I'm truly sorry to hear about Drew's experience over the past year. He's a good coder and a good voice. It's worth noting for those who may be unfamiliar that Drew has traditionally been quite opinionated, which I greatly respect, without necessarily agreeing with all of his opinions.
I enjoy computers, but as anyone who's spent any time around people who enjoy computers knows, it's a pursuit that can attract some strange people. Virtually all of those strange people are entirely harmless, often delightful, and having a safe space to be weird can be wonderful. But a safe space for strange people is rife for exploitation by people who are not merely strange, but in fact malicious. It sadly sounds like Drew has inadvertently run into the latter group.
I think it is entirely fair to withdraw from a space that one does not wish to remain in. Drew is under no obligation to engage in hacker spaces, especially if it causes him upset. I hope he finds lots of awesome, supportive non-hacker friends over the year ahead and continues his cool work with a renewed sense of self.
(Also, happy birthday! I'm surprised to learn he's only 30.)
A respected hacker flags up the toxicity endemic to hacker culture, which has caused real harm to himself and more importantly others in the community, and suggests what to do about it in a blog post.
Hackernews quickly flags the story; what little commentary there is mainly involves bikeshedding the meaning of "victim" so that rapists, pedophiles, other sex pests, and bigots can continue their depredation undisturbed.
Stay classy, Hackernews. Now you know why Alyssa Rosenzweig, a better hacker than most of y'all before she graduated high school, is blocking your asses.
I am not sure why it was flagged but it is in part certainly due to people who don't like to even hear about the words sexism or transphobia but also probably because it had to do with HN being reluctant to engage in pure drama. This is a post about the (legitimate!) feelings of an individual who says it's been a hard year for him and than he met a avowed pedophile... Not sure how it HN is supposed reacting ? HN isn't exactly a support group although you can find very supportive and thoughtful comments. If you expect a whole community to always align with your point of view/moral expectations and not to have toxic elements, you have a recipe for being very very sad.
I mostly see kind and thoughtful comments here, not people enabling abusers. You have the usual debate of course about if "believe the victims" means "believe blindly the victims" because it freaks men out to imagine that they may be falsely accused of rape (by an ex they haven't been exactly nice to ? likely). Some people will defend their status staunchly and some have more empathy.
It is indeed quite sad story and maybe that avowed pedophile should be signaled to the police/called out so that people can protect themselves from them ?
Maybe publicize Vanessa Springora's experience ? : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/11/consent-by-van...
So I am not sure what your comment what your comment was expecting to achieve... Maybe you care to tell us what you expected ?
Because the operate in two different parts of the system. One is about our social systems and the other is about our legal systems.
Governments, contracts, civil and criminal litigation should work on a presumption of innocence (even if the bar is lower in civil court, it still exists), and require evidence (often an abundance of it, or so much it removes all shadows of doubt) to enact binding legal outcomes and punishments.
Groups, events and organizations should work on a basis of empathy and freedom of association. People generally don't want to associate with predators, abusers, and fascists (though the reactions of many commentators in hacker communities often make me question that assumption). And so many social systems are designed to filter those people out. And in more emotional settings like friend and support groups, believing victims is a way to exercise our empathy and provide mental and emotional support and healing for them. Which is the purpose of these groups.
>People generally don't want to associate with predators, abusers, and fascists.
Talk about putting the cart before the horse... This is why it is important that people aren't labelled as those things without actual evidence. If you do, then you turn those labels into weapons to be wielded by anyone nasty enough to try. That reduces sympathy for genuine victims.
Online communities are not "support groups". "Believe victims" makes sense, but is completely circular logic: if you call them a victim then you already believe them. "Believe complainants" is what is actually meant, and that also makes no sense: we should not unquestioningly believe all complainants about any alleged wrongdoing.
I think this is merely an attempt to highlight the fact that victims of rape have been systematically not believed and probably come from victim support groups.
