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Comment by IAmEveryone | Hacker News Reader

The very next graph moderates that statement: “Fortunately, he added, no model insists that the out-group must be exterminated or otherwise eliminated from the scene. “It’s possible to treat the out-group with mild dislike or even grudging respect,” he said. “Cultivating in-group distinctiveness does not require that the other must be killed.”

And look: you’re giving the perfect example of such “mild dislike”! Quote: “The dirty lenses of journalism”.

I agree that xenophobia is somewhat rare among “hackers”, but I don’t think you can easily deny some ingroup/outgroup dynamics in this scene. Social sciences and the liberal arts are routinely ridiculed. “The media” is constantly treated as incompetent (see above). And misogyny is somewhat common.

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Criticism of science journalism isn't in-group/outgroup, it's a claim about the state of the world. How do we know this? If I became a science writer, I wouldn't change my mind. Likewise, I think that most of the criticism of the humanities comes from people that read that kind of stuff in college and didn't like it. I don't work at McDonalds, so is it tribalism if I say I don't like BigMacs?

There's no apology or justification for misogyny, though.

Sure... and xenophobia is just clearly seeing that foreigners are dirty. And when the Xenophobe vacations in Mexico, they still thinks these people around them are dirty.

I don't think science journalists are stupid or morally inferior, I just observe a very bad track record of confusing and misleading articles. When I tell people to take them with a grain of salt, things get better. There are good science journalists, but I can't practically pass out lists of names.

It sounds like the principle you're bringing in to play here could make anything count as xenophobic, so long as it involved a negative opinion and more than one group. This is dangerous because there are many opinions which are not xenophobic and are useful: misclassifying them as xenophobic introduces the error of "useful xenophobia," which is a very dangerous mistake.

Edit: I think I've debugged the issue. I'm treating these things like they're true and were discovered independently, and you are treating them like they're false (or at least unjustified) and spread socially. I know that in my case I've learned to not like science journalism first-hand, by reading articles while knowing about their subject matter (an incredibly surreal experience).

No, the point is that hating on journalists is a group dynamic. It’s so common on HN for example, that it is frankly impossible all of its purveyors came up with the idea independently. That’s true even if the collective complaints have a basis in fact.

People are social animals, susceptible to group-think. There’s really nothing wrong with that, as long as we’re willing to accept the possibility and don’t succumb to the firehouse effect.

It feels like the metric for "xenophobic groupthink" that's being used here could end up matching anything. It feels right because it's leading to an answer that feels right (that scientists should stop saying mean things about scholars in the broader sense, I agree they should), but that doesn't mean that it's a good principle: what about all the other cases?

>It’s so common on HN for example, that it is frankly impossible all of its purveyors came up with the idea independently. That’s true even if the collective complaints have a basis in fact.

If our complaints have enough of a basis in fact, then why would it be unlikely for everyone with the right domain knowledge to realize the same thing? The idea that something can be factual but also still somehow based in groupthink belies an understanding of the word that leads back to another common criticism of the humanities...

It doesn't matter if the bias is reasonable, it just needs an object of ire.

There's no such thing as a reasonable bias, if a belief is accurate then it's a good judgment, and if it's inaccurate it's a bad one.

In relation to this article you need to have a bias in order to create friendships, even if it's an accurate and good judgement. That's just what the article says and what I was pointing out.

More generally about reasonable biases, in real life you need to give some credence to the impossibility of knowing the accuracy of your biases. Everyone thinks their judgements are better than the rest, and that leads to historical tragedies. That's why modern thinking has evolved into being about personal freedoms and leaving other people the heck alone instead of trying to impose one's personal judgements.

Here on HN we spend a lot of time talking about business and engineering. In both cases, a successful person's career could be described as a series of judgments that were better (more astute) than the rest's. There are many areas where nobody's opinion can be distinguished from anybody else's except by counting the number of people that believe each one. One uncontroversial example would be art criticism. However, there are other areas where there are right answers to chase down.

Inside of the areas where external, natural forces are available to distinguish between sides of debates, no bias is necessary to form friendships or alliances. If you find yourself on the wrong side you can switch, and it won't be "disloyal" or "traitorous" because you'd be doing it to align yourself with something that isn't artificial. (For example, knowing the correct laws of physics instead of the wrong ones.)

> In [business and engineering], a successful person's career could be described as a series of judgments that were better (more astute) than the rest's.

I disagree with the premise you're basing the rest of your argument on. I would sooner say that a successful career in general (and engineering is no different) probably only hinges marginally on some intangible measure of aptitude (rephrased: aptitude is necessary but insufficient), and mostly results from some combination of coming from a privileged background (that is, encouraged from a young age that you're capable, exposed to good education, validation, having access to a professional network, etc.) and having had opportunity to thrive (for example, a lack of financial stress allowing one to pursue a risky business venture as opposed to having had to support one's family from a young age and therefore accepting a menial job straight out of high school).

Of course, one can find examples of people from underprivileged backgrounds succeeding in the sense you're referring to, but i don't for one second believe that simply "working hard" and "making the right choices" is enough to magically rise to the top of the economic dogpile. In essence, i think your statement is an instance of the just world fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis).

I've tried to be measured and objective in my reply, but i see this as a common myth that deserves to die, so my apologies if i'm sounding abrasive.

> mostly results from some combination of coming from a privileged background

> and having had opportunity to thrive (for example, a lack of financial stress allowing one to pursue a risky business venture as opposed to having had to support one's family from a young age and therefore accepting a menial job straight out of school

> and engineering is no different

That sounds like wishful thinking.

How do you counter the following data points that suggest the opposite:

1. Software development contains a disproportionate number of successful Indians who come from much less privilege than the average American.

2. Despite having strong social safety nets European countries do not dominate tech.

Even in these countries underprivileged migrants without access to the safety nets are disproportionately successful.

In fact, strong social safety net encourages people to pursue their true call rather than go into tech for $$$. Very few people naturally want to do tech. E.g. famous study why many Indian women go to STEM, while Norwegians stay in women-dominated non-tech fields.

I really do think that aptitude matters most, but that's (subtly) beside the point. Tech is not perfect, there is wage fixing and lobbyig for regulatory capture and so on, but because there is an actual task to perform there is room for things other than failure. If someone rises up for reasons unrelated to their merit, that's a mistake of the system and a fault in the mentality of the people who allowed it. I'm not saying that the good is real, I'm arguing that merit is available for decision-making and is also the right path.

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