It's a code of conduct. Not a code of thought.
Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
51–60 of 243 posts
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#52If you don't care about political views of presenters, there's no need to bring inclusion to the table; just consider their technical talents and call it a day. If you actually care about inclusion, you need to think about how including backwards-views that oppose inclusion itself could affect your effort. Banning only physically violent behavior is behind the times, it's obvious there are many ways of harming someon…
define safety. The problem is right there with all these words "safe","diversity","inclusiveness" which now means something different than what they are supposed to mean at first place.
And people are tricked into agreeing with this narrative because of course, people want to be safe, people want diversity, people want inclusiveness. But by safety you do not mean physical safety. By safety you mean "a environment where radical left-wing ideas cannot be challenged". By diversity you mean "people being there not because of their skills but because of their gender,race or sexual orientation". By inclusiveness you do not mean more of everybody, but "less white males". That's "newspeak" and it's misleading on purpose.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#53From the article: "Well, I believe in free-market capitalism. A well-known and popular programmer has tweeted, repeatedly, that he supports violence (real violence, e.g., the firing squad) for people who believe that." Well, that's a political position with sizable historical backing. The people behind the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and China's revolution would all have agreed. "Let the ruling classes…
The KKK is a political position with sizable historical backing. I don't see how this is relevant to either side of the argument here.
No, you do. And you failed your godwin.
The relevance is that this guy isn't the only one who believes it, just the only one we're currently talking about for being honest on social media.
His speech is no more actionable (and thus no more worrying) towards any individual than "Just bomb Iraq" was in late 2001. Cough.
In lieu of threats you don't get safer for banning him because 1) bans don't actually work against criminals (not that he is, but if he was) and 2) if you're really at risk there are billions more who feel the same way he does. Better to avoid a false sense of security and just be on your toes.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#54For context, the project in question is https://github.com/urbit/urbit and the speaker is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin .
TIL: neoreactionary, anti-democratic blah blah blah
aka libertarian fruitopia
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#55It's a code of conduct. Not a code of thought.
> It's a code of conduct. Not a code of thought.
Given how most codes of conduct are written there is virtually no difference between the two. If a code of conduct in a community applies everywhere its members might be on the internet or in the real world, then they are not free to say what they want publicly anymore. If one can be excluded from an opensoure community because of a totally unrelated comment on some obscure forum as stated by codes like the "contributor covenant", it's pretty clear that this kind of code of conduct is a code of thought.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#56One thing that belonging to a political fringe has taught me, is that either you decide to live your life in constant conflict, or you learn to ignore the politics of a person when it has no direct impact on a given situation, even when it to you is utterly distasteful.
The latter leads to a far happier life. And often you'll find even people who hold views you find offensive can be perfectly nice people most of the time.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#57I think "conduct vs beliefs" is the right metaphor by which to make these sorts of decisions. After all, we talk about a 'Code of Conduct' and not a 'Code of Belief' (the latter, in my opinion, would edge too close towards totalitarianism.) As long as Curtis stays professional and speaks only on Urbit [0] he is doing the right thing and should be allowed to speak. [0] http://urbit.org/
At what point does someone's routine vocal endorsement of racial superiority and advocation of violence become problematic? Or are we obligated to welcome these people into our conferences (workplaces? homes?) so long as they confine their exhortations to speech and only work to encourage others to perform the actual violence?
The idea of a "Code of Belief" is a strawman -- the issue at hand is the expectation not of freedom of thought or freedom of speech, but a desire for speech without consequences (which inevitably requires that the freedom of speech of others be quashed).
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#58It's a code of conduct. Not a code of thought.
> It's a code of conduct. Not a code of thought. Given how most codes of conduct are written there is virtually no difference between the two. If a code of conduct in a community applies everywhere its members might be on the internet or in the real world, then they are not free to say what they want publicly anymore. If one can be excluded from an opensoure community because of a totally unrelated comment on some ob…
No, this is just not true. You're arguing for speech without consequences, which is just a fancy way of saying that some people should have the right to speech, but others should not have that same right in return.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#59> In the end, we all converged on the same opinion: that LambdaConf should focus on the behavior of attendees, rather than their belief systems. And that wasn't the starting point? What a joke! > We would never allow a violent criminal to attend LambdaConf. Yes, you would. You'd be sued if you didn't. They did their time and (presumably) got out or the question would be moot. If they (or anyone else) threatened someo…
Ok, but that's not everything. What about talks with sexist content? Remember the "Perform like a porn star" talk (http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a...)? The person giving the talk might not be actively harassing someone, but they're clearly making the conference a place where women do not feel welcome.
Re: Wrestling With Inclusion at LambdaConf
#60"That I shall not talk or act in ways that could make minority groups feel bullied, harassed, intimidated, stalked, stereotyped, or belittled; examples of minority groups include women, people of color, lesbians, gays, and people who are disabled, bisexual, transsexual, asexual, intersex, transgender, and gender-variant;" So as a member of the majority, I'm expressly the only person bound by these rules of behavior i…
"My allowed attendance would be contingent on remaining silent the entire time on premises."
Only if you are incapable of acting like an adult human being. As someone who is also a member of the majority, I would find no problem in being able to follow the rules, because I can behave like an adult.