[jordigh]

Sigh... there is so much wrong with what you've posted here, but I don't want to get into a screaming match with you about it. I just wish you didn't consider enemies the women who are trying to make things better for women, and that you would not consider the majority opinion of Reddit to be correct.

I wonder how big this cultural divide really is, or if it just seems this big online. In my usual workplaces, nobody would be as systematically angry as you seem to be about a woman and a company asking other people to be nice.

[striking]

It doesn't seem to me that the user you're replying to is "systematically angry." Furthermore, the independent contractors were truly independent, and the Twitter meltdown and smearing were real. Those are real, harmful actions which should not be ignored.

Furthermore, people are attempting to hold on to their ability to speak freely, to not have to monitor their own speech. There is no way to stop other people from being offended. No matter what you do, it will be offensive to someone. So should that person have the right to police you and to take down something that's yours? And what if you disagree with that person?

[Tenhundfeld]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by people having to "monitor their own speech." You should think about what you're saying before you say it, right? You should consider if what you're saying is offensive to other people, right? That's just part of being a decent, responsible, adult human being – in my opinion.

Honestly, saying that anything you do will be offensive is a weak evasion of personal responsibility. It's like saying that you might as well eat Big Macs for every meal since all food can be unhealthy, under certain circumstances. While the premise is technically true, the conclusion is flawed. It's a spectrum, with behavior on one end being better than behavior on the other end.

To your last point, of course some rando who's offended by my statement should haven't the right to police me or take down something I wrote. But they do have the right to respond to what I wrote, point it out to others, argue with me, criticize me for it, etc. And I have the right to argue back, ignore them, or even – as crazy as it sounds – consider if their feelings might be sincere and worth me reevaluating my statement.

Anyway, this became longer than I intended. I'm just trying to say that, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, as fellow creatures inhabiting this pale blue dot, we have an obligation to deal kindly with one another. The fact that some people are jerks doesn't obviate that.

[striking]

The repositories mentioned in the post three levels above yours were taken down. There was no arguing back or ignoring.

I am not advocating of getting rid of kindness, and I think that preventing racism is a noble idea. And I'm not obviating a responsibility to avoid offending people by commenters who want to be taken seriously. But in the end, it is nearly impossible to entirely rid yourself of offense. Freedom of speech is necessary for productive environments, and it's been proven that people behave differently and speak differently when they know they're being watched.

There's a difference between attempting to be taken seriously and being disingenuous about who you are and they way you think. I believe in freedom of speech above all.

[DanBC]

If I call you a retard it's probably not that insulting to you. But it does cause offence in a large group of other people. And those people were not my target. So the word retard is a suboptimal choice for those two reasons.

The other way to use retard as an insult is to use it against people with a learning disability. I don't think that's what you're defending -- verbal aggression by mostly rich programmers of mostly poor vulnerable people.

> I believe in freedom of speech above all.

Not right to life?

[Tenhundfeld]

Well said.

[Goronmon]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by people having to "monitor their own speech." You should think about what you're saying before you say it, right? You should consider if what you're saying is offensive to other people, right? That's just part of being a decent, responsible, adult human being – in my opinion.

My go-to example is generally something along the lines of, religious people might be offended by atheist philosophies. Does that mean atheists should refrain from speaking about their beliefs to avoid potentially offending someone? What about the reverse, should religious people refrain from speaking about religion to avoid offending people of a different (or no) religion?

Or for an example closer to the context of the discussion, is it rude or offensive to argue that a wage gap between men and women doesn't actually exist? Or that employers shouldn't hire women purely based on a need to balance out a gender disparity in their employees?

I'm sure there are plenty of people would be offended by those arguments. Does that mean people should refrain from using them?

[Lawtonfogle]

Or a simpler example: people who believe vaccines cause autism are extremely stupid and responsible for the death of extremely high numbers of children. To the extent that is legally possible, they should be shamed and ostracized for their dangerous behavior in an attempt to save the lives of vulnerable children.

Actually, the above is two examples. One where I stop after the first sentence, one where I include both. It is extremely offensive to some people, and the second (extended) version even includes a call to action that can be considered outright harmful (but done to reduce what is viewed by those who take the call as a greater harm).

Now in some cases, such as talking to someone who holds an anti-vaxxer view point, being offensive is counter productive. But when calling those already on your side to action, using such wording can motivate and mobilize others in ways that more sanitized language cannot.

[ultramancool]

> But when calling those already on your side to action, using such wording can motivate and mobilize others in ways that more sanitized language cannot.

Well said, it's hard to convey severity without using severe language.

[zajd]

No, I can assure you "then they added a CoC endorsing anti-white racism and anti-male sexism" is a phrase that betrays his political bent.

[ultramancool]

Well, it does say they "won't act on reverse-racism or reverse-sexism", so, depending on how you interpret that I can see what he's trying to say at least. "Endorses" is strong, but "ignores" would be correct. And one could imply something about the authors of this CoC from that.

[Lawtonfogle]

If you take action to ban all things in some group A, and then make an explicit exception to not ban some subgroup B, it seems pretty close to endorsing subgroup B. If they had not called the exception, but instead just ignored reports about it, that would seem more like ignoring.

