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Yeah, sadly true, and sadly also what I expected, given my experiences in this community.
Thanks for speaking up though :)
The forbidden topics are rape and assault? By “hacker” does the person mean white hats and black hats? Or “hacker = somebody who writes code”?
It refers to the hacker subculture in a rather broad sense I’d say, as in “People who enjoy fiddling and building stuff with computers / electronics adjacent”.
🤔 IMO they aren’t forbidden, just off-topic. Most of the time they are allegations. Allegations are just that, allegations. Until a court has decided whether they are true or not, they should be taken as just that, allegations. It is undeniable that rape and assault allegations have more impact than most allegations.
If a court verdict were shared, then it would be much more substantial, but even then, to most people, they are of little impact. What do I care if some person I don’t know is convicted or not convicted of a crime? It’s hard enough to remember the names of all my cousins, let alone some stranger on the web.
What do I care if some person I don’t know is convicted or not convicted of a crime?
That one is totally up to you. What you should care about is whether innocent people are suffering because or your action or inaction.
The article talks about rape specifically, but many forms of abuse exist in communities, both online and offline. Only a fraction of them are prosecuted, but many of them cause real harm nonetheless.
The thing is, you don’t have to remember the people or their stories, all you need to remeber is what is right and what is wrong, or what qualifies as a bad actor vsa good one, and then speak out in support of the good ones. So just two things to remember, way fewer than you have cousins I assume.
If we have insufficient information, how do we know that innocent people are actually being harmed, or if we do take action (the minimum action you seem to be advocating for is ostracism) against the accused how do we know that they are not the innocent ones?
Are we really supposed to resort to broad statistics when making intimate decisions?
or if we do take action (the minimum action you seem to be advocating for is ostracism) against the accused
Either way someone’s getting ostracized. People who don’t ostracize the accused are going to ostracize the accuser.
“Ostracizing” the accuser is generally voluntary. There is a difference between “I’m not comfortable working with this person” and leaving, and everyone coming to you and saying “Get out”.
The latter is fairly rare to happen to accusers, but it’s expected for the accused.
The latter is fairly rare to happen to accusers, but it’s expected for the accused.
That’s not true. Kids have been disowned by their families for reporting SA. Ostracization is a real possibility for victims and it’s a very large part of causes rapes to go unreported. Nobody wants to be friends with the person who makes false allegations.
Not to mention you’re leaving out all the people who will see someone actually convicted and decide not to ostracize the guilty person because “akchually he’s a good guy”.
The reality is that it is insanely hard to fence-sit on “I don’t believe the accusation but I don’t think the accuser is lying either”.
But what community is the author talking about? I only skimmed but I still have no clue whom this article concerns. There must be some context I’m missing, but then it would have more sense for the author to give some links, now this just reads like some rambling that has nothing to do with programming
I think the point it to raise awareness that those issues are real and people suffer gravely from them. The idea is that we as members of a community, any community really, show a level of awareness and actually speak out against abuse and toxic behavior in the spaces we participate in.
His last article, which is referenced in the current article, gives context:
Wow thanks. This person seems to thrive on creating drama.
Well I’ve been a part of the Sourcehut (one of his major projects) community for many years and have interacted with him many many times. I’ve never found him to be a drama queen. Is he outspoken? Yea. Does he stand up for what he believes in? Yea. So he usually goes against the grain and catches flack for it.
They wrote “I’m being censored” when they should have said “nobody will listen to my rambling”.
The author went out of his way to make a reasonable point in the most absurd way possible.
Which I guess is an achievement.
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Edit: I misunderstood, my comment doesn’t add anything of value but you can still read it if you choose.
spoiler
Any speech which suggests that the listener may find themselves subject to a non-majority-conforming person in a position of power, or even that of a peer, will have crossed the line; one must speak as a victim seeking the pity and grace of your superiors to be permitted space to air your grievances.
What possible grievance do you have with intersex people?
Do people think before they say things anymore or is it just a race to put as many words on the paper as you can?
Pretty sure they are arguing that any discussion about “non-majority-conforming” persons is moderated or censored by the existing majority to the disadvantage of the minority.
considering they later conclude that progressive speech is allowed you must be right. I was thrown off because in real life the “majority-conforming” opinion is “I do not care what is in your pants”.
Edit: it’s also not reflective of my time in hacker spaces at all but OP has since confirmed it’s not actually about hacking spaces but just tech in general
I agree with basically everything said in the article.
It’s also a bad article.
It’s twice as long as it could be while only saying half as much as it should. An unfalsifiable thesis with an amorphous CTA, and a self-righteous, self-fulfilling conclusion.
How about we get some thinkers on this issue instead of loquacious parrots who love the sound of their own virtue-signaling.
it’s a trend to bloat text lately. recipes, blog posts, LLM output, scrum meeting speeches when working remote.
Nothing Drew DeVault writes is worth reading, and this is no exception.
