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His feelings about two of the "sides" of this argument are so recognisable. I'm generally in favour of going out of my way e.g. to make minorities feel more wel
by Vinnl 8y ago
His feelings about two of the "sides" of this argument are so recognisable. I'm generally in favour of going out of my way e.g. to make minorities feel more welcome to compensate for the natural tendency to make them feel less welcome. However, the nastiness of some of the people in "my camp" pushes me away from it and makes me reluctant to openly support that cause.
In effect, they're really counterproductive, and the only reason Linus is now openly on "their side" (for lack of a term that better describes what I mean), is because the "other side" also was really nasty, pushing him away from them.
It took a while for me to realise what privileges I have had that some others have not. The first step to realising that was being open to that even being possible, and shouting contests do not encourage that.
I'd love it if Linus' approach here would lead to less-heated discussions and actual insights on the subject, but the hate and vitriol I've seen spewed in his direction after his announcement doesn't make me hopeful...
- werid 8y ago> However, the nastiness of some of the people in "my camp" pushes me away from it and makes me reluctant to openly support that cause. Doesn't sound like you actually supported the cause if you can be pushed away from it like that.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cirgue 8y ago"If you don't love me at my worst, you can't have me at my best" is a load of nonsense in any context, and doubly so in politics.
- chooseaname 8y ago> "If you don't love me at my worst, you can't have me at my best" Said every wife beater who ever lived.
- Something1234 8y agoReally, I've always seen that quote associated with "basic bitches," who demand the world, but give nothing in return.
- sctb 8y agoHow the hell did we get here? Let's please try not to do this.
- mikeash 8y agoI wish people would stop being so concerned about what other people think. If treating people well is the right thing to do, then do it. If people are nasty when they try to make you treat people well, ignore them. When people say that they wanted to do the right thing but got pushed away because the advocates were jerks, that just sounds like an excuse. That’s not to say that it’s ok to be a jerk just because you’re telling people to do the right thing. I’m just tired of this line people like to pull out of, it’s not my fault I’m hurting the vulnerable, those SJW jerks made me do it.
- yourbandsucks 8y agoThe thing is, on most political or religious topics, people leave that stuff at home and don't bring it to work. The SJW people are bringing it to work and right into everybody's face. I'm not saying "guess what, then, I'm the opposite, let's go be racist". I'm saying "could you please get that out of my face".
- beaconstudios 8y ago> I'm not turning around and saying "guess what, then, I'm the opposite, let's go be racist". incidentally, the people who did decide to do this became the alt-right.
- Sharlin 8y agoThe alt-right as a movement is pretty clearly a counterreaction to the social justice movement, but I’m not sure if it’s so much reasonable people getting radicalized than an already rather unpleasant subset of the population finding a platform – and an echo chamber – for their unpleasantness.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 8y agoMany of them blame the left for pushing them away. It’s probably not true, but it makes a convenient excuse for people.
- simias 8y agoThere will always be garbage people in "your camp", whatever that camp might be. Hell, for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one. The big problem with the internet and modern social networks is that they suck at filtering the noise and getting the interesting bits. In the end if we're not careful we only hear those who shout the loudest and most provocative things. A well researched essay on gender studies will have a hard time getting traction, however a single "I drink white male tears" tweet is sure to get a ton of attention from people on either of the fence even though it's effectively void of meaning. My solution is to spend less time focusing on people and more time focusing on ideas. You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme than what twitter and reddit would have you believe.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago>You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme than what twitter and reddit would have you believe. Yep. The medium itself makes everybody look about 100 times more radical than they actually are. Look at it this way: if you're busy working on a small technical detail, your conversation will be around that detail, right? You may be an asshole, and it looks like he's working on that, but you're an asshole trying to make something useful. That is, you have a goal that you can be measured against. "I am not able to fix this problem because I cannot talk to people online without pissing them off" is a problem with delivering tech that you can identify and fix. Sounds like your filter works for a while, as long as everybody agrees on some larger value structure. Where all of this falls apart is when there's no larger structure that agreed upon. You see this in startups or academic/political discussions. Sometimes you know something's wrong, and you feel strongly about it -- but you're unable to articulate it in a manner that can be easily consumed. That's almost always going to come out wrong. But it needs to come out. Contrast this with the rest of the internet, where people are not creating a small detail inside an agreed-upon value structure. There's no evaluation criteria except for bike-shedding. They've got nothing to do but to look at whatever your communication is in the abstract. There's no overall gain that might be weighed against bad phrasing. It's all downside. "I don't think that was a very nice thing to say" This can be both a true and non-productive thing to say in certain circumstances. That reality sucks, because people don't want to hear it -- after all, they don't share your value structure -- add to that plenty of time on their hands and an unlimited ability to look back on anything you've written. The system itself has problems.