For a comparison, say you have a party at your house that gets out of hand. Too many strangers show up. So you explicitly state that all guests are required to leave. There is a difference between telling some people they can stay (or saying I won't call the cops if you stay, but I'll call the cops on anyone else who stays) and just ignoring the few people who don't leave.

[striking]

Political opinions != anger, no?

[Lawtonfogle]

That is generally what reverse racism and reverse sexism is understood to mean. People on either side of the argument, when asked to define those two terms, would give similar definitions.

If anything betrays their political bent, it is that they view this as a negative thing. But the same could be said of those who do not view this as a negative thing.

[okasaki]

Which is?

Also, why are you assuming they are a man?

[zajd]

Bahahaha I love comments like this.

Honestly I assumed it because his comments just read like a bitter MRA. But if you want, you can click his profile and confirm it for yourself like I did.

"Why do you assume a member who spouts KKK rhetoric is a white person?!?" -okasaki

[Goronmon]

Sigh... there is so much wrong with what you've posted here, but I don't want to get into a screaming match with you about it.

Seems strange to feign ambivalence while still responding to the post in question. If you really "didn't want to get into a shouting match", shouldn't you have just not responded at all?

[jordigh]

I just didn't want to get into a point-by-point rebuttal with the original author. I'd rather talk about other things, like why "meritocracy" is a problem. A lot of people are surprised by it, since it seems like a good idea on the face of it.

[jazzyk]

"women who are trying to make things better for women"

Please explain how removing a rug promoting meritocracy makes things better for women.

[jordigh]

https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-of...

Remember that the term "meritocracy" was coined in a satirical essay about a dystopian society. It was not meant to have positive connotations.

[pervycreeper]

Regardless of its origin (cf. the etymological fallacy), the term has come not to mean "rule by the adept", but rather rewarding accomplishment and efficiently using people's talents. It is a worthwhile ideal to strive towards regardless of how 'fair' things are in the real world. The complaints about the term are very far fetched, and require a huge number of ideological assumptions to even make sense.

[jordigh]

What if people cannot acquire those talents because of social disparities? How does meritocracy help them?

[pervycreeper]

>How does meritocracy help them?

I was tempted to give a perhaps too glib response that it allows them to live in a world where they might possibly be able to benefit from the advances wrought by the more talented, but that doesn't seem to get at your underlying concern.

My personal belief is that those who lacked the opportunities to develop themselves still deserve to live with dignity and full moral consideration, but that doesn't mean we should give them awards or accept their pull requests necessarily. Furthermore, if one apportions them a scarce resource at someone else's expense, I would consider that to be unjust.

[Goronmon]

>What if people cannot acquire those talents because of social disparities? How does meritocracy help them?

It doesn't, but I don't think it should. Instead we should try to correct those social disparities.

[ultramancool]

I still don't quite get it - meritocracy should invite all to participate and have their contributions considered equally, that's what open source development in this style is about. To say it's not something we should strive for seems ridiculous.

[jordigh]

It's a long article, and judging by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes?

I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to begin with, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages.

But the actual article, which I have my doubts you've read, explains this better.

[ultramancool]

> It's a long article, and by the timestamps, you had less than five minutes to read it. Did you really read it in less than five minutes?

Sorry, I had read it before. I just didn't really get an opportunity to discuss it.

> I suppose I need to give my slightly inaccurate summary: trying to judge people just based upon their contributions ends up only benefiting the elite who had unfair advantages to get those advantages, and intentionally silences any effort to compensate people who have inherent social disadvantages.

I'm not saying perfect meritocracy is something we have, but it's something we should strive for and act under at least. We shouldn't over or undervalue contributions just because someone is a certain race/gender/etc in my opinion. It's patronizing and to do so seems only to contribute to the problem further.

[jordigh]

I think meritocracy is one of those things that seems well-intentioned like "separate but equal" or "don't ask don't tell" which sound like a good thing but in fact make things worse. It tries to fix a problem by ignoring it. You can't fix social disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. They exist for everything we do, including writing code.

[pervycreeper]

I think a lot of people are opposed to sexism or racism precisely because they undermine meritocracy. If you take away fairness or meritocracy as a goal, you are left with chauvinism, supremacy, and tribalism masquerading as their opposites.

[Nadya]

Remember that the symbol for gay pride, the Pink Triangle, was branding used by Nazi Germany to denote rapists, sex offenders, and gays for gas chambers and labor camps. It was not meant to have positive connotations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

[jordigh]

What I meant here is that we should not lose sight of the original idea behind meritocracy. The author of The Rise of the Meritocracy was arguing that a meritocracy becomes a clique who defines what "merit" means. If you do not think there is any merit in being nice to others, you end up defending toxic behaviours under the guise of justice and equality.

[Lawtonfogle]

>I just wish you didn't consider enemies the women who are trying to make things better for women

Grandparent never said that at all. Why would you even think grandparent intended this?

>In my usual workplaces, nobody would be as systematically angry as you seem to be about a woman and a company asking other people to be nice.

Once again, grandparent isn't systematically angry as a woman and a company asking other people to be nice. Where did you get this from?

[PLCC]

I don't see any anger. Just a list of events that happened.