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Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

drupalconfessions.org

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Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#291

Post by okreallywtf »

rybosome wrote: post #211
okreallywtf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, someone willing to stand up for the majority. When will this discrimination end? When will the weak and marginalized release their stranglehold on our society and let the rest of us fly free? Not a day goes by when I don't imagine what it would be like to not be able to say or do whatever I want and the fear of that makes me absolutely terrified. We must be constantly vigilant to ensure that fantasy never be…

Cute, but your glib dismissal of this viewpoint is partly why Trump won. Here's a little explanation of how people work: if a person holds a belief or fear, and one person demonizes then for it while another validates it, the person is going to be drawn to the validator. It's the same reason why gay pride has soared over the last few decades; as a gay person, would you rather listen to a person saying "you're perfect…

I generally agree with you but the seemingly unaware irony of people up in arms for accusations made against someone for what they did behind closed doors got the better of me. I appreciate that this is a nuanced situation and my personal feeling is the best thing to do is apply tolerance equally to everyone as long as you can (ie, tolerating peoples intolerant beliefs as a way to teach them more tolerance) and I can't really see how ostracizing this guy will be a net positive at all but it also seemed as if there are things we don't know about the situation but we'll see if anything more comes out.

I am though getting tired of the "that is why Trump won" accusations that float around, everyone seems to have perfect hindsight now that its over but few people seemed willing to actually do anything to prevent it. The party of personal responsibility has done a great job of blaming the victim (once again) for why they were seemingly forced to elect Trump. The truth is though: we don't have to do anything, there are plenty of shills who will drum up fear, frustration, and anger against marginalized minority groups simply for their existence. Yes, we can give them ammunition but they also have perfectly good ammunition factories churning it out day after day. All it takes is one loudmouth freshman SJW filmed on a campus to bias millions of people while thousands of trained people try to educate others about diversity issues get totally ignored.

There is an inherent conflict between people who see more rights for others as less rights for themselves. Should we take the high road and stick to our ideals (even when it means accepting people who would see our rights squashed)? Absolutely, but if we think by doing so we will actually achieve our goals we are delusional. I find it endlessly ironic that people who are typically derisive of the left as being coddling have to be coddled by the left lest they inflict more discrimination on the rest of us. People who joke about being "triggered" are themselves triggered constantly even though they are typically part of the unchallenged majority. It is like an abusive relationship where you are walking on eggshells and if you get out of line (ie, by standing up for yourself) the result is your fault.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#292

Post by mustacheemperor »

HappyTypist wrote: post #46
StavrosK wrote: post #35

Being unfamiliar with this, from the starting few paragraphs I thought "oh man, they have a white surpremacist developer or something and now there's a scandal, huh". Then I learnt that he was ousted because of his sex life. What the fuck? What does it matter to anyone what he does with other consenting adults in private?

>> "The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead."

Note that this isn't a quote from the link above, nor from Larry, and while I don't know much about Gor it's not a full or faithful reflection from what I understand of it. There is no shade of the BDSM community that does not value consent at its core. Fifteen years ago, I would imagine people would have and did receive the same backlash for being "outed" as part of BDSM communities that today are seen as "kink" and fully accepted by pop culture.

Also, side note and to actually quote the above link - I find myself "walking on eggshells" considering how to comment in this thread, and I think that reflects the same wider problems that are making this issue so catalytic.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#293

Post by gryfft »

Pxtl wrote: post #244
M_Grey wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So often you get stories in which a certain type of person cries, "Thought Police!" as a way to deflect from the core issues, but... this really is an example of that. As you say, the thoughts you have and express on your own time , which in no way change your professionalism, are your thoughts, period. I can't even imagine the life I would have led, the friends and colleagues I would never have had if "What you thin…

Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?

The discussion as I understood it was centered on professionalism rather than friendship. When you do business with someone, you can and should take into account their publicly-known actions and public statements. Anything else is bad business.

However, when I do business with someone I don't know on a personal level, there is every possibility that person is secretly a Rape Nazi. My question is, is catching all of the Rape Nazis worth the cost of sacrificing all borders between the personal and the professional, between public and private life?

So far as I know, doing so is the only way one could guarantee that one never conducted any business with someone whose personal beliefs differ from one's own to an unsatisfactory degree.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#294

Post by soundwave106 »

Pxtl wrote: post #281
soundwave106 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, until I read the comments, the context of that letter was not clear to me at all, as BDSM was only referred to in passing. I only have a vague familiarity with the Gorean subculture. The modern subculture seems largely to be an extension of BDSM oriented role-play. The main negative I've heard is that Goreans sometimes take themselves way too seriously, ala a deep Star Wars or Star Trek nerd. I don't think I've…

Wait, Gorean as in the Gor books? Ohhhhh.

