4 ms·

> this is a lot of speculation This is only speculation if you ignore the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism. All the eviden

by IsaacL 10y ago

> this is a lot of speculation This is only speculation if you ignore the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism. All the evidence points to this being a proxy battle of "SJWs" vs "un-PC enthusiasts". Nodevember were told that having Crockford speak "sent a message that women are unwelcome". > Instead of inserting your own narrative This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm making things up. > If Crockford feels wronged by this exchange, he's free to come forward with his side of things Crockford doesn't need to do anything. You're implying that he's the only one who should be bothered. But the whole point of incidents like this is to show that people like Crockford aren't welcome. Linus Torvalds gets the same s... from the same people for the same reasons. (A side note, but it's weird that TDD-enthusiasts are very condescending to non-TDD followers, but this isn't seen as "exclusive").

knucklesandwich 10y ago
> Nodevember were told that having Crockford speak "sent a message that women are unwelcome". I saw the tweet, my point here is that's a single tweet raising a red flag about what is undoubtedly an issue that was talked about to a greater extent behind closed doors with relevant parties. If you find that justification to be insufficient irregardless of whatever the backing details may be, then feel free to outrage on, but I think that's pretty lamentable. The fervor over this issue seems to be predicated on the belief that what appears on twitter is the only set of events that lead up to him being disinvited, which cannot be demonstrated and conflicts with Nodevember's statement on the issue. > This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm making things up. Yes, I think anyone who has come to the conclusion that the only reason for this is liberal virtue signaling instead of an actual aspiration to create an inclusive environment is actually making things up, since there isn't enough evidence to draw that conclusion. > Crockford doesn't need to do anything. You're implying that he's the only one who should be bothered. I'm implying he should at least be the first person to be bothered, unless the full details come to light. Otherwise this is a lot of rage stoking over absolute bullshit. > But the whole point of incidents like this is to show that people like Crockford aren't welcome. Linus Torvalds gets the same s... from the same people for the same reasons. I think there's a legitemate reason to disinvite people like Torvalds who have a long history of being brutally condescending. And more importantly has been asked ad nauseam to please be kinder to people and has been firmly obstinate. Disinventing a personality like his works precisely towards the goal of being more inclusive. Hell I see a blog post every other week on HN about "imposter syndrome" and how that debilitates people in our community, so it makes complete sense to me that people who are dramatically negative towards others are toxic and harmful to the goal of creating an inclusive environment. This notion that we have to accept egotism and profound condescension in this community is extremely backwards.
- IsaacL 10y ago
  > I saw the tweet, my point here is that's a single tweet My point, which you've ignored, is that we need to take into account the wider context, i.e. "the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism" I mentioned. > the conclusion that the only reason for this is liberal virtue signaling instead of an actual aspiration to create an inclusive environment That isn't my conclusion. I do believe these people aspire to "create an inclusive environment". That means inclusive for people like them, and exclusive of people not like them. They do not seem to particularly care about being inclusive of minorities, who are just a smokescreen (see, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_crockford_removed_as_a_keynote_speaker_at/d78mvfx https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_...). They appear to be guided by an intuitive sense of "our sort of people". > And more importantly has been asked ad nauseam to please be kinder to people and has been firmly obstinate. Don't you think he might be obstinate for a reason? He's responsible for one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the world: bugs in the Linux kernel could cause life-or-death situations. The world needs more programmers, and we shouldn't care what they look like, but inclusivity is not an end-in-itself. "Egotism and profound condescension" is terrible if you think the tech community exists to provide a weird social club, but it's essential if the goal is to help programmers write better software - the master programmers have earned their big egos because they know how important it is not to f... certain things up.
  - knucklesandwich 10y ago
    > My point, which you've ignored, is that we need to take into account the wider context, i.e. "the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism" I mentioned. What does this even mean? It's impossible for me to reply to this unless you're more specific about what you're talking about and how it involves the organizers for Nodevember. Also "taking a wider context" is useful for understanding something only once the specifics of what actually happened become apparent. Otherwise its impossible to understand what the context even is. The last controversy like this I can remember was Curtis Yarvin being disinvited from LambdaConf, and even then people were bizarrely claiming that disallowing a white sepremacist from speaking was uninclusive. I'm not trying to link these events (there's no evidence to claim that the circumstances are the same... though bizarrely the guy who wrote the blog yesterday is trying to link them in some way favorable to Crockford[1]), only pointing out how completely counter-productive it is to attempt to place something "in a larger context" before anything is really known about the details. > That means inclusive for people like them, and exclusive of people not like them. This is just a slightly stronger form of what I said above. You have no evidence with which to draw this conclusion. > They do not seem to particularly care about being inclusive of minorities, who are just a smokescreen (see, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_... https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_...). They appear to be guided by an intuitive sense of "our sort of people". Again, on what basis? This comment is from a person saying they'd be in favor of uninviting Crockford if he was responsible for being toxic or inappropriate. They seem to be concerned with accusations about one of the persons involved with calling for him to be replaced as the keynote speaker. > Don't you think he might be obstinate for a reason? He's responsible for one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the world: bugs in the Linux kernel could cause life-or-death situations. I'm so sick of seeing software engineers justify arrogance or invective as though they somehow make maintaining critical software feasible. This is indefensible macho bullshit that needs to dropped. Maintainers have plenty of tools at their disposal for when code doesn't meet their criteria: the primary of which is to not accept change sets. Belittling contributors or engaging in childish invective isn't a valid tool for turning down code. At best it turns away people who could be guided to making productive contributions (and yes, there are plenty of people in the linux kernel community responsible for this), and at worst it scares away other potential contributors who are concerned with their own fallibility and the prospect of being publicly humiliated for making a mistake. Sorry, but no. I don't think he has a legitimate reason for being obstinate. > The world needs more programmers, and we shouldn't care what they look like, but inclusivity is not an end-in-itself. "Egotism and profound condescension" is terrible if you think the tech community exists to provide a weird social club, but it's essential if the goal is to help programmers write better software - the master programmers have earned their big egos because they know how important it is not to f... certain things up. Sorry, but I don't buy this "programmer bootcamp" model of teaching developers. There's plenty of psychology and management research out there showing that ostracism and negativity increases stress[2], decreases social cohesion[3], decreases performance[4], etc. In short, this is complete bullshit. [1]: http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford [2]: http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/janedut/POS/Heaphy%20and%20Dutton%20amr.pdf http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/janedut/POS/Heaphy%20and%20Dutt... [3]: http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=2009-00697-005 http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=2009... [4]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431911000065 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431911...

