[Ixiaus]

This is a great comment.

All of the tools, gadgetry, and connectivity referenced by the author as the harbinger of his decline from individuality (loss of personality) do indeed usher forth his dystopia because he is using them to fill the hole that was created by his leaving the stimulating environment of college. A place where learning is efficient and discovery nil (this is what college is good for, but it isn't the whole equation - I'm obviously leaving research an exception).

College is an intellectually artificial environment whose culture is curated by those who decide what should be taught about what. The ability to cultivate a stimulating life, a life rich in thought and contemplation, rich in actionable accomplishments (finishing that basement, building that open source project, etc...) is not something that can be taught! It is often a quiet and solitary road too - my mind, my books, my notes, and my Self are all I need to have a fulfilling and deep life. Friends make it better. But as the author noted, there are few "self aware" people in the world. That hole is filled by deliberately choosing your thoughts, by being firm with what you choose to believe, by transmuting information (lead) into knowledge (gold).

I hope to see another essay detailing his journey from the state conveyed in this piece to a state chosen of his free will (we all have free will but he's using technology as a scape goat); because, he is an excellent writer.

[jholman]

> his

her

If you can't check your sexist assumptions, then you could check the byline.

[jacoblyles]

As long as we are going to share the same internet, we can acknowledge that the use of the masculine as the default gender for an anonymous person is a longstanding tradition in the English language, and not every person checks every byline of every article she reads. Norms are changing, but I wouldn't call someone wrong or sexist for using a convenient idiom instead of more awkward and somewhat forced modern formulations (although in this case, she is indeed wrong).

[bouncingsoul]

Norms will only keep improving if people keep complaining.

Here's an article about the forgotten tradition of they as a singular pronoun: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=723184

Also, because of the he, I assumed Ixiaus was referring to Gary Shteyngart, the author being reviewed.

[lionhearted]

> Norms will only keep improving if people keep complaining.

This may be controversial or offensive, but it's the truth so I'll take the heat for saying it:

None of the most successful women I know really care or complain about things like he/she in the English language. For the most successful women I know - I'm thinking of an investment banker, lawyer, and chief editor of a magazine in particular - the idea of causing a fuss over pronouns is so low on their radar that it wouldn't happen.

Again, I'll take heat for this, and so be it - but I think people who complain about that sort of thing need to go do more relevant stuff in the real world. Most people who are actually hard working, enterprising, expansive and successful (professionally or in other worthy endeavors) simply don't have time to be upset and pedantic over this sort of thing.

Anyway, I'll take the heat for this now. It's not 100% the case, but the general pattern certainly holds.

[michael_dorfman]

We're drifting from the topic at hand, but None of the most successful women I know really care or complain about things like he/she in the English language misses the point completely. The effect of sexist language on successful women is not the source of people's concern. Rather, it is the (subtle) effect on women who are not yet successful, and the reinforcing effect on men.

Casual minor acts of racism probably have very little effect on Michael Jordan. That doesn't make them ok.

[lionhearted]

> We're drifting from the topic at hand, but None of the most successful women I know really care or complain about things like he/she in the English language misses the point completely.

No, I understood your point. I think you missed mine though - my point is that you have a limited amount of time each day to direct your attention. If you want to be more successful, or want women to be more successful, then focusing on he/she pronouns is a very bad use of your time. Focusing on creating wealth, learning management, networking, investing, saving, become more disciplined, fit, healthy, exercising are all good uses of time.

After the majority of women are well-informed and well-educated on the topics of nutrition/fitness, finance, investing, negotiation, accounting, self-discipline, goal setting, etc, etc, etc. - after all that's done then let's turn our attention to pronouns. In the meantime, it's rather like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Learning more personal finance, investing, and negotiation will massively help anyone's career success, including women. Having everyone switch to singular they will not make so big of a difference.

> Casual minor acts of racism probably have very little effect on Michael Jordan.

