[teacup50]

Imagine an underground lake that's never struck by the light of day, but is teeming with life.

Over millions of years, the species in that lake evolve ... and lose their eyesight.

In that environment, how much value is there in diversity of traits like color?

[civilitty]

That is a contrived counterexample that completely ignores the very basics of evolution and how changing environments help drive adaptation. Picking out one irrelevant trait here and asking if diversity is useful is like asking "how much value is there in diversity of spleens in the Rust Community?" They don't care about spleens, they care about people who are interested in Rust; just like natural selection favors organisms who can reproduce, not individual traits.

Natural selection will favor the animals who don't have to waste energy on pigmentation... until a billion years later when a sink hole opens up or one of the species evolves bio luminescence and all the organisms that lack pigments start to reflect all incoming light back at their new, hungry predators. That's the whole point: environments change all the time and the chance of a species surviving is dependent on the diversity of its members, just like the survival of carbon based life through a planetary mass extinction event is dependent on the diversity of species.

Evolution can only happen through random mutation so, by definition, any environment with evolving life forms is always changing unpredictably.

[teacup50]

How do you know the (heavily politicized, myopically chosen, inescapably coarse-grained) identity groups they're targeting offer a form of diversity that actually has value in the realm of Rust? Why do you believe that these identity group traits correlate strongly with intellectual diversity that is necessary for the project's health?

If anything, this process (and the efforts from which it stems) seem purposefully designed to eliminate intellectual diversity, in favor of a rigid monoculture maintained by empowering political officers in the enforcement of right-think.

[civilitty]

Based on your choice of words and other comments you've made, I believe you fear change and people who are different from you. I doubt there is anything I can say to convince you in the face of your prejudices, whatever they may be.

> If anything, this process (and the efforts from which it stems) seem purposefully designed to eliminate intellectual diversity, in favor of a rigid monoculture maintained by empowering political officers in the enforcement of right-think.

If your idea of a monoculture is a place where people have to be respectful of other people & cultures and not use culturally charged words then I think almost everyone in the Rust community would be happy with that outcome.

If you want to provide evidence that the Rust community is trying to eliminate intellectual diversity in favor of superficial qualities instead of sincerely trying to outreach to underrepresented communities that may have a lot to offer, I'm sure they (and we here on HN) will be happy to have a rigorous, respectful debate with the express goal of improving the experience for as many people in the community as possible, including you.

Until then, you are free to grind your axe elsewhere, perhaps somewhere without multiculturalism to make you so uncomfortable.

[DaiPlusPlus]

I don't think it's "fear of change" or "fear of people who are different" - not even "fear". I feel the sentiment felt is closer to "think poorly-of". Southern US racists certainly aren't "afraid" of black people: I believe they've been conditioned by negative racial stereotypes combined with their own sense of superiority ("blacks are lazy, no-good", "blacks are criminals", et cetera) so the idea of racial equality simply strikes them as silly - take that concept and apply it to today's debates: ("feminists are loud and unruly", "transgender people are freaks", "the other side are all fat women with purple hair who spend too much time complaining on their blogs instead of instigating real change"). I stress these are stereotypes, and certainly not representative, but doubling-down in response seems to reinforce certain negative stereotypes and make it harder to sell the idea of the "new normal".

I believe their concerns about the loss of "intellectual diversity" are genuinely felt - but frame it as someone who genuinely believes themselves and their opinions to be level-headed and that these new voices, who are telling them that their opinion are wrong, will of course put someone on the defensive, it's only natural to feel a creep of thoughtcrime policing.

I hate to use a cop-out cliché but I feel that "both sides" need to apply empathy when engaging in debate with their opposition: those that feel out of place and get defensive, or simply think these are overblown matters, are not deliberately out to actually oppress anyone - and those campaigning for more equitable treatment are not being opportunistic.

[teacup50]

Well, an open challenge that might help someone understand what I actually think, at least along one axis:

Let's say I want to objectively evaluate the notion that there is such a thing as an arbitrary, self-declared, non-binary "gender" (or "gender identity") that can range across any number of "genders".

In that case, can you specify the set of propositions used to classify something as a "gender"?

Is your definition purely self-referential (cyclic)?

Does your definition exclude other social self-identifications, such as "goth" or "emo"? Why or why not?

Does your definition rely on references to "biological sex" (e.g. male/female)? If so, what are the sexes "male" and "female"?

[DaiPlusPlus]

Matters of personal-identity are completely orthogonal to what the Rust community should be about.

Reading your posting, I think you're implying that non-traditional notions of gender is evidence of irrational thinking, and you think Rust community would be better-off with an exclusively "rational" (by your measure) membership.

My retort is that it is completely irrelevant - I compare it to admitting open young-earth creationists simultaneously with adherents to Wahhabism into the Rust community: both of those positions (in my opinion) are as irrational and non-evidence-based as otherkin or your notion of gender-identity, and yet all of those individuals are capable of making valuable contributions to the language, the runtime, the standard library, packages and so on - accepting their work has nothing to do with condoning or endorsing their opinions (for example we still call radiation meters Geiger counters, even though Hans Geiger worked on Nazi nuclear weapons).

I won't respond to your questions posed because it's both outside the scope of this discussion and I believe poses a dangerous distraction to identify a wedge with which you can coarsely separate people into groups you think you would agree with - and more importantly: we should not be pontificating on gender-identity because none of us are subject matter experts in the field.