by IsaacL 10y ago

knucklesandwich 10y ago

> Nodevember were told that having Crockford speak "sent a message that women are unwelcome". I saw the tweet, my point here is that's a single tweet raising a red flag about what is undoubtedly an issue that was talked about to a greater extent behind closed doors with relevant parties. If you find that justification to be insufficient irregardless of whatever the backing details may be, then feel free to outrage on, but I think that's pretty lamentable. The fervor over this issue seems to be predicated on the belief that what appears on twitter is the only set of events that lead up to him being disinvited, which cannot be demonstrated and conflicts with Nodevember's statement on the issue. > This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm making things up. Yes, I think anyone who has come to the conclusion that the only reason for this is liberal virtue signaling instead of an actual aspiration to create an inclusive environment is actually making things up, since there isn't enough evidence to draw that conclusion. > Crockford doesn't need to do anything. You're implying that he's the only one who should be bothered. I'm implying he should at least be the first person to be bothered, unless the full details come to light. Otherwise this is a lot of rage stoking over absolute bullshit. > But the whole point of incidents like this is to show that people like Crockford aren't welcome. Linus Torvalds gets the same s... from the same people for the same reasons. I think there's a legitemate reason to disinvite people like Torvalds who have a long history of being brutally condescending. And more importantly has been asked ad nauseam to please be kinder to people and has been firmly obstinate. Disinventing a personality like his works precisely towards the goal of being more inclusive. Hell I see a blog post every other week on HN about "imposter syndrome" and how that debilitates people in our community, so it makes complete sense to me that people who are dramatically negative towards others are toxic and harmful to the goal of creating an inclusive environment. This notion that we have to accept egotism and profound condescension in this community is extremely backwards.

