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It's basically pure insult. It has no semantic content beyond "I wouldn't want to work with ESR, he has a massive ego and he supports gun rights". (Adding a th

by philh 10y ago

It's basically pure insult. It has no semantic content beyond "I wouldn't want to work with ESR, he has a massive ego and he supports gun rights". (Adding a throwaway compliment does not significantly affect this.) The gun rights thing in particular is... if you want to say "I don't like guns and I don't want to work with anyone who supports gun rights", that's up to you. If you want to say "anyone who supports gun rights is probably a bad person to work with", you need to back that up. "I don't want to analyze most of his views(1) and how they reflect his personality traits" is the second one, and does not back it up. (It's hiding behind some ambiguity and hinting, but I think the broad intent is quite clear. Possibly it was intended as closer to: "ESR's position on guns is crazier than simply supporting gun rights, and this makes him probably a bad person to work with". In that case, there are two things that need to be backed up: what specifically does ESR believe that is crazy? There are a lot of links on that page. And why does that make him probably a bad person to work with?)

_wmd 10y ago
I took the parent comment to be someone familiar with ESR's personality, the reference to gun rights was unfortunate, but indeed probably the parent comment intended to create that association. However, parent comment certainly didn't suggest gun rights were the exclusive reason not to want to work with ESR.
acqq 10y ago
> Adding a throwaway compliment does not significantly affect this I linked to the text I think he did right, simply because I remember it still. I do like it. I still don't claim that knowing he wrote it would make him easier to work width. My link to his own gun page (after citing his statement "I shot ntpdc through the head") is not related to the problems he represents in the teams, it's there just to present one more aspect of that complex personality. Your construction of what my linking to his writing is supposed to mean remains purely yours and shows how the interpretation of any post is very subjective. You don't quote me, you just invent some sentences to make your argument. I still stand to my claims, and I don't think I've insulted him.
pvg 10y ago
There are reams of examples of ESR's crazy beliefs on the internet. Some of these one could pass off as personal eccentricities e.g. the belief you're a god-like superprogrammer or that Iranian agents are out to harm you. The overt racism, sexism and homophobia, less so. He's not just some dude with some slightly zany ideas.
- philh 10y ago
  acqq didn't say anything about racism, sexism or homophobia. They mentioned guns. I feel like you've taken the conversation as: acqq anti-ESR, myself pro-ESR; and now you're jumping in on the anti-ESR side again, in accordance with how these things always happen. But no, I'm not defending ESR. I'm saying that acqq's attack on ESR was uncool for reasons that have nothing to do with ESR. Launching a totally unrelated attack on ESR is beside the point.
  - pvg 10y ago
    No, my point was it's very, very easy to come away with the impression that ESR is a complete nutjob and he's developed a well-deserved reputation for being one. Maybe you think his views on guns are perfectly sane but that's not even a fraction of the tenth of it. The record is extensive so whenever you run across someone who thinks ESR is bananas, I think it's pretty safe to assume they're familiar with it and are simply picking some issue they feel is particularly striking to them. 'I feel this person is an extremist so I wouldn't want to work with them' is not an unreasonable or 'uncool' position.
    - philh 10y ago
      > Maybe you think his views on guns are perfectly sane It's not that. I think his views on guns are not relevant; or if someone wants to claim that they're relevant, they need to defend that claim. If someone has other objections to ESR, which are relevant, then they're free to bring one or more of them up. If there are a lot of relevant objections, that should be easy to do. I'm not interested in saying: that particular objection was irrelevant, but there are so many relevant objections that it doesn't matter.
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
uh... why isn't "i wouldn't want to work with ESR" enough semantic content in a thread about him creating "rifts" in every project he weasels his way into?? i wouldn't want to work with either of you. you're all idiots.
geofft 10y ago
I can't speak for the original commentor, but I'd be inclined to take the last interpretation there. My objection isn't about gun rights at all, but the way in which he argues for gun rights as if you're not worth paying attention to if you disagree. See the reductio linked at the bottom: http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/reductio.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/reductio.html I could try to explain why that's wrong as an argument, and I'm sure you could too (the difference between banning guns in a home and banning them in a state, the existence of armed law enforcement, etc. etc.), but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you don't agree with the reductio, you are apparently "intelligence-impaired" and should "give up on public policy". There's no room for intelligent people who disagree. And he does the exact same thing in technical contexts, which should be completely unsurprising. See http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294 on the specific topic of an implementation language for NTPsec: "And the core docs don’t presently offer me anything like the survey of options you just laid out. "I trust you understand why this is a problem without my having to spell it out." There are good reasons why the Rust team specifically and consciously doesn't include this information in the core docs, but tries to make sure that it's extremely easily discoverable. I'm happy to debate the merits of standard libraries vs. well-trusted third party libraries with people who are interested in debating that. But, apparently, there's no room for intelligent people who disagree with his opinion here, either. This is poisoning the well. This is not simply arguing a technical point forcefully, but arguing that anyone who disagrees with the technical point is not worth arguing with. This kills projects and communities. I've worked with maybe two or three people who think this way, and it's still too many to want to work with another.
- philh 10y ago
  I have no particular reply to this, but I would like to say: yes, this is the kind of comment that I was trying to push towards. Thank you.
tinus_hn 10y ago
He doesn't just support gun rights, he tries to inject arguments about guns in inappropriate places. Why do I know his stance on guns if the thing he does that I have interest in is creating software? It's totally irrelevant. It's a bit like one person just writing software and talking about it and someone else barging in and going off about women's rights. Eric S Raymond is a smart person that we owe a lot to but he doesn't come across to me as a nice person to be around.
- philh 10y ago
  > Why do I know his stance on guns if the thing he does that I have interest in is creating software? Well, I don't know. But if I had to guess, I'd say the three most obvious avenues would be that you looked at his personal site, where he quite reasonably talks about his interests other than software; or that you looked at his personal blog, which mentions four topics in the tagline and only one of them is software; or that someone else brought them up in a context where they weren't relevant. Two of these are appropriate places for him to talk about guns, and one is no fault of his. I'm not saying he doesn't inject arguments about guns in inappropriate places. But the fact that you know his stance about guns doesn't mean he does.

