I'm reminded of Sayre's Law [1]: > Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. Conference speakers is th

I'm reminded of Sayre's Law [1]: > Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. Conference speakers is the definition of low stakes rife for pointless politicking. I honestly don't understand why the Rust compiler reflection tech talk was the slightest bit controversial. Even if no one is in favor of the proposal, it can still be an interesting thought experiment. Such issues may expose design issues. I agree with other commenters: anyone who is prone to playing politics with these low stakes issues needs to be pruned before they do real damage. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law