[throwaway894345]

One wonders what criteria the Times must be using to determine that it's worth putting Scott at credible risk for further harassment but not women gamers. Is the Times really more sympathetic to gamers than psychiatrists or bloggers? That seems like an unlikely policy, but what else could explain it? I'm stumped.

[doubleunplussed]

Women gamers compared to white male psychiatrist bloggers who occasionally criticise feminism? Yes.

There's no mystery here. Scott belongs to a class of people for whom sympathy is not culturally trendy at the moment.

[tailrecursion]

Do the people who are downvoting this comment believe that sympathy for Scott's class of people IS trendy at the moment? What's the objection to the comment.

[bsanr2]

Contrary to popular belief, HN's demographic is not immune to knee-jerk hostility triggered by the notion of a concept merely existing, wherever one might come down when discussing it.

[bsanr2]

I feel I should provide an example:

White fragility.

[zozbot234]

"White fragility" is a kafkatrap: you can't object to "white fragility" as a concept without that being taken as a demonstration of "white fragility". There are sensible reasons to object to the "notion of (such) a concept merely existing" if you care about the standards of intellectual argument - as most people familiar with SSC would.

[bsanr2]

My point was not necessarily that white fragility exists, but that the mere suggestion of it existing provokes hostility. Thanks for proving said point.

[taneq]

Also there’s a minority who treat the downvote button as a disagree button.

[zimpenfish]

Which is explicitly blessed by pg himself.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

"I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement."

[Kye]

Scale can reveal problems. Overall, discussion on HN seems to be higher in quality than when I made my first account in 2012, but there are a lot more people. The number of people who upvote good comments seems to have gone down though. It makes sense: there are a lot more good comments (in quantity and probably in proportion), so it's easy to get tired of reaching for the upvote button on all of them. Meanwhile, people who make snap downvotes for ideological reasons still reliably downvote. A nerve-touching comment can easily hit the -4 cap without an equal number of upvotes to balance it out.

If I'm right about my theory of the reduced propensity to upvote with a higher quantity of good comments, there could be a tipping point where quality of discussion does go down as good but controversial comments sink to the bottom. HN isn't there yet, but it's something to watch out for.

[read_if_gay_]

Is it a minority?

[sololipsist]

Welcome to hacker news. I hope your first day is pleasant.

[nailer]

> Already, the response has been a far cry from Gamergate in 2014, when women faced threats of death and sexual assault for critiquing the industry’s male-dominated, sexist culture.

Also women (and men) faced threats of sexual assault and violence for critiquing the media. But NYT very deliberately choses to ignore one set of threats and doxxing.

[blaser-waffle]

Gotta get them clicks, mang. Pushing the Cause Célèbre at the time is what does that.

[young_unixer]

> Is the Times really more sympathetic to gamers than psychiatrists or bloggers?

It's more sympathetic to women than men. They won't directly tell you: "We protect women but not men", but that's the implicit policy of many institutions, especially mainstream media.

[smegger001]

It pretty implicit culturally I mean how many women's shelters are there in your state vs how many men's shelters? which ones do you hear people complain about? In my town there it quiet the contingent that complain about all of the homeless men near the mens shelter but I also know several of those same people donate to the women's shelter on the other side of town.

[Brian_K_White]

Is there more need for mens shelters? Are there a lot of battered unemployable men with kids and only the prospect of earning 75% of any equally competent woman for the same job, which they aren't eligable for anyway because they have beem home raising kids the last 5 years instead of in school or a job...

Is that how the numbers work out in your state? Because I don't know of any state in the US where that is the breakdown.

You know come to think of it.. there are way more orphanages for kids than for adults. Man that is so unfair. Clear bias in the system there!

[kps]

> what else could explain it? I'm stumped.

That's irony, right? It's hard to tell these days.

[throwaway894345]

The only alternative I can imagine is so uncharitable and goes against everything an institution as famously progressive as the Times stands for that I dare not utter its name.

[thu2111]

Famously progressive. I guess so. It was the NYT that hired Sarah Jeong and put her on the editorial board:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45052534

Famous for saying things like, "Oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men" and "Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins" and "white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants".

And when this was pointed out, the NYT stood by her, claiming that in fact it was all because she had been harassed and, "For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her harassers".

One rule for straight white men, another for women is classic NYT. It's not new.

[banmeagaindan2]

The NYT is the most visited website from Stormfront users. What is happening is bigots feed off other bigots. It's a self licking icecream.

The evangelical Christian/Jewish/Political Liberal hybrid - who runs the NYT sees 99.9% of Americans as out-groups. It's what happens when contrarianism causes people to inhabit their caricature - Stormfront and the NYT have strange symmetry.

It's bigotry with access to better writing skills. You often need to be a member of the in-group to spot the submarines.

Scott Alexander is a real Liberal without the pathology and that is why they hate him. He is reminding them of what Liberal ideals used to be and that makes him register as a threat.

[rndgermandude]

You're looking for the word "sexism".

Discrimination comes both as "negative" and "positive" (both of which are usually in fact negative). E.g. people saying people of a certain ethnic background are better at math - on the surface a "positive" thing to say, but in fact fostering certain stereotypes and stereotyping people usually hurt a lot of people.

[kps]

Walter Duranty has entered the chat

[occamsrazorwit]

I'm surprised no one brought up the possible explanation that those female gamers are anonymous while Slate Star Codex is pseudonymous, not anonymous. If you read his post carefully, he mentions that his identity is actually public knowledge. His main concern is with NYT drawing attention to this, making him a public figure and making it "too easy". His entire thing is protecting pseudonymity, not anonymity.

[muddi900]

ITT: People who have selectively forgot that distinction. Probably because it serves their agenda.