The DMZ

forest

1:16 AM

@BenoitEsnard Intel as in Intel Corporation, not as in intelligence community.

Wtf, why do 10 of the pinned comments have the number 17?

4

Arminius

It's one of the many mysteries of sec.se I suppose

forest

1:35 AM

@Catija List of most down-voted questions in the history of SE. "Live: Left nav, new theming and responsiveness" is the 3rd most down-voted one. If we filter out questions about ToS and licensing, it is the single most down-voted question of all time. And yet no rollback, pretend like nothing happened, roll out these features that nobody wants, not only to SO but to the whole network. This is upsetting. — Lundin Sep 6 at 14:58

Arminius

More drama, eh?

forest

Oh it's been drama ever since the terrible new themes came out.

It's bad enough that quite a few people (including high-profile moderators) are leaving.

Arminius

Who's leaving?

forest

None on this site, but on some other sites. I'll link to the posts if I find them again.

Arminius

I fully understand why you may consider some decisions such as underlined links inappropriate for a modern web app, but what I don't understand is why people would prefer leaving the site over tweaking the theme with a few custom CSS rules, unless there's something else that fundamentally bothers them, ofc

forest

1:51 AM

@Arminius There is. It makes it harder to read and has destroyed the personality of some sites. See for example English.SE's reaction where the design set out to destroy their site. Look at some of the font criticisms!

I mean it's really, really discordant.

> “Alex and I agreed on the design direction for the site. It should feature beautiful typography and invoke a vintage/warm feeling.”

> In 2018, the new flat theme is dull and one dimensional. The elegant Georgia font has been sacrificed. The quaint antique style and flourishes have been replaced by bands, lines and boxes. The theme colour, which was charming and reminiscent of a bygone era, now succeeds in accentuating this blandness.

And, of course:

> We’ve lost our elegant Georgia face on most of the site. It’s been replaced by Arial of all things. Those two faces are ɴᴏᴛ ᴍᴇᴀɴᴛ to go together, and they do not. Georgia is supposed to pair with Verdana, not with Arial. Otherwise the character is all wrong, like chalk and cheese.

Arminius

4:46 AM

Is there a good term that subsumes those areas of security that don't require you to touch code? Those that include security management rather than, say, reversing malware or auditing a web app.

I feel like there's a dichotomy there but I'm not sure there are good terms for it

forest

5:04 AM

I don't think there's a specific term for it.

Anonymous

6:05 AM

@forest Because I'm being made fun of :'(

Sagar V

6:24 AM

I'd like to move to block chain testing from Web app testing. Anyone have good resources of how to get started or how to test block chain/smart contracts?

forest

6:43 AM

@SagarV What is block chain testing?

Sagar V

7:25 AM

@forest I mean testing smart contracts

how to set up the environment, how to write test cases, what are all the tools I've to use, etc

forest

7:37 AM

Ah

Tom K.

hullo

Sagar V

hallo

forest

herro

prease

Sagar V

@forest any idea?

Benoit Esnard

@SagarV capturetheether.com/challenges

forest

7:41 AM

@SagarV No, sorry. That's not a field I work in.

Benoit Esnard

I didn't try it yet, but it looks like there are a lot of resources.

Anonymous

8:01 AM

So my train has been delayed for a combined time of 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Anonymous

I was meant to be in London at 8:30am.

Anonymous

It's now 9:00am I am still about... 40 minutes away, lol

forest

So uh, apparently the whole Linus drama is caused by him saying the word fuck to a woman who then cried that she was being oppressed, and a news article pressured Linus into leaving (at least temporarily).

"Linus is a guy. People let Linus swear. I am not a guy. I am not allowed to swear. Therefore, people who are not guys are not allowed to swear." - Logic!(tm)

Anonymous

That is ridiculous Forest.

Anonymous

In other news, my train is finally moving again.

forest

8:17 AM

@Joshua.J Yes, it really is. I do hope that the kernel community is resilient enough to resist the inevitable attacks against kernel devs that will come (one already came, with someone accusing Theodore T'so, one of the biggest and most important people in the community!). And I imagine Linus will return soon enough.

