Discuss concerns about potential intolerance as a result of political correctness

[juliepagano]

I've seen the topic come up a few times on other issues. Creating this thread for interested parties to discuss, so that other threads can be kept on topic. Posters seemed to find Slavoj Žižek to be a particularly compelling authority on the topic.

[KarbonDallas]

Hey, I just wanted to mention that I am the one that deleted the comment by @whyisthistheworld. I'm happy to explain my logic if it's deemed useful, but I don't want to further derail the thread.

[HiPhish]

The entire idea of inclusivity improving the quality of a project is similar to the Infinite Monkey Theorem: given a monkey at a typewriter and infinite time eventually the works of Shakespeare will come out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

Thanks to the internet we know that's not true, we have a very large amount of "monkeys" with a lot of time and the best work is still produced by small groups. Software projects are similar, you cannot manage a gigantic crowd where everyone and their dog think they can contribute. This has never worked.

So what is the correct thing to do? Discriminate on skill alone. Discrimination is not a bad thing, it just means to differentiate, literally. This knowledge is considered dirty, but people discriminate all the time. Everyone in this thread has been discriminating against someone at some point. When you go grocery-shopping, don't you go out to buy the good food at the good shops instead of shopping everywhere? That is discrimination and it is a good thing. It is what the concept of the Free Market is based on.

So with that out of the way, a software project should only accept people who can contribute quality content. It should not matter what that person's ethnicity of sex is. Ideally we would all just be avatars with made-up names, no identity, then everyone would have to go for the message instead of the messenger.

So how does this conflict with "inclusivity"? Inclusivity is about letting as many people in hoping that something good will come out eventually. That is simply not going to happen for logistic reason. There will always be more people bad at something than there are people who are good at that thing, and the bad people will just produce noise that makes coordination among the good people harder. If you disagree with me just have an open day at the office where everyone can come in and then try to get any meaningful work done. You won't be able to. This is not due to who those people are, it is because how many they are.

[HiPhish]

@emilyrose OK, I just assumed it was the same person @TheAlphaNerd I still don't see the problem. But then again, I am talking form experience.

I live in a foreign country, my parents came over as foreign workers like many other people. The natives don't like us, they think we are taking away their jobs, even though we came over to do the jobs they were lacking in. But what am I supposed to say if a foreigner-quote gets introduced? The native will have no idea whether I got my job by merit or if I'm the [redacted] who literally took a native's job to meet a quota. And I cannot be upset at that person. Maybe his friend of family member got rejected and now he sees me in that position.

The same goes for scholarships. If you are a working class white man I know the only way you got your diploma is because you earned it. But if you are not white or not a man how am I as an employer supposed to know that you didn't just get it to fill a quota?

Case in point, when my home country was at the brink of war many people got their diploma just handed to them because the professors wanted their students to have at least something before the outbreak. But this cheapened the value of the real diplomas. My parents had to work with no pay and with the constant threat of becoming unemployed in the brink of an eye in order to prove their merit before they got a real contract. Is that what you want?

And as for the quotes you picked, please tell me what is wrong? If say black people are 10% population and we just assume for the sake of simplicity that qualifications for any particular work are equally distributed as within the majority population, wouldn't it follow that only 10% of the workforce in every industry would be black? Again, where are more black people supposed to come from? In the same manner, one should expect that the majority of the workforce in Africa would be black, because where are the white people supposed to come from? The majority of the workforce in Asia will also be Asian and I have never seen anyone complain about that. But somehow it is White Man's Burden to make sure every race is equally represented in white-majority populated countries?

The archive of this will be in the edit. https://archive.is/

[MylesBorins]

[bruno-gelb]

[scarfacedeb]

@HiPhish thank you for making sense. It gives me at least a fraction of hope.)

[jifsnifanon]

For context: I'm suffering from depression and have suffered from suicidal ideation and anxiety for a long time until I underwent therapy and learned to manage my mental disorders.

I disagree with the previous comments on the question of whether the "suicide" rename was justified or not -- I think "suicide" was a bad name but not primarily because it could be considered offensive but because it is too whimsical.

JavaScript is fun so Node is fun, indeed, but whimsy for whimsy's sake is out of place in APIs and open source software. For me this is not about being afraid of offending anyone or avoiding "triggering" language -- it's about being a responsible adult. Just look at the early Ruby/Rails community and the associated "brogrammer" culture for an example of immaturity that was mostly orthogonal to its offensiveness.

I find the recent rise of victim culture in the US extremely disturbing and am very disappointed to see it influence otherwise reasonable thinkers in open source. If the use of words like "suicide" presents a serious mental health concern, you need professional psychiatric care because it's nowhere near the level of abuse you need to be able to withstand to function in an open society away from the computer.

Offensiveness is a vague concept. There is no human right not to be offended. Everything is offensive to someone. The word "suicide" is not offensive. The concept of suicide is not offensive either. It's the whimsical use of the word that makes it offensive and (more importantly) inappropriate.