- evanspa 8y agoWhy do you feel it is "the natural tendency" to make minorities feel less welcome? My natural tendency -- and anecdotally, pretty much everyone I know -- is to treat people well regardless of their race; to treat people the way you'd want to be treated.
- notacoward 8y ago"Natural tendency" does not mean intention. Few people intend to make minorities feel less welcome, but many more adhere to habits and cultural norms which have that effect. Here's an example from right here a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061725 Another example: where I work, I recently took someone to task for saying "your shit is broken" in a very public thread. It's a phrase I've seen too many times at this company. Sure, it might just seem casual to a California millennial, no big deal, but it can come across very differently to someone from a higher-context and more status-conscious culture - e.g. most of Asia, and therefore a significant portion of our workforce. It can have strong and lasting effects on their willingness to engage with you personally, or with the broader community. Am I saying that we should all dumb down our language to the blandest common denominator? F* no. The important thing is to calibrate your behavior to the environment. If you know the people you're talking to, and the subject of the comment is not personal, let fly. Knock yourself out. If you're talking to someone you don't know, in front of many others you don't know, and the comment could be interpreted as personal (hint: if "you" or "your" is in it), then maybe you should apply a measure of decorum and cultural sensitivity.
- smoothy2 8y agoListen, I take a huge exception to the way you said things. As a minority (non-white) person, I don't need you to speak for me and me to be your pet. In fact, your attitude is highly patronizing and condescending, the fact that you don't see it, is problematic. Linux Kernel was being run ok so far. Sure there were rants from Torvalds which went overboard sometimes but accept it as a quirk of the maintainer and move on. Including this COC is a huge can of worms though. Now you can be Brendan Eiche'd out of any open source project. When that happens, perhaps you'll be celebrating a win for your progressive values but a more real happening at that point would've been loss of good open source software which some of your pet minorities could have used.
- PeanutNore 8y agoI was thinking about this sort of thing the other day, and the word "fanatic" really stuck in my mind. I especially like this word for its religious connotations, because for some of these people their politics, and more specifically extremism in their own politics, has become a sort of secular religion for them. I certainly have my own political leanings and find more agreement with those on "my side", but I would much rather spend time with someone from the "other side" who can be polite and civil and magnanimous than a "fanatic" from "my side" who cannot.
- Fellshard 8y agoIt makes perfect sense. With no higher supernatural authority, the clearest higher authority for a person is one's government. Religion doesn't disappear, it just changes its targets.
- mhjas 8y agoWhen you have a combative environment most unopinionated people leave. I don't think there is any secret that there are a lot of us out there that aren't very excited about Linux anymore. Just that most of us decided to spend time on something else instead.
- scrollaway 8y agoAnd that's... Linus' fault? Are you talking about kernel development or Linux as a consumer OS?
- s73v3r_ 8y agoI mean, as the leader of the project, he is the one who sets the culture and the norms.
- dsajames 8y agoWhat privileges do you have when interacting with people?
- jhasse 8y agoI understand most inside jokes from western culture.
- inawarminister 8y agoThat's not really important and I say this as a foreigner to your culture.
- Vinnl 8y agoPlenty, I think. A personal example is that people are more likely to assume my authority when I have a beard, so being able to grow one is a privilege. It's a small one, but I'm guessing it's indicative of what I mean.
- nabla9 8y agoSufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from irony. There is right and wrong way to be inclusive and PC. You have to minimize the number of principles that everyone must share to be maximally inclusive and then stick to them. Typically the mandatory shared principles include fairness, neutrality in certain issues, and tolerance. Tolerance means tolerance, not acceptance. The community where people can tolerate each other is much larger than the the community where people like each other and share common ground. Inclusiveness works best when you use relatively neutral language and avoid any discussion that is not related to the forum's purpose or concrete matters that arise. The wrong way to do it is to think that once you require tolerance and PC language, it allows more free discussion.
- grigjd3 8y agoI'm sure that some people go way overboard on social justice issues, but my reading of the CoC is that you keep your work professional. Generally, if you are polite and veer away from using racial slurs or sexist statements, you'll not run afoul of the CoC.
- noir_lord 8y agoFor me it's sorta the same, I'm broadly in favour of a CoC generally as a codified minimum standard of behaviour but I dislike intensely some of the people who then move in and use the CoC to attack everyone the disagree with (I'm not naming people because well that's not fair) often breaching the spirit of the CoC they pushed for in the first place, that or treat any discussion of whether the Coc is a good idea as a personal attack on whatever community/group they ascribe to. A stand up comic said something a while back that I liked "Tyranny is the absence of nuance".
- odessacubbage 8y agogonna level with you, there's nothing that feels more alienating & delegitimizing than someone overcompensating with niceness because of who you are.
- honestoHeminway 8y agoThose defenders of minorities are into the game just like the oppossition - for power - they couldnt care less about those they claim to protect.