The SQLite Code of Ethics

I'm glad you started to pick up on the subtle point about Heisenberg, but it sounds like you stopped halfway. What would be the consequences of allowing Heisenberg to dictate codes of conduct for quantum physicists today, or Wagner to dictate codes of conduct for performers of his operas?

I addressed the point about when codes of conduct apply to users of software in the document linked.

> With good modding, no code is needed

This is nonsensicle and shows a lack of understanding. A code of conduct is just a guidebook for users to understand how your moderators will act, what to expect in a community.

How does "good modding" remove the need for that?

Ah shit here we go again.

Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is widely misunderstood to be a licence to be intolerant yourself. For the last time : it is not.

Popper was talking about a very specific case, where the intolerant exploit the tolerance of a society to physically take over that society and enforce their views.

Until and unless you have evidence of that plausibly happening, there is no Paradox of Tolerance. You can perfectly tolerate people who hate women, who hate men, who hate gays, who hate the rich, who hate the poor, who hate any and every religion, ideology, way of life, identity, worldview or personality type. You can tolerate each and every single one of them, you can tolerate infinite number of them, as long they don't try to make reality conform to what they preach.

It's well known in software that a data structure can have infinite readers, but the presence of even a single writer either necessitates that the data structure is completely private to the writer, or an explicit and consistent writing policy needs to be devised to coordinate the writer with the readers and possibly other writers. Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is a restatement of this basic observation in the context of human societies. You can have infinite tolerance and diversity, as long as not a single ideology or group "writes" their conflicting views to society. If you have a group that does that, then you must choose whether you will cede all control of society to that group, or to set a strong writing policy that is much less permissive than infinite tolerance.

Stop using an argument for tolerance as an excuse for intolerance.

Karl Popper was talking about Nazis and Communists organizing street brawls and putsches, not people insulting each other on Twitter:

> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

As long as nobody is bringing pistols to tech conferences or starting fistfights in the hallways, Popper would not support excluding attendees for having intolerant ideas. Perhaps if contributors to your open-source repository are doxing and SWATting each other, putting lives at risk, then Popper would exclude them. But as long as they're just making offensive comments, Popper would not "claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force." (It might still be better to decline their patches so as to avoid being associated with them.)

I wouldn't go even as far as Popper, because his argument eats itself; as demonstrated in this thread, when people start applying his ideas, Popperism itself becomes an intolerant idea that, according to Popperism, we should suppress by violence. Moreover, any political position that advocates that the government take an action is advocating that some policy be imposed on the unwilling parts of the population by violence.

Much more sustainable is to suppress the violent actors and protect those who are merely calling for violence, while remonstrating with them to change their minds.

Can't edit my post but thank you to everyone saying they listen to and support the podcast.

Hearing positive feedback keeps me going and I'm always happy to take guest or topic suggestions as well.