121–130 of 282 posts
The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself. Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So both just needed to talk to each other? No idea why they have to go through HN proxies.
Matthew made it pretty clear he had talked to a number of people, and waited months before going public
There is an adult way to escalate problems which is to first speak privately with the person in question to address the problem or correct the misunderstanding. If that fails, you could speak with people in the relevant social circle shared with Matthias. Dragging your problem into the public square is only something you do if those fail AND there are sufficiently good reasons to make it public.
Just to be clear: I am not defending or criticizing Matthias one way or another. I am speaking purely about process. This is a process that should be observed equally by those in positions of leadership toward those whom they serve in that role as well as the later toward the former. That is, both Matthias and Matthew.
The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself. Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
Apologies should be private. Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.
I mean what's the alternative, silence? For all we know, there may have been additional private communication and if there was I'm pretty sure it's none of our business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like someone who habitually uses power in a mean way.
There's a difference between someone who is naturally mean and happens to be in power and someone that uses meanness to get power.
The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself. Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
Apologies should be private. Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.
Ideally, all of this should probably be private, but public discourse about internal things seems increasingly the norm. I’m not a fan.
Edit: after reading Matthew’s updates to his original post [0], I fully understand why the apology is public. Matthias responded to the original post privately via email, and Matthew chose to publicly publish key excerpts and a general characterization of what Matthias wrote privately.
He then “gave permission” to Matthias to publish any corrections.
I’m not a fan of Matthew’s general approach here (even while acknowledging that of course bullying/abuse is unacceptable).
- [0] https://beautifulracket.com/appendix/why-i-no-longer-contrib...
The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself. Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
> first steps of the self realization process Every time I see a well written apology letter, I cringe at all the self-actualization rhetoric people respond to it with. As if they must do more and become some kind of Buddhist monk before true retribution is to be awarded to them.
Took a hard cs course with fellisen at NU. Dude is ignorant to his toxic behavior, preaching egoless programming while being needlessly cruel during graded presentations. I know many cs folks at NU refused to take his classes.
And I know many more who sought out his class.
Years ago I was planning on entering a PL PhD program until I met Felleisen. He yelled at me, insulted me, and I left nearly crying. That was the last straw that led to me leave academia, and I never came back. A young woman I know switched out of her computer science major after taking his class and said she still had nightmares about him. Another person I know worked with him on a project as a student and said half the team dropped out due to his behavior. He would call the remaining team at 2am or 3am to yell at them sometimes (according to my friend).
I'm not sure how I feel about this coming out. I don't get the feeling that he's doing this on purpose. I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it. At the same time, he's been making people feel like shit for decades. Academia used to be a place for misfits who don't understand social conventions. What if not understanding social conventions comes off to others as bullying, though?
Racket could be better off without him. He might be brilliant, but he is so difficult to work with, he hurts his own project.
Took a hard cs course with fellisen at NU. Dude is ignorant to his toxic behavior, preaching egoless programming while being needlessly cruel during graded presentations. I know many cs folks at NU refused to take his classes.
There's a super important distinction between the person with extremely high standards that skewers anything mediocre and that can legitimately be won over by doing exceptional work (my old boss), and the narcissist who is critical for the mere purposes of bullying (or the type that mixes both of those together). If the rage and ultra high standards are strictly about work quality and vary only along that dimension, then that's someone I actually really like working with.