it is telling women to go out with their friends and look after each other when they are at bars? To be aware of their surroundings? Is that victim blaming to prepare your daughter for the realities of the world?
No, that's good advice! And there is a distinct difference.
Yes, I know, the reality is that wearing provocative clothes can entice men, and some men will get the wrong idea, and might do bad things. But it's a bad solution to adopt the "change what you wear" approach. It doesn't solve the problem.
Basically, it's the same as this type of advice: If you don't want to get into an accident, don't use a car. Of if you dont' want to get into an plane crash, don't fly a plane. If you don't want to drown, stay out of water.
Or, if you don't want to get raped, look ugly.
But telling you daughter to go with friends, to be aware, to check in? These don't change her behavior. It minimizes risk. Indeed, if you think about it, the advice you give up there is much better than not wearing provocative clothing. Mostly because wearing provocative clothing has little to do with getting raped.
Anyways, I hope you understand better what I was trying to say. Again, it's not some new concept that I'm spouting. Spend some time reading up on it. Others do a better job at explaining it then I do.
For what it's worth, I didn't tell her to shut up. (I'm assuming it's a woman.) I just said I don't think it's such a good idea to write such inflammatory messages if you're concerned about the death threats you're receiving. This includes things like using curse words (e.g. HN is a shithole), and insulting people in other ways.
And I'm sorry, but if you know that a park is dangerous because a bunch of drunken teenagers are driving around doing donuts in it, you absolutely don't send your kid to play in it, no matter how safe it's supposed to be. And in particular, if they are, you tell your kid to stop yelling at the kids in the cars. (I realize this isn't what you suggested, but it makes your analogy less of a straw man.)
So, this isn't "don't play in traffic", this is "don't actively provoke known-to-be-crazy drivers while running around in oncoming traffic". It's just a bad idea. Especially if you're complaining about getting hurt.
Yes, all of these examples are hyperbole, but then again we have no idea about the seriousness of the threats.
Okay. You came up with the park analogy, saying that if someone got hit by a car in it, that you wouldn't not play in it on that basis. This is a fallacy because that was not the original position. The fallacy is called a straw man, because you put up the "straw man" that is supposedly my argument and then knocked it down.
All I did was attempt to make your analogy match reality more closely, to make it less of a straw man. It is a less flawed analogy now. The reality we are discussing is the situation of the person receiving death threats, not any of this other analogous stuff.
But, you know, if you just generally want to have discussions about what to do in different situations where one might or might not need to exercise caution, that can be okay. Of course if someone got hit by accident in a park I wouldn't say that other kids shouldn't play in it.
> Context. You are supposed to comment on HN. You are not supposed to play in the street. If you played in a park, I'd expect you not to get hit by a car. If someone does get hit by a car while playing in a park, you don't suggest to that person they should avoid playing in the park.
What can I say, I just genuinely don't understand why this isn't a straw man. Part of this has to do with me not being the sharpest knife in the block. Of course, if someone just randomly posted a comment here and received one death threat for doing so, I wouldn't say that they shouldn't post anymore. Isn't that the closest interpretation of your analogy? I'm serious.
The reason I think the analogy doesn't fit is due to a few differences. First, the person in question has a history of writing fairly inflammatory comments, based on my personal reaction, based on the comments containing curse words, sarcasm, insults, and all-caps (more recently), and finally based on the comments receiving downvotes. The second difference is that it's not one death threat, but multiple death threats that were alleged. The third difference is that I didn't say don't post at all, I just said don't post in such an inflammatory way. Given these three fairly significant differences, I concluded that your argument was a straw man. I could be wrong about that, but you'll have to convince me.
I now believe she was referring to Adria and not herself, so I'm really just interested in understanding whether or not the claim of it being a straw man is correct. I mean, I don't want to accuse other people of throwing up straw men if I'm just making a fool of myself. And you're right, although I've known about logic for a while, it's only recently that I started taking it more seriously in the context of discussions. I linked to Wikipedia because I thought you didn't know what a straw man was, I apologize for the insult.
Whether or not I'm trolling, I don't know what to say. It strikes me that a lot of people who troll don't even realize that this is what they're doing, so maybe I am, I don't know. It's not conscious, if so. Apologies in advance?
I get the point. My point is that reaction to "victim blaming" has swung way too far.