IsaacL 10y ago
> I saw the tweet, my point here is that's a single tweet My point, which you've ignored, is that we need to take into account the wider context, i.e. "the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism" I mentioned. > the conclusion that the only reason for this is liberal virtue signaling instead of an actual aspiration to create an inclusive environment That isn't my conclusion. I do believe these people aspire to "create an inclusive environment". That means inclusive for people like them, and exclusive of people not like them. They do not seem to particularly care about being inclusive of minorities, who are just a smokescreen (see, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_crockford_removed_as_a_keynote_speaker_at/d78mvfx https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_...). They appear to be guided by an intuitive sense of "our sort of people". > And more importantly has been asked ad nauseam to please be kinder to people and has been firmly obstinate. Don't you think he might be obstinate for a reason? He's responsible for one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the world: bugs in the Linux kernel could cause life-or-death situations. The world needs more programmers, and we shouldn't care what they look like, but inclusivity is not an end-in-itself. "Egotism and profound condescension" is terrible if you think the tech community exists to provide a weird social club, but it's essential if the goal is to help programmers write better software - the master programmers have earned their big egos because they know how important it is not to f... certain things up.
- knucklesandwich 10y ago
  > My point, which you've ignored, is that we need to take into account the wider context, i.e. "the last few years of speaker exclusions and anti-"brogrammer" activism" I mentioned. What does this even mean? It's impossible for me to reply to this unless you're more specific about what you're talking about and how it involves the organizers for Nodevember. Also "taking a wider context" is useful for understanding something only once the specifics of what actually happened become apparent. Otherwise its impossible to understand what the context even is. The last controversy like this I can remember was Curtis Yarvin being disinvited from LambdaConf, and even then people were bizarrely claiming that disallowing a white sepremacist from speaking was uninclusive. I'm not trying to link these events (there's no evidence to claim that the circumstances are the same... though bizarrely the guy who wrote the blog yesterday is trying to link them in some way favorable to Crockford[1]), only pointing out how completely counter-productive it is to attempt to place something "in a larger context" before anything is really known about the details. > That means inclusive for people like them, and exclusive of people not like them. This is just a slightly stronger form of what I said above. You have no evidence with which to draw this conclusion. > They do not seem to particularly care about being inclusive of minorities, who are just a smokescreen (see, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_... https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_...). They appear to be guided by an intuitive sense of "our sort of people". Again, on what basis? This comment is from a person saying they'd be in favor of uninviting Crockford if he was responsible for being toxic or inappropriate. They seem to be concerned with accusations about one of the persons involved with calling for him to be replaced as the keynote speaker. > Don't you think he might be obstinate for a reason? He's responsible for one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the world: bugs in the Linux kernel could cause life-or-death situations. I'm so sick of seeing software engineers justify arrogance or invective as though they somehow make maintaining critical software feasible. This is indefensible macho bullshit that needs to dropped. Maintainers have plenty of tools at their disposal for when code doesn't meet their criteria: the primary of which is to not accept change sets. Belittling contributors or engaging in childish invective isn't a valid tool for turning down code. At best it turns away people who could be guided to making productive contributions (and yes, there are plenty of people in the linux kernel community responsible for this), and at worst it scares away other potential contributors who are concerned with their own fallibility and the prospect of being publicly humiliated for making a mistake. Sorry, but no. I don't think he has a legitimate reason for being obstinate. > The world needs more programmers, and we shouldn't care what they look like, but inclusivity is not an end-in-itself. "Egotism and profound condescension" is terrible if you think the tech community exists to provide a weird social club, but it's essential if the goal is to help programmers write better software - the master programmers have earned their big egos because they know how important it is not to f... certain things up. Sorry, but I don't buy this "programmer bootcamp" model of teaching developers. There's plenty of psychology and management research out there showing that ostracism and negativity increases stress[2], decreases social cohesion[3], decreases performance[4], etc. In short, this is complete bullshit. [1]: http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford [2]: http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/janedut/POS/Heaphy%20and%20Dutton%20amr.pdf http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/janedut/POS/Heaphy%20and%20Dutt... [3]: http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=2009-00697-005 http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&uid=2009... [4]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431911000065 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431911...