One wonders what criteria the Times must be using to determine that it's worth putting Scott at credible risk for further harassment but not women gamers. Is the Times really more sympathetic to gamers than psychiatrists or bloggers? That seems like an unlikely policy, but what else could explain it? I'm stumped.
Do the people who are downvoting this comment believe that sympathy for Scott's class of people IS trendy at the moment? What's the objection to the comment.
Contrary to popular belief, HN's demographic is not immune to knee-jerk hostility triggered by the notion of a concept merely existing, wherever one might come down when discussing it.
"White fragility" is a kafkatrap: you can't object to "white fragility" as a concept without that being taken as a demonstration of "white fragility". There are sensible reasons to object to the "notion of (such) a concept merely existing" if you care about the standards of intellectual argument - as most people familiar with SSC would.
My point was not necessarily that white fragility exists, but that the mere suggestion of it existing provokes hostility. Thanks for proving said point.
The parent is clearly not being "hostile". At least I don't know of any definition of the word that includes calmly pointing out bad faith argumentation.
It is possible - in text, probable - to present a hostile front in a civil manner. What is objectionable about hostility is the bald-faced rejection of a premise. To accuse someone of not "caring about the standards of intellectual argument" based on the utterance of a single phrase is hostile.
This is not a matter of reasoned skepticism, it's knee-jerk ego defense; the above poster recognizes white fragility as a probable truth that traps him in a state of cognitive dissonance, and it makes him so uncomfortable that he has no choice but to respond. However, the response that truly rejects my initial premise would have been no response at all; the fact that he responded lends credence to that premise because its core holding was that it would elicit a response.
> ... the fact that he responded lends credence to that premise because its core holding was that it would elicit a response.
My point is precisely that "the fact that X responds, i.e. objects to premise Y lends credence to that premise because its core holding was that it would elicit a response" is a pointless and, indeed, content-less rhetorical trick, not an intellectually honest argument; moreover, that there are good reasons to be aware of this trick being played on you. You can call that "reasoned skepticism" or "knee-jerk ego defense", but that's not so important; indeed, I am quite willing to admit my "hostility" and "bald-faced rejection" of any such pointless tricks, no matter what their surrounding context might be.
It's indeed a rhetorical trick (many of the most illuminating arguments lead you unknowingly to their point), but it's not pointless. One key aspect of white fragility is that it engenders an overwhelming compulsion to counter any attack on white identity or to insert oneself into discussions where their presence is detrimental to the discourse or even their own argument.
Illustrating the idea that you can't help yourselves is meaningful.
>It's indeed a rhetorical trick (many of the most illuminating arguments lead you unknowingly to their point), but it's not pointless. One key aspect of white fragility is that it engenders an overwhelming compulsion to counter any attack on white identity or to insert oneself into discussions where their presence is detrimental to the discourse or even their own argument.
What you describe is less any case of "white fragility", and more a degree of irritation at misapplication or dishonest application of rhetorical technique.
Anyone who has had any exposure to classical rhetoric sees the structure of what you're trying to do, and is trying to inform you that you are undermining your own credibility by doing what you are doing.
>It's indeed a rhetorical trick (many of the most illuminating arguments lead you unknowingly to their point)
No, most good good faith rhetoric doesn't "unknowingly lead you to their point". It invites you to think. To ponder and consider. What you, and other adherents of white fragility are doing is not that. You're taking any counter rhetorical engagement as an a priori proof of your conclusion, which is an example of circular reasoning.
It's like saying a parent or guardian is demonstrating parental/guardian fragility because even though a child or ward makes a mistake they can't help themselves but to attempt to correct them. No. It isn't a failing on parent's/guardian's part. The ward has done something derp, and they care enough to call them out, and attempt to remediate the faux pas so that it doesn't continue making the ward's life more difficult than need be.
Same dynamic is going on here, without the implied authoritative relationship. In an exchange of ideas amongst equals with different viewpoints, instead of taking any further attempts at counterargument in good faith as an indicator you might be doing something in error, missing something, or as an invitation to broaden your view by considering from a different point of view, you instead double-down by asserting that it is an illustration of bad faith on the part of the person reaching out and trying in good faith to commiserate with you. In that sense it is little more than an overly elaborate rhetorical exchange stop point, as there is no further room for exchange of meaningful information if all you're going to do in the end is shunt further exchange into the "Haha, White Fragility" bucket.
Just figured I'd point that out in case no one else can figure out a way to make the point more obvious.
>Illustrating the idea that you can't help yourselves is meaningful.
No, it isn't. Eliciting a response to rhetorical bad form is like saying that a compiler is fragile because it calls out syntax errors.