In the discussion about the rename someone said that "selfDestruct" would be equally bad because it has connotations for some people with mental health issues. That's an example of going out of your way to be offended. Unlike "suicide", which is primarily used to describe humans intentionally inflicting their own death, self-destruction is primarily a mechanical description of something destroying itself.

In contrast, consider the test framework "testacular" (an obvious pun on "testicular" -- intentional or not) which was renamed to "karma". The word "testacular" (or "testicular") is not offensive at all. Testicles are ordinary parts of the human reproductive anatomy (nearly one in two persons has them), "testicular" is a perfectly ordinary word in medical literature. It's only the use that makes it inappropriate: it's not used to describe an intimate body part but software that isn't even remotely related to the former. And it's not a "white cis-het male" phenomenon either. Sexual or otherwise inapropriate puns are the result of whimsy, not privilege.

Judging terminology by whether it is "triggering" or "offensive" only fuels the euphemism treadmill (if "self-destruct" is triggering, how is "voluntary exit" guaranteed not to be triggering? it's not like it hasn't been used as a euphemism for suicide before). Instead terminology should be judged on whether it is apropriate, specific and descriptive enough for its purpose.

[andrewdeandrade]

@HiPhish Honestly, your comments as as overtly and ignorantly racist as those views promoted in the blog post to which @ravi linked. The only thing that makes me want to extend some benefit of the doubt is the fact that it appears that English is not your first language. For you edification, the n-word is extremely offensive but black is not (which I know is the exact opposite of the acceptable usage in other languages like Portuguese where a term like "negro" is acceptable but the Portuguese word for black is not). I would like to ask you to voluntarily remove your comments above or at least heavily edit them to omit the content stemming from your prejudices because they have absolutely no place in this community. I'm sensitive to the fact that you grew up in a different country and have different experiences that most of the people here (I myself spent a few of my childhood years outside the US), but that doesn't justify the attitudes you expressed. This is not the place for any of that content. This thread is about the rise of intolerance. Your views express the exact same intolerance from the other side of the fence and only serves to make others justified in their intolerance. I'm not saying you should leave the community, but that all the platforming you just did have no place hear. Furthermore, they are completely off-topic.

@ravi Do you not see a problem with the constant use of terms like "white male" and "white dudes" over an over again? First off, that is overtly sexist and racist language. I used to have a teammate at work that would constantly lament all the "white dudes", including out loud in meetings that had absolutely nothing to do with anything this person was talking about. It was disruptive and offended, but no one felt comfortable calling this person out on it. It is behavior that is absolutely no different than replacing the first word with a different race or the second word with a different gender identity. Both are unacceptable. That said, I'm not being dismissive of all the content in that post. There is some valid content in there completely shadowed by the author's racist verbiage. Yes, unconscious biases and structural disadvantages matter, but that does not excuse overt racism ever.

Furthermore, that blog post is ignorant of the "hacker culture" it condemns. While women have been a minority in hacker culture, they haven't been absent from hacker culture. Such a viewpoint minimizes and is dismissive of women like Christine Peterson, Susan Sons, Susan Headley, Jude Milhon, Meredith Patterson, etc. Have they been underrepresented, yes, but characteristics of both masculinity and feminity have generally been absent from hacker culture. Classic hacker culture was generally unattractive for those that ascribed to either gender norm. Male hacker culture was far from being representative of masculinity in the sense jocks represent it. Similarly, female hacker culture was far from being representative of femininity. The main privilege that men had that made hacker culture less of a deterrent back in the day had more to due with society at large than hacker culture. Historically, in society at large, not ascribing to grooming and being masculine carried with it less of a social cost for men than not grooming and being feminine did for women. Classic hacker culture almost nothing in common with the tech bro culture you see today, which is something that blog post is confusing. Watch Cringely's "Revenge of the Nerds". You'll be hard pressed to find a single "tech bro" in the movie. These people were all the weird nerds in high school and they didn't have anywhere near the social status that software engineering today has. Hacker culture was never an aspirational culture like software engineering was today. The primary privileges was access to a computer and modem and being precocious. There were few if any parents pushing kids in that direction. Pretty much no realy known role models to aspire to be like until Bill Gates. People participated in that culture because it was attractive to them. I myself remember trying to acquire hardware by dumpster diving at my local highschool.

[andrewdeandrade]

@jifsnifanon Interesting observation. I've always viewed the framework Testacular as a portmanteau of "test" and "spectacular". Upon seeing you're interpretation, it's possible that all three words influenced the name. Either way, it's a good example of how not everyone perceives the same thing and that we should strive to be more tolerant and extend the benefit of the doubt more often.

[andrewdeandrade]

@TheAlphaNerd "It is fashionable to hate on white man (unless they are gay)".

This one isn't questionable at all. Spend some time reading articles on the Advocate by cis-gay men frustrated with being subject to this hate. That hate is generally lamented because the authors typically understand the frustration from which that hate stems stems first hand, but they are also victims of that hate.

