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I am leaving llvm

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31–40 of 145 posts

Re: I am leaving llvm

#31
post #15

He gives this as his reason for leaving: > Since agreement [to the code of conduct] is required to take part in the conferences, I am no longer able to attend. For reference, this is LLVM's code of conduct: https://llvm.org/docs/CodeOfConduct.html If somebody finds any of the below to be objectionable and refuses to abide by it, I would not be comfortable attending a conference with that person or being forced to int…

> Discriminatory jokes and language

I present as evidence, one (1) dongle joke taken as greatly offensive.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#32
post #25
post #6

These social justice warriors may seem well-meaning, but ultimately they are parasites. Their mission is never-ending and ultimately they overreach and this is the result. I just want to work with smart people. I don't care what gender they associate themselves with, what color they are, whether there's an equal distribution of any of these characteristics in my department. I just want to do my job and learn from sma…

It sounds like you're angry because you want the autonomy to choose not to think about social justice issues (at least at work), and you feel like that choice is being taken away from you by people who enact things like codes of conduct. Now it's institutionally everyone's responsibility to think about these things, so if I want to be part of this institution, I no longer have this choice. Is that right? What do you…

I am some of those things, and I want that fact to be utterly ignored in a professional context.

Someone who is unintentionally unkind will receive a quiet word better than a hundred codes of conduct. That's how you change hearts and minds.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#33
post #5

Ridiculous. This is the kind of weak thinker who would have looked at Jim Crow's South and said it was egalitarian. Formal discrimination is not the same as concrete discrimination.

You call it ridiculous, I see it as the beginning of a movement to make open source project contributions invite only. The drive for “inclusion” is turning cancerous. “Social justice bikeshedding”. I’m pro social tolerance, but it’s coming off the rails in the tech world, with active discrimination explained away as progress.

I don't see how that's connected. Honestly. I just see a guy throwing his toys out the pram because somebody is being explicitly discriminatory.

It's ridiculous because real, damaging discrimination is rarely explicit, almost never public, and almost always far more significant than being excluded from a mentorship program.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#34
post #6

These social justice warriors may seem well-meaning, but ultimately they are parasites. Their mission is never-ending and ultimately they overreach and this is the result. I just want to work with smart people. I don't care what gender they associate themselves with, what color they are, whether there's an equal distribution of any of these characteristics in my department. I just want to do my job and learn from sma…

While I don't care about people's race, skin colour, sexual orientation, 'gender', religion, political affiliation, book preference or shoe size...

...I most emphatically do care about them not bringing up any of these characteristics in any context where they see fit. Just like a country with freedom of religion should support freedom from religion the same goes for freedom from politics, 'gender' issues, race discussions, political diatribe et al. There are laws against discrimination on many - but not all - of these issues which can be used to get those who insist on breaking them back in line or out of the context. If these laws are insufficient there are channels to discuss these issues and ways to get them amended.

In simple terms I think we - as in the society which I was born and raised in (in the Netherlands) and currently live in (Sweden) - have gone a long way in eradicating discrimination on many of the mentioned grounds and marginalising those who insist on violating relevant laws. Both Sweden and the Netherlands belong to the most egalitarian and open societies in the world where 'diversity' has been a mantra for many decades. Things were starting to look good, hardly anyone cared about whether the teacher at school had a different skin colour or shared her bed with a same-sex partner or prayed to whatever deity of choice. And then...

...and then...

And then identity politics suddenly raised its ugly head, driven by people who insist they 'represent' 'marginalised minorities' - without asking those supposedly marginalised minorities whether they felt the need to be represented in any way - and starting calling anyone who did not abide by their 'demands' all sorts of things - racist, xenophobe, misogynist, white cis-gender male expletive_deleted, etcetera.

What the said they wanted to do was 'end discrimination and further diversity'. What they are doing is building enclaves and segregating the population among all those characteristics which our societies previously tried to make irrelevant.