@Joshua.J I recently had to wait in a train for like 3 hours while they fixed something up. The worst part is it happened in a 3G dead spot.

Anonymous

Yeah, what a fucking joke.

Anonymous

Oh no, lol.

Anonymous

I've luckily had connectivity the whole way through so I've been reading about this FlatCrypt challenge from CSAW.

Anonymous

I think I understand what you needed to do now, I was focusing on the wrong area.

forest

I was reading a datasheet that made my brain hurt.

It sucked because I couldn't even look things up to understand better.

Anonymous

8:20 AM

Yeah that is a pain :p

Sagar V

train delay isn't a rare thing in India

Anonymous

I really, really need to learn more Python.

Anonymous

Honestly, I wouldn't have struggled with this challenge so much if I knew more Python.

Anonymous

Guess it's time to dig some time out of my schedule and replace it with Python, although I am not sure what I will replace, sleeping I guess.

Anonymous

Will have to go from 7 hours to 6 or 5.

forest

8:22 AM

Sleep is for the weak.

Anonymous

I know, but I wake up at 5:00am.

Anonymous

:p

Tom K.

@forest where's that from? O.o

forest

@TomK. LWN comments pointed me to it. Already closed the page, but it's linked in the comments in the article describing the drama.

At least that's the speculation (but it seems pretty reliable given the news article that was going to be released which talked about how Linux is anti-women and shit).

Anonymous

He's anti-women because he said "Fuck!" to a woman?

Anonymous

8:28 AM

Sure...

Anonymous

facepalms

forest

Because he cursed at a woman, and the woman was reprimanded for cursing at someone else (because "only Linus can swear", not because "only men can swear").

s/swear/swear at someone/

However the news article that resulted in this drama took it to mean the latter, and asked Linus for comment. He knew the article would be very bad for him and Linux in general, so he decided to take a break so the article would not be as damaging.

(He was asked for comment before the article was released)

But it ended up with the usual "woe is me, women are being oppressed because this organization cares more about merit than identity politics" drama.

Which is stupid (and dangerous), because FOSS should only be about merit.

Tom K.

what is the gender ratio in the linux kernel dev community?

forest

Why does that matter?

Amazingly, it turns out most women do not think working with code all day is a fulfilling job. Those who do and excel get accepted. Thankfully, because FOSS is about merit, no one turns someone down due to their gender. The compiler doesn't care about your skin color. The compiler doesn't care about your sex. The compiler doesn't care about your ethnicity. The compiler only cares that the code it is fed is good.

Tom K.

wow.. just reading some of his comments on the ml..

forest

8:37 AM

Whose?

Linus'?

Tom K.

telling someone his code is shit and the person should be "retroactively aborted"

yeah

forest

(Have you never seen some of his more... colorful comments before? He's famous for it)

A picture of him with his middle finger out is one of the most famous photos out.

Tom K.

yeah, I saw him saying 'fuck' a lot and some more ranting and venting and all that

but this is just plain stupid

cussing is one thing

forest

I mean yeah he's very rude, but the claim that he is targeting women is... dumb.

Even if rude is an understatement. He speaks his mind if someone is wrong.

Tom K.

but just insulting people .. that is just unnecessary

and it really speaks against your argument, that it is needed to keep up the quality of good code

forest

8:39 AM

@TomK. To be fair, when he goes off on his more extreme rants, it's usually preempted by someone being a dick to him or refusing to accept his decision.

Tom K.

I can tell you your code is horrible without telling you you have to die

forest

He rarely goes and insults someone personally just because they had bad code.

True. And I never claimed he's the most polite person in the universe. :P

Tom K.

yeah, but it kinda weakens the whole "hey, we are just here for the quality of the patch" or whatever story

forest

But anyone who knows him knows not to take it seriously, just like no one takes threats from video gamers seriously (yeah yeah, you were totally behind that wall. No need to threaten my mother).

