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Apology

felleisen.org

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Re: Apology

#241

Post by fatbird »

lmm wrote: post #179
fatbird wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not actually a hard problem. We're not short of brilliant people who are also nice or at least not generally toxic. We don't need to exile the brilliant monsters; we just need to not make allowances for them. If they can learn to meet norms of civility, we can welcome them; if not, we can ignore them. How many brilliant people have we lost access to because they were driven out of the field by someone like Felle…

> We're not short of brilliant people who are also nice or at least not generally toxic. We absolutely are, especially with the all-encompassing definitions of toxicity that are popular lately.

Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?

Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.

Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?

If 2 or 3 people who could make comparable contributions to the community leave because of him, we're already in a net-negative situation wrt smart people advancing the field and community. Even if Matthias is twice as smart as the next best, it only takes a few more for him to be a net negative.

Re: Apology

#242

Post by cannabis_sam »

Conclusion: stay the hell away from Racket..

It still amazes me how eager people are to defend abusive behavior when it emanates from perceived brilliance.

Re: Apology

#243

Post by abz10 »

yenwel wrote: post #199
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.

Well autism is sometimes labelled as individuals that are less "self-domesticated". Animals can be domesticated by humans and breeded to be tamer. Tame animals are more sociable towards humans, also have lower intelligenc and brain capacity since alot of their needs are met by the domesticator I guess. See the difference between cats/wild cats, dogs and wolves or foxes and domesticated foxes. Self domestication is th…

My grandparents were farmers and used generic selection to pacify their cattle herd. It was very clear from their work that behavior was inherited. I was already predisposed to the concept. Even still it was a surprise when I found out just how much of my behavior was genetic.

Re: Apology

#244

Post by jolux »

chevill wrote: post #222
jolux wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mean to be crude but it’s kind of irrelevant what the specific definition of bullying is, and it’s definitely irrelevant what his intentions were. Many people find his behavior extremely unpleasant, belligerent, mean, etc, as evidenced by the thread on Butterick’s original post, and the OP in this thread, describing being yelled at and insulted. Having a disorder may be a partial explanation for why someone b…

I think you're mistaking the relevance of his intentions as an excuse for him to continue being toxic. That's not the case at all. I think its very relevant why a person does the things they do. He still has to change and become less toxic no matter what. If a person bullies because they have some kind of social ineptitude that makes them not realize they were bullying. That person is still a bully. However, its impo…

Fair point.

Re: Apology

#245

Post by jolux »

WalterBright wrote: post #219
TomSwirly wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't allow other people to control your feelings. 1. You offer this as an excuse for profound hostility and rudeness from someone in a position of power. 2. Every human has buttons that can be pressed and you are no exception. 3. Bullying behavior by someone who has power over others logically causes fear in the target of the bullying. 4. Bullying works. That's why people do it, even though it's a cheat. You are l…

It isn't blaming the victim any more than taking a self-defense class is blaming the victim. Nor is it making excuses for bullies any more than locking your door at night is excusing thieves.

I mean you said that behavior that offends is partially the fault of the person taking offense, I don’t understand how that’s not blaming the victim here. Having a thick skin is important but I question your priorities when your response to somebody not wanting to be woken up by a screaming phone call at 3am is “there’s no crying in baseball.”

Re: Apology

#246

Post by bredren »

blagie wrote: post #213
thinknboutstuff wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills. And from what I'm getting from this thread, we are talking fundamental thinking before you engage in a social interaction skills. It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills. At the very least, sometimes that means the genius team member needs to just shut up and choose their…

Intelligence isn't unidimensional. Neither is culture, for that matter, and social skills, what's toxic, and when to shut up is culturally-situated.

It’s generational as well. Particularly the “strong man” style of leadership. You could see it in the Biden / Putin summit.

Re: Apology

#247

Post by haswell »

dTal wrote: post #224
haswell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matthew called him out publicly. Given that, I can’t really judge the decision to make the apology public. 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 Ma…

What should he have done? Kept quiet? Attempted (and likely failed) to obtain a meaningless private apology, for multiple instances of public belittlement - while the bully carries on bullying? No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided account­ability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m…

We can only speculate on whether he attempted to resolve this in private or not.

