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Stop The Stupidty

<Okay, so when you start paraphrasing Susan Powter, something's weird>

The Kathy Sierra thing, or rather, the hysteria surrounding it has officially become just fucking stupid. It's no longer about oh, Kathy and the threats made against her. I'm not going to talk about if she's reacting correctly. Fuck, I don't know her, who am I to say? But I will say, that for me to be turned into a shut-in, it's going to take a tad more than "beat the bitch with a bat".

Anyway, the sign of the silliness of the hysteria surrounding this was when I was reading Winer's take on this and thinking "damned, Dave's not totally off base here." Anyone who knows me, knows that my opinion of Winer is smart guy, but a fucking tool of a human being. He's not unique there. But for me to agree with him? That's weeeeeird man. Really weird.

He says:

People aren't going to like this, but it's true -- when a woman asks for a riot she gets one, and almost no one comes to the defense of a man who is attacked. Who's more vulnerable? Well, honestly, it's not always a woman.

He's spot-on there. Face it, if Kathy was Keith, people would be laughing at him. Hysterically. With a good bit of "Oh come on, cowboy up ya big wussy" thrown in. The hypocrisy in the whole "it's so much worse because she's a woman" line is just amazing. It's wrong to threaten people. Man, woman, child. That shit's fucked up, and no, it's not more fucked up because she's cloven instead of crested. <points to those who can source that last bit>

More from Dave:

Those who provided the riot Ms Sierra asked for, unknowingly, I'm sure, attacked at least one person whose health is pretty fragile. I wonder how y'all feel now that you know that. I wonder how you'd feel if that person died in the midst of the shitstorm. Someday if we don't change the herd mentality of the tech blogosphere, that is likely to happen. I don't want to be part of the herd on that day, that's why I won't join herds.

Again, Dave nails it. Although I'm more cynical, and Kathy ain't a n00b. I'm real sure that she knew what would happen when she posted this, and the possible mob mentality that would come out of it. Yes, she does say that had she known the firestorm that would have been created, she would have stayed silent. Well, really, I kinda doubt that. Sorry, but you don't hang out on the internets as long as Kathy, and only now realize how easy it is to create a lynch mob. I think she didn't want that to happen, but to state total ignorance as to the possibility? Come on. Don't insult our intelligence.

This bit's not bad, although I disagree with the part at the end:

And out fo all that was said I think Doc nailed it -- we got used by a few trolls, and no one knows who they are. Everyone played a role in this, the people who stopped blogging, the people who threatened their friends, the people who called it a gang rape, and yes indeed, the mean kids. But they've paid enough. It's time to welcome them back into the blogging world, and in a few weeks, ask them to reflect on what they learned. These are all intelligent and creative people, who have acted badly. But they didn't deserve what they got.

Meh. They mostly got yelled at. O noes, people on the intarweb said mean things. Pfft. What is bothersome are the cases where it went past mostly. People dealing with identity theft, and worse. Yeah, because hey, they did something mean, now we go all Hanover Fist on them? Get a grip people. You subscribe to variants of the same behavior you decry.

I'd have secretly been amused had one of the "villans" been a single mother. With a handicap. Boy, that makes the anger of the righteous go all hurty I bet:

YOU (virtually) DID BAD THINGS TO A WOMAN! YOU SAID MEAN THINGS TO A WOMAN! DIE INFIDEL!

Look! Bewbs!

Um..shit..um...you're sure you're a woman...hmm?...single mother?....got a handicap too?...well fuck...um...GET THE OTHER ONES, THEY'RE MEN!!!

That would have been a very interesting scenario.

So aside from me mostly agreeing with Winer, there's a few things about this that are starting to make me care less and less about the reaction of people to this, and thinking that maybe, in the long run, this will be a good thing, as it showed that even the great crusaders are still just a bunch of howler monkeys throwing poop. Actually, there are four common threads now showing up:

Blame Anonymity

If the posters would have put their real names, then this wouldn't have happened.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. First, you can't prove fuck all in a comment log. All I get are IP addresses, email addresses, etc. Yeah, you gotta put something down. But shit, I can't absolutely prove who wrote a comment, and I'm not exactly a n00b to the ways of networking. The best I can do is an IP address. I can tie it down, (maybe) to the machine. That's assuming the IP address is legit. There are tons of ways to deal with that, none are very hard. OpenID is getting thrown out, but that's not going to work. See, people lie. I know this will shock many of you, but there are people who actually will not tell the truth about their identity. They'll even, (HORRORS), steal someone else's identity and PRETEND TO BE THEM. Oh my, Ah've got the vaypahs! Short of some really draconian shit that will only be enforceable in a single country, or relatively small group of countries, you can't prove identity for shit on the internet. Another really stupid idea is "Don't allow anyone without a real email address". By "real", read "ISP I don't approve of". Usually Hotmail and Yahoo. Could be Gmail too. Damn, elitest much? What's next, requiring you to set up sendmail as a test?

