4 ms·
Don't Be Nice
- ath3nd 6d ago> DHH, you're not welcome in the Nuxt community, because you say that Black people aren't 'native Brits' and call for the mass deportation of 'gypsies'. 100% agree. Niceness is NOT for white supremacists, and no, I am not debating whether DHH's politics are fascist-adjacent or what % of them are pure fascism. DHH's politics and the man himself will get only shunning and ridicule from me. He's, after all, one of the weird little guys of FOSS: https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/ https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/
- tokioyoyo 6d agoI have no idea why I clicked on that link, but honestly, it must be exhausting to try to care about that stuff consistently. Maybe I’ve gotten old, or have other priorities in life, but I can’t think of being so much into anyone’s yet alone FOSS people’s lives/choices/politics/etc.
- well_ackshually 6d agoHalf of these people are trying to actively make life worse for you, or someone you know. We care about that stuff because otherwise people like DHH will want to get you shot if you're black, or people like Stallman will want to sexually harass you if you're a woman. If you have the privilege of being able to forget about it: congratulations. If you're part of those potentially at risk: closing your eyes just makes their jobs easier.
- tokioyoyo 6d agoSure, but I kinda have other priorities in life which is more important to keep up, than FOSS influencers.
- globular-toast 6d agoWhere's the list for people who would compile and publish a list of people who believe things they don't believe and call them "weird little guys"?
- RobotToaster 6d agoYour little unperson list loses all credibility when you include people like Louis Rossmann and Richard Stallman
- well_ackshually 6d agoRossmann might be a useful tool in fighting against companies, that doesn't change the fact that he's a gigantic asshole who regularly harasses people he disagrees with. In the same way, if Stallman could stop eating his toenails in public and saying that Epstein's victims were totally willing, maybe he would avoid being on that list.
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- globular-toast 5d agoStallman ate his toenail once. It must have been 20 years ago at this point, get over it. And he did not say anyone was totally willing. He said the victims probably presented themselves as willing. Learn to read and stop attributing words to someone incorrectly and completely out of context.
- someguynamedq 5d agoIf a pimp threatens and intimidates a prostitute into having sex with someone and forces them to act like they are willing, are they not still being assaulted when the act of sex occurs? If an act of sex is assault, is the other person not assaulting? Stallman comes across as discerning here because he's drawing a distinction between two things (sexually assaulting someone who is resisting vs sexually assaulting someone who is presenting as willing), but there is no real difference. The problem is not in his verbiage. The problem is that his underlying message is wrong. He is trying to create a rationalization for why minsky's reputation should not be harmed. If Minsky flew to Epstein's private island and had sex with a very young girl of unknown age, his reputation should be harmed whether or not she "presented as willing."
- LoganDark 6d agoIt can be perfectly reasonable to remove people who are being completely inappropriate and/or egregiously insensitive. I think reducing it to simple politics is a distraction though. At the end of the day, people who are making everyone around them uncomfortable and causing everyone else to feel excluded/hated/marginalized probably deserve to learn that behavior is not tolerated, because that's often one of the only things that can get it to change. Their opinions don't have to be political and your opinions don't have to be political. If someone is making the space worse for everyone, then maybe they're not good for the space. Maybe the space is not good for them. You would be doing good for both sides by stopping them from harming the space, and stopping the space from further enabling the problematic behavior. I have personal experience with not changing until it became clear enough that certain behavior was driving away everyone and everything I care about. It didn't matter to me how much people told me it was bad, or tried to convince me to stop. What worked was seeing people leave over it, over and over, until I couldn't take it anymore. I had to change. You would be helping these kinds of people, and the community at large, by seeing to the consequences of their actions.
- basilikum 6d agoWhy is your bar that they must be hurtful to everyone? What do you suggest to do when they direct the same behavior only a certain group in the space? You say that it does not have to be political and I agree, but what if it is? What if they see that group as a legitimate target for political reasons?
- LoganDark 6d agoIt's easier to make my point about behavior that is unquestionably harmful, like what's discussed in the article. Nothing I said can't extend to less clear-cut cases; honestly my entire point is that you should weigh decisions like this based on whether behavior is harmful to the community (or vice versa) rather than based on either side's "politics". > What if they see that group as a legitimate target for political reasons? It doesn't matter. I wouldn't engage with whether or not they think they're acting in a justified manner. If the behavior won't stop, the behavior is harmful, and the community would be better off without it, then sometimes you just have to kick someone out. The reason why I say politics are a distraction is because I don't think you need to bother to explain that someone is politically incorrect or how you are less so. You can, but none of that is actually relevant in a majority of cases. Removing someone from a community is not about being more correct or about them being incorrect, it's for the good of the community (and/or the good of whoever you're removing).