You misunderstood. I'm not here to "exchange ideas." Neither was this a trap. My intent was explicit: "Here is an example of a topic HN posters have hostile, knee-jerk reactions to, at the mere suggestion that it exists." The responses were hostile, knee-jerk reactions to the mere suggestion that it exists. Their contention that it's okay to have such responses because they don't believe "white fragility" exists, and so are compelled to state this, and why, and why it's unfair to hold that denying its existence is a part of white fragility, is white fragility, is... exactly what I explained would happen. The entire possibility space of "arguing that white fragility doesn't exist" is encapsulated within the support structure of my argument. Letting imprudent individuals make your point for you isn't bad faith, even if it makes them feel bad.
No amount of talking around the issue takes away from the original point: the original "white fragility" post was an invitation to speak intelligently with one's silence. As with a parent who simply walks away from a tantrum, or a friend whose silence conveys dissent, simple acceptance of circumstances is all that was necessary to prove to the contrary the raised notion. The people who responded made themselves into case studies; that's all.
No they didn't. There is at work a formal invalidity to that assertion inherent to the nature of human communication and interrelation that your rhetorical technique is trying to exploit; namely that silence can be taken as assent or agreement or interpreted as charitably as the unchallenged claimer desires. Thus is the crux of your undermining your own case or point's validity. It is an invalid form of argumentation. It has been an invalid form of argumentation since antiquity. You aren't being clever, or utilizing a clever hack to prove your point and look at all the little whiteys getting upset.
You're simply doing logic wrong. Everyone here knows it, and most are probably too embarrassed to point it out. Consider this your Emperor's New Clothes moment.
You cannot say "X exists, and if you challenge me, it only proves X exists". That is circular reasoning by definition. X, therefore X. Before you go around attributing to others the quality of "white fragility" which you define in reference to itself as "white fragility is the phenomena by which whites must argue that white fragility doesn't exist", then you should not be surprised when anyone with any sort of background in formal logic drops by and attempts to get you sorted out.
Further:
>I'm not here to "exchange ideas."
Good!
Now that that's clear, I can cease conversation with you with a clear conscience. There is nothing more distressing to me than seeing someone seemingly trying to make what may be a valid point, but running into difficulty due to stumbling due to poor structure of their arguments. I tend to feel obligated to speak up at that point, as trying to disambiguate or deobfuscate hard to communicate things is something I often engage in.
If you are not actually interested in a good faith exchange of ideas, then I bid you adieu, and good night. Do work on the arguments. The world is prone to fallacious reasoning enough without people running around doing it wrong knowingly and intentionally.
It only seems intolerably unfair that you can't dispute the concept of white fragility, if you are indeed rather fragile.
I am white and had no problem hearing about the idea of white fragility, even though I fully recognize the closed loop in the idea that disputing a thing proves the thing.
You know what an actually resiliant person does when someone calls them fragile? Any number of things, most frequently nothing at all, but never "that's a linguistic trick and it doesn't prove anything and it's totally unfair! #notallwhites"
I'm surprised you didn't try to cite a great list of examples of white people not being fragile. Good thing too, because I had already fallen off my chair laughing, I'd had had to get back up just to fall off again.
If someone accuses you of shouting, the one thing you cannot do to clear your name of that charge, is to shout that you are not shouting.
And if you're not white and trying to make this argument for some reason, save it. I'm white and my reaction was "yeah pretty much".
>It only seems intolerably unfair that you can't dispute the concept of white fragility, if you are indeed rather fragile.
It does not follow that only those who are fragile would find reason to speak out against poor argumentation. There are many forms of rhetorical one ups that are intended to strike at and incite an emotional response that render themselves vacuous and empty of meaning on further reflection. One is more than justified calling someone else out for spreading inflammatory, vacuous rhetoric.
>I am white and had no problem hearing about the idea of white fragility, even though I fully recognize the closed loop in the idea that disputing a thing proves the thing.
Good for you. Guess what? Neither did I. Seemed rather logical and intuitively explained several things at first blush. I even went ahead and bounced it around, tried it on, and realized something about it's use. It resembled another argument I grappled with long before. Does this ponderer suffer from white fragility? Does that dog demonstrate Buddha Nature? Mu! Once you realize it's a non-sense bearing statement, you break out of complacent acceptance and the analytical mode of in which the thing is given the assumption of positive existence and realize what's actually going on. It's a fundamental lashing out on the peace of those in the area, and a deliberate seeding of disharmony and enmity between those in the environment. I believe this would count as a micro-aggression, and the perpetuation thereof is staunchly discouraged, is it not? If not right in one direction, why should it be accepted in the other?
Furthermore, "the intentional upset of the peace of those around you is worth calling out, regardless of the personal character of the one calling it out, and if you truly accept the closed loop you claim, you'll have to forgive me if I assume all your out to do is to incite hostility. Since one truly interested in dismissing the charge would remain silent and accept his just deserts.
>If someone accuses you of shouting, the one thing you cannot do to clear your name of that charge, is to shout that you are not shouting.
