I just deleted a post. (Aside from accidental duplicates, I think this is the first time I've done this.)
So, in my usual lack of filtering way (because I really do almost always speak/write before I think), I made a joke which intended to have losers like me as the target. I believe that all I did in the process was piss off people who read the comment (at least one I know and one I don't), prove my point that I'm a loser, and give Lemming a good laugh (which I suppose is equivalent to the second point I just made).
After I got the first comment (the second arrived while I was answering the first), I reread the actual text of what I wrote and certainly saw other ways to read the comment than what I intended.
So, the best I can do is remove the post, apologize again, hope that my friends are all still my friends, and hope that people who I don't know who read that (and don't have all those other wonderful interactions with me upon which to draw) don't think I'm a complete waste of carbon.
The post was meant to be provocative---but what I wanted to do was discuss the abstract and why that guy was questioning "self-evident" things (his quotes because he was questioning them) that I do consider self-evident.
While I already know my abilities to see things through others' eyes are really poor, perhaps they are even poorer than I thought.
I'll be happy to provide further explanations (and copies of the comments people put on the post) in private discussion.
2 days ago
8 comments:
I didn't mean to jump on you. But, even the title of that post -- inferring that the article in question is in some sort of women's section of Arxiv -- showed a marked lack of something.
It's a common joke at Tech that if there were just more chicks, things would be much better. I remember. It's ok, I knew the joke you were going for. It's just that, after a while, undergrad humor gets old. Real old for those who actually are running into the glass ceiling within the sciences.
Personally, I chose to take a pass on academia and move into the lucrative world of dot-commery. Similar boys club feel, but slightly less institutionalized...
Good luck with your funding issues. I hope you get to both the conferences you've got planned.
SarahD
Sarah: You were justified in jumping on me.
Note: I claim that you did mean to do it. Sometimes, I need a boot to the head to get my head straight, and this was obviously one of those times.
I responded briefly in the other post before I deleted the whole thing (and I saved what I wrote if you want to read that). There's only one thing from there that I want to mention here. My actual opinions as to who I want to spend time with veer almost completely towards personality (with nerdiness a major plus) and intelligence. In particular, I basically can't suffer people of any gender (all four of them) who might be construed as "shallow" or "easy." You can ask Lemming about how many times I've ranted about this when somebody brings up the contrary. (He alluded to this briefly in a short message that got killed with the other post.) The potential fault that this leads to in me is a sort of elitism that while it's not close to as extreme as it used to be, can still be there to some degree on various topics.
In particular, I would rather spend time with people who kick the completely crap out of me academically, intellectually, and in all sorts of other ways than those who don't. This is why nearly all of my favorite people (again, of all genders) are Techers. I never bought the whole thing about Tech being better if the ratio were better (though I obviously agree that everyone heard this ad nauseum) and I couldn't ever understand the bitterness it caused, though I think that many of the people who mentioned stuff like this did so as one big joke rather than in any sense of seriousness. So, while it was occasionally "hip" (or at least a Caltech version of hip) to joke about the Ratio, I'll take the Ratio and the quality of the women at Tech over anywhere else. And when I say quality, I mean as people, because that's all that matters.
Regarding undergrad humor getting old: I suppose so, but I think opinions on that vary greatly from person to person.
Maybe some dot-commers should be institutionalized, but that's an argument for another day. :)
The title of my post comes from the fact that it was a part of a series of articles I've written from various parts of the arXiv and that comment was supposed to distinguish from other posts I've written. So while I can see where you're going with that comment, that's not what the title represented at all (but rather was supposed to indicate something more specific about the content of the arxiv entry), so I don't think I'm with you on that one.
As for what I lack: Well, a lot of things. Tact is one of them. A well-developed ability to empathize is another. The ability to read between the lines when others talk or write is another. (I typically need things spelled out for me very explicitly to understand what somebody else is thinking, which is a major reason I don't sugarcoat my own comments. Because I have trouble understanding comments that are meant, say, to be softer blows, the blows become all the harder -- much harder, actually -- when I only realize several days or even weeks later what the message really was.) The ability to read people's expressions is another. And don't forget social skills. I definitely lack those. Oh, and filters---that thing that's supposed to prevent me from making comments before I make them [to phrase things eloquently :) ].
(I have been accused on multiple occasions of having Asperger's. I don't know if it's true, but I don't think it particular matters. Really, the whole thing is a continuum and the only really fundamental thing is that I have trouble picking up cues that are trivial for others to pick up.)
I decided to eat the money for one conference (because the per diem from prior conferences overestimates how much food costs, so paying for this conference basically balances out the fact I did per diem instead of giving myself massive headaches keeping all my receipts). Oxford is willing to fund the other conference (news from late last night), so while it means I'll be reimbursed much later and won't be able to use the money for something else, this is a very important conference for me to attend (in fact, it's arguably the most important one for me). I'd love to get out of the January one, but I committed to too many things that just wouldn't be right for me to try to bail on. It would leave a very bad taste in my mouth.