The other one I love is the anonymity is for cowards thing. Because if you were a "real man", you'd use your "real" name. Evidently, men don't lie. Ever. (Have ANY of these idiots ever seen a guy trying to get some 'tang or some ass for the night? Guys will lie their ASSES off to get laid.) Yes, I've seen that phrase..."real men" used. I guess women are incapable of courage. (Well, some think they kind of are, but we'll deal with that later.) Lemme tell you, based on the mob mentality I'm seeing, and the rank stupidity and viciousness used to justify it, I'm thinking that we need more anonymity, not less. Holy crap people, mob rule is not the way here. Think for yourself once. Just once. It'll hurt at first, but you'll loosen up and it'll be okay.

The worst part is, anonymity isn't the problem. Hell, Kathy was naming names with ease. She knew, (or thought she knew) the identities of quite a few of those involved. Hmm...so much for the anonymity theory. I also love the idea that adding a name enobles you. What, so if I call you a diseased douchebag, it's somehow better if I put my name on it? Is this what passes for logic?

Blame Profanity/Strong Language/Rudeness

If people talked nice to each other, this wouldn't have happened, and using profanity means you're stupid

Okay, it must be said: Fuck that shit. My dad told me an interesting story once about the difference between the north and the south with regard to race relations.

See, in the south, they just said, "We don't rent to niggers in our town" and were done with it. It was wrong, and fucking stupid, but it was to the point. If you were a black man, don't even bother trying. Not gonna happen. Racist and mean, but saved everyone time. In the north, you'd get the sad face and the nice "Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, we've no vacancies". Over and over until you got the hint that what they were really saying was "We don't rent to niggers in our town". Sure they said it nicer, but it wasn't any better in the long run. Don't ever confuse politeness for decency.

That really stuck with me, and I'm seeing it over and over in this situation. "Oh, if we all just acted nicer, things would be better". Man, that's a really ignorant and dangerous thing to say. Trust me, politeness is at best a balm, not a cure. If you get shot in the head, the fact that your killer prefaced it with "Pardon me sir," and ended with "I'm terribly sorry about this", are your last thoughts going to be "Damn, but he was polite. I guess he's a decent chap after all"? Somehow, I think not. But lots of folks are dancing down the stupid brick road on this one. Fucking pack animal mentality. A million years of evolution, and we still act like a roving band of mandrills.

The other part of this is the "profanity is a sign of lowness" thing. I'd love to know where this elitist bullshit keeps coming from. If you really think that using profanity is a sure sign of stupidity and illiteracy, man, don't go outside, because you are indeed the sucker being born every minute. If you don't like using profanity, great, party on Garth. But don't get all "I'm better than you, for I don't use profanity, and you do." Sorry Bob, that just makes you a smug dick with delusions of adequacy. You're still not William F. Buckley, even if you wear the suits.

Again, the problem was neither anonymity or profanity, it was assholes making threats. That's the only problem: Assholes making threats. Trying to push an anti-anonymous-comment/anti-profanity agenda as the "causes" of this is lame and stupid.

oh my god, they did this to a woman

This is one of the most hypocritical parts of all this, and again, Dave Winer was right. If this was a man, no one would care. But because there's a hoo-ha involved, then it's a TRAJEDI. So making threats to men is okay? What, is attacking them okay? Beating them? Raping them? Killing them?

I just want to know where the line is. Here's a radical idea...what happened to Kathy is wrong. Not because she's a woman, but because she's a person. She's a human being. Threatening people is wrong. Not more wrong because she's got TEH BOOBIES. If it happened to a guy, just as wrong. Hell Scoble said he's gotten threats before. Now, Scoble likes to flame bait, so that's not even a little surprising. But it's still wrong. It's just as wrong. Not more, not less. Equally as wrong. Let's rewrite his last bit from:

It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.

It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward women. This just makes me ill.

to:
It’s this culture of attacking people that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me, even though it's still wrong. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply shouldn't happen.

It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward each other. This just makes me ill.
Hmm...still gets the point across, but doesn't perpetuate "Women as perpetual and eternal victims". Oh, I know the PC police are coming to get me, but wait, since this dovetails nicely into the fourth, and really, most offensive bit of all:

Women are helpless when attacked by a man

I cannot, literally can not adequately describe the bile that rises in me when I read those words, or anything similar, especially when written or spoken by women. The worst part is, women use them more often. Boadicea weeps at that. This idea that women are helpless against men, the concept that they must fear all men, this societal teaching of women that no matter how brave a front they put up, they are really helpless victims is wrong. It is not just wrong, it is vile. It is offensive in the extreme, and it creates a legion of victims with every generation indoctrinated by the effluent its practitioners and believers spout forth.

