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> "Non-political community" is an oxymoron No it's not. I'm an LGBT person with a trans partner and I find many codes of conduct to be chastising and purposef

> "Non-political community" is an oxymoron No it's not. I'm an LGBT person with a trans partner and I find many codes of conduct to be chastising and purposefully finger pointing to conservative people. A lot of them are basically, "your religious teachings or cultural upbringing aren't welcome here" I don't agree with religious texts, but that's what you're wagging in their face with some of the CoCs. Leave it at "don't be an asshole". It's that simple. The current political climate, I feel, is a direct reaction to this. A politically neutral space wouldn't permit religious people to harass trans or LGBT people, but it also wouldn't give anyone latitude to throw stones the other way either. CoCs are "you're not welcome here at all". Another thing: you always see language and project logos modified to bear the rainbow, trans, and BLM colors. You never see anything supporting Asians, white people, men, or Christians. If you did this, you would be called out as a racist. Which is so ironic. Let's just get along and work together. Maybe we'll find more agreements amongst ourselves that way instead of trying to divide everyone into camps. Some progressives are going to get very pissed off at this comment, but I grew up and live in the South. You can (and often must) work with people you don't agree with. It's not impossible to be friends either. You might wind up changing their mind, and they might wind up making you more tolerant as well.

JoshTriplett 1y ago
> You can (and often must) work with people you don't agree with. Life's for too short to force people to do this, and ideally we should make it as feasible as possible for as many people as possible to never have to do this.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  This is a crazy notion. If I have to like everybody to work with them, we can't have a civilization because I don't like most people. I like some people. Everybody else I work with if they're willing to work with me. Saying that we all have to agree with each other is basically giving up on the political project entirely, and going back to strongman rulers who organize by demanding conformity. Very relevant in these times. > we should make it as feasible as possible for as many people as possible to never have to do this. No, we should make it impossible to avoid so people can't sneak into adulthood without being properly socialized.
  - abenga 1y ago
    There is a wide gulf between "I don't like this person" and "this person's whole existence should be a crime".
    - vacuity 1y ago
      I think that many people leaning toward the latter are "merely" misguided, though I certainly don't think that to correct them would be easy. However, I genuinely think some people are taken to be hateful when they aren't. Discussion of such cases should not be taken with the presumption that the accusations of hate are true, because then truth gives way to opinion. A good cause is a good cause, but realization invites bias.
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    Nope. I won't work with people who think my friends shouldn't exist. And I won't work with people who think doing that is somehow childish.
    - echelon 1y ago
      Imagine the flip side. We could easily wind up in that world too. The best defense against polarization is a strong and cohesive middle ground. If you pull to far in the other way, all the bonds break. And it's a race for each interest group to seize power, rather than having some intermediating force that serves as a buffer. Again: look at the political climate. It's a reaction. The pendulum is swinging harder and harder because we've given up on the middle ground. Most of the people you hate (and you do seem to dislike them at least a little bit) have honestly never had an LGBT friend. Imagine if they did how that might change them. Instead they hear voices from the LGBT community that want to outlaw them and their way of life. That's pretty hostile. And definitely is going to be met with the same attitude you're giving them. I'm LGBT and I have many conservative friends. They're more apt to come around to it than you believe. You're shutting down any conversation before it can even happen.
      - vacuity 1y ago
- vacuity 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819079 (read my comment here first) Not quite your fault, but the framing of "people you don't agree with" juxtaposed with the implicit statement of "people who promote hate" (or similar) doesn't make for a clear discussion. To be clear, those two types are well separated. If someone is of the latter type, really truly they are, then they can be removed without further ado (and I think GP would agree). I think the situations that are less clear cut will make people in good faith fight.
vacuity 1y ago
I agree with you, although of course "don't be an asshole" is only simple to enforce in practice. In the current climate, I expect that people considered "conservative" will still be highly hostile to good faith (let alone not) enforcements. No matter the person, it's really disappointing that we're still entrenched in the mentalities of tribalism, anti-intellectualism, "if you're not with us, you're against us", "an eye for an eye", "someone hurt me, so I'm going to hurt someone", and so on. And by "person", that includes me. The Earth politics patch really can't come soon enough. How much do we pay the devs, again?
clipsy 1y ago
> A lot of them are basically, "your religious teachings or cultural upbringing aren't welcome here" Could you point out a code of conduct -- preferably from a large, well known project -- that reads this way in your opinion?
shayway 1y ago
Just want to say I appreciate you publicly taking this stance (on what appears to be a non-throwaway account, no less). As a fellow LGBT person I feel so alienated from other progressive-leaning people and communities because of my belief in how those who don't share my beliefs should be treated. When saying these things out loud can be social suicide, well, it means a lot to see someone else say it first. So thanks. I hope tolerance can come back into fashion.
- quamserena 1y ago
  This is all fun and games until a “politically neutral” decision is made by a programming language foundation to refer to all trans people using they/them. How would that make you feel?
  - shayway 1y ago
    You would consider that decision politically neutral?
    - roommin 1y ago
      So you can see why they put it in scare quotes. Just above your reply another says it's politically neutral to adopt whatever pronouns the speaker feels is valid, and not punish them for it. This is "neutral" in that it sides with the speaker regardless of who they are, but is clearly designed to allow bigots to misgender freely. That is the point, "neutral" is not so trivially defined, and often falls on the side of more conservative societal trends.
      - quamserena 1y ago
        Thank you, this is exactly what I was getting at.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        1y ago
munificent 1y ago
> that's what you're wagging in their face with some of the CoCs. I never mentioned codes of conduct in my comment. Those are orthogonal to the observation that communities are fundamentally political. > Leave it at "don't be an asshole". It's that simple. Sure, and "don't be an asshole" is a political statement. The subjects and objects of that sentence are people and the intent is to affect how they interact. If you feel that that's the kind of thing that community members should write down and say to each other, then you're implicitly agreeing with my claim that politics is what communities do. I suspect you think you and I would disagree with what politics a community should espouse, but that's not my point at all. All I'm saying is that every community, every group of people coordinating together, is a political beast. It's true of an anarcho-syndalistic art collective from Portland who only communicate through crypto-signed commits on their self-hosted fork of Fossil, it's true of a gang of skinhead bikers meeting regularly at a dive bar, and it's true of the Rust community. When people regularly interact with each other and communicate about how they should interact... they are politicking. "Politics" has become a bad word for some people, but it's the less bad word we have available to describe what it is people are doing when they are establishing the norms and practices of their regular repeated interactions.

