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Entryism is the practice of infiltrating an organisation/group to gain trust then using a variety of tactics to try and subvert the politics/ideological premise

Entryism is the practice of infiltrating an organisation/group to gain trust then using a variety of tactics to try and subvert the politics/ideological premise of the group. Also misdirecting resources to support the subversive ideology and efforts. And ultimately trying to destroy the group and capture the membership into the subversive organisation that was behind the entryism in the first place. What I gather from the piece and the reactions here point to a fairly clear example of entryism.

GavinMcG 10y ago
What evidence do you have of infiltration beyond the fact that you don't like what the speaker said? It's a pretty extraordinary charge that someone would become a computer programmer and become a teacher of programming purely in order to give a conference talk that seems to suggest, at root, that we consider how our programs treat people. What a revolutionary!
- adangert 10y ago
  The author is trying to replace one system of thought with another, that's a fact. I think it's baseless to assume if the intention of the author was to originally pursue this motive or to suggest improvements after being apart of the community for a period of time.
- generic_user 10y ago
  > What evidence do you have of infiltration beyond the fact that you don't like what the speaker said? There is no confirmation whether or not I 'like' the authors opinions or essay. Careful not to fall into the same kind of dismissiveness your attempting to criticize. There is no shelf life on entryism. Disgruntled ideologues live out there lives trying to subvert and destroy other peoples hard work and turning that destruction into personal gain. Some of these people have managed to cling onto the tech and hacker community and make 'public personalities' out of themselves. There biggest platform is conferences and public speaking events. Where they can orate carefully constructed monologues without any scrutiny or disagreement from the audience, often with a hansom speaking fee. "Lets institute a new behaviour code based on vague pleasantries and inclusively" This looks like a variation on the Codes of Conduct strategy of subversion and political purging that entryists have tried to use for the past few years. It has been an unsuccessful strategy but they have succeeded in outing themselves and there intentions.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
It's hard to reconcile lines like "was born in 1981, and as a young computer enthusiast I quickly became aware of my unfortunate place in the history of computing. I thought I was born in the wrong time. I would think to myself I was born long after the glory days of hacking and the computer revolution." with entryism.
- generic_user 10y ago
  > "was born in 1981, and as a young computer enthusiast I quickly became aware of my unfortunate place in the history of computing. I thought I was born in the wrong time. I would think to myself I was born long after the glory days of hacking and the computer revolution." This passage is intended to cast the 1980 as an 'oppressive' era full of 'sin' that we should feel guilty about and strive to repent for at the alter of 'equality' that we can have in the new age of 'justice' if only we fallow the new commandments. Where have I heard that before? The appeal to 1950's and 60's computer culture is very much like the appeal to 'old time religion' employed by preachers to herd there flock. Be careful that your not taken in by religious rhetoric in progressive drag. There are powerful archetypes in religion that unfortunately certain parts of the left have been increasingly using.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    I was born in the 70s and when I was a young computer enthusiast my reading experience is similar: there was a glory era of hacking and experimentation and lisp machines and fun but now it was over and we had to live in this era of professionalism and msdos and you couldn't phreak a phone anymore. Then I got to college and discovered the internet just as the web was getting started and I started to realize that even though that old era was gone forever, here's a thing that's new and exciting and at least as world-changing. I still see that 'wow those old timey hackers were really something, and we'll never have the like again' mindset floating around the internet, even here on HN. (For example, people talking about how great lisp machines were or how great smalltalk environments were and how it's such a tragedy that we'll never see their like again).
    - 10y ago

GavinMcG 10y ago

What evidence do you have of infiltration beyond the fact that you don't like what the speaker said? It's a pretty extraordinary charge that someone would become a computer programmer and become a teacher of programming purely in order to give a conference talk that seems to suggest, at root, that we consider how our programs treat people. What a revolutionary!

adangert 10y ago
The author is trying to replace one system of thought with another, that's a fact. I think it's baseless to assume if the intention of the author was to originally pursue this motive or to suggest improvements after being apart of the community for a period of time.
generic_user 10y ago
> What evidence do you have of infiltration beyond the fact that you don't like what the speaker said? There is no confirmation whether or not I 'like' the authors opinions or essay. Careful not to fall into the same kind of dismissiveness your attempting to criticize. There is no shelf life on entryism. Disgruntled ideologues live out there lives trying to subvert and destroy other peoples hard work and turning that destruction into personal gain. Some of these people have managed to cling onto the tech and hacker community and make 'public personalities' out of themselves. There biggest platform is conferences and public speaking events. Where they can orate carefully constructed monologues without any scrutiny or disagreement from the audience, often with a hansom speaking fee. "Lets institute a new behaviour code based on vague pleasantries and inclusively" This looks like a variation on the Codes of Conduct strategy of subversion and political purging that entryists have tried to use for the past few years. It has been an unsuccessful strategy but they have succeeded in outing themselves and there intentions.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

It's hard to reconcile lines like "was born in 1981, and as a young computer enthusiast I quickly became aware of my unfortunate place in the history of computing. I thought I was born in the wrong time. I would think to myself I was born long after the glory days of hacking and the computer revolution." with entryism.

generic_user 10y ago
> "was born in 1981, and as a young computer enthusiast I quickly became aware of my unfortunate place in the history of computing. I thought I was born in the wrong time. I would think to myself I was born long after the glory days of hacking and the computer revolution." This passage is intended to cast the 1980 as an 'oppressive' era full of 'sin' that we should feel guilty about and strive to repent for at the alter of 'equality' that we can have in the new age of 'justice' if only we fallow the new commandments. Where have I heard that before? The appeal to 1950's and 60's computer culture is very much like the appeal to 'old time religion' employed by preachers to herd there flock. Be careful that your not taken in by religious rhetoric in progressive drag. There are powerful archetypes in religion that unfortunately certain parts of the left have been increasingly using.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  I was born in the 70s and when I was a young computer enthusiast my reading experience is similar: there was a glory era of hacking and experimentation and lisp machines and fun but now it was over and we had to live in this era of professionalism and msdos and you couldn't phreak a phone anymore. Then I got to college and discovered the internet just as the web was getting started and I started to realize that even though that old era was gone forever, here's a thing that's new and exciting and at least as world-changing. I still see that 'wow those old timey hackers were really something, and we'll never have the like again' mindset floating around the internet, even here on HN. (For example, people talking about how great lisp machines were or how great smalltalk environments were and how it's such a tragedy that we'll never see their like again).
  - 10y ago