It creates hollow people. Women who are naught but brave fascia over trembling foundation. It creates women who think they need a man because without one, they are helpless. It's crap, and its wrong. It is also something that I not only refuse to believe in, but actively fight. There's no excuse to be helpless purely because you're female. There's no validity to the idea that women need protecting. Women are not delicate flowers, they are people. They are fully capable of defending themselves verbally, emotionally, and when needed, physically too. It is only this perverted socialization that makes them think otherwise. It is only years of being taught that they need to be protected that turns the women who buy this chum into victims.

It's bullshit. There are exactly two times I've been convinced that I was about to get my ass beat. Not just smacked around, but beat down. Both were at the hands of women. The only thing that saved me was that it was in a martial arts class, and the teacher was there to save my keister. To this day, I've no doubt that had they wished, one would have drove my rectum up into my skull and the other would have methodically broke my spine by grabbing me by the neck and swinging me around like a noisemaker. You want to say women are helpless, go peddle your bullshit somewhere else. It's not getting bought here.

You want to do something to keep women like Kathy from being victimized? Stop helping society create women like Kathy, and all the others who run for the hills when the shit hits the fan. Help society create not victims, but people who happen to be female. Help stop this fucking obscenity that creates a victim class out of 60% of humanity.

Stop looking for bullshit answers that satisfy the need to do "something". Chasing after anonymity, blaming profanity, telling women "It's okay, you're just helpless", it's all bullshit. It's also bullshit to insist that people speak in bland tones, and say nothing that might offend. The truth is, there's no real solution to this particular problem. None. There's small things you can do, like not allowing the same dingaling to troll up your comments, but even then, one person's troll is another person's speaker to bloggers. You can't make people act in a certain way. It's not in our nature. That's not to say do nothing. When someone starts threatening someone, speak up. Tell them that's a load of crap. If it starts to go from inane to troublesome, call the cops. But stop thinking the problem is anonymity, or profanity, or the innate helplessness of women.

One day, people are going to stop being whiny little dinks just because someone said they were full of shit about something. You want to know why our kids think we're full of shit? Well, what would you think of someone who told you "They're just words, shrug it off", then flies off the fucking handle because a blogger in Omaha said they were wrong? Maybe, just maybe, far too many of us are full of shit, and our kids see that all too well.

When people stop taking every damned disagreement as a personal attack, maybe then the idiocy that has been ignited over Kathy Sierra will stop. But I doubt it.

Technorati Tags: Mobthink, Hysteria, Women

Posted by John C. Welch at 19:24 | Permalink

Comments

Stupidty, huh?

Posted by: Arden | April 1, 2007 1:54 AM

Bullshit.

You've got maybe 55% right in your rant, which isn't much better than pure dumb luck. If you weren't soapboxing about so much philosophical crap, you might actually have a point. Instead you've wrapped it up in a bunch of bullshit.

Anyway, just because you're mister all tough-as-nails martial arts master, does NOT mean you can ascribe the same levels of strength to anyone (man or woman). It's certainly not any more of an answer to the problem than the ridiculous mob mentality.

Example: you use as your "proof" of women being tough a martial arts class. That just tells me you weren't good enough at martial arts, it doesn't even begin to address all the ways woman may or may not be different than men.

Now that I've called you on BS, I will agree that women can play the victim card completely inappropriately. I just don't think your answer of "suck it up" is always or even usually the answer (maybe it is for Kathy, I don't know).

Posted by: Step | April 1, 2007 8:39 AM

Since when does "Strength" deal exclusively with physical ability?

So John's best example is martial arts, that doesn't mean that all strength comes from muscles. Sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's emotional.

I've known MEN who couldn't tell their dicks from a pussy, they were so emotionally weak. They'd fall all over themselves at the slightest thing. I knew a guy who was so weakwilled he drove his girlfriend to a guys house so she could cheat on him, and waited in the car to drive her home afterwards. Then, when the guy she was sleeping with on the side needed a place to stay, put him up IN HIS OWN HOUSE... because she told him to.

If that's not a lack of strength, I don't know what is.

The idea that a person has to be physically strong to BE strong is inane. So someone said mean things about you on the internet. Big fucking deal. Don't get weepy. Don't shut yourself in your house. Certainly don't STOP what you're doing. Get angry! Be strong. Call an asshole an asshole and be done with it.