JoshTriplett 1y ago

> You can (and often must) work with people you don't agree with. Life's for too short to force people to do this, and ideally we should make it as feasible as possible for as many people as possible to never have to do this.

pessimizer 1y ago
This is a crazy notion. If I have to like everybody to work with them, we can't have a civilization because I don't like most people. I like some people. Everybody else I work with if they're willing to work with me. Saying that we all have to agree with each other is basically giving up on the political project entirely, and going back to strongman rulers who organize by demanding conformity. Very relevant in these times. > we should make it as feasible as possible for as many people as possible to never have to do this. No, we should make it impossible to avoid so people can't sneak into adulthood without being properly socialized.
- abenga 1y ago
  There is a wide gulf between "I don't like this person" and "this person's whole existence should be a crime".
  - vacuity 1y ago
    I think that many people leaning toward the latter are "merely" misguided, though I certainly don't think that to correct them would be easy. However, I genuinely think some people are taken to be hateful when they aren't. Discussion of such cases should not be taken with the presumption that the accusations of hate are true, because then truth gives way to opinion. A good cause is a good cause, but realization invites bias.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  Nope. I won't work with people who think my friends shouldn't exist. And I won't work with people who think doing that is somehow childish.
  - echelon 1y ago
    Imagine the flip side. We could easily wind up in that world too. The best defense against polarization is a strong and cohesive middle ground. If you pull to far in the other way, all the bonds break. And it's a race for each interest group to seize power, rather than having some intermediating force that serves as a buffer. Again: look at the political climate. It's a reaction. The pendulum is swinging harder and harder because we've given up on the middle ground. Most of the people you hate (and you do seem to dislike them at least a little bit) have honestly never had an LGBT friend. Imagine if they did how that might change them. Instead they hear voices from the LGBT community that want to outlaw them and their way of life. That's pretty hostile. And definitely is going to be met with the same attitude you're giving them. I'm LGBT and I have many conservative friends. They're more apt to come around to it than you believe. You're shutting down any conversation before it can even happen.
    - vacuity 1y ago
vacuity 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819079 (read my comment here first) Not quite your fault, but the framing of "people you don't agree with" juxtaposed with the implicit statement of "people who promote hate" (or similar) doesn't make for a clear discussion. To be clear, those two types are well separated. If someone is of the latter type, really truly they are, then they can be removed without further ado (and I think GP would agree). I think the situations that are less clear cut will make people in good faith fight.