If someone accuses me of shouting, and I haven't, I'm most interested in wondering why someone would think I'm shouting. Are they wearing a hearing aid? Are they ill? Are they alright? Can I help? Generally I'm rather interested in the people with whom I cross paths, the circumstances that led to our paths crossing, why people think the way they do, and why they do the things they do, how that affects me, and how what I'm doing may be affecting them.
Given all that you think I'm not going to put 2 and 2 together when I see other people sowing distress and disharmony to people that I see no indication of those individuals having ever met before and not trying to figure out and defuse the situation with every faculty, especially when I see it popping up and escalating all over the place?
If that's fragile, then screw it, I'm fragile. That still isn't going to stop me from listing the ways that what you and others are doing is disruptive, insulting to those around, apparently bringing you delight, completely void in logical validity, and what kind of person really enjoys doing that anyway? To which I'm left with a single solitary answer. Though that one I think I'll keep to myself. Good night to you, sir/madam/whatever your preferred pronoun may be. May your path in life be long, interesting, and orthogonal to mine. Spread your message far and wide if you want. I'll still be here calling it out.
> To accuse someone of not "caring about the standards of intellectual argument" based on the utterance of a single phrase is hostile.
"white fragility" is inherently bad faith (both because it's inherently racist but also because "fragility" is a kafka trap as previously discussed), and you immediately clarified that you were, in fact, using it in bad faith: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23634713.
Repeating unsubstantiated statements, as if that makes them any less unsubstantiated, is a favorite exercise of some famously fragile white people, but is ultimately fallacious and futile.
Scale can reveal problems. Overall, discussion on HN seems to be higher in quality than when I made my first account in 2012, but there are a lot more people. The number of people who upvote good comments seems to have gone down though. It makes sense: there are a lot more good comments (in quantity and probably in proportion), so it's easy to get tired of reaching for the upvote button on all of them. Meanwhile, people who make snap downvotes for ideological reasons still reliably downvote. A nerve-touching comment can easily hit the -4 cap without an equal number of upvotes to balance it out.
If I'm right about my theory of the reduced propensity to upvote with a higher quantity of good comments, there could be a tipping point where quality of discussion does go down as good but controversial comments sink to the bottom. HN isn't there yet, but it's something to watch out for.
> Already, the response has been a far cry from Gamergate in 2014, when women faced threats of death and sexual assault for critiquing the industry’s male-dominated, sexist culture.
Also women (and men) faced threats of sexual assault and violence for critiquing the media. But NYT very deliberately choses to ignore one set of threats and doxxing.
> Is the Times really more sympathetic to gamers than psychiatrists or bloggers?
It's more sympathetic to women than men. They won't directly tell you: "We protect women but not men", but that's the implicit policy of many institutions, especially mainstream media.
It pretty implicit culturally I mean how many women's shelters are there in your state vs how many men's shelters? which ones do you hear people complain about? In my town there it quiet the contingent that complain about all of the homeless men near the mens shelter but I also know several of those same people donate to the women's shelter on the other side of town.
Is there more need for mens shelters? Are there a lot of battered unemployable men with kids and only the prospect of earning 75% of any equally competent woman for the same job, which they aren't eligable for anyway because they have beem home raising kids the last 5 years instead of in school or a job...
Is that how the numbers work out in your state? Because I don't know of any state in the US where that is the breakdown.
You know come to think of it.. there are way more orphanages for kids than for adults. Man that is so unfair. Clear bias in the system there!
The only alternative I can imagine is so uncharitable and goes against everything an institution as famously progressive as the Times stands for that I dare not utter its name.
Famous for saying things like, "Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men" and "Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins" and "white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants".
And when this was pointed out, the NYT stood by her, claiming that in fact it was all because she had been harassed and, "For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers".
One rule for straight white men, another for women is classic NYT. It's not new.
The NYT is the most visited website from Stormfront users. What is happening is bigots feed off other bigots. It's a self licking icecream.
The evangelical Christian/Jewish/Political Liberal hybrid - who runs the NYT sees 99.9% of Americans as out-groups. It's what happens when contrarianism causes people to inhabit their caricature - Stormfront and the NYT have strange symmetry.
It's bigotry with access to better writing skills. You often need to be a member of the in-group to spot the submarines.
Scott Alexander is a real Liberal without the pathology and that is why they hate him. He is reminding them of what Liberal ideals used to be and that makes him register as a threat.
Discrimination comes both as "negative" and "positive" (both of which are usually in fact negative). E.g. people saying people of a certain ethnic background are better at math - on the surface a "positive" thing to say, but in fact fostering certain stereotypes and stereotyping people usually hurt a lot of people.
I'm surprised no one brought up the possible explanation that those female gamers are anonymous while Slate Star Codex is pseudonymous, not anonymous. If you read his post carefully, he mentions that his identity is actually public knowledge. His main concern is with NYT drawing attention to this, making him a public figure and making it "too easy". His entire thing is protecting pseudonymity, not anonymity.
