zlacker

>>capabl+(OP)
> Still, as an occasional reader, I have noticed certain trends. When stories that focus on structural barriers faced by women in the workplace, or on diversity in tech, or on race or masculinity—stories, admittedly, that are more intriguing to me, a person interested in the humanities, than stories on technical topics—hit the front page, users often flag them, presumably for being off topic, so fast that hardly any comments accrue.

I have noticed this trend for a long time also, and well before this article was first written. It seems to go in waves though I'll cautiously say that it seems to have gotten somewhat better in recent years. I remember a time in the mid-2010s when these kinds of stories would disappear almost instantaneously. Now some of these articles and topics get a good number of upvotes and occasionally even substantive dialogue.

That said, the comments sections on these articles do tend to devolve pretty quickly.

>>belfal+Nh
It's understandable that they get flagged because people can't talk about these topics without emotions and it almost always derails into a flamewar.

>>Pannon+6k
The implications here are interesting -- that discussing with emotion is something to avoid or that it's even possible to avoid at all. We're human -- as much as doing so has been a cultural aspiration for millenia in the West, it is simply not possible to decouple ourselves from our physical and emotional experiences.

In my mind, it's far less important that we try to address these topics "without emotion" (whatever that means) and instead focus on cultivating respect and curiosity and assuming good faith. This is a bit more congruous with the spirit of the site.

There's another Western cultural aspiration involving an impossible decoupling, probably more common in American culture than European, which is to depersonalize politics. But politics is about people, and some people are much less immediately affected by political and social issues than others -- there's usually a great many layers of indirection between the articulation of a regressive point of view or support for a particular law or politician, and e.g. a minority being squished out of tech or a parent who was a victim of a hate crime or a queer person's suicide. There are probably especially many layers of indirection when it comes to a lot of tech workers, given the demographics.

In any case, when discussing politics and issues of class and race it's important to recognize that you're not talking about something abstract, but people, and their loved ones and families. Given that, it's hardly a level playing field if we start with the expectation that folks will leave emotion at the door

>>vector+lp
The emotions that most commonly arise when discussing politics online are negative ones: anger, resentment, powerlessness.

If you act out on the anger or resentment, no one wins anything. At that moment, it's a good idea to make an effort to argue from a purely logical standpoint instead of just insulting the person you're arguing with. I think that's what most people mean when they say they want to discuss "without emotion".