Yes... for further clarification, the "Gorean subculture" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorean_subculture -- beware, this link is NSFW) is derived from the Gor series of fantasy books by John Norman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor).

(I don't know too much in detail about either, the only Gor related media I've seen is a tangentially related film bad enough to make it onto MST3K -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_of_Gor)

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#295

Post by Turing_Machine »

Pxtl wrote: post #244
M_Grey wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So often you get stories in which a certain type of person cries, "Thought Police!" as a way to deflect from the core issues, but... this really is an example of that. As you say, the thoughts you have and express on your own time , which in no way change your professionalism, are your thoughts, period. I can't even imagine the life I would have led, the friends and colleagues I would never have had if "What you thin…

Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?

What if one of your friends was a Communist?

They've murdered way more people than the Nazis, after all, and they're still a going concern.

Most of the various groups that call themselves "Nazis" or "KKK" consist of about five yokels who meet in somebody's garage. Communists still control entire countries.

So, how about it: is it okay to fire people for being Communists? If not, why not?

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#296

Post by [deleted] »

humanrebar wrote: post #47
pavlov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.

> The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red stat…

[deleted]

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#297

Post by tps5 »

Pxtl wrote: post #153
tps5 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you get it. It doesn't matter what some guy posts on some message board (unless it's a threat, an incitement of violence, or something along those lines). It doesn't matter if he says he believes in "Gorean philosophy," whatever the hell that is. What matters are his actions. If he's treating women disrespectfully then, by all means, throw him out. But he's allowed to believe whatever the hell he wants,…

I do get it. That's why I started from the important of professionalism, of separating the professional from the personal. But I'm also pointing out the other side: that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing crosses the line. If it was just his beliefs we wouldn't know about them in the first place. But obviously, we know about them, which means it's not just his beliefs it's his statements. If I went around on some…

> If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?

Yeah, it's okay.

I would say that, because we are coworkers, you are obligated to treat me respectfully, whatever your personal beliefs. If you treat me poorly, and I complain, the issue is the fact that you treated me poorly, not your whacko belief system.

If this guy behaved improperly towards women, then I have no problem with him being "removed from the community." But posting X whacko opinion on Y message board should not hurt you professionally. That applies equally to racism and holocaust-denial and whatever other fringe beliefs you can come up with.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#298

Post by tzs »

coldpie wrote: post #96
noxToken wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, are we saying that only certain kinds of people can be CEOs? In short, yes. There are plenty of rational people out there who don't care what someone does in their private life as long as it doesn't have a readily apparent effect on business. It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hol…

> It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hold. In Eich's case, it wasn't a private matter. He used his money and influence to attempt to enforce his religious views on people who do not subscribe to his religion. When you are involving the government in public enforcement of your personal views, they a…

Has he actually said he did it because of religious views?

I've come across people who believed that the state should not be involved in marriage. They viewed extending marriage to gay couples as just making a bad situation worse, by getting the state involved in even more relationships.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#299

Post by gotothedoctor »

humanrebar wrote: post #47
pavlov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich was CEO, though. It's a special position in any organization. The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability, and the mere optics of a PR issue can be enough. That's why CEOs often have such generous compensation packages in the event of involuntary termination.

> The board can ask you to leave at any time if you seem to be a liability... It's worth noting that many of the objections are about private information being misused. Eich was actually outed from a donor list that was leaked. There's a lot of parallels here if the concern is about "doxxing" activities. I also have a really hard time with the "but CEOs are different argument". So could being a Democrat in a red stat…

The donor list was not "leaked" and Eich was not "outted." Donations to CA ballot propositions has been public information since the 1970s, when voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in response to the Watergate scandal. http://www.fppc.ca.gov/the-law.html Even leaving overlapping federal law aside, in CA, where Democrats have a permanent majority for the foreseeable future, it is beyond unlikely that such transparency rules will change. If anything, it seems more likely that we'll increase transparency around SuperPacs, rather than the reverse. After all, isn't more accountability better than less?

And, yes, as it turns out, historically, we've only ever permitted certain kinds of people to be CEOs. They are also not chosen--or removed--democratically. But this is way off-topic.

Re: Drupal Confessions – An Open Letter

#300

Post by camperman »

orcdork wrote: post #192
camperman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Because my opinion on Sandy Hook means the GP isn't using rhetoric.

Your opinion on the Sandy Hook shooting makes everything coming out of your mouth suspect at best.

Heh. No it doesn't. It means we disagree about whether Sandy Hook was real or staged. That's it. But because you're a special snowflake, it has to be all or nothing, black or white, right or wrong.

I can't wait for you to see it, I really can't.

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