Caltrops - Mac Hall Complaints Department

Forum Overview :: Mac Hall Complaints Department

by Mysterio 12/19/2013, 5:45pm PST

Here is a thing that happened.

This is why I feel pretty conflicted about the "puritanical idealists" or whatever out there in these kinds of social spheres. They are giving themselves the tools to set up bullshit social hierarchies through enforcing political correctness, but when shit gets real they have no fucking idea what to do. Dudes are at PyCon making hand gestures during a speech: bad, bad! Let's socially ostracize them on Twitter and get them fired! Also we will ban them from future conferences! A woman is sexually assaulted in front of her friends and coworkers at CodeMash: bad, bad! Let's socially ostracize her assaulter on Twitter and get him fired! Also we will ban him from future conferences!

THIS IS A PROBLEM, NERDS.

The way human beings would have handled the first situation would be to give them the stinkeye during the talk, and then go up to them after the talk and call them assholes. Justice: the punishment fits the crime.

The way human beings would have handled the second situation would be to physically intervene and then call the cops. If a crime was committed, the cops and a judge should decide how the individual should be handled, not a bunch of sanctimonious dickheads on fucking Twitter.

It's really frustrating because to these idiots, these are equivalent crimes: a person from an underprivileged class was marginalized by a white dude. YEP WE SEE IT ALL THE TIME, THESE WHITE MEN HAVE A LOT OF LEARNING TO DO ABOUT DIVERSE INDIVIDUALS (*shames you on Twitter, gets you fired*). To me, they are not at all equivalent, one is two guys being dumb assholes and the other is a felony assault. Justice wasn't served in either case. You could say that Joe O'Brien got what he deserved, but a social media kangaroo court is not how civilizations handle criminal cases. If he did it and he was guilty he should receive punishment for it, and if he didn't he shouldn't, and it's for a court to decide which it is. That's our system. We don't publicly ruin the dude without getting the police involved.

(Now, there's a possibility that the court system would fail like it does a lot of the time. In *that* case maybe resorting to other means might be appropriate but they didn't even try.)

The fact that these things do happen at conferences (people make hand gestures and get banned, women get raped and nothing happens) means that *something* should be done, but fuck if I know what it is. I suspect that "diversity lounges" aren't the answer. People are making a logical leap that by bringing the ban hammer down on dumbasses they will... stop rapists from raping, somehow... but the kind of guy that calls his friend a fag and accidentally offends a gay person isn't in the same category as a dude that forces his hand up the skirt of an employee. To me, it feels like working on the first problem will have no effect on the second problem whatsoever. I'm open to seeing some evidence that I'm wrong about that.