- jstummbillig 6d ago> 'unaware.' [...] I think that is a little bit of what it is to be nice. Me, not being nice: Don't use language to be priggish and confuse. We got enough of that going already.
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- Gigachad 6d agoIt is disturbing how all of these people in tech like DHH and Elon have been so vile and all dropped the facade at the same time.
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- rfutility 6d ago[flagged]
- wdwddwdwd 6d agoWell black people can be citizens, they can be born in the UK. In additon, which "Native Brits" are indigenous to the UK, and do we need to look at how much French/Roman blood etc.? White Europeans are of course not native to US or Australia.
- bbg2401 6d agoLook, either you loosen your understanding of native to be the region you are born, or you tighten it to mean precisely indigenous. None of the populations of North America, Australia or the British Isles are indigenous by any neutral definition of the term. Populations have migrated and settled these regions over thousands of years. You are a native of a nation if you are born within its borders. It is that simple.
- garbagewoman 6d ago“Native Americans” is a term that is not directly comparable to “Native Brits” and you know it
- bbg2401 6d agoCan you clarify why? I believe native anything is a flawed concept since a human, let alone an entire ethnicity, does not grow from the soil. Populations have moved, migrated and settled throughout our entire history.
- garbagewoman 6d agoNative American is a well established name for a group of people. “Native Brit” means nothing
- stasomatic 6d agoIt shouldn't even be a term, it sounds fake politically correct, as does "First Nations". It's "indigenous". They were here, someone else came ashore and the Comanche got horses and Winchesters. Not like the Comanche and the Apache were besties, nor the Iroquois and Mohican. What about the Inuit? They are like Siberian expats, but still indigenous, but somehow not on the list? Just musing here. What's a native Brit? Robyn Hood? A Viking? :)
- alwa 6d agoTime and a place. I only see these kind of online spats refracted through people’s reactions like this one. Invariably I find myself asking how someone’s unattractive idea even came up there in the first place… Over my time in the world I have chafed against the boundaries of “professionalism” and “courtesy” and “a valid topic but not what we’re here to discuss right now”… but… sure seems like those might help here. Maybe it’s the old-school small-l liberal in me, but I feel like we lost something socially constructive in dissolving the boundaries between public and private thoughts, school and work and home and pub and church thoughts, the office and the flawed human occupying the office…
- 28304283409234 6d agoIf a technology is not considered political that should be the very first thing we should change about it.
- eis3nheim 6d agoIt's always been political and always will be, whether people believed or not. And now matter what is being done on the ground to make it otherwise, it will always be in vain.
- globular-toast 6d agoIsn't DHH just not being nice?
- kova12 6d agoOh no, it only works one way. When one starts signaling virtue, there's nothing wrong he can possibly do
- b3n4kh 6d ago[flagged]
- zulux 6d ago[flagged]
- preg_match 6d agoWhite British people are not native Brits, a term that basically means nothing anyway. Britain invaded and colonized many other countries over the course of centuries - of course those black people are British now. Where do you draw the line? 100 years? 200? 500? Or, do you draw it arbitrarily such that all the white people count as native, but the people of color do not? That would be awfully convenient. Native American works as a concept because there was an American people, for thousands of years, isolated before colonization. It doesn’t work that way for Europe, in which many populations have roamed through Europe for millennia. “Gypsies” and such are not invaders, the brown people of Europe have been there for a very long time. And, many (most?) white people in Europe are not “pure” white. What, you think those Romani and Indian people existed in Europe for hundreds of years with no mixing? Come on now.
- basicoperation 6d agoBy this logic every person born in North America is a Native American. Of course, this criticism is very popular amongst Scots who live in Scotland which is still overwhelmingly Scottish even in the major cities.
- garbagewoman 6d ago“Native American” is not used in the way that you are using it
- graemep 6d agoThere is a difference between saying that people are ethnically native, and that they only properly belong if they are ethnically native. What DHH is doing is the equivalent of saying that white (or black or Asian, or whatever) people are not real Americans (and should be deported to Europe, Africa or Asia).
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- sajithdilshan 6d agoI totally agree that one can decide for themselves to be nice or not nice to anyone, but I wonder as adults is it the right course of action to block/kick someone out as soon as they disagree with you or say, write something you don’t like or when just simply have a difference of opinion. I think that’s very childish and when did we stopped simply to agree to disagree and move forward. The example in the post is quite obvious with Nazi symbolism. But what if someone express their opinion, which is very conservative, or nationalistic like as an example I love Switzerland and I want Swiss people to prosper and have everything. Would that be incentive because they are excluding rest of the world?
