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Apology

felleisen.org

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Re: Apology

#181

Post by nl »

NtochkaNzvanova wrote: post #164
EGreg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met Richard Stallman’s lawyer several years ago, having made an appointment with him to discuss our open source framework, Qbix. Eben Moglen had a nice office near Lincoln Center in NYC. Somehow on the way to the office, he had taken a look at our site and mistook something on it... by the time I arrived, he spent the entire time yelling at me and berating whatever he could find out about me. A very strange charact…

Sounds like a difficult experience for you, but the other example you cite ( https://observer.com/2011/12/in-which-eben-moglen-like-legit... ) does not seem to reinforce your point that he's some sort of abusive individual. It belongs on one of those "Journalists Posting Their Ls" accounts on Twitter. The author comes off as an utter dolt, while Moglen's position is well-reasoned. It's hard to comprehend why some peo…

> The author comes off as an utter dolt, while Moglen's position is well-reasoned.

It's interesting that I read the same reporting as you, and to me Moglen comes off as a zealot who is unable to see anyone else's point of view.

I think this is best shown by this exchange:

"Me: Well just for me personally right now, the utility seems to—

Mr. Moglen: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! You see that’s not true....."

Re: Apology

#182

Post by wolverine876 »

throw3456548 wrote: post #129

Huh. It's interesting to see this come out now. 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…

> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it.

It's an issue of power. If they didn't have power, nobody would say that. If a student behaved that way toward Felleisen, certainly nobody would say that to Felleisen.

Power corrupts.

Re: Apology

#183

Post by aidenn0 »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
slibhb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience. There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible. A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a pa…

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

There is an incompatibility here between the set of people who act like Felleisen and the set of people who react like Butterick.

There is inevitably a message from the community to one side of "change or leave." Whether explicit from action or implicit from inaction.

There is both a pragmatic and a moral side to the decission. From the pragmatic point of view, a brilliant asshole might be worth more than the sum of all those offended, or not.

From the moral side of things, we can choose to set limits to behaviors even when the benefit of their contributions is net positive considering those who avoid the community.

Your argument seems to speak to the moral side of things; that Felleisen's behavior is not so odious as to cross the moral event horizon. What about the simple fact that there are people who will take offense at his behavior, and the community will therefore lose their contributions?

Re: Apology

#184

Post by teddyh »

Deestan wrote: post #173
teddyh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is why many powerful people have a policy of never apologizing for anything. To critics, no apology is enough, and any attempt at an apology only serves to prove (to critics) how insincere the person is. There is no way to win. The mere fact that the person here is trying to apologize indicates that the person is probably honestly trying to make amends. This is not a behavior you should discourage, if what…

These powerful people you refer to are treating this all as a game. As if apologies are only a tool to adjust public perception. And most of the time such people really only do give calculated, insincere apology-shaped statements. Like a child forced to say "sorry" or they won't get their dessert. These apologies are rightfully criticized, but sadly for the most part they do their intended job. If you are sorry and w…

> These powerful people you refer to are treating this all as a game.

I’m sure there are many such people, but in an individual instance of an apology, you can’t know that, unless you can read minds. Accept their apology and move on, and let their actions in the future speak for them.

Re: Apology

#185

Post by CleverLikeAnOx »

abz10 wrote: post #133

I wonder how much of personality is genetic and largely out of the control of the person. I know mine is. I have two separate anxiety mutations - basically high functioning autism. I often find myself accidentally offending people. I preemptively cancelled myself as a precaution long ago. It seems society has decided that some traits are innate and deserving of understanding and others are not.

How does one preemptively cancel oneself?

Re: Apology

#186

Post by anon3664573346 »

throw3456548 wrote: post #129

Huh. It's interesting to see this come out now. 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…

I also had a bad experience with him years ago at a time I was considering going back to academia, which contributed in my decision to stay in the industry. I don't think the details are important but yeah, he wasn't the nicest person on the table, made several comments that where really out of place, none of the professors around said anything but a couple just left the table in a way that made think that this was a common behaviour from him. It surprised me that such an important character in the PL community could say such things and walk out like nothing. I believe most people could easily get fired from a company nowadays if they made similar comments. Anyway, it's good to see he's taking some time to analyse how he interacts with other people.

Re: Apology

#187

Post by mathattack »

koheripbal wrote: post #121
jwcacces wrote: post #19

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.

Apologies should be in the same forum as the offense.

Re: Apology

#189

Post by bryanrasmussen »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
slibhb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience. There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible. A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a pa…

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

>There's no crying in baseball.

I think at that stage in the movie Tom Hanks' character is not the best guy to look to for life examples.

I mean if we have to accept that some people are difficult and hard to get along with and we should try to accommodate them then I guess we should accept that some people are easily hurt and will cry and should try to maybe help them when they are hurt.

Re: Apology

#190

Post by goto11 »

throw3456548 wrote: post #129

Huh. It's interesting to see this come out now. 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…

> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it.

Perhaps, but usually bullies are only bullies when they are in a position of power and are perfectly capable of behaving different to people who have power over them.

How often to you hear about employees calling their boss and screaming at the boss at 3 in the morning? Strangely this rarely happens.

> What if not understanding social conventions comes off to others as bullying, though?

If you know who you can bully and who not to bully that means you do understand social conventions.

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