Like many things it's a way to bend the stick in the other direction. I have always translated it as "Take victims seriously" no matter how hard some people online have tried to act scandalized and tell me that it means "Believe blindly what a victim says"
I guess the reasons why the word of victims is generally put in doubt is combination of factors ranging from a lack of empathy from men that identify more with a potentially falsely accused man than a a woman victim of rape to denial because it's uncomfortable especially with happens inside a family (way more common that the rape in a dark parking lot at night trope) where people have ties to the abuser and may even like him.
In many ways. It means taking active steps in making the victims feel welcome and safe in the place they were in. How would you feel if after being mugged by a close friend, others would tell you to let justice work its way (for 6 months) and stay really close with said friend ?
It's about giving support, about supporting the victims and being with them, it's about ensuring that the two of them are separated. Otherwise, not only does the victim lose trust in one friend, they also lose everything else. Nobody is asking you to go at the accused and beat them up. They're asking you to act as a buffer, as a safety net. It means questioning and grilling said accused because, hey, this other friend (that you trust, right?) has accused them of fucked up things. And yes, it means spending less time with the accused. Because you know what ? The rate of false accusations is extremely low.
>It means taking active steps in making the victims feel welcome and safe in the place they were in.
That's already presuming they're right though.
>The rate of false accusations is extremely low.
And that's the case because we don't instantly believe the accusor.
I say this mainly because if we assume that there are many bad actors out there we must also assume that there are people out there who aim to gain attention or hurt someone through a false accusation. It undermines legitimate cases but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And it likely happens more often on the internet now because of it has cultured an attention seeking environment.
>How would you feel if after being mugged by a close friend, others would tell you to let justice work its way (for 6 months) and stay really close with said friend ?
If it is a matter of one person's word against another's, why would they believe me over the other person? I do not expect that I am any more or less trustworthy than the average person.
Talking about "victims" is presumptuous. A complainant becomes a victim when the crime is proved. Someone isn't automatically a victim just because they say they are. Everyone would love to 'believe victims' but that would require being able to tell precisely who is and who isn't actually a victim... At which point there's nothing to "believe", because you _know_ one way or the other.
This is a bigger issue than can be thoughtfully discussed in an Internet comment thread, but if you are interested, I highly recommend Amia Srinivasan's "The Conspiracy Against Men" for a thoughtful, nuanced, and comprehensive examination specifically of "believe women" as a slogan, and more generally of the way our culture navigates accusations of and regulations around rape and sexual assault. It is the first essay in her book "The Right to Sex."
The way i look at it drew just surrounded himself with specific people over the years and then he is surprised to find out they are creeps.
> The hacker community has been the home I never had
That's sad man, you should get real friends.
I also don't understand what sexism/transphobia (which you hate) has to do with anything in relation to the article. As you said these people are(or rather were) clearly your friends.
You guys, this is why seriously have a policy of never listening to programmers in regards to politico-societal issues, I have the same policy for people I meet in anime/comic conventions. I don't want to say its because of autism or something because its not. It's because most of the "nerds" never had many friends growing up or have family issues. And no Internet friends are not real friends.
Truly awful situation, but at least it seems he sought and is getting professional therapy. He can rightfully be proud of his accomplishments at such a young age, and no horrible individuals in the community can take that away from him.
At this point, he should probably take a total sabbatical, including from HN and all social media, travel and recover.
Open source isn't a collaborative work environment though. It's a collaborative community effort. People will hang out, chat. That even goes for a work environment, honestly. People are people, people will get to know each other and hang out and discuss their lives in any context. That's not inappropriate, that's human.
I enjoy computers, but as anyone who's spent any time around people who enjoy computers knows, it's a pursuit that can attract some strange people. Virtually all of those strange people are entirely harmless, often delightful, and having a safe space to be weird can be wonderful. But a safe space for strange people is rife for exploitation by people who are not merely strange, but in fact malicious. It sadly sounds like Drew has inadvertently run into the latter group.
I think it is entirely fair to withdraw from a space that one does not wish to remain in. Drew is under no obligation to engage in hacker spaces, especially if it causes him upset. I hope he finds lots of awesome, supportive non-hacker friends over the year ahead and continues his cool work with a renewed sense of self.
(Also, happy birthday! I'm surprised to learn he's only 30.)