- plastic-enjoyer 6d ago[flagged]
- sajithdilshan 6d agoI think in that case I would agree to disagree and move forward our separate ways. We both can have difference of opinion, that’s fine because everyone is entitled to their opinion, but doesn’t mean we have to work/build anything together
- plastic-enjoyer 6d agoYes, however, the adult thing would be to still work together instead of excluding the other person from whatever you are working on. So, why wouldn't you be willing to overcome this difference in opinion, and work together with this person to build something awesome?
- sajithdilshan 6d agoBecause that’s personal preference. Everyone has their own personal preferences and that should be respected as well. Otherwise it would like I’m being forced to do something that I don’t like to do
- plastic-enjoyer 6d ago> They accused me of being 'political' – the very thing an open source project shouldn't be, I'm told. It only divides people. Let's just focus on the technology. Surely we can all get behind building amazing, fast, cool websites! I would argue that picking an obviously Nazi-coded avatar is in itself political. It is a deliberate decision to select such an avatar. Nobody picks that symbol by accident. They know exactly what it signals, they know how people will react, and they know that the laissez-faire culture of tech is a perfect ground to normalize this shit. If there is a not being political rule, then it is perfectly reasonable to ban people like this because they obviously are political.
- voiper1 6d agoSounds like the paradox of tolerance. Being tolerant of intolerant people just gives them a platform to spread their intolerance.
- jan_m_savage 6d agoOf course I agree with OP that one can't be nice to Nazis. But he should have also mentioned that one should not be nice to anyone who kills innocent humans. Not just the Nazis. EDIT: is there something wrong with my statement? Don't be a coward and downvote silently. Tell me how what I wrote is wrong?
- zulux 6d ago[flagged]
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- jan_m_savage 5d agoAre you being sarcastic or are you a midwit?
- ath3nd 6d ago[dead]
- someguynamedq 5d agoI'm not voting either way on your comment (I don't have downvote rights), but it's clear to me why it's being downvoted, so I'll say it if they're not. The Nazi example was clear and useful in the original post. It's a thing that almost everyone will be on the same side of. The point is that it is an extreme example, not the most generic possible example, in order to demonstrate the point that "there exists at least one scenario where being nice is not mandatory." Because the original example was already sufficient for the purpose, it comes across as suspect that you are suggesting that he should not have used it as an example. The natural suspicion would be that you are in some way trying to blur the separation between Nazis and run of the mill murderers of innocents, I.e. implying perhaps that they are not much worse than others. I don't know what your intent is, but many believe Nazis to be much worse than ordinary innocent killers, so your statement implying they are the same is probably rubbing those people the wrong way
- neuroticnews25 6d agoPeople openly signaling they don't care about your feelings and rules are rarely missed. But as a former antisocial outcast myself, I always try to be nice to everyone and show them the light, prefer warnings to kicks and kicks to bans. Politics is really not that serious, decent people can have wildly different views.
- ycsucks5 6d ago[dead]
- ascorbic 6d ago> Politics is really not that serious Really?
- mzajc 6d ago> Politics is really not that serious, decent people can have wildly different views. What kind of views we're talking about are and how serious said politics are can vary greatly from situation to situation. From TFA: > I kicked someone from the Nuxt Discord who had chosen an avatar (for the second time!) of a man in a Nazi uniform.
- ath3nd 6d ago[dead]
- TacticalCoder 6d agoI've got a family of all colors (with half-black and half-asian nephews) and we speak many languages at home. I do believe however we should be allowed to criticize religions and I do believe we should be allowed to criticize religions without being labelled "racist". For example I'll point out the incredible hypocrisy of the left in the west who raised me, in an atheist school, with the notion that christianity was a scam and where christians were being made fun of all around me (by my parents, by my friends, by my friends' parents, by my teachers, etc.). And that same left in the west, who celebrates that christianity lost its grip on the people, is now bending over backwards over islam. Another gigantic hypocrisy in Europe (and in the UK) is that free speech is not a given. And hateful speech is definitely not allowed... Unless it's hate speech protected by the fact that it's in a religious book. And another, totally off the chart, hypocrisy in the west is the feminist and the LGBTQ2S+ movements who are constantly after heterosexual male... Unless they're muslims, in which case it's suddenly all cool to put a veil on your wife(s) (polygamy being allowed, but only one man / several women and not the other way round: oh the hypocrisy here) and daugther(s) so that they're safe from the looks of other men. It's a very long article saying that people who oppose islam are basically deranged. Now I do profundly believe that unless you've read the quran, you shouldn't comment on islam. I did read it and I suggest you do the same and then make up your own mind. Now as I'm not nice I'll put it blundly: I think the quran is just as bad as Hitler's Mein Kampf. But because it's "religious", the hate speech it contains is protected and allowed. And we're basically at a point in Europe where if you point out that the quran is full of hate speech, your criticism is considered hate speech. But the real hate speech is totally cemented and impossible to attack because it's "religious". You should at the very least read the quran and see where I'm coming from. The world CIA factbook (not published anymore) estimated that 30% of all muslims worldwide had extremist views. I understand that 30% is not 100%, but 30% of nearly 2 billion people is a very big number. To be very clear: either the muslim beard or the veil are already extremist readings of the quran and its hadiths. Go read the book for yourself. It is not normal that after 1200 teenagers who were dancing at a music festival were slaughtered by islamist terrorists, a big part of the world celebrated. We're talking about tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of people who were genuinely happy that "evil jews got what they deserve" because it was "justified resistance". I'm not talking about what came next: I'm against killing people, no matter who does the killing. Now I'm not saying that that UK dude who wants to "ban islam" is a good person. But there's really a very big spread spectrum between "ban islam" and "there's zero problem with islam growing in the west". And there's definitely an issue when speech is censored, but the absolute worst form of hate speech is protected because it's a religious holy book. Go read the quran, now.