@TomK. The idea is that identity politics have no place in the kernel, not that it is not a harsh place. In other words, if your code is good, it will be accepted, regardless of your gender. If your code is bad, it will be rejected, regardless of your gender. If you contest the rejection and call Linus an idiot, he will call you an idiot back, regardless of your gender. Substitute gender for any type of identity of your choice.

Tom K.

but why does it need to be a harsh place?

that does make no sense to me

forest

8:42 AM

@TomK. It doesn't need to be, but it is. It's just his personality. Rather than blocking/banning someone and ignoring them, he lashes back. He has a poor grasp of social skills (I recall reading he is on the autism spectrum).

Tom K.

I submit code and it's bad. You can tell me one of the following: "Your code is bad.", "Your code is really bad.", "Your code sucks" whatever

I - don't - care

forest

@TomK. And if you pester me and tell me I'm wrong, then I can tell you no, you are wrong, and you are a stupid person. It makes me a dick, but it doesn't mean I'm discriminating based on any personal attribute.

Tom K.

let someone else be in charge if you are not capable of managing a big group of people

forest

He is not "in charge" anyway.

Tom K.

aw come on, that's just not true

forest

8:43 AM

Or at least, he doesn't assert his authority over others unless it's necessary.

Tom K.

lol

forest

If everyone else ACKs something but he NAKs it, he usually bends.

I assume you don't read the LKML regularly?

Tom K.

he did the right move

forest

Oh yeah I think it's not a bad idea for him to spend some time working on his social skills. That's not what I'm critical of.

Tom K.

no. but you know who's the only person I know from that community? Linus Torvalds

forest

8:45 AM

Because he invented Linux.

I mean it's named after him, for pete's sake (and so is git!)

Tom K.

and because he still is the face of the community

you can't deny it

and with that comes a certain responsibility

a responsibility to not be a dick

forest

I don't try to. He is the creator of Linux and is heavily involved with it.

He also has the most colorful personality which makes for a cult following.

Tom K.

> He is not "in charge" anyway.

forest

Creator, but he doesn't make all the decisions. He even admitted himself that he is unable to now given how complex the kernel has become.

Tom K.

sure, if men are assholes they are colorful. if women are assholes they are hysteric...

forest

8:46 AM

Uh...

Who said that? The reason that one woman was not allowed to be an asshole is not because she is a woman... That's exactly what I find so stupid about it.

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

I get a full refund on my ticket.

Anonymous

FeelsGoodMan.jpg

forest

I don't think you need to strawman to show that you like identity politics.

Tom K.

haha

Anonymous

8:47 AM

Anyway, time for me to chip. Nearly here.

Anonymous

See you gentleman (and 10 year old girl) later :p

forest

:P

Tom K.

you don't know why she wasn't allowed to be an asshole

forest

Yes, I do. For the same reason that others aren't allowed to be an asshole.

Have you never seen someone else try to curse someone out and get promptly shut down? I have. I suggest you start reading the LKML for a few years before making assumptions that something never happens. :P

Tom K.

yeeah.. right

Structural sexism happens everywhere and especially where IT guys are involved

forest

8:49 AM

sigh

Tom K.

dude, do you think generations of sociologists and psychologists are all wrong?

forest

Again, stop with the strawmen.

Benoit Esnard

Are these people studying real science?

Tom K.

of course they are

forest

@BenoitEsnard To be fair, something like 60% of psychology studies were found not to be reproducable.

Tom K.

8:51 AM

wtf? what kind of number is that?

forest

It's by far the most poorly-managed field in all of modern science (even they themselves admit that).

s/studies/oft-cited studies/

OK, I think I'm done here. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, your attitude is precisely the reason why identity politics is causing such problems as baseless accusations and assumptions that someone's behavior is due to sexism and not, for example, the fact that someone is a dick to everyone.

I mean really, a guy who is known to be an asshole is a jerk to a guy, and that guy is an asshole. If he's a jerk to a woman, then apparently it's sexism.

Tom K.

Linus Torvalds seems to be a pretty huge dick to me, yes.

I never said that

forest

To me as well.