People only have as much power over you as what you're willing to cede to them. Strength, in this situation means, man or woman, *stop caring what dumbasses on the internet say to you*. Have your "well that wasn't nice moment" and move on.

I had some really awful crap said about me on Digg. I got mad about it, sure, but mostly because I think people need to stop being assholes. Not precisely because they were assholes to me, but because the world is full of assholes in general. I ranted about it, once, and then got over it. I didn't get a mob at my back threatening to take down the cesspool that is Digg, nor did I want one.

Bad things happen to good people. Life isn't fair. That doesn't mean we should all fall down and give up. It doesn't mean we should all start whining about it incessantly. It means that it's just something you have to learn to live with. You have to be strong in yourself for that.

And if you feel better knowing how to pick up John and twirl him around like a noisemaker by the neck... then take a martial arts class, or a kick boxing class.

Do whatever it takes to make *you* feel strong.

And whether your male or female: stop being a pussy.

Posted by: Melissa | April 1, 2007 10:27 AM

Ah yes, thank you step, i was wondering how long it would take for a strident defense consisting of "Women are TOO helpless!"

Dude, I'm hardly a master. At best I'm a...trainable monkey. Sounds to me like you get your martial arts info from bad movies. As well, it's not about strength, well, not physical strength anyway. It's about refusing to give up. Refusing to be a victim. Why is it that you can have an attractive, not terribly muscular woman dressing like "teh hottz0r" yet she never gets fucked with. Meanwhile a woman who could be her twin, in the same situation is mercilessly fucked with? It has nothing to do with physical strength, and everything to do with mental fortitude.

So any guy who can get his ass beat by a woman is a pussy? Come on, don't dance around it, that's what you mean. That any guy who can't beat the shit out of any woman on the planet is some kind of pussy.

That's so laughable, even as its offensive, and it shows you have a really, REALLY bad case of "small penis syndrome". Jeez, go grab some self-esteem and some self-confidence from a new source, your current one is lacking.

That's so sad, you know. You're so afraid of the very idea of a strong woman, able to function on her own in good times and bad, that rather than learn to appreciate it, you'll do whatever it takes to keep them week and helpless. Pathetic.

Posted by: John C. Welch | April 1, 2007 12:41 PM

Oh, and the idea that martial arts are all about physical strength is so terribly wrong. Try learning something about it first.

Posted by: John C. Welch | April 1, 2007 12:43 PM

Thank you, John, for that last section. The rest is fine, too, but it's true, we need to stop raising victims. For that matter, we need to also do away with the myth that men are by nature rapists, murderers, violent attackers of all types. We are HUMANS and were are and should be accountable for our actions.

And yet, I cannot help but be glad that Kathy got the support (as schizo as it was) when she was scared. As much as I'd like to see her say "Bring it on!" with the support of her friends lending her the courage she apparently lacked, this was a pretty good second-best.

Posted by: Nik | April 1, 2007 2:48 PM

Yeah, I really am glad that her friends gathered around her.

Still, there's a part of me that would have loved to see her list the threats and all, then say "I don't want mob reaction or justice. That's part of what *I'm* going through, and it's wrong, no matter who says it. As to the assholes threatening me, just in case you think you're going to change how I run my life...can you see this finger? Here, let me give you the other one too. How's it feel to be powerless?"

I'm not saying she did wrong, or did the wrong thing. We all react to strife in our own way. But...it would have been neat.

Posted by: John C. Welch | April 1, 2007 3:54 PM

Excellent point at in the comments there John regarding martial arts being heavily about will, as well as some of your gender issue elements you mention.

In a physical fight, a lot of times, you've already won/lost before the blows are thrown. I've already warned my daughter, that if she ever gets into a physical fight with a male, if they're actually willing to trade blows, it's likely that they will fight DESPERATELY hard, because of that aforementioned fear of "being beaten by a woman(girl)".

I've seen the obverse due to my size - people are a LOT more willing to back down saying "hey, look how big that guy is, what did you think I was going to do?" Even people who mighta been able to take me.

The whole Cathy Sierra thing rilly rips me - but it sure as hell reminds you why we have the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" thing written into our laws....

Posted by: W. Ian Blanton | April 1, 2007 11:39 PM

Yep. I've found that the best weapon you have on your side is doubt. If you create doubt that assailing you will be easy, then the chances of it happening drop dramatically. Women who project a true image of self-confidence and fearlessness do this. "Yes, you may eventually win. But you won't be real happy about it, and you're gonna have a limp."

Amazing how a little thing like doubt keeps you out of trouble.

Posted by: John C. Welch | April 2, 2007 12:02 AM

John, here's a post by a female blogger that might be of interest:

Jaqueline Passey: Kathy Sierra is a drama queen / Safety tips for female bloggers

Her tip #6: