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There is a lot to wade through with this blog post. But "pushing us to get better as people" is a VERY subjective statement. For example, the author is one of

There is a lot to wade through with this blog post. But "pushing us to get better as people" is a VERY subjective statement. For example, the author is one of the people who started the Greater Than Code podcast. Some of the regulars and panelists for that podcast, since its inception, have been involved in efforts to purging people from conferences, tech communities etc. that they deem to be "un-desirable" or "bad people". The challenge is that the lens they used for applying these labels generally seems to split along political lines, where left leaning individuals tend to agree with these labels and right leaning do not. If you have successfully purged most of your "un-desirables", forced the other ones underground with the real possibility of losing their job etc., and the only people who dare to say anything are those who subscribe to your ideology (the "in" group), I'm sure that things must look really rosy. But, for the large number of people in the "out group", not so much. Beyond this, I'm skeptical of software development itself pushing us in this direction. If that statement were true, would we have not noticed this in the early days of the profession?

vegetablepotpie 5y ago
If you have views that are ignorant and prejudice, and you act on those views in ways that harm other people, you should take responsibility for that, and there should be consequences. Saying that your ignorance and prejudice is a valid political opinion, does not change how people should respond to you. Attempts to politicize bad behavior is disingenuous and a thought terminating cliche. Claiming cancel culture in the face of valid criticism is an easy out for powerful people who refuse to take responsibility. Failure to have awareness and take responsibility is the thing that is destroying society. For some reason the institutions that should have been enforcing personal responsibility have failed to do so. Rather than giving up, people are organizing to form new institutions. You may like, or dislike them, but they are going to be different than the one that came before.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  >If you have views that are ignorant and prejudice, and you act on those views in ways that harm other people, you should take responsibility for that Will DA Chesa Boudin take responsibility for his "progressive" / "anti-incarceration" policies in San Francisco which led to a rise in crime? Will the "defund the police" crowd take responsibility for the rise in crime they have caused? Both political parties have ignorant views which are harmful. In a lot of ways, pro-choice policies are harmful and even deadly (and through a different lens, pro-life policies are also harmful and even deadly). The whole thing about politics is that you cannot objectively determine the harm of the beliefs involved.
idnefju 5y ago
Yea it’s obvious they are in a ivory tower.
bdcravens 5y ago
I don't know the full story, but they originally were on Ruby Rogues, and they suggested very strongly they split away from that show for personal reasons. I know the host of Ruby Rogues, Charles Max Wood, is right-leaning.
- lgleason 5y ago
  I knew some of the people involved in that during that time. It was political that, just like everything else in the culture wars, was turned into personal.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago

If you have views that are ignorant and prejudice, and you act on those views in ways that harm other people, you should take responsibility for that, and there should be consequences. Saying that your ignorance and prejudice is a valid political opinion, does not change how people should respond to you. Attempts to politicize bad behavior is disingenuous and a thought terminating cliche. Claiming cancel culture in the face of valid criticism is an easy out for powerful people who refuse to take responsibility. Failure to have awareness and take responsibility is the thing that is destroying society. For some reason the institutions that should have been enforcing personal responsibility have failed to do so. Rather than giving up, people are organizing to form new institutions. You may like, or dislike them, but they are going to be different than the one that came before.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
>If you have views that are ignorant and prejudice, and you act on those views in ways that harm other people, you should take responsibility for that Will DA Chesa Boudin take responsibility for his "progressive" / "anti-incarceration" policies in San Francisco which led to a rise in crime? Will the "defund the police" crowd take responsibility for the rise in crime they have caused? Both political parties have ignorant views which are harmful. In a lot of ways, pro-choice policies are harmful and even deadly (and through a different lens, pro-life policies are also harmful and even deadly). The whole thing about politics is that you cannot objectively determine the harm of the beliefs involved.

idnefju 5y ago

Yea it’s obvious they are in a ivory tower.

bdcravens 5y ago

I don't know the full story, but they originally were on Ruby Rogues, and they suggested very strongly they split away from that show for personal reasons. I know the host of Ruby Rogues, Charles Max Wood, is right-leaning.

lgleason 5y ago
I knew some of the people involved in that during that time. It was political that, just like everything else in the culture wars, was turned into personal.