[pluma]

It's performative hypermasculinity.

In the 80s and 90s (and to a slightly lesser degree now still) nerds were generally portrayed as effeminate and unmanly. However they would still retain similar toxic ideas about manliness while dismissing "jocks" or anyone too popular or outside their culture. Basically the "while you were busy partying and having sex I studied the way of the sword" meme but played straight.

This means that e.g. "girly" hobbies might be fine and only earn you some mild mockery but being openly gay or seriously empathising with women could easily render you an outcast because you're disrupting the peace unless you "keep your head down".

The idea of solving disagreements through competition is an example of this. Instead of trying to get to the root of the disagreement and resolve a conflict through mutual understanding and dialogue, it determines a "winner" who comes out on top and the "loser" has to roll over and be humiliated for even daring to speak up.

A "play fight" or a round of Rocket League may not result in physical injury but it's still an aggressive display of dominance rather than a cooperative exchange. It's easy to see how this fits in with other ideas of "bros being bros" (or "boys being boys").

Of course nothing in this has anything to do with manhood. You can be a woman and utterly "destroy" someone at Rocket League or wrestle a man into submission. But not only is this behavior "male coded" (i.e. we're socialised to look at it as masculine rather than feminine) but a woman behaving this way would still stick out simply by being a woman and even more so if she doesn't fully commit to performing masculinity in every other way too (i.e. if she ever isn't playing along as "one of the guys", she'll stick out as an outsider again).

TL;DR: being male doesn't mean you think solving disputes through silly competitions is a good problem solving skill but doing so can be comforting if you feel insecure about your peers judging your masculinity, even if you're all nerds.

[finnthehuman]

>A "play fight" or a round of Rocket League may not result in physical injury but it's still an aggressive display of dominance rather than a cooperative exchange.

Spoken like someone who was taught a “lens” to read everything in the world. We can just as easily invent the opposite meaning: that they were both insecure about looking bad at their job, and punted on the question of which design is better and settled the question of which design was used with competition neither of them would mind losing. Armchair phsycoanalysis that assumes all men are still 16 year old boys is lazy and insulting.

[pluma]

I'm a man. I explicitly said this is not about men vs women but about performative masculinity.

That said, did it even occur to you that suggesting a dispute between two grown adult men should best be solved with wrestling or a competitive round of video games is in itself infantilising?

This doesn't resolve the dispute, it just uses a feat of strength to establish literally unquestioned dominance (even if that dominance is purely situational and would require re-establishing on the next dispute).

Resolving a dispute involves, y'know, actually talking and understanding each other's point of view. But that requires empathy.

[kempbellt]

>Resolving a dispute involves, y'know, actually talking and understanding each other's point of view. But that requires empathy.

History would disagree, and then hit you with a stick until you agree with its disagreement.

Resolving a reasonable dispute (aka, a debate) can be done via talking it out, but this requires both parties to agree upon the rules for "winning" this dispute. Typically, in regards to physical confrontation, resolving a logical disagreement isn't the goal. It's about imbalance of respect.

Two people wrestling things out in an agreed upon match, builds camaraderie. You learn to trust one another, and how to defend yourself at the same time. Which can be extremely beneficial for people working together on a team.

Also, take note. Nothing I said included terms like "man", "masculinity", or being an "adult". There's no need conflate these terms with this type of action. Women, and children, also exhibit these social mechanisms.

[pluma]

Holy shit, I can't believe I even bothered trying to reason with someone on the Internet who seriously thinks an impromptu wrestling match is a good way to resolve a disagreement at work.

You're either a troll or larping. "Wrestling things out builds comradery"? We're talking about a disagreement about a work issue in a software company.

Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit A: kempbellt.

EDIT: I'm eagerly awaiting being challenged to a duel now.

[dang]

Please don't cross into flamewar, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commenter is. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[kempbellt]

You are sensationalizing and taking things out of context.

I said wrestling is an effective team building tool. If you are trying to settle on which version of React to use in a project, weigh out the pros and cons in an office. If you are looking to work more effectively with some of your coworkers wrestling, or any other form of grappling martial-art (I've enjoyed BJJ), is a valid option. In case you aren't aware of what this is, it's essentially playing three-dimensional chess with your opponent until someone ends up in a physical checkmate. It's fun, respectful, good exercise, and great for building camaraderie - as I mentioned. I'm not talking about scrapping things out in the parking lot like a couple of high schoolers. If you'd rather play actual chess, that's also a valid option. At a previous company, my team did a break-out room together. Do what works for you.

"Eagerly awaiting a challenge" from someone you are disagreeing with on the internet is inciting a challenge, in a very childish way.

Also, Google larping. It doesn't make sense in your sentence.

[dang]

Please don't cross into flamewar, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commenter is. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[klarstrup]

bros'll be bros

[pluma]

Is okay, bro apparently didn't read any of the context he replied to and hasn't heard of the colloquial meaning of "larping".

EDIT: BTW did you try out the HN Block List browser extension? Makes the site a lot more bearable than the vanilla experience.

[matwood]

A couple notes I wanted to point out. First, the competitions do not have to be physical. Most commonly I see intellectual sparing. Attempting to be so quick intellectually that the aggressor pushes their idea through by not giving anyone else time to think is a very common tactic.

Second, play fighting is one of the quickest ways to learn how to check your ego and gain humility. I've met plenty of very smart people with egos so big it got in the way of finding the best solutions.

[pluma]

I'm not saying that domination can't be useful in subduing uppity individuals.

I'm saying that thinking workplace disputes are situations that should be solved through domination rather than understanding is emotionally immature.

Even if the disagreement is entirely irrational, the severity of the disagreement alone can indicate more deeply rooted problems with the current dispute just being used as a proxy war. It might not even stem from a work related problem.

As much as programmers (I'm one btw) tend to complain about managers, this is actually something a good manager is aware of. If a conflict arises or an employee is unhappy it's their job to figure out how to best resolve not just the current situation but also prevent it from recurring -- a bad manager would simply enforce policy and enact punishments, a good manager will try to improve the environment and working conditions.

"Competitive sports" (including team sports which really must be co-operative at the team level even if the teams compete directly) are good for gaining humility and building mutual respect, yes, but the PayPal talk wasn't about that.

It was about using domination (whether literal physical domination through impromptu wrestling or metaphorical) to resolve work disputes. The very idea evokes testosterone-fueled high school bullies, not fully-developed grown adults.

HNers tend to cheer for the idea of meritocracy but this is the worst kind of meritocracy: you're not even filtering for being good at the job, you're just filtering for being good at whatever mechanism you're using to establish dominance (whether it's physical altercations or as you suggest Ben Shapiro like dazzling).