My preference is that things like this should be addressed privately. I realize that this is not always possible, and at times, a public "shaming" is the only way to make progress.

My objection is to Matthew's insistence on taking a private email and making it public without permission, and then acting like he holds some authority to "permit" Matthias to respond / publish any corrections.

Matthew has every right to be upset about Matthias' behavior. He has every right to ask for an apology. But I can't help but feel he's giving away the high ground by using tactics that are pretty distasteful regardless of context. Like I said, it doesn't excuse or change how problematic Matthias' behavior was, but bad behavior shouldn't automatically justify more bad behavior.

Re: Apology

#248

Post by DoreenMichele »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #216
DoreenMichele wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social stuff can be amazingly hard to sort out sometimes. One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly. This is not a justification for anything. I hope they manage to build bridges and all that. This is the first I've personally seen this particular dispute.

> One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly. I'd say it's generally the other way round. Twitter is infamous for bringing out the worst in people, resulting in many unproductive interactions. I've heard the comparison to road rage. When the human element is so…

My comment was an observation about this specific case of two people apparently actively trying to put their differences asides, build bridges, etc. in the face of a history of personal friction IRL.

It shouldn't be interpreted as somehow implying that use of the internet is a magic cure all for all human character deficits.

Re: Apology

#249

Post by throwaway210918 »

I was a graduate student in Matthias’s lab from 2000 to 2004. During that time, I spent many, many hours working at my desk in close proximity to his office. I watched many individuals go in and come out of private meetings with Matthias. I TA’d a handful of courses under him. I participated in student meetings with him. I worked in his summer schools for high school teachers. I traveled with him to conferences. I saw him interact with many undergraduate and graduate students in personal, small group, and large group settings. I saw him give many talks and respond to questions at those talks. I saw him sit in the audience at many talks and faculty interviews, ask questions and interject comments at those talks. I interacted personally with Matthias many times. I gave practice talks in front of Matthias. I wrote conference papers that were rejected and were an embarrassment to both myself and Matthias. I admit that I was one of his weakest students. In every case with me, however, Matthias acted professionally, encouraged me, and went out of his way to try to help me succeed. His private and public comments to me and others were, by far, constructive. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to be mentored by him.

During that time, I never witnessed Matthias bullying anyone. Never. For clarity, I’m using the definition of Workplace Bullying written by Crystal Raypole: “Workplace bullying is harmful, targeted behavior that happens at work. It might be spiteful, offensive, mocking, or intimidating. It forms a pattern, and it tends to be directed at one person or a few people (https://www.healthline.com/health/workplace-bullying).” No one told me or mentioned in my presence that he had done so. Was he opinionated? Yes. Was he brusque? At times, yes. Did he push his undergraduate and graduate students hard? Yes. Was he critical? Yes. Did he suffer fools lightly? No. Was he outspoken? Yes. Did he ever make any ad hominem attacks? None that I ever witnessed. Did he give people second and third chances? Yes. Did he help those under him improve and excel? Yes. Was I inspired by Matthias? Yes. Could he have done some things differently? Yes, that goes without saying for any of us. Doing so, would he have had such successful results? Who can say. Were individuals hurt by his criticism? Yes, and, while I can’t speak for others, I know that it was due more to my ego being deflated, rightfully, than anything else. I never saw Matthias use his authority to belittle anyone, neither did he engage any petty retribution when provoked. Nothing that I witnessed or heard about, ever rose to the level of bullying. I saw that he was passionate and wanted to improve the quality of his craft, of his students, and of his profession.

Re: Apology

#250

Post by threepio »

haswell wrote: post #247
dTal wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should he have done? Kept quiet? Attempted (and likely failed) to obtain a meaningless private apology, for multiple instances of public belittlement - while the bully carries on bullying? No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided account­ability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m…

We can only speculate on whether he attempted to resolve this in private or not. My preference is that things like this should be addressed privately. I realize that this is not always possible, and at times, a public "shaming" is the only way to make progress. My objection is to Matthew's insistence on taking a private email and making it public without permission, and then acting like he holds some authority to "pe…

1) No, you don't need to speculate. He describes three years of events that all happened in private (with no resolution). Starting from the very first sentence of the piece ("In January 2020, I told two members of Racket’s core team …")

2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.

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