I'm getting better at predicting what people's responses to my comments will be - I knew someone would play the racism card. Well done. Comparing the historical use of "he" in English for a singular pronoun to racism smacks of really missing the point though - the point is, pronoun usage is going to have a trivial impact, if any, on people's successes. There's much better places to deploy your energy and resources if you want women to be more successful, either individually or as a group.

[ZeroGravitas]

The racism/sexism analogy in the context of language reminded me of this:

A Person Paper on Purity in Language by William Satire (alias Douglas R. Hofstadter)

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

Incredibly well crafted satire.

"Most of the clamor,as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as chairwhite, mailwhite, repairwhite, clergywhite, middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupuwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle, and so on. The negrists claim that using the word "white," either on its own or as a component, to talk about all the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of course find this preposterous. There is great beauty to a phrase such as "All whites are created equal." Our forebosses who framed the Declaration of Independence well understood the poetry of our language. Think how ugly it would be to say "All persons are created equal," or "All whites and blacks are created equal." Besides, as any schoolwhitey can tell you, such phrases are redundant. In most contexts, it is self-evident when "white" is being used in an inclusive sense, in which case it subsumes members of the darker race just as much as fairskins."

[bouncingsoul]

You're saying when people don't care about a particular issue they just follow the accepted norm and get on with their lives. And you applaud that. But I don't see how that's incompatible with others who do care making an attempt to improve that accepted norm.

[roel_v]

(Warning: sharp tone ahead, not so much at you, mostly at the people who felt the need to high jack this thread with their fundamentalist nonsense).

Because the people who 'do care' as you put it, try to 'improve' by imposing a cost on others, namely by polluting every discussion to the point where the actual points get snowed under and this he/she non-issue takes over as the main focus (case in point: this discussion).

It's like Jehova's witnesses or other nutcase religious people: 'oh we're not harming anyone!' - not putting a gun to my head, no, but still ringing my door bell, proposing legislation based around your idiotic beliefs, etc. Get lost with your 'trying to save my soul' and if you really can't contain your beliefs and have to somehow involve others, at least pick people who have expressed an interest (i.e., post on alt.philosophy.feminism or whatever) instead of always imposing your 'debate' on everybody.

[GeneralMaximus]

Forgotten? I still use it. I also like to refer to companies as groups of people rather than individual entities. I prefer "Apple are evil" over "Apple is evil", and "Google own you" over "Google owns you".

[mcantor]

Wouldn't it be just as sexist to assume that someone named "Alice" is a woman? Well, maybe not just as sexist. But at least a little bit sexist. I mean, for all we know, someone named "Alice" could be a male-to-female transgendered individual who still prefers to use the male pronoun. Or a female-to-male transgendered person who kept his original name to cut down confusion among friends, but switched pronouns.

I guess I shouldn't debate... I read the line about "... the hilarious moment 3 seconds into an intimate embrace when I realize that I'm literally rubbing the screen of my iPhone against his spine," and assumed the author was female because in my head, the "default" participants in an intimate embrace are a guy & a girl, since that's the one I'm most familiar with. So, negative points for me on the knee-jerk gender assumption front.

I thought that was a really great line, potential elicited sexism notwithstanding, by the way. I've had those moments myself. It took me a second to realize exactly what she was talking about, but once I did, I couldn't help but chortle at how much I've chided myself for the very same thing.

[Ixiaus]

I was referring to both the author and Shteyngart using the masculine pronoun to make what I had written, "more personal" (instead of using "they"); a bit loose, I know, but this is a casual discussion medium.

[jholman]

Wow. I've often heard people complain about using "they" as a non-gendered singular pronoun because it was inaccurate, but I've never before had someone argue against it because it was _too_ accurate. I guess what I'm saying is that the stylistic choice you say you made (to use a singular pronoun when referring to two people, one of whom was male), totally confused me.

I note that nothing in this piece discusses Shteyngart leaving college (where the college link was how I resolved the pronoun in your first paragraph), and that surely Shteyngart will not write a follow-up to "this piece", (which is how I resolved the pronoun reference in your last paragraph). I guess I just don't understand how the male pronouns in your comment refer to Shteyngart.