- graemep 6d agoI am one of these people that DHH says in not "native British". I agree he is an unpleasant racist. I do think that the case of the person using a Nazi avatar on a forum is comparable. The former is something they are doing withing the community, DHH's behaviour is outside the community. Its not clear how much people should be sanctioned for holding unpleasant views. The problem with the article is clear in this passage: "Sometimes a political party or a person decides to oppose shared human values like the importance of care, kindness, inclusion, or the simple value of welcoming people who are different from you. Maybe they oppose the equality of all people. Maybe they think some people do not deserve human rights." That very quickly becomes a subjective and partisan judgement. Its very easy to say everyone who votes for a different party is "opposed to equality", or that people who do not share you culture or language and vocabulary or vote for any other party are those you should not be nice to. Very often the inclusive becomes exclusive and even culturally imperialist. Foreigner who uses the wrong words because they do not have the same implications in their culture? Excluded. This is not made, but, but something I have seen people get angry about.
- sensen7 6d agoYou seem to be betting on this strategy that words can keep being changed to mean anything you want depending on the political context, forever, but at some point it will just make you look insane. "Native British" is not something ambiguous that's a matter of opinion or that goes into quotes, any more than Native American ever was.
- graemep 6d agoOf course it is. Give me a definition of "native British" that is as clear as the meaning of "native American". You are trying to a complex reality into as a simplistic (American?) world view. Also, its normal to use quotation marks when quoting someone.
- zulux 6d agoSomeone who built Britain before the jet age.
- 0manrho 6d agoFully agreed. This "Let's avoid politics" is just "Let's avoid conflict resolution and let things fester until it all boils over and goes to shit" If you break the social contract of granting everyone a common baseline of respect and civility, such as by identifying with those that explicitly wish to violently purge entire peoples from the planet, I no longer am obligated to grant them the decorum outlined in that same social contract, as they've violated the accord.
- satisfice 6d agoThis is a post about someone marketing their personal values: asserting their importance, suggesting we should all share them, and suggesting that certain alternative values should be rudely suppressed. It’s not an argument, though. I don’t come away with any reason not to NICELY oppose Nazi sympathizers. I am not especially nice, and I don’t trust most people who behave nicely. But this post is banal. You can do better.
- someguynamedq 5d agoThis comes across as pedantic purity testing. It's also ironic and hypocritical because you're not being nice.
- tim333 6d agoI find the article a bit virtue signaling.
- soganess 6d agoYes. The virtue of not being nice to Nazis. I want people signaling that. I don't care why they are signaling it, I support it. You know that insufferable friend who won't stop talking about the starving kids in XYZ? And you know how they donated five dollars that one time and just won't let you forget it? Yeah, well, at least that a*hat gave five dollars. I'd rather have the Bonos of the world making mountains out of the molehills of aid they provide than hang out with people so cool and disaffected that they only see the virtue signaling and discount the virtue. Just like you, I see the virtue signaling as gauche, but I think calling it out without any substance is just as gauche.
- tim333 5d agoMy family parlty got gassed by the actual nazis. I'm pretty anti them. But: >pretty bad taste in my mouth even to imagine using the product of someone who's suggested that Black and Asian Londoners make Britain worse You should shun anyone how suggests they might prefer less immigration in London? If you are being honest that's like 50% of Brits he's saying are untouchables.
- someguynamedq 5d agoYou're making a category error. Black/Asian != immigrant in Britain. White != non-immigrant in Britain. Otherwise you'd be saying a black guy whose family has been in Britain for 500 years is more of an immigrant than a Polish guy who moved there last Tuesday.
- joshwcomeau 6d agoI already held Daniel in high esteem, but I respect him so much for posting this. Couldn't agree more.