All those labels they try to stick on their opponents reflect back on what they themselves are: they are the racists by trying to split the population along (real or imaginary) 'racial' lines. They are the xenophobes by loudly denouncing anyone who does not kowtow to their all demands. They are the enemies of diversity by inciting strive between 'racialised' groups.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You call it ridiculous, I see it as the beginning of a movement to make open source project contributions invite only. The drive for “inclusion” is turning cancerous. “Social justice bikeshedding”. I’m pro social tolerance, but it’s coming off the rails in the tech world, with active discrimination explained away as progress.

I don't see how that's connected. Honestly. I just see a guy throwing his toys out the pram because somebody is being explicitly discriminatory. It's ridiculous because real, damaging discrimination is rarely explicit, almost never public, and almost always far more significant than being excluded from a mentorship program.

Wait, so this guy is standing up against what he sees as discrimination, and the argument is “ignore him, it’s not the bad kind of discrimination”?

Re: I am leaving llvm

#37
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, dream of a world where I can work with smart people without regard to their race, sexuality, gender, whatever, but it is naive to think that we are already living in that world. Like it or not, the entire system is stacked against minorities in ways that aren't even obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege. I work as an engineer in an office of 120 people in the East Bay. There are three black peopl…

This. The point of these policies is that we might be missing some fucking amazing talent and not know just because of historical reasons.

Is something that happened in 1864 or 1964 going to prevent you from identifying a good engineer in front of you?

Re: I am leaving llvm

#38
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, dream of a world where I can work with smart people without regard to their race, sexuality, gender, whatever, but it is naive to think that we are already living in that world. Like it or not, the entire system is stacked against minorities in ways that aren't even obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege. I work as an engineer in an office of 120 people in the East Bay. There are three black peopl…

Also not obvious or noticeable from a position of privilege: many, many white men have no opportunities or privilege and thus are discriminated against for simply being the same race and gender as a very thin slice of upperclass society.

While it is true that many white men come from a background where, for any number of reasons, they are not afforded the same opportunities as, say, a white boy from Cupertino, they are still given opportunities and privilege because they were lucky enough to be born a white man. I know this first-hand because I grew up in a rural farming community in Vermont that was more than 95% white and poverty-stricken. Of course, not everyone in my community went to university, but when I did, no one questioned whether I belonged there because I was still a white man. Now that I have a doctorate and work at a big tech company, no one questions whether I belong here either. The same can not be said for a Hispanic or African American man (or even a white woman) who is in my position.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The point of these policies is that we might be missing some fucking amazing talent and not know just because of historical reasons.

Is something that happened in 1864 or 1964 going to prevent you from identifying a good engineer in front of you?

It does when those events and the decades that followed have prevented minorities from having the opportunities to become a good engineer. This isn't about you and I not recognizing talent in front of us, it's about giving that talent a chance to stand in front of, and ideally next to, us.

Re: I am leaving llvm

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's connected. Honestly. I just see a guy throwing his toys out the pram because somebody is being explicitly discriminatory. It's ridiculous because real, damaging discrimination is rarely explicit, almost never public, and almost always far more significant than being excluded from a mentorship program.

Wait, so this guy is standing up against what he sees as discrimination, and the argument is “ignore him, it’s not the bad kind of discrimination”?

Well, it really just shows a pernicious, probably purposeful misunderstanding of discrimination.

Some discrimination is good. Children shouldn't be able to drive cars. Blind people shouldn't be allowed to fly planes. Adults are not allowed to compete in junior boxing leagues.

Most people know this. Most people can also distinguish between this, and the systematic violence, physical and social, that society conducts against marginalized groups.

Racists often pretend to think that racial discrimination is akin to the normal kind of discrimination, for two reasons. First, it's so they can imply that racial discrimination is kind of small beer. Second, it's so they can use normal forms of discrimination as dogwhistles.

I don't know if the poster is a racist. He's probably just an idiot. I think a lot of people who are ordinarily intelligent get attached to formal definitions that are deceptive.

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