by philh 10y ago

_wmd 10y ago

I took the parent comment to be someone familiar with ESR's personality, the reference to gun rights was unfortunate, but indeed probably the parent comment intended to create that association. However, parent comment certainly didn't suggest gun rights were the exclusive reason not to want to work with ESR.

acqq 10y ago

> Adding a throwaway compliment does not significantly affect this I linked to the text I think he did right, simply because I remember it still. I do like it. I still don't claim that knowing he wrote it would make him easier to work width. My link to his own gun page (after citing his statement "I shot ntpdc through the head") is not related to the problems he represents in the teams, it's there just to present one more aspect of that complex personality. Your construction of what my linking to his writing is supposed to mean remains purely yours and shows how the interpretation of any post is very subjective. You don't quote me, you just invent some sentences to make your argument. I still stand to my claims, and I don't think I've insulted him.

pvg 10y ago

There are reams of examples of ESR's crazy beliefs on the internet. Some of these one could pass off as personal eccentricities e.g. the belief you're a god-like superprogrammer or that Iranian agents are out to harm you. The overt racism, sexism and homophobia, less so. He's not just some dude with some slightly zany ideas.

philh 10y ago
acqq didn't say anything about racism, sexism or homophobia. They mentioned guns. I feel like you've taken the conversation as: acqq anti-ESR, myself pro-ESR; and now you're jumping in on the anti-ESR side again, in accordance with how these things always happen. But no, I'm not defending ESR. I'm saying that acqq's attack on ESR was uncool for reasons that have nothing to do with ESR. Launching a totally unrelated attack on ESR is beside the point.
- pvg 10y ago
  No, my point was it's very, very easy to come away with the impression that ESR is a complete nutjob and he's developed a well-deserved reputation for being one. Maybe you think his views on guns are perfectly sane but that's not even a fraction of the tenth of it. The record is extensive so whenever you run across someone who thinks ESR is bananas, I think it's pretty safe to assume they're familiar with it and are simply picking some issue they feel is particularly striking to them. 'I feel this person is an extremist so I wouldn't want to work with them' is not an unreasonable or 'uncool' position.
  - philh 10y ago
    > Maybe you think his views on guns are perfectly sane It's not that. I think his views on guns are not relevant; or if someone wants to claim that they're relevant, they need to defend that claim. If someone has other objections to ESR, which are relevant, then they're free to bring one or more of them up. If there are a lot of relevant objections, that should be easy to do. I'm not interested in saying: that particular objection was irrelevant, but there are so many relevant objections that it doesn't matter.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

uh... why isn't "i wouldn't want to work with ESR" enough semantic content in a thread about him creating "rifts" in every project he weasels his way into?? i wouldn't want to work with either of you. you're all idiots.

geofft 10y ago

I can't speak for the original commentor, but I'd be inclined to take the last interpretation there. My objection isn't about gun rights at all, but the way in which he argues for gun rights as if you're not worth paying attention to if you disagree. See the reductio linked at the bottom: http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/reductio.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/reductio.html I could try to explain why that's wrong as an argument, and I'm sure you could too (the difference between banning guns in a home and banning them in a state, the existence of armed law enforcement, etc. etc.), but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you don't agree with the reductio, you are apparently "intelligence-impaired" and should "give up on public policy". There's no room for intelligent people who disagree. And he does the exact same thing in technical contexts, which should be completely unsurprising. See http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7294 on the specific topic of an implementation language for NTPsec: "And the core docs don’t presently offer me anything like the survey of options you just laid out. "I trust you understand why this is a problem without my having to spell it out." There are good reasons why the Rust team specifically and consciously doesn't include this information in the core docs, but tries to make sure that it's extremely easily discoverable. I'm happy to debate the merits of standard libraries vs. well-trusted third party libraries with people who are interested in debating that. But, apparently, there's no room for intelligent people who disagree with his opinion here, either. This is poisoning the well. This is not simply arguing a technical point forcefully, but arguing that anyone who disagrees with the technical point is not worth arguing with. This kills projects and communities. I've worked with maybe two or three people who think this way, and it's still too many to want to work with another.

philh 10y ago
I have no particular reply to this, but I would like to say: yes, this is the kind of comment that I was trying to push towards. Thank you.

tinus_hn 10y ago

He doesn't just support gun rights, he tries to inject arguments about guns in inappropriate places. Why do I know his stance on guns if the thing he does that I have interest in is creating software? It's totally irrelevant. It's a bit like one person just writing software and talking about it and someone else barging in and going off about women's rights. Eric S Raymond is a smart person that we owe a lot to but he doesn't come across to me as a nice person to be around.

philh 10y ago
> Why do I know his stance on guns if the thing he does that I have interest in is creating software? Well, I don't know. But if I had to guess, I'd say the three most obvious avenues would be that you looked at his personal site, where he quite reasonably talks about his interests other than software; or that you looked at his personal blog, which mentions four topics in the tagline and only one of them is software; or that someone else brought them up in a context where they weren't relevant. Two of these are appropriate places for him to talk about guns, and one is no fault of his. I'm not saying he doesn't inject arguments about guns in inappropriate places. But the fact that you know his stance about guns doesn't mean he does.