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The web runs on tolerance

shkspr.mobi

151–160 of 183 posts

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#151

To credit a technical advance to a person's identity is to commit the 'Correlation is not Causation' fallacy. While diversity in a technical pool is interesting, the technical merit of the contribution must stand alone, independent of the contributor's personal characteristics. Shifting the focus from 'Does it work?' to 'Who wrote it?' is fundamentally anti-meritocratic and undermines the value of the technical discu…

You'll notice that the author (me) didn't actually credit the invention of the computer to Turing's sexuality.

But it is an undeniable fact that he was gay.

If the British government had banned him from working at Bletchly Park because of that, would the computer still have been developed? Certainly he wasn't the only one working on it, but historians and computer scientists seem to agree that he was a key figure.

The health of a technical community depends on its ability to attract contributors from a wide variety of backgrounds.

We agree that the result of the work is what is important. I'm arguing that Stephen Hawking can't participate unless you install wheelchair ramps.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am raised in hindu religion and we have a saying here basically meaning, treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself and I am sure that literally every main religion and philosophy can kind of share the sentiment and create a tolerant society overall. Shame that those same religions and people in power forget this core part I suppose. I think that the forgetfulness might be on purpose but I basically hope…

> treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself This is often called The Golden Rule because it is one of the most common tenets of every religion and ethical framework ever made

Wow, I had just observed that this seemed very common in religions I didn't know I was this accurate as that was called the golden rule!

Now hearing it, I remember hearing something similar but thanks for refreshing and thanks for letting me know

Now that we are talking about golden rule, I often wonder, if this is the case, then why not skip all the other aspects of religion which were meant in tribal times or have issues which still persist to put more emphasis on this "golden rule"

Is this what humanitarianism is (sort of?)

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll gladly take the opportunity to avoid directly supporting a racist/bigot, or anyone who seeks to silence/oppress/murder entire groups of people for simply existing. I don't care if they're selling me an application, or a laptop, or a car, or a cheeseburger. The internet, and the world, are a lot more interesting and exciting when you get a lot of different people from different backgrounds participating. Genius a…

But where do you draw the line? Not buying a game that was created by the Nazi party to promote antisemitism is one thing. Shunning a text editor because one of its creators once said something you disagreed with politically, is another.

I tend to draw the line along the impact of my choices. If I download an open source text editor made by a Nazi for my personal laptop it's probably fine. The software is free so I'm not handing money to a Nazi who could use it to harm others. It's on my personal device so there's very little risk that I'm signaling support for the Nazi or advertising for his text editor either. Still, text editors are everywhere and if I can find one that works just as well for my needs and doesn't depend on a racist for updates that's probably a good thing.

I also don't the sweat the small stuff. Hideki Kamiya has been accused of being a xenophobic ass and maybe he is, but people are entitled to their bad takes and internet drama isn't going to stop me from enjoying games he's worked on.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#154
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think it’s quite a leap to go from “html is successful because it’s fault tolerant” to “this applies to communities as well”. There’s obviously a case to be made for both, but they’re independent and unrelated.

For me, it's an especially bad argument because the sloppy nature of HTML parsing is NOT a virtue... it's a source of bugs, vulnerabilities, and incompatibilities that provides (yet another) technical moat for existing web browsers. It's a huge tragedy that HTML5 beat XHTML.

Maybe, but after several decades of engineering, I became much more of an advocate for actual observed user behavior, which is chaotic, and as such nowadays preach “embrace chaos”.

That’s what HTML and the browsers did. They accepted humans are terribly bad at following instructions when you want to cater to a broad audience, and as such embraced error correction. The end result is that the early days were awesome because everyone knew how to build websites.

Perhaps in the current day and age, where people hardly write hand-written HTML anymore, this can be reconsidered. But a new, more restrictive format would have to show real benefits, because it’s precisely as I say: people don’t really write raw HTML anymore so it’s kind of a moot point.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#155
post #28
post #15

This author needs to either be specific about who and what they're talking about or not bother. I don't have the context to understand their specific complaints and I'm not motivated to seek it out.

The author (me) wasn't writing for you. If you haven't been paying attention to the various bigots trying to rouse hate from their position of technology prominence, then I don't think my post will convince you of anything

> If you haven't been paying attention to the various bigots trying to rouse hate from their position of technology prominence, then I don't think my post will convince you of anything

You think your post is not one trying to rouse hate against specific people?

You ever come across the word thoughtcrime? You think telling perhaps 50% or the population they "have no business being here" is inclusive? A large number of the classes who you pretend to be representing actually don't buy into oppression olympics.

You want to write a screed against the owner of X? Sure, go ahead. But your screed is against anyone who doesn't care about verifying a person's race, gender or sexual orientation.

You're presenting an extremist "you're with us or against us" view; some of us who aren't racist, sexist, misogynist, etc also don't want to have to pass your purity test.

Some people just want the puritannicals to leave everyone alone.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What left-wing extremism was that, exactly? Extreme upholding of human rights and equality? Extreme kindness and respect for fellow human beings? Extreme acceptance of people from all backgrounds, religious beliefs and sexual orientation? Extreme letting people live their damn life in whatever way they want as long as it doesn't harm others? Yeah, who wouldn't want to push back on that, sounds terrible eh? So on this…

>Extreme kindness and respect for fellow human beings? I hope not towards people that disagree with you or are labeled with an ism since they are monster. >Extreme acceptance of people from all backgrounds, religious beliefs and sexual orientation? Does that include Jihadists and child molester/groomer? >So on this so-called extreme left, what exactly was/is so bad? That is left as an exercise for the reader if you m…

> Does that include Jihadists and child molester/groomer?

by and large the right-wing administration currently running the white house works with and makes business deals with Islamic Fundamentalist countries and is headed by a child molester [1]. this does not seem to be an issue of "the left", for its many flaws

1: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU08/20250227/117951/HHRG...

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether people who disagree about this are talking at crossed purposes. I think there's politics in a narrower sense (concerning partisanship and state intervention) and politics in a wider sense (concerning power relations and decision making). To depoliticise things in the former sense (by depolarising and deregulating) isn't to depoliticise them at all in the latter sense. In society, arguably everything…

> Presumably, what people mean when they say "everything is political" is that politics in the wider sense is both important and on this list What they mean in my experience is "everything must be viewed as political propaganda"

I see. I disagree with them if they think everything really is political propaganda, but I think in a sense everything is political (in the wider sense) in its causes and consequences, so perhaps it might as well be propaganda, even if those involved don't think of it that way.

To return to your previous comment that "everything is political" is a tedious worldview, maybe there's a possible compromise. We could accept the idea that "non-political" everyday things have a (small) political significance, while never (or rarely) engaging with that political significance in any specific instance.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#160
post #106

What a bizarre bait and switch. Starts talking about browsers allowing malformed HTML and uses that to draw conclusions about allowing certain types of people.

So these certain types of people should not be allowed? Or what are you trying to say here?

They are saying the logical structure is ill-formed.
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