I don't see why this comment is controversial "If you want to see predominantly black people working in an industry you have to go to Africa". It's poorly worded because of the emphasis on "have to go to", but it's completely intuitive that industries anywhere in the World will generally be representative of the base rates of the society from which people are drawn.

In the US, it would be entirely reasonable for approximately 73% of any industry in the US to be white, including tech (since 73% of the US population is white (non-hispanic/latino white and hispanic/latino white)). The actual percentage in tech is actually a lot lower at 41% (I'm not sure if this 41% includes white people of hispanic/latino descent or not like me). Black people, latino people and women are grossly underrepresented in tech. Approximately 50% of tech should be women, but that figure is unfortunately much lower around 12%. The figures for black and latino software engineers are even worse.

[oiime]

well.. this turned into.. whatever this is called

[MylesBorins]

@HiPhish your comment has been deleted. Please find a less offensive example to make your point.

[andrewdeandrade]

@HiPhish Do you not see the benefits for everyone involved if you took a civil tone than the one you're taking? Some of the points you're making might be better received and considered. What you're doing is neither welcome nor constructive and undermines the points you're trying to get across. You may think you're being like Linus, but Linus at least keeps his rants focused on appalling coding habits and stupid mistakes like breaking userspace in a project that a LOT of people rely on.

[eplawless]

Here is an example of intolerance as a result of political correctness: https://archive.is/dgilk

I think a code of conduct is necessary, but how prescriptive or strict it should be will never be clear cut. As long as the people responsible for authoring and enforcing it are able to really consider the feedback they get and adjust as necessary, we'll all be fine.

That this thread was created is a good sign. What this thread has turned into is a really terrible sign, and I hope we don't let it bury the point.

[HiPhish]

@TheAlphaNerd @malandrew See, you did it again, and now no participant knows what I said. You are manipulating the discussion to fit with your goals, that is simply put slanderous. I never insulted anyone, your objection is just because I used a word at all, regardless of context. This is precisely the reason why this issue has been created and you are just confirming it. Do I have to archive after every comment? How are we supposed to have a discussion when you keep deleting posts that are exactly about what we are discussing?

What is wrong with Linus Torwalds? He has done more work than any of us, and if using rough language is needed to get the message through then so be it. It's not like he's swearing in front of kindergarten children, we are adults.

[MylesBorins]

@HiPhish you and I both know the language you used was inappropriate. The removed comment was clearly marked and you were prompted to make your point again using different language.

Speaking for myself, not the node.js project, if you feel a need to archive every post I encourage you to. Truthfully I have no problem with you writing whatever you want, wherever you want. This repo is not a place for it to live.

[KarbonDallas]

Hey @HiPhish,

Thank you for sticking it out even though it seem clear you feel you're being treated unfairly. I think I might be able to relate to you on at least some level with regards to being moderated.

I just wanted to jump in to say that while I don't know the content of the comment that @TheAlphaNerd deleted, I do believe that he's acting in a manner that he believes to be in the best interest of discussion because he genuinely cares.

Given also that you've been participating in the discussion for several days now, it seems apparent that you also genuinely care.

I think we all want to see the discussion continue to move forward, so perhaps we should momentarily focus on coming to an agreement on how we can resume productive discourse without causing a need for additional moderator action?

[HiPhish]

@TheAlphaNerd Please educate me what was inapporopriate about my content? Because we are clearly talking past each other and deleting what people say leads to discussion participants being unable to make their own conclusions.

@emilyrose See, you don't know what I said, you have to trust @TheAlphaNerd that what I said was really inappropriate, but you cannot build a discussion on good faith.

[andrewdeandrade]

This is a great read for those who haven't yet read it:

"What you can't say" by Paul Graham http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

@HiPhish Absolutely nothing is wrong with Linus. What I was saying is that you're behaving in ways that are superficially similar but don't really provide constructive value like Linus' rants.

[bashu]

Can we let people do what they do best, instead of competing in victim olympics?

[ravi]

I am going to try to answer various comments in terse form. Garann's post does not need a summary, especially not for me. Racism is not about thinking or saying impolite or rude things (which too should be avoided -- why not? -- unless there is productive value in it, such as in certain forms of comedy, or IMHO, Garann's post). It's about the effect that such thought and utterances have on a class of underprivileged people. If you think that proof is required that groups in question are underprivileged and underrepresented (no I do not need to look in Africa for black people!), then the opposing groups of the debate live in different universes.

@malandrew I appreciate your measured response, and I too would prefer not to throw around terms like "white dudes" (or "dudes" in general) unless I am specifically making a point about them/me and their/my privilege. But so what? If we can tolerate the antics of a professional rabble-rouser like Zizek, we can take a few comments that are less polemical and arguably in aid of making an important point. Maybe not, it's your call on whether you want to tolerate it.

I do not think there is a single hacker culture and not certainly one that you can find by watching movies.

[ravi]

But let us be clear about this: when anyone uses the term "political correctness" or, as in the previous comment to mine, "victim olympics", they are essentially attempting an age old technique, namely, using insult to win an argument. They are arguing in bad faith.