jawarner

Are you suggesting that COVID tests were widely submitted with kiwi fruit rather than saliva?

dogs

Google’s algorithms will social engineer whether Google likes it or not. They might as well be intentional about it.

The initial U.S. response to the virus was to do nothing. It will go away soon. We can blame it on China for not communicating it sooner, but what would we have done? Things would be better if we had done nothing, sooner?

> It's virtue signaling.

You don't need to shame people who have an overabundance of precaution.

An emotional anecdote conveys the personal impact of an issue. It helps with empathy, something OP is not demonstrating. Statistics do back that it is possible for young people to die of COVID, albeit less likely than older people.

That's a good point the local variation. I think it's significant to note that for a while after the spike in the summer, the U.S. wasn't in a growth curve. A lot of people thought that the worst was behind them. This article shows that the current spike is now worse than the previous spike.

I don't think this article is saying what you think it says. It's cautioning against cloth masks, like bandanas. It actually affirms that medical masks, those typically used, do work.

> For example, when a police officer harasses a person on the pretext of enforcing the law, that would be improper law enforcement.

To be clear, in this example, the officer is enforcing a law that doesn’t exist.

> Otherwise, I'm not going to entertain "hidden meanings" for the words that they already spoke, I'm going to assume that they meant what they said.

Be honest with yourself.

> See, you said "enforcement of the CoC".

I said "improper enforcement of the CoC". As an example, "improper enforcement of the law" might suggest that something was enforced which wasn't the law. Is there a reason you're set on this interpretation of my words?

In this, and the Scotsman case, you seem to have chosen an interpretation fits your argument. I'm not sure this is a good way to carry on a conversation, though. This whole discussion was about whether pindab0ter made a valid point. It's not clear to me you are interested in understanding the point made. Maybe it's easier for you to label it as a fallacy. I know that's something I do frequently when I don't understand something -- assume it's incorrect.

> Or do you think it is the awkward ones who are sitting on the CoC tribunal?

Would it be fair to say that you believe the majority of CoC reports are due to a misunderstanding of a well-intentioned behavior on the part of an awkward individual? If so, where does this idea come from?

> It is absolutely worth considering such things, which is why we (at least were I live) have laws against such things, and also why I am in favour of those laws.

To pursue something legally requires a formal legal process, evidence, lawyers, etc., and has strict penal consequences. Would you consider there is a need for a more informal process where the consequences is being kicked out of an event?

> I'm absolutely fine with women feeling safe.

But you aren't fine with an organization creating rules to help women feel safe. Why is it an abuse of power, acting as "judge, jury and executioner," to remove someone from an event or organization who causes women to feel uncomfortable?

> Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC

That's not what I said.

You seem to be focused on detailed differences in meaning but missing the thrust of these arguments. You claimed Scotsman fallacy to a perceived specific meaning of the sentence, but it didn't fit in context. In general you seem to be not aware of the contextual meaning of what anybody has said here.

It's clear you've had experiences that have caused you to feel unsafe at times in your life. What's stopping you from having empathy for people that feel that way currently?

One aspect of this newfangled definition of safe is that women can feel confident existing in a space without fear of being sexually harassed. Is that worth considering? Is that a political game?

pindab0ter said:

> This discussion is about someone being punished by a committee for something that wasn’t in the CoC, as you can read in the article.

I said:

> I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC

Does that seem like speculation? This thread is getting a little disjointed. We can't seem to agree on anything.

> Yes.

Really? I thought it was more people being overly sensitive, and the enforcement team not using their brains. I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC. I'm not sure anybody can speak to the intentions of the people that reported it with certainty.

> Well, if you dislike someone's political views, and then you hatch a plan to make up fraudulent sexual misconduct allegations with the hope of "canceling" someone, I would describe that as "weaponizing" the CoC

Is that consistent with the thread? Are you arguing that the majority of CoC reports are outright lies? I thought this thread was about the use of CoC to enforce a code of behavior, and if stringent enforcement counts as misuse.

> it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind

I mean, the word is used a lot. You even referenced it being commonly used. Have you tried to understand it?

I think we're talking past each other. Would you be able to answer any of the questions I posed earlier?

> but they're usually (as evidenced by this very OP) applied inconsistently, politically

Do you have the impression OP was a political disagreement?

> Professionals tend to act professionally.

