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Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

drupalconfessions.org

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Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#51

I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

Without getting into controversial labels, it's not clear to me who did what to whom and what the people are petitioning for. I seemed to me that (all allegedly) someone was outed as into BDSM and was somehow treated unfairly. I think that certainly falls into the domain of liberal sexual identity politics.

Larry is Gorean

Goreans are people that agree with philosophy of professor John Lange, that writes his philosophy in porn books with pen name John Norman

What got Larry kicked out is that similarly to Abrahamic religions, Goreans believe there is an inherent hierarchy between men and women. Or at least it is what Dries (Drupal leader) wrote as explanation for the incident.

So Larry is being punished literally for "wrong-think", having beliefs that are shared with billions of Abrahamic religion followers around the world. But Goreanism is not a religion, so probably doesn't count as religious discrimination.

Also according to a blog lost by Larry, the "proof" used against him was a transcription of a discourse he made in a private wedding.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#52
post #44

Expanding on one of the comments that might clear up what we're actually talking about (which wasn't made especially clear otherwise): >> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead." Even assuming this is Larry's philosophy, it is pretty much the same philosophy shared by many wome…

> ...as long as that belief is not in some way construed as a community value...

I honestly don't care about that even, as long as people can discuss their ideas and leave the group if they're done tolerating each other.

> It's one of the simple facts of life that you pretty have to work with people who believe all kinds of things...

In popular usage, "tolerance" is slowly becoming synonymous with "acceptance" or "celebration". But in reality, you just described real tolerance right here. It's a good balance because we can absolutely agree to disagree and be part of a healthy community anyway. Keeping "tolerance" as tolerance is the best recipe for actual diversity of identity and thought in my opinion.

EDIT: Clarified my phrasing a bit.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#53

In the same line, Brendan Eich. I completely disagree with his views on marriage of homosexuals, but disagree that it led him to have to quit his position at Mozilla Foundation.

Eich was the first person I thought of when I read this letter.

We've all heard of sore losers but those people were sore winners.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#54
post #15

Make no mistake, inclusion and diversity at all costs is the new "religious" standard. Your personal beliefs do not matter. You will conform or you will suffer. (Vote down, that's fine, but it's still true.)

"Diversity in everything except thought" is the mantra.

The problem with this is that to solve problems you need diversity in thought: https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-the...

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#55
post #20
post #3

> Larry Garfield, a long-time, veteran contributor to Drupal was ejected from the community, allegedly not for breaking the Code of Conduct, but, to quote your own post on the matter, because “he holds views that are in opposition with the values of the Drupal project." At some point, some open source communities will need to decide whether they work on open technologies or they are political activists with a politic…

Plenty of open source communities are political beyond user rights. If you believe NSA should be able to watch everybody all the time, Tor people will kick you out. ------------ Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it…

>Gor is not just a flavor of porn, it is full philosophy of gender relationships. E.g. it does not just says "this gets me off", it says "this is nature of men/women, modern society is suppressing that nature and that is wrong". Some are in it for sex, but quite clearly others are in it because they believe in philosophy and attempt to live by it as much as possible/legal.

It's a series of fantasy f*#%ing novels, ofcourse it's role-play. Serious role play maybe, and definitively weird, but the author is _still alive_ and his name is not L. Ron Hubbard. Is he participating in political activism with mysogynistic undertones? Is he otherwise projecting gor-related gender views onto non-consenting parties? No. He just wants to do weird stuff together with other people who want to do weird stuff, socially and sexually. To assume that he holds these views to be morally absolute for everyone is a gross misrepresentation and unfortunately typical of persecution of weird people.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#56

I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

For the record, a large chunk of the social justice community are kinky (and, separately, a large chunk of the kink community agrees broadly with modern feminist views). Nobody I've spoken to within my subset of the social justice community wants somebody to be removed from the Drupal community based on how they go about their personal relationships and sexuality.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#57
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.

> The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red stat…

That's how it works. The board decides who they want.

You can always start your own company if you want to be CEO.

In fact, that's what Eich has done - he's a startup founder nowadays.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#58
post #40

There is an important point that is being missed in this conversation. There are facts that are undisputed by both sides of the argument: - Should a person have a right to privacy? Yes - Should a person be discriminated based on their beliefs? No - Should a person in leadership be forced to expose their private life? No There are two questions, however, that is causing everyone to trip over themselves and table-flip:…

This is a truly personal matter that, in my opinion, bears no relevance to his public-facing leadership role and responsibilities. He's into BDSM, so what? If your PornHub/xHamster/whatever search history was exposed, how catastrophic would it be to your career? Would people that you respect immediately feign disgust, knowing very well that they have similar search histories? It's easy to point the finger when it's s…

> People are used to having their emotions exploited and being force fed specific facts sans context to steer their opinion and, at large, public consensus.

It's worse than that. Many actually like it. Outrage is click bait because people like clicking on it. If you're reading it, it's for you.

People like a good two minute hate. It creates all sorts of interesting sensations.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#59

I'm actually impressed, from the first few lines I was expecting another social justice fueled witch hunt, but instead we have the exact opposite here.

Without getting into controversial labels, it's not clear to me who did what to whom and what the people are petitioning for. I seemed to me that (all allegedly) someone was outed as into BDSM and was somehow treated unfairly. I think that certainly falls into the domain of liberal sexual identity politics.

The problem is that Larry's brand of BDSM (Gor) is not the "right" form of BDSM, as supported by "liberal sexual identity politics".

As such, he was outed, smeared, and asked to leave the Drupal community.

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