Comment by unconed
4 days ago
>We lionized those who hurt others in the name of vision and made excuses for behavior that, in any other context, would be called what it is: toxic. We wrapped cruelty in clever quotes and pointed to output as if it justifies everything that comes before it.
>[...]
>Genius doesn’t look like domination. It looks like collaboration. It looks like the humility to know you’re not the smartest person in every room, and the strength to make space for those who are. If someone needs to belittle, berate, or break others to feel powerful, they’re not a genius—they’re a tyrant in a hoodie, a bully with a pitch deck, a tantrum in search of a title.
>And we should stop fucking clapping.
Did... they read their own post? It's an arrogant rant that pre-assumes the entire stereotypical "toxic" frame, without questioning a single premise. This is always implicitly denouncing men and masculine behaviors. It has been repeated ad nauseam and used to beat people over the head with to "just fucking shut up" and let the queen bees "civilize" the icky nerd club.
The feminine counterpart behaviors, namely Mean Girlsing, emotional blackmail, smurfette syndrome, the accountability musical chairs, ... are always absent from the discourse.
When actual tech disasters happen, the emphasis is then on managing appearances instead of addressing root causes. I wrote a different take a while back, which highlights these patterns in the Crowdstrike discourse:
https://acko.net/blog/the-bouquet-residence/
Despite wanting to talk, despite wanting to have "conversations", these sorts of arguments never get engaged with. Because the reason to critique "toxic" behaviors wasn't to get rid of them, but to demand a different set of toxic behaviors should take precedence.
The tech industry is going through a difficult time now with neurodivergent people. They really want to make use of the gifts of neurodivergent people to make them money but the neurodivergent often struggle to deal with the ever changing social rules of the modern workplace. Training programs tend to be ineffective because the rules are in constant flux and are often non-specific as to allow them to be interpreted in whatever way benefits those enforcing them.
Companies are slowly discovering that their ability to produce and operate is decaying from the inside by these types of policies. Rather than course correcting, many instead want to enshrine their hostile policies into law so all companies will be similarly hobbled. There have even been attempts to get companies delisted from stock exchanges for not going this route. It seems like there is some awareness in companies that this is harmful to the ability to function but there's no desire to undo the errors, with spreading the errors to all being the preferred solution.
This whole rant presents a false dichotomy, that you either communicate technical information with zero effort at interpersonal style, or you communicate with interpersonal style with no, or false, technical details. You frame turning criticism into constructive criticism as sugar coating or fluff. That interpersonal skill is the opposite of technical skill, rather than two different skills.
> Complaints that tech is too "male dominated" and "notoriously hostile to women" are often just this. Tech was always full of types who won't preface their proposals and criticisms with fluff, and instead lean into autism. When you're used to being pandered to, neutrality feels like vulgarity.
Communicating with other humans effectively is learned skill like any other. You just refuse to learn because it is more difficult for you than neurotypical people. But the funny thing is that women are harder to diagnose with autism because girls are pushed more to learn to socialize than boys, so they learn how to “mask” better. Boys are pandered to and not pushed to learn a difficult but much needed skill. They are given a pass in a way girls are not, so the neutrality of being told it is an important skill, just like every other field where humans communicate with other humans, feels like vulgarity.
The answer is not to pretend interpersonal communication is a pointless skill. The answer is to acknowledge and work with both sides, understanding that it is a skill that cannot just be ignored, and understanding that skill levels vary and we should account for, and work with, those various skill levels. You know, inclusivity rather than pandering to the entrenched culture.
> But they start from the conclusion and work their way backwards. This is what the rewritten statement does: it tries to fix the relationship before fixing the problem… The people who build and maintain the world's infrastructure prefer the masculine style for a reason: it keeps civilization running, and helps restore it when it breaks.
The irony of this is that you work from the conclusion, that masculine style is what “works”. That the relationship of masculine style and “civilization” are causal. Instead of fixing the problem, that industries that are male dominated have been restricted to women for most of human history. Women are 50% of the population but anything “feminine” is treated as some sort of weird small minority that should adapt to live in “real” society or stay out.