Yes, but people aren't robots. These are still human interactions between people. You develop personal relationships at conferences, or fail to. People with a hostile attitude toward minoritized groups, whether explicitly expressed or not, are going to make these people feel less welcome, and as a result, they will have a worse outcome at the conference.

> The word “unsafe” doesn’t mean anything any more

An alternate possibility is that you don't understand what people mean when they say they feel unsafe. Do you feel you have invested effort into empathizing with these concerns, or would you say your are more dismissive?

pindab0ter's idea, as I read it, is that no, CoCs are not inherently weapons to exclude people for no reason. They typically language about what constitutes bigotry. In the OP, yes, the CoC was weaponized, but it doesn't reflect a necessary fault in CoCs in general.

Edit: I'm not sure what is even meant by "weaponize." Is the implication that somebody at the conference had vendetta against OP? It's clear that CoCs give people more power, which is a weapon, in a sense. Would reporting someone for CoC violation for sexual misconduct at a conference be an example of weaponization?

> Can you expand on this, explain the connection? In particular, why the former (belief) would influence the latter (behavior)?

It's not universally the case, to be sure. If you voice your belief that women are intellectually inferior, you will likely make them feel excluded. In general, there is a relationship between a person's beliefs and behaviors which I regard as self-evident.

> Edit: answer to your second question: I try to be inclusive, I don't believe in drawing lines, at least not when it comes to belief (only behavior).

People tend to act in accordance with their beliefs. I don't think I track your perspective. Do you really believe that, say, a person with white supremecist beliefs, again, as an extreme example, will generally act welcoming toward minorities? You seem to believe, well, as long as they don't explicitly disrespect someone, it's fine. But social behavior is a lot more subtle. People can tell if you hate them.

gwbas1c did not reject the idea that CoCs could be used as a weapon. They rejected that is their only use case.

barumi referenced OP article as an example of CoC as a weapon.

pindab0ter argues this not a fault in the CoC itself per se, but in how it was enforced.

CoCs are about politics to the extent that politics affects one's ability to be empathetic. If you believe that genetics cause women to perform worse in technical roles, that will be reflected in your social behavior.

To use an extreme example for the sake of discussion, would you similarly feel that excluding a skinhead with Swastika face tattoos from a scientific conference constitutes an unacceptable example of political oppression? If not, is it because they cause minoritized people to feel unsafe and unwelcome? Where do you believe the line should be drawn?

I don't think that fits here.

This thread is very Hacker News.

Fair point. White supremacy is an attitude, whereas white privilege a state of being. I would quibble that white supremacist ideas are quite widespread - see, e.g., references to "thugs" during the BLM protests.

I also agree that white privilege interacts with class, culture and historical consequences, this was well put.

If, hypothetically, an economic system admits little class mobility, and if classes are racially biased, then the effect of that economic system is to maintain a racial caste system. What are your thoughts on this? I'd also point that the justice system works similarly. There are few explicit racial biases, but what is the effect of this system? It actively maintains a racial hierarchy. Does that make it racist?

The justice system (1) does discriminate against people of color to some extent, and (2) it also discriminates against the poor. The arguments for these points are laid out in detail in the book I referred to, so I'm not going to waste your time repeating them. If you do agree with either of these points, then we would agree that the justice system is oppressive.

You raise the point that leftists don't differentiate between a system that discriminates based on race and a system that discriminates on factors correlated with race. I would argue that the effects of those two systems are quite similar. Would you agree that, regardless of the intention, both of these systems have the effect of racial oppression?

I can't defend DiAngelo or Kendi because I'm ignorant of what they have to say.

The status quo is not explicitly racist, and a lot of people are comfortable with it. The push by the left is to suggest that just because a system does not have discriminatory laws, that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. Take the prevalence of indentured servitude after the Civil War as an example. I'd recommend "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" for a lucid account of the racial issues in current America.

If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy.

I don't follow your first point, since it seems clear to me that people of color, jewish people, and homosexuals are able to hold white supremacist viewpoints.

One reference mentions a nurturing bias in girls. No reference brings up a hunting-versus-nurturing instinct. It appears it is the unnamed author's own invention.

Agreed. This article didn't distinguish between "problems caused by Big Data" and "problems caused by your aunt on Facebook who would disown you if you post the wrong thing."

People-as-cows, huh? What does that mean to you?