vacuity 1y ago

I agree with you, although of course "don't be an asshole" is only simple to enforce in practice. In the current climate, I expect that people considered "conservative" will still be highly hostile to good faith (let alone not) enforcements. No matter the person, it's really disappointing that we're still entrenched in the mentalities of tribalism, anti-intellectualism, "if you're not with us, you're against us", "an eye for an eye", "someone hurt me, so I'm going to hurt someone", and so on. And by "person", that includes me. The Earth politics patch really can't come soon enough. How much do we pay the devs, again?

clipsy 1y ago

> A lot of them are basically, "your religious teachings or cultural upbringing aren't welcome here" Could you point out a code of conduct -- preferably from a large, well known project -- that reads this way in your opinion?

shayway 1y ago

Just want to say I appreciate you publicly taking this stance (on what appears to be a non-throwaway account, no less). As a fellow LGBT person I feel so alienated from other progressive-leaning people and communities because of my belief in how those who don't share my beliefs should be treated. When saying these things out loud can be social suicide, well, it means a lot to see someone else say it first. So thanks. I hope tolerance can come back into fashion.

quamserena 1y ago
This is all fun and games until a “politically neutral” decision is made by a programming language foundation to refer to all trans people using they/them. How would that make you feel?
- shayway 1y ago
  You would consider that decision politically neutral?
  - roommin 1y ago
    So you can see why they put it in scare quotes. Just above your reply another says it's politically neutral to adopt whatever pronouns the speaker feels is valid, and not punish them for it. This is "neutral" in that it sides with the speaker regardless of who they are, but is clearly designed to allow bigots to misgender freely. That is the point, "neutral" is not so trivially defined, and often falls on the side of more conservative societal trends.
    - quamserena 1y ago
      Thank you, this is exactly what I was getting at.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - 1y ago

munificent 1y ago

> that's what you're wagging in their face with some of the CoCs. I never mentioned codes of conduct in my comment. Those are orthogonal to the observation that communities are fundamentally political. > Leave it at "don't be an asshole". It's that simple. Sure, and "don't be an asshole" is a political statement. The subjects and objects of that sentence are people and the intent is to affect how they interact. If you feel that that's the kind of thing that community members should write down and say to each other, then you're implicitly agreeing with my claim that politics is what communities do. I suspect you think you and I would disagree with what politics a community should espouse, but that's not my point at all. All I'm saying is that every community, every group of people coordinating together, is a political beast. It's true of an anarcho-syndalistic art collective from Portland who only communicate through crypto-signed commits on their self-hosted fork of Fossil, it's true of a gang of skinhead bikers meeting regularly at a dive bar, and it's true of the Rust community. When people regularly interact with each other and communicate about how they should interact... they are politicking. "Politics" has become a bad word for some people, but it's the less bad word we have available to describe what it is people are doing when they are establishing the norms and practices of their regular repeated interactions.