[civilitty]

That's like refusing a fresh cheeseburger because you're afraid that by the time you bite into it, it'll develop botulism - even as you're minutes away from starving to death. You're nitpicking tiny details and dismissing a clear improvement because it does not conform perfectly to your idealized standards. Life is messy, people make mistakes. That just means we keep moving forward and self correcting when we need to not when we make up entirely hypothetical downsides, most of which never end up happening anyway. I repeat, again: you have provided zero evidence for your claims that the Rust team is doing the wrong thing or heading in the wrong direction.

This insistence on using hypotheticals instead of providing evidence screams fear; not a rational evaluation of the community and its plans. It's the same tired strategy used by conservatives for thousands of years to fight literacy, education, suffrage, abolition of slavery, welfare, universal healthcare, and pretty much everything good that has happened in human society. No one but its rhetorical peddlers take it seriously because it is purely self defeating: if you're too paralyzed by hypothetical issues to take the first step, then those issues will never be resolved, freeing you from facing the uncomfortable change ahead.

[civilitty]

> I don't think it's "fear of change" or "fear of people who are different" - not even "fear". I feel the sentiment felt is closer to "think poorly-of". Southern US racists certainly aren't "afraid" of black people: I believe they've been conditioned by negative racial stereotypes combined with their own sense of superiority ("blacks are lazy, no-good", "blacks are criminals", et cetera) so the idea of racial equality simply strikes them as silly - take that concept and apply it to today's debates: ("feminists are loud and unruly", "transgender people are freaks", "the other side are all fat women with purple hair who spend too much time complaining on their blogs instead of instigating real change"). I stress these are stereotypes, and certainly not representative, but doubling-down in response seems to reinforce certain negative stereotypes and make it harder to sell the idea of the "new normal".

Prejudice, like all elements of human psychology, is complicated but the longer you're around it the more you start to see distinct patterns emerge, each with their own rhetorical strategies. I think in this case it is fear because teacup50 only mentions the people who Rust is targeting with their outreach in passing and even implies that he agrees (or at least "doesn't disagree," whatever that means) with the goals of the effort. I see no evidence that he thinks of minorities, women, etc. as beneath him so it leads me to believe that he views the explicit effort of including them as an attack on the integrity of the community and - by implication - his own identity (let's assume ftm he's part of the Rust community but it could also be him lashing out because of the same thing happening elsewhere). It's not necessarily that the new people will make it worse, but that it is the process of bringing those people into the fold that will do the actual harm. It's defensive tribalism in its most fundamental form: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I'd even hesitate to even call it prejudice - it's really more like a visceral reaction to a perceived loss of or attack on status - but in practice, the two are hard to differentiate and at some point you have to stop giving the person the benefit of the doubt and start calling a spade a "spade."

> I believe their concerns about the loss of "intellectual diversity" are genuinely felt - but frame it as someone who genuinely believes themselves and their opinions to be level-headed and that these new voices, who are telling them that their opinion are wrong, will of course put someone on the defensive, it's only natural to feel a creep of thoughtcrime policing.

I agree wholeheartedly. I distinctly remember several situations on the rust users mailing list and /r/rust where I felt that Rust team members (not the community but the official Rust team) went way too far into the realm of thoughtcrime policing to the detriment of the community. I've been waiting for him to bring those up as evidence of his position so that we can have a merit based discussion on how to avoid such mistakes in the future but he has done nothing but provide unsubstantiated opinions and hypothetical questions meant to lead someone towards his foregone conclusion (even though he frames it as doubt, another common but transparent rhetorical tactic).

> I hate to use a cop-out cliché but I feel that "both sides" need to apply empathy when engaging in debate with their opposition: those that feel out of place and get defensive, or simply think these are overblown matters, are not deliberately out to actually oppress anyone - and those campaigning for more equitable treatment are not being opportunistic.

Again, I agree wholeheartedly. This is an important conversation to have because otherwise, the entire process threatens to devolve into extreme multiculturalism for multiculturalism's sake. That is not only counterproductive but outright dangerous because it does nothing but polarize otherwise compatible groups of people. Every few decades our culture seems to hit that political correctness peak really hard which just causes another backlash from those who feel they are marginalized. The current (disastrous) political situation in the United States is clear evidence of that polarization and backlash - and it's not doing anyone a lick of good.

Even if I axiomatically disagree with someone's arguments, I am happy to engage and come to a middle ground where we make as many people as happy as possible just like I'd engage a flat earther who presents concrete evidence, if only to show him that he is misinterpreting it. However, just like most flat earthers, teacup has refused to provide any evidence other than a gut feeling and that is in no way a genuine attempt at constructive dialogue.

Or I could be dead wrong. He could just be playing a devil's advocate who is really, really bad at communicating.

[teacup50]

The science is bad and the politics are deleterious. That has nothing to do with prejudices on my part; thinking that the methodology and behavior is naively toxic at best doesn't mean I disagree with the egalitarian aims that are claimed to be the motivating factor behind this political ideology.

[civilitty]

What science and what politics? Why are they bad or deleterious? Why are they naively toxic? Can you provide any examples? I'd be happy with just one because even an isolated incident can be learned from and used to improve the community.

You can't claim to agree with their egalitarian aims and then absolutely refuse to provide constructive feedback or even any evidence of your claims that their behavior is naive, myopic, counter-productive, etc. It's the logical equivalent of "I'm not racist but..." followed with a comment about how other races have smaller brains as if its a statement of fact with no evidence to back it up.

Don't tell us, show us.

[teacup50]

You're being remarkably disingenuous; please consider your comments an example of deleterious politics.