Well, I don't know who you are (although I see you're a Techer, so now I'm wondering if your name is just not registering), but thanks for reading and commenting.
And (seriously) thanks for booting me in the head. I need that on occasion.
As long as you realize I meant no ill will, then we can go back to being strangers who don't hate each other. :)
Hey, on the bus home, I was thinking. If you had phrased your remark as "We should encourage women in the sciences because it's the only way schlubs like me would meet women," it would have been, while still kinda offensive, a lot funnier and closer to what I think you intended, in a Woody Allen sort of way. (And, I don't think I would have had nearly as hard or fast a reaction.)
Just a thought about phrasing.
Wren: Essentially, that is kind of what I had in mind. (My lesson for today, among other things, is to gain empathy for John Kerry. At some small level, I think I now know how he feels.) And evoking Woody Allen is certainly something I have been known to do. (Deconstructing Mason...) Although my feeling the social stigma of being a nerd was also there because that tends to turn a lot of people off. (My solution: Not to be less of a nerd -- because I like being a nerd -- but for more people to be nerdy so that I can fit in better!)
In general, I can say certain things that offend people (I'm especially known to go off on religious issues) but that's in large part a question of where my line is versus where society's line is. In this case, I realized because of the comments (which caused me to reread the text much more carefully ... I don't typically proofread my blog because it's supposed to be shot from the hip) and my subsequent more careful reading that I had crossed my own line. That's why I'm thankful for you and Sarah for pointing this out to me very poignantly because it forced me to figure out why (and subsequently agree with you once I realized).
Now, I have a question about the title of the other entry. Couldn't one find a major called "women's studies" (which many universities have) offensive for the same reason? By a similar context as a series of blog posts about arXiv stuff concerning various topics, it means the topic is women rather than studies fit for women, but if one takes the term out of context, then one could interpret it in the other way that obviously is offensive. (I suppose the answer is the other is so ingrained that nobody runs the risk of misinterpreting it and that the context of my series of blog posts is more likely to be unknown, but let's imagine somebody from another planet looking at a college course catalog. Couldn't the alien be really offended if they see this major in the course catalog and then don't, say, read further to gain the context?)
I have been accused on multiple occasions of having Asperger's.
While I don't know the particulars of when this was said to you, I don't see how you're socially any more dysfunctional than a horde of other Techers (myself among them). Alas, I didn't see the now deleted post so I don't know what precisely was said.
Ravi: One time this was said was by an NSA person at a recent conference.
The deleted post will remain deleted. And what I wrote was not what I meant to write.
Basically, there seems to be a continuous spectrum, and I bet a lot of Techers score "highly" on it. We had a discussion a while back (I included a post here, but the actual discussion was on a friend's blog) about empathy scores (I'm messing up the name) and technical people weren't scoring particularly well on that. On my end, I repeatedly don't pick up hints that I am apparently supposed to pick up and that are apparently supposed to be situations in which it's easy to tell that somebody said one thing and meant something else. (This is why I get very frustrated when people use comments like "I'm busy this weekend" to mean "no, not ever!" because the former is something I use and take literally.)
Well, our interactions with each other have been generally limited to under 5 minutes at a time, so I never had a chance to get frustrated with you. Guess I'll have to try and send you subtle messages next time and see if you realize!
I also think such traits are more noticeable in you than in someone like myself because you speak to a lot more people. If someone says "I'm busy this weekend" then I'll probably just never ask them to do something again. Someone asked me how someone as anti-social as myself could speak in front of my entire Junior High when I ran for 9th grade Treasurer; it was not due to confidence on my part, but rather it just never occurred to me that I might be making a fool of myself (and BTW, I won). I think I'm better at noticing people's reactions now than I was before, but that is a relative statement. Oddly enough, although I am clueless to many emotions, I am hyper-sensitive to anger, and absolutely cannot stand being around an angry or frustrated person.
OK, we'll see if that works.
I should try to cultivate the sarcastic, "That proof is sooooo rigorous." for my criticisms of colloquium speakers. :)
Hmmm... well, if I think they're only talking about a specific weekend and I want to spend time with them, then my practice would be to ask another time. Then after a few weeks, I would wonder why they just didn't say 'no.'
Actually, being unaware that one might make a fool of oneself can be quite a nice boon. There are numerous situations in which I wish I weren't so self-conscious. I would probably make a fool of myself on occasion, but I'd also stand to gain a lot.
Ah, well I definitely have my angry/frustrated moments.
"He screamed to the heavens in frustration."
"No I'm not! I'm screaming at you, you stupid voice!"
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