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It was clearly a mistake for him to even play along, especially if he was emotionally exhausted already. The best you can do when people are being stupid like

It was clearly a mistake for him to even play along, especially if he was emotionally exhausted already. The best you can do when people are being stupid like this is ignore them. They hold no power over you unless you let them. This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago, so that aforementioned people could run their own little Stasi. I'm not sure whether he had to play along with their absurdist play, but next time maybe he will be able to laugh, hang up, and block future calls from their numbers.

austhrow743 6y ago
Conference talks are marketing that you do to make money. The tribunals wielding CoCs have the power to hit speakers in the wallet. Outside of violence that's pretty much as much power as you can have over a person.
- chmod775 6y ago
  I'm sure that applies to a lot of speakers, but I don't think it applies to him specifically: > I’ve tried to make myself available for public speaking events when I can, in order to support the community. However, the potential cost is too great, and there is no real upside for me personally, so I don’t expect to be accepting invitations in the future, at least not for quite a while. Doesn't seem like he's in any way depended on giving these talks.
- jojobas 6y ago
  So the solution is not to bet your life on dozens of conference committees that can cancel you out of your job.
  - op00to 6y ago
    The solution is to get the opinion of the community and colleagues (if you’re employed) prior to giving a talk so you don’t act in a way that could be seen poorly.
    - jojobas 6y ago
      Also known as "walking on eggshells". You can be shamed and fired over something as innocuous as a dongle joke told in private and overheard. https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale... The only sure way not to lose is not to play. That, or be invincible like Bob Martin or Linus Torvalds.
    - strombofulous 6y ago
      This article is an example of the many situations where that would not have helped
radmuzom 6y ago
Agree. I wonder what would the reaction be if Joel Grus was a woman.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  I would hope that it would be similar. Let's note that the author asked Joel to use his slides, talked to him about the talk beforehand. I can only dream of giving a good enough talk that people want to give a talk explaining why I'm wrong, but if that did happen I'd really appreciate the concern that Jeremy (i think he's the OP) showed here.
bcrosby95 6y ago
I don't know. If I offend someone, I like to know why. Maybe there was a good reason I was blind too. I would have a difficult time refusing to "play along" unless I knew what I was rejecting.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  I think I would have a very easy time rejecting any further interaction until they tell me what the problem is.
clusterfish 6y ago
They absolutely do have power over you, that's exactly the problem. People who get "canceled" don't just get a nastygram that they can throw in the trash. They are typically banned from speaking, fired / put on probation / "contract not renewed", their reputation is both privately and publicly tarnished such that #1 google result for your name will be that you were banned for CoC violation, damaging your career prospects etc. Sure some people's lives are bullshit-proof but for many others witch hunts like this are nothing to laugh about.
- op00to 6y ago
  This dudes super long blog post acting like a victim is a much more damaging blow to his employability than the bullshit opinion of some committee.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It's the #1 Google search because he wrote about it, right? The smart thing to do is to "respectfully" disagree and make sure you never speak or attend this or a related event now or in the future or to work with any of the individuals involved. Of course, personally I'd probably lose my temper and say some things I'd regret and tell way too many people about it. If you just keep quiet, to a first approximation no one knows that you were chastised behind the scenes for something that, if they knew, most people would think was silly. It's not like you're being forced to wear a scarlet C.
- bananaface 6y ago
  The guy founded Fast.ai. I'd argue he's head and shoulders above JupyterCon. It was stupid of them to pick this battle. I think they will lose.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Since this is on HN with 700 upvotes and nearly 600 comments supporting the author I’m inclined to agree.
- clint 6y ago
  The only people who get "canceled" are people who allow it to happen to them. Every single person who has claimed to have been "canceled" not only brought the entire situation upon themselves, but then immediately turned around and cry foul and try to become the victim in the situation. Its pretty entertaining and bewildering to see these people –who almost universally bemoan "victim culture"–immediately fallback to those same "tropes" when they do something socially unacceptable.
seisvelas 6y ago
>This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. Reminds me of this snippet from Nietzsche's essay, The Tarantulas: In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss. But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
jlebar 6y ago
> This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. > > The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago, so that aforementioned people could run their own little Stasi It sounds like you include yourself in this group of people who care about building inclusive human communities? Generalizing to whole groups of people who support an amorphous thing, calling them "psycho-sadists", and saying they want to "run their own little Stasi" is...not exactly how I would foster an inclusive human community. Like, it sounds like you very much do not want "those people" in your community. Just saying.
- dannyw 6y ago
  All I can say is I've only seen and heard code of conducts be used for bullying and to exclude people from communities without any wrongdoing. Examples include the various Stack Overflow Monica incidents, the post we've just read, and a meatspace event I've been to. I think CoCs, while a great ideal, unfortunately tend to attract power-tripping, virtue-signalling bullies who seek to enforce it for the greater bad.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Technically, the Monica incident didn't involve a CoC; that was a pretext (well, post-text). The people who made the decision were just out of touch, and pattern-matched the information they had available to the “powerful, respected individual is hurting people who can't fight back” story – not realising that they'd caused that story, with Monica as the one who got hurt. I'm still not sure why they doubled down on it, breaking long-standing traditions of how-moderation-is-done in the biggest possible way (defaming in the press) but (at least) some of the people involved (e.g. Sara Chipps, the face of the Big Bad… the person who introduced Jon Skeet to Stack Overflow) weren't sadistic abusers, so I'd prefer to assume ignorance than malice. (There might've been more than a little over-correcting for “we mustn't let ourselves defend the ones in the wrong, even if we like them”, but that's just speculation on my part.) And that situation was complicated. A lot of people were telling themselves they were doing the right thing, but ended up hurting innocent bystanders all the more, e.g. whoever released that poorly-redacted list of which moderators were LGBTQ+ (presumably to try to get back at Stack Exchange in some way or other). We still don't know who that was, which is as it should be; you don't talk about moderation decisions on Stack Exchange unless their target is part of the conversation (and even then, only usually if they bring it up). The whole thing goes to show (at least, to me) how important it is not to act how the story says you should; you might have the story wrong.
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
> psycho-sadists That's what it actually seems to be: People that want to be sadistic aggressors can be sadistic aggressors in the name of "the law". I believe that's also part of why the USA has such a big problem with out of control power tripping cops. Who exactly is attracted by the possibility to legally put people in their place with guns and tasers?
xibalba 6y ago
> The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago This claim is made elsewhere in these comments. What is the actual story here? Who bullied who? When?
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  The people currently in charge of this in many organisations (perhaps not most, but certainly the ones you hear about) are bullies. When a bully comes up against an unprepared non-bully, the bully wins.

austhrow743 6y ago

Conference talks are marketing that you do to make money. The tribunals wielding CoCs have the power to hit speakers in the wallet. Outside of violence that's pretty much as much power as you can have over a person.

chmod775 6y ago
I'm sure that applies to a lot of speakers, but I don't think it applies to him specifically: > I’ve tried to make myself available for public speaking events when I can, in order to support the community. However, the potential cost is too great, and there is no real upside for me personally, so I don’t expect to be accepting invitations in the future, at least not for quite a while. Doesn't seem like he's in any way depended on giving these talks.
jojobas 6y ago
So the solution is not to bet your life on dozens of conference committees that can cancel you out of your job.
- op00to 6y ago
  The solution is to get the opinion of the community and colleagues (if you’re employed) prior to giving a talk so you don’t act in a way that could be seen poorly.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    Also known as "walking on eggshells". You can be shamed and fired over something as innocuous as a dongle joke told in private and overheard. https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale... The only sure way not to lose is not to play. That, or be invincible like Bob Martin or Linus Torvalds.
  - strombofulous 6y ago
    This article is an example of the many situations where that would not have helped

radmuzom 6y ago

Agree. I wonder what would the reaction be if Joel Grus was a woman.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
disgruntledphd2 6y ago
I would hope that it would be similar. Let's note that the author asked Joel to use his slides, talked to him about the talk beforehand. I can only dream of giving a good enough talk that people want to give a talk explaining why I'm wrong, but if that did happen I'd really appreciate the concern that Jeremy (i think he's the OP) showed here.

bcrosby95 6y ago

I don't know. If I offend someone, I like to know why. Maybe there was a good reason I was blind too. I would have a difficult time refusing to "play along" unless I knew what I was rejecting.

Aeolun 6y ago
I think I would have a very easy time rejecting any further interaction until they tell me what the problem is.

clusterfish 6y ago

They absolutely do have power over you, that's exactly the problem. People who get "canceled" don't just get a nastygram that they can throw in the trash. They are typically banned from speaking, fired / put on probation / "contract not renewed", their reputation is both privately and publicly tarnished such that #1 google result for your name will be that you were banned for CoC violation, damaging your career prospects etc. Sure some people's lives are bullshit-proof but for many others witch hunts like this are nothing to laugh about.

op00to 6y ago
This dudes super long blog post acting like a victim is a much more damaging blow to his employability than the bullshit opinion of some committee.
ghaff 6y ago
It's the #1 Google search because he wrote about it, right? The smart thing to do is to "respectfully" disagree and make sure you never speak or attend this or a related event now or in the future or to work with any of the individuals involved. Of course, personally I'd probably lose my temper and say some things I'd regret and tell way too many people about it. If you just keep quiet, to a first approximation no one knows that you were chastised behind the scenes for something that, if they knew, most people would think was silly. It's not like you're being forced to wear a scarlet C.
bananaface 6y ago
The guy founded Fast.ai. I'd argue he's head and shoulders above JupyterCon. It was stupid of them to pick this battle. I think they will lose.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Since this is on HN with 700 upvotes and nearly 600 comments supporting the author I’m inclined to agree.
clint 6y ago
The only people who get "canceled" are people who allow it to happen to them. Every single person who has claimed to have been "canceled" not only brought the entire situation upon themselves, but then immediately turned around and cry foul and try to become the victim in the situation. Its pretty entertaining and bewildering to see these people –who almost universally bemoan "victim culture"–immediately fallback to those same "tropes" when they do something socially unacceptable.

seisvelas 6y ago

>This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. Reminds me of this snippet from Nietzsche's essay, The Tarantulas: In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss. But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

jlebar 6y ago

> This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. > > The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago, so that aforementioned people could run their own little Stasi It sounds like you include yourself in this group of people who care about building inclusive human communities? Generalizing to whole groups of people who support an amorphous thing, calling them "psycho-sadists", and saying they want to "run their own little Stasi" is...not exactly how I would foster an inclusive human community. Like, it sounds like you very much do not want "those people" in your community. Just saying.

dannyw 6y ago
All I can say is I've only seen and heard code of conducts be used for bullying and to exclude people from communities without any wrongdoing. Examples include the various Stack Overflow Monica incidents, the post we've just read, and a meatspace event I've been to. I think CoCs, while a great ideal, unfortunately tend to attract power-tripping, virtue-signalling bullies who seek to enforce it for the greater bad.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Technically, the Monica incident didn't involve a CoC; that was a pretext (well, post-text). The people who made the decision were just out of touch, and pattern-matched the information they had available to the “powerful, respected individual is hurting people who can't fight back” story – not realising that they'd caused that story, with Monica as the one who got hurt. I'm still not sure why they doubled down on it, breaking long-standing traditions of how-moderation-is-done in the biggest possible way (defaming in the press) but (at least) some of the people involved (e.g. Sara Chipps, the face of the Big Bad… the person who introduced Jon Skeet to Stack Overflow) weren't sadistic abusers, so I'd prefer to assume ignorance than malice. (There might've been more than a little over-correcting for “we mustn't let ourselves defend the ones in the wrong, even if we like them”, but that's just speculation on my part.) And that situation was complicated. A lot of people were telling themselves they were doing the right thing, but ended up hurting innocent bystanders all the more, e.g. whoever released that poorly-redacted list of which moderators were LGBTQ+ (presumably to try to get back at Stack Exchange in some way or other). We still don't know who that was, which is as it should be; you don't talk about moderation decisions on Stack Exchange unless their target is part of the conversation (and even then, only usually if they bring it up). The whole thing goes to show (at least, to me) how important it is not to act how the story says you should; you might have the story wrong.

Traubenfuchs 6y ago

> psycho-sadists That's what it actually seems to be: People that want to be sadistic aggressors can be sadistic aggressors in the name of "the law". I believe that's also part of why the USA has such a big problem with out of control power tripping cops. Who exactly is attracted by the possibility to legally put people in their place with guns and tasers?

xibalba 6y ago

> The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago This claim is made elsewhere in these comments. What is the actual story here? Who bullied who? When?

wizzwizz4 6y ago
The people currently in charge of this in many organisations (perhaps not most, but certainly the ones you hear about) are bullies. When a bully comes up against an unprepared non-bully, the bully wins.