This story really provoked poor reactions on Slashdot, Hacker News and other supposedly "meritocracy"-oriented communities.
I don't have the evidence to support this, but my educated guess is that a proportion of it is driven by the fact that it was a Pakistani (and presumably Muslim) girl.
The meme pool for Pakistan and Muslims in general is driven by the terrorism / fear narrative; masking one's prejudice and engage in a self-satisfactory public bashing is easy when we also have a competing meme (Microsoft as borg) that can be used to mask the ugly aspects of it.
The other alternative (that people really do hate Microsoft so much that they would make these comments about a dead child) is so childish that I can't bring myself to believe it. It would be morally equivalent to.. well, cheering for people dying without health care. IE: A small group of people so wrapped in a narrative that they can't bring themselves to see how abhorrent their beliefs have become to the majority around them. Are those people us?
Pure speculation: I don't get the sense of racism at all. I think the age was the provoking factor. A younger girl who was able to accomplish something (Microsoft Certified Professional) and become noteworthy in a site filled with people (and businesses) trying to become noteworthy. Jealousy.
I'll have to agree with thebigshane's speculation. Extrapolating from my own experiences, I think a lot of people here were doing great things (programming, writing, art, etc.) at a young age and didn't get nearly the recognition that they wanted. In my own childhood I saw people around me getting more recognition for less and poorer work, and others who got no recognition for excellent work.
There are at least two ways to approach this situation: the first, taken by the negative commenters on the other article, is to allow jealousy to take over. The second is to look at a lack of recognition as a simple problem to be solved, and learn from those who receive it. Let's quit whining about not getting the attention we wanted when we were programming at whatever young age, and try to learn how to market ourselves better. Above all, let's show some respect.
It seems that jealousy is becoming popular here. Looking at comments to this recent post about the guy who owns just 15 things[0], the top ones (hence the most voted for, I guess) mostly complain about ways in which he ‘cheated’ in counting his possessions. More or less constructive discussion starts at the very bottom.
Not sure what might be the reason of that, except jealousy.
I'd say the attempts to diminish her coding abilities were driven more by the affiliation with MS than with her ethnicity or religion. But that may just be speculation on my part.
That's the weird thing. What she did was genuinely impressive, but only because of her age. For an experienced adult to do the same thing would be a mark against them, because it conveys they're probably a dud doing something distasteful in the hope of polishing a lackluster résumé.
I do think it's just use of the term "programming", when (while what she did was very impressive for a young girl, from her culture) she didn't appear to do much programming.
Obviously it's misdirected. People should be saying "What lousy reporting, celebrate what she actually did!"
Comments
This story really provoked poor reactions on Slashdot, Hacker News and other supposedly "meritocracy"-oriented communities.
I don't have the evidence to support this, but my educated guess is that a proportion of it is driven by the fact that it was a Pakistani (and presumably Muslim) girl.
The meme pool for Pakistan and Muslims in general is driven by the terrorism / fear narrative; masking one's prejudice and engage in a self-satisfactory public bashing is easy when we also have a competing meme (Microsoft as borg) that can be used to mask the ugly aspects of it.
The other alternative (that people really do hate Microsoft so much that they would make these comments about a dead child) is so childish that I can't bring myself to believe it. It would be morally equivalent to.. well, cheering for people dying without health care. IE: A small group of people so wrapped in a narrative that they can't bring themselves to see how abhorrent their beliefs have become to the majority around them. Are those people us?
Pure speculation: I don't get the sense of racism at all. I think the age was the provoking factor. A younger girl who was able to accomplish something (Microsoft Certified Professional) and become noteworthy in a site filled with people (and businesses) trying to become noteworthy. Jealousy.
Don't label people "jealous" or some other negative label based on pure speculation.
I'll have to agree with thebigshane's speculation. Extrapolating from my own experiences, I think a lot of people here were doing great things (programming, writing, art, etc.) at a young age and didn't get nearly the recognition that they wanted. In my own childhood I saw people around me getting more recognition for less and poorer work, and others who got no recognition for excellent work.
There are at least two ways to approach this situation: the first, taken by the negative commenters on the other article, is to allow jealousy to take over. The second is to look at a lack of recognition as a simple problem to be solved, and learn from those who receive it. Let's quit whining about not getting the attention we wanted when we were programming at whatever young age, and try to learn how to market ourselves better. Above all, let's show some respect.
It seems that jealousy is becoming popular here. Looking at comments to this recent post about the guy who owns just 15 things[0], the top ones (hence the most voted for, I guess) mostly complain about ways in which he ‘cheated’ in counting his possessions. More or less constructive discussion starts at the very bottom.
Not sure what might be the reason of that, except jealousy.
[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469927
I'd say the attempts to diminish her coding abilities were driven more by the affiliation with MS than with her ethnicity or religion. But that may just be speculation on my part.
That's the weird thing. What she did was genuinely impressive, but only because of her age. For an experienced adult to do the same thing would be a mark against them, because it conveys they're probably a dud doing something distasteful in the hope of polishing a lackluster résumé.
I really don't get that impression.
I do think it's just use of the term "programming", when (while what she did was very impressive for a young girl, from her culture) she didn't appear to do much programming.
Obviously it's misdirected. People should be saying "What lousy reporting, celebrate what she actually did!"