Kids don't deserve to get hit even if they play in the street -- even if it is expected to eventually happen. I just think there is a cognitive break in responsibility (don't blame the victim -- they have 0 responsibility for their actions) to taking some responsibility for limiting your risk.
I'm not touching the provocative clothes argument, because it's extreme and might not be backed up by the statistics. I'm just saying there are some careless actions by victims (like flashing money around in really really bad areas by yourself) that means the victims while completely undeserving of being victimized realistically need to shoulder some of the responsibility.
The poster above suggested, that if an action a poster is doing is causing death threats, it might be prudent to tone it down. I don't see that as blaming the victim.
It's no different then telling women not to wear
provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped
Telling women that not wearing provocative clothing will lower their chance of being raped is simply stating a truth. We wish it were otherwise, but it isn't. It's thus by definition sound advice and much more useful advice than stating "men shouldn't rape". Gee, thanks, the victim wasn't aware of that. Giving advice does not mean you agree with what necessitated the advice. It also does not mean that you think that if someone does not follow the advice, she deserves, morally or legally, anything that happens. Either of which you are currently arguing.
Seriously. Confusion's statement contradicts all my own reading, as well as comments from rape victims[1]/friends of rape victims. Rapists are usually not strangers looking to score. It's almost always someone the victim knows, and it's usually about power, not looks.
[1] Survivor is a better word, but it was a clunky read when I tried it. I won't be bothered if you use it instead if you reply.
I actually just thought it was a given[1], but it isn't relevant to my argument. Consider it replaced by "Telling women that not getting drunk will lower their chance of being raped" or "Telling women that not rejecting advances will lower their chance of being raped" or something else that you know is unfortunately true.
[1] Even among 'friends' (acquaintances?), chances you will be hit on are higher when wearing 'less' and considering hitting-on-and-being-rejected is a common precursor to rape...
> I'm honestly surprised that anyone is [...] defending Ms Richards
Even though I think she messed up in a big way, that there wasn't sexism, that she is a hypocrite, and that she really kept asking for it, much of the aggressive abuse directed at Adria Richards since the initial event has been totally out of control, and would count as criminal hate in some countries.
For starters, look at the comments on her Facebook page:
I want to live in a world where I can make dick jokes as much as the next guy, but the response to this scares me a billion times more than the possibility of getting reported/fired/beat-up/shamed for making some insensitive joke.
Many of us are basically rabid babies foaming at the mouth to join some mob, and go wage a holy war against something controversial just so we could calm our own insecurities and complexes. Why are so many people (men mostly) so adamant in expressing their opinion on this one particular issue. Yeah we get it, she messed up and you're indignant.. now shut the fuck up. And then there are other ones who feel that because of the way she handles herself, Adria Richards becomes fair game for anonymous and violent rape threats, being called cunt and bitch... and the 'civilized' ones somehow shrug it off with a "Well.. she brought it on herself.. internet is a cruel place, and she rubbed it the wrong way." This kind of shit makes me more convinced than ever that humanity won't end with a meteor strike or a giant earthquake, but a mob of assholes with superman complexes and pitchforks going around making sure that people understand their vision of justice.
Wow, after seeing her Facebook, i can't believe that so much people would react that way, doing exactly the same thing they are supposedly condemning. Very messed up. Thanks for sharing.
Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is a fallacy, but this annoys me too. The pictures she took at PyCon of her playing a game of Cards Against Humanity are perhaps the most galling:
This goes beyond Tu quoque. She claims to have been offended, enough to publicly name and shame these people over their private conversation, but she has publicly made jokes that were far raunchier days before. It isn't about hypocrisy in this case, it is about whether she was really offended.
I agree that it looks like she was exaggerating her offense. Hypocritical people often lie to manipulate situations to their advantage, or rather they choose truths to suit them according to the situation. So I guess what I am saying is that there are two questions here, are her hypocritical actions deplorable (yes), and was it sexism (no), but that the answers to the questions don't have any bearing on each other, which is why it's tu quoque to connect them. Anyway, in the end, yes, painful drama.
I honestly didn't know Appeal To Hypocrisy was a fallacy! Probably one I'm going to continue to make; hypocrisy is the one thing that drives me insane.
Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. Her argument about overheard dongle jokes being sexist is weak enough as it is. The added hypocrisy just makes for sadly entertaining drama / gossip / whatever. In a way, by focusing on the hypocrisy, it lends credence to her claim of sexism, because there's the subtle implication that if she weren't a hypocrite then the sexism claim would be valid. Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now, I hope she makes it out of this okay.
And, as usual with ad hominems, we must be careful not to throw out too much.
She argues that the joke was offensive. Her evidence was that she was offended. Evidence that her concept of offendedness is flawed does argue against the offensiveness of the joke.
Had she asked three people sitting near her if they were offended, and they had said yes, then she would no longer be a part of the argument and her hypocracy would not be relevant. But she didn't so it is.
Let's assume an identical situation, except that this time one of the two guys said something to her like, "Hey baby, I'd like to fork your repo, so do you wanna see my dongle?" Would her hypocrisy have any bearing on her claims of sexism? Would her personal emotional reaction have any bearing on her claims of sexism?
So with other people claiming sexism O, hypocritical Adria H, and sexist remarks S, you're saying !O -> (H -> !S), but O -> S. I guess I don't believe that the truth of statements depends on the number of people making them (this is what you believe, right?). I also don't see much point in the use of subjective experience as the basis of argument. She felt the way she felt, legitimately, but for a claim of sexism she'd need to demonstrate how the dongle jokes were somehow demeaning to women, as opposed to just being immature. Nobody is disputing that she got offended.
Plenty of people are claiming it wasn't sexism, but it seems like it's not a large enough number of people for you to dismiss her hypocrisy as irrelevant.
S->O
|
V
D->A
|
V
H
S=sexism
O=other people being offended
A=Adria being offended
D=Adria being dishonest
H=Adria being hypocritical
We know that A and H are true. We don't have data for the others. O would allow us to conclude S. H suggests D, which explains A, causing A not to be evidence for S.
It's like how flying saucer cultists being visibly crazy is evidence against flying saucers if their statements were the evidence in the first place, but if you had actual radar tracks, then it wouldn't matter.
Okay, thanks for explaining, I better understand your position. For myself, I don't believe A -> S or !A -> !S. I also don't believe O -> S or !O -> !S. People will get offended over the silliest things, and conversely victims of abuse will also deny that any was done to them. I also don't believe D, in that I don't think she was intentionally lying about being offended in order to manipulate the situation. I'm not sure that H suggests D, unless you mean emotionally dishonest, which of course I believe. She did fabricate the bit about forking being sexual, but I thought that was more jumping to conclusions than lying. But, I do understand your position insofar as if A implies S, then H matters.
It does seem to me that when you say A is evidence for S, even though your diagram only has S -> A, that you're just affirming the consequent. That is, given P -> Q and Q, claiming P is true.
So, my position is, she's a hypocrite, she got offended, obvious character flaws, etc. But whether or not there was sexism can only be determined by looking at both sides of the description of events that we have. For the most part, it seems people are saying that it isn't sexism, and that it would have to be specifically degrading to women.
I don't think the flying saucer analogy applies, because nobody is disputing the events that took place, people are only disputing whether there was sexism, i.e. what the meaning of the events was. To me it's more like, crazy person sees something fly overhead, claims it was a flying saucer and the beginning of an alien invasion, and proceeds to escalate the situation, when everyone else who looks at the data after the fact says it was just a plane.
At any rate, barring a conversion one way or the other to the truth of A -> S and !A -> !S, I think this is at a standstill, but it was an interesting discussion, so thanks.
My arrows are for causality. It's simpler this way. Evidence flows the other way. If sexism causes offence, then offence is evidence for sexism. How strong evidence depends on the likelihood of the consequence in absence of the cause. Bayes FTW!
As for concluding !S, most statements aren't sexist. In the absence of meaningful evidence for S, we should conclude !S (or rather, p(S)<.1).
Ok, I actually just didn't realize you were talking about probabilistic logic, because I'm used to propositional logic. If there is no way to determine S in the absence of A, then yes, A matters. However, we have a reasonable accounting of the facts agreed upon by both sides, at least as far as the dongle joke is concerned. Given that, a post mortem evaluation of the joke by a large group of people is a much better way to determine S, making A irrelevant, and therefore H irrelevant. It's not the case that you had to be there in order to know S directly. Does this make sense, regardless of whether or not you agree?
I always use probabilistic logic for real-world questions. Certainty is just too rare.
I understand and agree with your analysis except for one point: as I understand it, the exact text of the joke has not been published, sadly preventing post mortem evaluation.
Well, mr-hank said it had something to do with "a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male", and Adria corroborates that less specifically with it being a joke about a "big" dongle.
However, if that description isn't enough (it is for me), I'd much rather accept Adria's oversensitivity and injustice-seeking behavior as applicable character flaws. As opposed to her hypocrisy, those things really do make her a bad judge of what is and isn't sexist, because they generate false positives.
Her hypocrisy is also galling because of her response to the events, but that still doesn't affect her claim that she took appropriate action, because it's a generic claim about any woman in that situation, and doesn't rely on any of her character flaws.
Okay, that is as refined as it gets for me, I think. I did come to see how I was implicitly accepting an ad hominem argument without realizing it (the one about oversensitivity), so thanks again.
"Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now"
I think her position, which was originally extremely weak, has been reinforced by the large misogynistic response. She's a public speaker, and once people forget about her offense, she'll roll this into five years of lunches, keynotes, corporate re-education, and books.
This backlash has given her a level of credibility as an expert on gender-based harassment that she would not be able to attain on her own merits. She needs no academic background after this. She needs no list of petty "I thought of a four year old girl..." stories.
Thanks for catching that. It's hard to reason about these things because tu quoque is already false. I mean, if you assume false is true, then you can prove anything. I guess it depends on whether there's an if or an if-and-only-if relationship between being a hypocrite (H) and there not being sexism (S):
(H -> !S) -> (!H -> S) // false (this is what you mean)
(H <-> !S) -> (!H -> S) // true
But besides being wrong, I guess I was also hinting at something else, which is that if you accept this one fallacy (tu quoque), you are probably implicitly accepting this other fallacy (I think it might have a different name than affirming the consequent, but they're related). That wasn't clear with my use of the phrase "subtle implication" and I didn't realize this either.
Well, no, it's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be to use insults, or baseless accusations. The accusations here are well-based. She has made offensive comments, and gotten upset when others made less offensive comments. That's textbook hypocrisy.
It doesn't matter who said the offensive comments. It's true that they're all offensive. It does matter that he apologized, and she didn't. That shows a profound lack of moral judgement, or an inability to be self reflective, or a hostility for the truth.
Ad hominem does not require the accusations to be baseless; it's usually more effective if they aren't. It's true that she appears to have character flaws and is apparently hypocritical. I personally don't respond well to blatant hypocrisy either. However, the fallacy is to connect the hypocrisy to the question of whether or not the guys were being sexist and whether her outburst was appropriate. That question can be answered on its own. I'm not standing up for what she did here, but it's more like, if I did the same thing as her but wasn't a hypocrite, would that be okay? I hope not.
No, an Ad Hominem is an argument against the man (well, person), as its name says. It's any argument that tries to invalidate an argument by attacking the person who said it. In fact, insults are not necessarily Ad Hominem fallacies, and the accusations don't have to be baseless to be fallacies.
I'll start by saying I think you're absolutely correct.
To further refine the point (possibly what you meant in your penultimate clause), it's not ad hominem when the attack on the man in question is germane.
If I say "I am a good candidate for US President", and you say "You don't even know how many US States there are", it's an attack on me ("the person", that is the arguer), but it's totally relevant, and thus not an ad hominem attack in the sense of the logical fallacy.
To bring it back to the case at hand, if someone says "Adria's wrong that it's offensive, because if she says that then she's a hypocrite, because she says offensive things", that's tu quoque (and yes, ad hominem). Murderers are not incapable of identifying other murderers!
But for one thing, ericb makes a good point that hypocrisy is suggestive that she might not have been genuinely offended, which plays some role in this story.
Moreover, hypocrisy plays a complicated and not-entirely-fallacious role in circumstances where we disagree about acceptable behaviour. If Adria's claim is that double-entendres are inherently unprofessional behaviour, but I disagree, one basis for disagreement is to cite community standards, and Adria's own behaviour seems likely to be behaviour that she will accept as not-abhorrent. She could argue "yeah, it was repugnant of me to do that, just as it was repugnant of this man to make a dongle joke", which would mean she was a hypocrite, but the hypocrisy would not affect her argument (unless some other part of her argument required her to assert that she's a virtuous person). Or she could argue that only privileged groups can offend (as she apparently has about racism, much as this argument disgusts me), and insofar as she was persuasive about this, she might evade the accusation of hypocrisy and also the impact on her argument.
I assert that it's a sign of mental laziness to hold hypocrisy as a great evil, in general. I think evildoers who think their transgression is evil are less evil than evildoers who think it's just fine and facilitate it in others. Even though the former are hypocrites and the latter are not. (And if, at some point, I accuse someone of hypocrisy, it will make the preceding statement by me no less true!)
> Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them.
The inconsistency claimed here was an argument against the credibility of the claimed offense. "Offense" is not a objective conclusion of a rational argument, it is a subjective state. Inconsistency in the part of the person claiming the subjective response is a legitimate basis for challenging the claim of offense, and isn't a form of ad hominem fallacy because it isn't challenging the argument being made because of the hypocrisy of the arguer, it is challenging the fact claim in the premise of the argument, by presenting factual evidence.
If you evaluate whether or not those guys deserved the treatment they got on the basis of anyone's emotions, then it's all up for grabs. It's incorrect in the first place to support a claim of sexism on the basis of an individual's emotions.
Remember when we meet the Lion in the Wizard of Oz? Hyper-aggression and hyper-sensitivity go hand in hand. It doesn't make the hyper-sensitivity untrue in some way, but it also doesn't positively or negatively affect any arguments the Lion might have about the existence of abuse - they'll hold water on their own if they can.
I mean, the whole purpose of argument is objective reasoning, right? I thought this was primarily a discussion about whether or not there was sexism involved. All we can really say subjectively is that she got offended and apparently overreacted. Whatever she claims her emotions to be, they are valid claims.
"hypocrisy is the one thing that drives me insane"
Me too because hypocrisy is clearly a form of intellectual dishonesty in itself and I don't want to lose time with intellectually dishonest people. As simple as that.
If someone I know is a torturer and doesn't know I know it and tells me: "torturing people is bad", I'm not going to argue with him. I'm not going to think: "his point may be wrong because he's intellectually dishonest so torturing may actually be acceptable".
No, actually I'd disrespect this person even more: a first time because he's a torturer and a second time because of his hypocrisy.
I've got zero things to learn from such person, no matter how true or wrong their poisonous words are.
There are way enough knowledgable and honest people out there to learn things from.
> Me too because hypocrisy is clearly a form of intellectual dishonesty in itself and I don't want to lose time with intellectually dishonest people. As simple as that.
I think I understand where you are coming from, but personally, by your definition, I don't know anyone who's not a hypocrite.
It's just a simple fact that the conscious mind is not in 100% control of an individual for every minute of their life, and furthermore, that even if it was in control, that it would never make a decision that was contrary to some position they've espoused in the past.
Point is, maybe ease up on people a little. Hypocrisy should be limited to people who espouse one thing publicly, and espouse the opposite thing privately. Not merely laps in the application of an honestly held belief.
Yeah, that one. There are more pictures of it on her Facebook page along with plenty of nasty comments. Basically the game is based on politically incorrect 'humor' and they were playing it in public spaces at PyCon. Although I probably wouldn't have reported it, I still find it more offensive than puerile dick jokes.
I'm wary of heading too far down this line because I've certainly done things (hosted X-rated parties, etc.) at conferences in the past, which I certainly wouldn't do as official conference events under a company name with random people, but which seem fine in a social setting. And gotten drunk on stage, etc.
But at a "hacker" thing (DC7-13, etc.), not at a developer conference or professional event. There probably is some evolving standard of conduct now that things which were formerly mostly underground are now essentially big business.
Note: Things are only "a fallacy" when they are applied falsely. It may not be your favorite flavour of argument, but the true fallacy is making sweeping judgements outside of context.
She was playing it in the hallway, at the conference, by the washrooms, posting about it on her public Facebook page, and tagging it #PyCon.
Nobody dragged Adria anywhere and forced her to listen to the penis jokes. She just overheard them behind her. The chances of me overhearing that group of people on my way to the bathroom are comparable to the chances of me overhearing the penis jokes. It might be even more likely that I'd overhear the Cards Against Humanity game.
Although her hypocrisy has no bearing on the sexism question, it doesn't stop it from being hypocrisy. Granted, her name probably doesn't need any more smearing, but boy did she keep asking for it - ass clowns? Really?
