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[return to "Getting free of toxic tech culture"]
1. tlb+h7[view] [source] 2018-01-18 23:52:04
>>zdw+(OP)
I predict people will claim "our culture isn't that toxic. Some of those things happen, but they don't bother me much."

If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out.

So don't ask "would this bother me?" Ask "would it bother someone?" And since you can't predict this from inside your head, you have to rely on firsthand accounts of people being bothered. This seems like a good overview of such accounts.

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2. smsm42+gc[view] [source] 2018-01-19 00:40:03
>>tlb+h7
> If any non-zero subset of reasonable people are so offended by a behavior that they'd leave the industry because of it, we have to cut it out.

That's a very high demand. People can leave the industry for a very wide variety of reasons, often mutually contradictory - some want to work as much as possible, provided it translates to $$$$, some are ok with earning less provided they can pursue side interests or family life, some want to make worldwide impact and break paradigms and change the world, some want quiet, predictable and organized workplace, some want high-risk/high-reward environment, some want benefits of predictable income and steady promotion... It is literally impossible to make an industry in which there would be nothing that would cause anybody to leave. Tech industry not special - some people may try it and find it's not what they'd like to do anymore and leave.

Surely, if some things bother people and we could reasonably fix them without bothering even more people in the process, then there's no reason not to do it - it'd be a positive-sum action that would make the world better.

But pre-committing to a goal that no non-zero subset of reasonable people ever wanted to leave tech does not seem like a smart thing to do, because it's impossible.

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3. shkkmo+Bj[view] [source] 2018-01-19 02:03:18
>>smsm42+gc
> But pre-committing to a goal that no non-zero subset of reasonable people ever wanted to leave tech does not seem like a smart thing to do, because it's impossible.

It doesn't matter if that is impossible because it's also not what was proposed. The proposal was to stop reasonable people leaving because the are OFFENDED by a particular BEHAVIOR.

This isn't to say that some solutions offered to reach that goal won't offend even more reasonable people for different reasons. But even that doesn't mean that this isn't the goal we should be aiming towards.

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