Benoit Esnard

@TomK. Well, from my experience IT is 98% guys

forest

Indeed it is. It doesn't appeal to most women.

Whereas biology is a STEM field that does (and bio has 55-60% women).

Tom K.

8:52 AM

you know why?

:|

forest

Yes, because it's seen as a "nerd thing" that obnoxious basement dwellers do.

Benoit Esnard

Oh, I have a few reasons in mind.

forest

Note that I only have experience with FOSS, not corporate software dev.

Tom K.

@forest I genuinely don't understand what you mean by this

Benoit Esnard

None of them is flattering for mankind. :D

forest

8:54 AM

@TomK. Saying "so you're saying that "X" is wrong?" is a textbook strawman.

I don't like dignifying fallacies that intend (consciously or unconsciously) to trap someone. It is intellectually dishonest and never leads to constructive discussion.

Tom K.

Hm, okay

for me it's an exaggeration to show you how weird your arguments are to me

let me rephrase

forest

Just like if I said what, so you're saying that women are better than men at software dev? would be a strawman because it 1) implies you said something you did not say, and 2) changes the topic from what it was to some sort of immature gender war.

Tom K.

do you think that structural sexism is "a thing"?

forest

In some environments, I do think it is "a thing".

A past business I dealt with was so bad that they literally refused to hire black people and no woman ever got a promotion. It was horrifying.

Tom K.

do you think it's a thing in the FOSS community? if not, why not?

forest

8:57 AM

In most major projects, I do not think it is a thing. I explained the reason why it isn't above. In particular, FOSS is all about merit, not about identity. No one is turned down because they are fat, or because they are Jewish. People are only turned down if their code is crap. Often, people don't even know the gender of someone who makes a commit when they're dealing with hundreds a day.

Now I'm sure that there are people who are sexist in FOSS, just like there are sociopaths and pedophiles in FOSS. But the culture and environment itself are not.

Tom K.

that argument does not count, because we can obviously only talk about the case where a) people know that others are women or b) think they know they are women, which is definitely the case sometimes

forest

The argument that you don't know someone's gender?

Tom K.

"does not count" is probably a bad phrasing. It's clear that you can't talk about interactions between "user123" and "user456" where nothing is exchanged but "hello, this is my code" "okay" "goodbye" "goodbye"

forest

OK, then I'll remove that claim from my argument. While it may be true for people dealing with dozens of commits a day, it's certainly not always true.

What is true is that code will fail to compile or will segfault if there are bugs in it, and it will not do so because of someone's identity.

Tom K.

but there are usernames that lets you infer gender and people might think of themselves that they are able to identify code from a man or woman or a transgender person

forest

9:01 AM

If I see code that has a bug or which does not work, I will reject it, whether or not I know the gender, race and ethnicity, or age of the person who submitted the patch.

Tom K.

while that is true, a sexist person will think "That has to be code written by a woman."

you will think that, but a sexist does not think that way

forest

Cases like that are extremely rare, and are more an issue when you only need one person to sign off on a commit. That's the good thing about FOSS: multiple people are involved, not just one person sitting at a desk job.

Tom K.

don't tell me that there aren't comments like this on the LKML "which little girl wrote this commit?"

forest

I have never, ever seen such a comment in all my years following the list.

Not counting trolls who were promptly shut down and do not even contribute.

Tom K.

it's not about the rarity, it's about other people speaking out agains these things and not just flatout denying that it exists

forest

9:04 AM

People do speak out against it. In fact that just happened recently in the email asking to revamp the CoC to make it less discriminatory against people on the autism spectrum. Some troll from 8chan started commenting, and was quickly shut down.

With the helpful comment "Shut the fuck up, you aren't helping".

Tom K.

I'm not saying they aren't and I'm not saying all people on the LKML are sexists

forest

What I'm saying is that the culture is not sexist. It may be misanthropic (or at least extremely strict), but it is not sexist. In particular, that a woman being told to shut up when she cursed someone out is due not to alleged sexism, but due to her not being Linus. If some random guy did the same thing, he would also be called out.

But when a guy is told not to swear, no one says "omg that's misandry". When a woman is told not to swear, an entire news article goes "omg look at the misogyny".

In fact, even you went with the strawman saying "if a guy swears, it's colorful, but when a girl does, it's hysteria". The fact is, no one made that claim.

Tom K.

you said that torvalds personality is colorful

forest

Yes, and it is. I also think Joanna the Qubes person has a colorful personality.

I did not say it's colorful because it's a guy. I said it's colorful because that's a euphemism for rude and crass.

Tom K.

and you said "But it ended up with the usual "woe is me, women are being oppressed because this organization cares more about merit than identity politics" drama."

which sounds a lot like "look at this drama queen" = hysteria

and that sounds a lot like a subterfuge :P

forest

9:10 AM

That was not meant to represent a woman complaining. It was meant to represent the news article. I thought that was more clear.

Tom K.

"woe is me" does seem to point at the women :P

forest

"woe is me" points to people obsessed with identity politics.

It doesn't matter if they're men, women, or Apache attack helicopters.

I don't like being accused of meaning something I did not mean.

Nor of thinking something I did not think.

Tom K.

on a side note: I find it fascinating that you - a freedom loving person - is so annoyed by people who just want their personal freedom

forest

What freedom am I being annoyed by?

Tom K.

you call it "identity politics"

I'd call it just a whole set of personal liberties

forest

9:13 AM

In my mind, identity politics is the idea that merit is not the most important, and that we must make decisions based on someone's gender or other identity.

I think that decisions should be blind as to someone's identity, which is the antithesis of identity politics.

Tom K.

I think you have "identity politics" (whatever that means) pretty wrong

forest

That may be so.

Tom K.

all what people want (usually) is to be treated equally

forest

I will have to make sure the definition matches the term I am using. Usually, identity politics is meant to refer disparagingly to those who cause strife within a project by bringing identity into things.

Tom K.

men shouldn't be treated better than women, women not worse than men etc

forest

9:14 AM

I fully agree.

I consider myself a classical (egalitarian) feminist for that reason.

I just don't see someone being shut down when they try to curse someone out as being a sexism issue. I see it as being an issue with Linus having the privileged position of being able to swear ("because he's always been like that"). Is it an issue? I guess, though I do think we should be less offended by words. Is it sexism because it is directed at a woman? Most certainly not.

Tom K.

and if there's a men who is constantly swearing (Linus) and you are swearing once and get shut down, it just feels a little off

forest

Sure, and it's a little stupid that he has such a privilege, but that issue is unrelated to gender. As I said before, everyone, both men and women, has been told to not follow in Linus' footsteps and curse individuals out.

Tom K.

how do you know?

forest

see the edit

Tom K.

well... but in the end it was her that needed to call him out to make him take his break

forest

9:19 AM

If I posted to the LKML and told someone their code was fucking trash and they should euthanize themselves, I would be told to fuck off. No one would ask me "OK wait, what is your gender? Women aren't allowed to say that, so you better not be a man!"

Tom K.

and if he did that so willingly, maybe there was something to the story

forest

@TomK. It was actually the news article. He took a break willingly to diffuse the situation (a wise move, in my opinion).

Of course it was willing. He wasn't forced to.

Tom K.

that's just not how sexism work..

forest

I know. That was hyperbole.

I am aware that sexists do not explicitly ask for gender so that they can decide to discriminate or not. The same is true for any other bigoted group.

Tom K.

good :)

the other thing is, in a case like this, I'm always inclined to believe someone who feels discriminated

why should I , how could I take that away from someone?

no! your feelings are wrong!

feel otherwise now!

forest

9:22 AM

See, that's where you and I differ. I do not think that, just because someone is upset, that their perception of the events are accurate.

Now, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have felt upset.

I'm saying that her conclusion (or at least the news article's conclusion) that she was told off because she was a woman is baseless, given the fact that it does not only happen to woman, and in fact does not even preferentially happen to women.

I would never tell someone they are wrong for feeling how they feel.

Their feelings may be genuine, but their perception and the resulting conclusion they come to may or may not be an accurate model of reality.

Tom K.

yeah, true. the reality may be something different

forest

An anecdotal example: I was once treated very harshly for a mistake I made in a program I wrote. Based on the wording I got, I concluded that there must be a reason I was personally being singled out. It turned out that I had made a different mistake that I did not realize which lead to the program being completely useless for what it was intended for.

My feelings were genuine, but my conclusion was incorrect.

Tom K.

but, as you are no woman (afaik) I think that conclusion is also a little baseless. how can you know? maybe it happens more often to women that they are told to shut up, than it happens to men

and you dont even realize that

forest

I don't consider my gender to be relevant to anything other than reproduction and a few trivial personality traits.

Tom K.

you would be a rare breed if that was true

forest

9:26 AM

It is true. Like I said, I like a meritocracy.

I want to be judged based on who I am, not what body parts I have.

Tom K.

most women want that too

forest

That's why I consider myself a classic feminist!

I just don't like modern identity/gender politics. I just think we should all be treated based on what we can do, not any other superficial trait.

Tom K.

but that is the goal of gender politics

to weed out suppression

forest

That's what egalitarian feminism is, not gender feminism.

Egalitarian feminism is the idea that we should be blind to gender. Gender feminism is the idea that women need to be treated differently (whether that means better, or just differently), and that they need to be handled more gently (something I find offensive).

Tom K.

wut?

forest

9:29 AM

Perhaps the meaning is different where you are from.

Tom K.

wait a second

forest

But that is the meaning I am using.

Tom K.

"Gender feminism has been described as asserting that psychological differences between the sexes have little or nothing to do with evolution, but instead are largely or solely socially constructed.[14][10][15] Various theorists have applied both negative and positive connotations to gender feminism."

Gender feminism

Gender feminism is a subdivision of feminism based on the view that the gender differences are social constructs perpetrated by men in order to maintain dominance over women. == History == Prior to the usage of the term gender feminism Gayle Rubin's essay The Traffic in Women: Notes on the "Political Economy" of Sex (1975) was published. In it she devised the phrase "sex/gender system", defining it as "the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied."In the same year Sandra Lee...

forest

I suppose I am one of those who apply a negative connotation.

And I believe, scientifically, that gender does come from evolution, not social pressure.

Which comes from me majoring in neuroscience. :P

Tom K.

yeah, the wiki article isn't well phrased

forest

9:31 AM

The problem is that self-identified gender feminists tend to turn everything into gender politics. Everything is offensive, everything is sexist. I have even heard that Pokemon is sexist because one of the games has three default names for guys and only two for girls! Yes, someone said that!

> gender differences are social constructs perpetrated by men in order to maintain dominance over women.

That is what I find to be total bull.

Tom K.

I don't

forest

And why I am so against it. Men have higher testosterone because that is how men evolved. Women have higher estrogen because that is how women evolved.

O_o

Tom K.

:)

forest

So wait, do you think that every difference between men and woman other than gonads is a male conspiracy? Not trying to strawman, genuinely curious.

Tom K.

look at the politics in your country. look at how women are treated there. look at the Roy Moores and Donald Trumps and Harvey Weinsteins and all these other assholes

forest

9:33 AM

I never claimed that sexism does not exist.

Tom K.

No, of course not

forest

Nor did I claim that, when it does happen, it is a non-issue.

Tom K.

as I said, the wikipedia article is not well phrased

forest

But the idea that little girls like to play with dolls and boys like to play with action figures is part of a literal conspiracy by men is... unfathomable. The actual truth is that the lack of a Y chromosome does more than just give us ovaries.

Now, that doesn't mean that the differences are relevant in things like FOSS, but there are still differences. It's no conspiracy. It's biology.

Tom K.

calling it a conspiracy is Straw...manning...(?) though

there was no conference room where people met and decided what to do about those toys for boys and girls

forest

9:36 AM

@TomK. Social constructs perpetrated by men in order to maintain dominance over women. That is literally what a conspiracy is.

Conspiracies do not require an evil mastermind to sit in a conference room and discuss.

It's just that the claim is, to a biologist, simply... offensive.

It goes against decades of proven research and advances in neuroscience.

Tom K.

so neuroscientific research shows that girls like to play with dolls?

I don't think so

forest

Yes, it does.

Well, it shows that young girls have maternal instincts that appear, which boys lack.

It also shows that young boys tend towards more violence (action figures). This goes across cultures, across time, and even applies to feral children.

M'vy

The human is a social creature. It is likely that when mimicking behaviour appears, boys are using their father model and girls their mother's ?

forest

Children who have completely no exposure to the outside world or even parents still grow up this way, naturally.

M'vy

Maybe it's a mixed bag of all these

Tom K.

9:39 AM

It's a combination of your parents buying you a doll, because your mother had a doll, and because kid's toys are heavily marketed towards kids

forest

@TomK. No, it's not. You are only thinking in the time of consumerism.

Tom K.

and a whole lot of other things

forest

This goes back millennia.

Oh yes, it is other things as well.

It's enhanced by marketing, by expectations, etc.

But young girls and young boys, regardless of what their parents do (even if they have none and literally live in the streets) tend towards the gender dimorphic behavior.

Tom K.

you know that there are people in the street, right?

forest

Yes?

There are even children who are literally locked up in a cage for the first decade of their life, or are abandoned as a young child or even baby.

But gender feminism does not change the fact that the human brain has substantial gender dimorphism, even at birth. It actually gets stronger at the peripubescent stages where hormones increase this dimorphism

Tom K.

9:43 AM

web.archive.org/web/20150924070249/http://…

forest

No one can tell me that a different ratio of white matter or a different corpus callosum surface area at birth simply does not exist.

Tom K.

whatever that means, okay

forest

It means that there are physical differences that go beyond gonads.

These physical differences lead to functional differences, testable with imaging machinery (fMRI, PET, etc).

Tom K.

okay

so?

forest

Now, I'm not saying that every aspect of someone's gender role is biological.

Tom K.

9:45 AM

yeah, that is the interesting part here

forest

But I am saying that there are psychological differences between men and women which are biological, not social, in nature. That is a fact.

Tom K.

I'm not saying that everything is socially constructed

forest

How much is nature and how much is nurture we can argue for years.

But the idea that it's all nurture is simply baloney.

@TomK. Sorry, but most gender feminists I have talked to do genuinely believe that it is 100% socially constructed. That is something I do and will always disagree with.

In fact, the Wikipedia article you linked even says that.

It may be poorly written, but it tends to reflect the views I also see.

Tom K.

newer forms of gender feminism and sociology acknowledge the existence of a body

and the relationship between your body, emotions and affects

forest

I have seen the opposite. Of course, I am trying to be careful not to generalize, but this is what I am seeing. I am seeing an increase in people with these postmodernist views that affect their very understanding of how the universe works.

Tom K.

9:48 AM

what I would say though is, that it is most of your identity that is constructed over the years

forest

That begs the question as to what constitutes identity, but regardless, it is not something I would strongly disagree with. I just do not think that we (the scientific community) even know the ratio of nature to nurture for identity.

Just that it is a bit of both.

Tom K.

aaaanyhow

forest

@TomK. That is why I am arguing against this comment.

Tom K.

gender feminism still fights against suppression

forest

Eh, you'd be surprised what counts as feminism now.

It is no longer an activist fight but a philosophical viewpoint.

Tom K.

9:51 AM

and I still think there is a lot of male suppression of women in the world

that may be, but that shouldn't stop you to become an activist ;)

forest

I think so too. And racism, and homophobia, etc.

People will look for any excuse to be an asshole to others.

At the risk of invoking a thought-terminating cliché, I will say at least that I agree that 1) sexism is a thing in certain environments, 2) some of our gender roles are cultural in nature, and 3) that Linus is a big dick to everyone.

M'vy

Not exactly, people will assume any excuse to justify their asshole-ness

They don't really need excuses to be assholes in the first place unfortunately

forest

That's true too.

Misanthropists abound.

That's how the intelligence community was created!

@TomK. I just don't like to see people assume that people were being sexist just because, this time, a woman is at the receiving end of the usual LKML behavior.

That pretty much summarizes my entire viewpoint.

M'vy

I'm not sure who's messing with the star wall, but your life will never be complete unless there's one that reaches exactly 17 stars.

forest

Hm, I wonder...

17 This comment has 17 stars.

2

Heh.

M'vy

9:58 AM

lol I like how you're thinking

forest

Nooo, two people starred it!

Benoit Esnard

@forest I thought about that too :P

M'vy

ahah

forest

:P

M'vy

Was there a link to the article in the transcript here?

forest

10:01 AM

No, but it's linked in the first page of LWN.

Along with a huge comment chain criticizing the article.

M'vy

Wow, their font is odd.

LWN's?

TNY

Ah

> “He is an equal-opportunity abuser,” she said.

forest

10:07 AM

@M'vy As I said earlier, I don't know if she specifically has this view.

I tried to be careful not to put words in her mouth. I may have failed.

M'vy

I like the sarcasm though

forest

I've seen far too many projects and maintainers fall because of such political assassination attempts. It gives me a dirty feeling when I read news articles like it.

Tom K.

10:54 AM

@forest That is a bit like saying "I just don't like to see people assume that people were being racist just because, this time, a black person is at the receiving end of the usual KKK behavior." :P

normally it's just us white dudes there

that is a very harsh hyperbole, but I just want to say, it is entirely possible from my viewpoint

Benoit Esnard

12:01 PM

nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/09/…

"NIST’s Encryption Standard Has Minimum $250 Billion Economic Benefit, According to New Study"

AndrolGenhald

@TomK. If you'd never heard of the KKK and didn't know of their purpose, learning about a single lynching and concluding that they're racist would be incorrect. It would be a correct conclusion, but without any justification.

Benoit Esnard

KK is a musician dog right?

AndrolGenhald

I think perhaps the fact that sexism is prevalent, combined with the fact that the person on the receiving end is a woman, could be enough to loosely justify that a particular instance of verbal abuse is due to sexism. But you should at least be open to the possibility that it's not a factor.

(not arguing for or against this instance, don't know enough about the community)

Tom K.

The article in the New Yorker is pretty convincing to me that there is indeed an atmosphere of sexism on the mailing list

they interview experts and developers that are not only women (and not like us all men) that have been actually part of the mailing list for years

AndrolGenhald

12:39 PM

@TomK. Their evidence that Linus isn't an "equal-opportunity asshole" is that they weren't allowed to be assholes as well. If we're to believe @forest that's actually discrimination against people who aren't Linus rather than discrimination against women.

The fact that someone was groped though is very concerning...

Tom K.

My impression is that a lot of people on the ML are assholes because Linus is setting an example through his leadership. Not all of them, there are people speaking out obviously. And this article is explicitly saying, that he (Torvalds) is an asshole towards all people. But(!): “Women throw in the towel first,” she told me. “They say, ‘Why do I need to put up with this?’ ”

The gist is this: There are a lot of reasons why there are so few women in tech. Some reasons lie in how women are brought up by their parents and how society tries to influence women over time. Another reason might lie in a neurobiological predisposition to not like tech at all. But this is just not very conclusive to me. What we do see on the other hand is constant harassment from men towards women in all communities especially on the internet.

It would be extremely unlikely and suprising if it was non-existent in the LKML, especially with a "bad example" like Linus Torvalds is giving with his "colorful" behavior.

Arminius

2:37 PM

Too much politics, too little security

@TomK. What's up with the weather here? Scary stuff...

Benoit Esnard

3:25 PM

What's the weather like in Germany?

Tom K.

@Arminius Yeah, I'm just in NK looks pretty bleak here. Everyone's waiting for the big storm.

Benoit Esnard

4:17 PM

I went from "newbie" to "lamer" on Root-Me! I'm not sure I like it though, "newbie" feels less insulting than "lamer". :/