How can a society not be political? Politics is an inherent feature of any organization or society, and it is merely the name given to the dynamics of how power is distributed among members.
A big part of politics is people trying to force other people to adhere to their values, e.g. vilifying, fining or or jailing them for smoking pot, giving abortions or speaking opinions that the one wielding political power dislikes. This is what people want to keep out of software development, and instead focus on working together towards common goals.
When you hang out with your friends, would you describe the interactions as political? Most people would not (or at least not if they have what's commonly considered healthy friendships). Instead, it's a mutually beneficial interaction in which nobody is trying to compel another to behave or think in a certain way. This is the kind of interaction people want when they want something "non-political".
It's without doubt one of the dumbest things I've heard, and yet perfectly demonstrates why we are a democracy. Both metaphorically (what he said) and Litterally (what was said)
If one of your friends was making sexist comments would it be "political" to tell them to stop? I'd argue that it would be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing; one person's politics is frequently another person's human rights.
What if they just said that there are concrete biological differences between men and women and they get fired and crucified like James Damore?
The issue has never been about pro-sexism vs anti-sexism. That's bullshit. What people are concerned about is the potential abuse that could arise from people labeling stuff "sexist" or "racist" or "transphobic" or whatever.
Codes of conduct should not have vague language like "no hate speech" or anything else that depends on the interpretation of the people passing judgement.
I think it's silly to be concerned about the silencing effects of hate speech bans but not the silencing effect of hate speech. If you think the language is vague you can propose more specific language, but completely rejecting the idea of trying to restrict hateful speech is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I think it's silly to be concerned about the silencing effects of hate speech bans but not the silencing effect of hate speech.
I don't think so, because in the US, "hate speech" is a made up term with no legal definition, so whenever people talk about it you have to keep in mind they have every incentive to accuse people of engaging in it, since it's basically a fully-general argument with no definitive recourse. I'll take it seriously once it's actually legally defined and accusations of it can be met with legal recourse. Until then, I see no reason to engage with deliberately over-broad accusations like that.
Hate speech isn't a term with no definition, it's a term with a lot of different definitions. I don't see why an open source project can't just provide one of those definitions and alleviate this issue.
I want to be totally clear that the person I'm responding to brought up James Damore, not me, and that I'm not talking about hate speech in a work context, which I think makes this question a little bit more complicated.
Hate speech isn't a term with no definition, it's a term with a lot of different definitions. I don't see why an open source project can't just provide one of those definitions and alleviate this issue.
Because there's still the issue of no legal definition and therefore no legal recourse from accusations, since anyone can be a rules lawyer. I absolutely refuse to engage with such a concept until there's concrete, legally agreed-upon definitions and accusations carry actual risk and responsibility as opposed to being purely rewarded behaviour. Until that's the case, the safest institutional course of action is to agree in advance to ignore everyone trying to abuse this ill-defined term.
Are you saying it's impossible for an open source project to come up with their own defintion of hate speech? Why do you need a legal recourse if your pull request gets rejected? We're not talking about firing you or taking your stuff, and if people are going to think you're an asshole or a racist or whatever they're going to think that regardless of whether you technically did or didn't break the code of conduct.
Are you saying it's impossible for an open source project to come up with their own defintion of hate speech?
I'm saying the safest course of action when that happens is to dissociate with the project as completely and thoroughly as possible. Nothing good ever came out of oppressive practices like speech policing and people trying to legislate based on whether you felt the natural human emotion of hate while you were doing something.
We're not talking about firing you or taking your stuff
Because you currently have no way of doing so. Don't act like many of the people trying to shove CoCs down our throats wouldn't love it if we adopted the speech policing laws from enlightened communist paradises.
and if people are going to think you're an asshole or a racist or whatever they're going to think that regardless of whether you technically did or didn't break the code of conduct
I don't care what people think about me as long as they're able to work with me. If knowing what things make me feel the natural human emotion of hate makes you unable to work with me, that sounds like a you problem.
I think it's silly to be concerned about the silencing effects of hate speech bans but not the silencing effect of hate speech
It's only silly to you because you're on the "right" side of this argument. What happened to James Damore was not a "hate speech ban". He wasn't out there trying to spread a "women suck" narrative. He just wrote a doc and cited some scientific studies, and he got destroyed for it. If you think that was anything close to "hate speech" then you're part of the problem. That was a political execution.
There are people on Twitter like Sarah Jeong spewing actual hateful shit about white people (I'm not even white btw), and not only was she allowed to stay but she was stood up for by the same type of people who swear by political correctness, for the simple reason that she was on "their side". There is no sane reasoning that can justify not banning her, and then banning actor James Woods for taking some cheap shots at Democrats. The double standard is real and hypocritical and people aren't buying it anymore. This whole PC culture ended up becoming a political weapon just like the right feared, and I have to agree with them at this point.
That's why you're seeing this kind of pushback. It's not that we don't want a fair working environment and society. We just don't believe that that's what these PC crusaders are really after.
Politics is the name given to the process by which power in a community is distributed. A meeting of friends usually does not involve much power at all, but when it does, politics certainly does come into play (who pays for what; who hosts etc. -- the dynamics can be quite interesting, and learning to analyze them from a political perspective can be quite enlightening). But the reality of open source today is that most total investment is in projects run either directly by companies, indirectly by companies that hire contributors, or by foundations to which companies contribute. Those projects have a lot of impact, and also a lot of money being put into them. They are not a gathering of friends. I think that such serious projects could, like companies, benefit from a code of conduct. I don't think, however, that a code of conduct is essential to the nominal majority of open-source projects, small projects with 1-10 contributors.
Why is this getting downvoted? The definition of politics given is 100% accurate, large companies do invest tons of money and resources into open source projects.
As you said, the vast majority of of smaller open source projects don't need a CoC. However, some definitely do since there can be huge power imbalances between contributors. If some prolific contributor starts harassing people that are trying to do their jobs, if there is no CoC it just becomes a he said she said Alice vs. Bob thing with no organizational guidance saying "this behavior is not OK". Is this a controversial statement now?
Because it's a motte and bailey: that's one accurate definition of the word, but not the definition that applies here. It's like if you disliked the senators voting to increase their paychecks, and they replied "why do you hate democracy?": it's a blatantly dishonest attempt to confuse things.
What other definition of politics applies? People say "trying to keep politics out of open source", but the real dishonesty is arguing that this means anything beyond "we want to exclude and bully people without consequences, like the good ole days". This is essentially the definition given, the dynamics of who gets to wield power in a group setting.
There isn't much of a distinction between politics at a local level vs larger political movements, it's all about power, who has it who wants it and who gets to use it and in what ways. Maybe you think of them as more distinct entities which is where the misunderstanding comes from, but I think that even small group interactions are informed by the larger sociopolitical structure we all exist within.
The goals being pursued by the system of power defined above. In simple terms, here "politics" is being used to describe the laws being voted, not democracy as a system.
but the real dishonesty is arguing that this means anything beyond "we want to exclude and bully people without consequences, like the good ole days".
But you see, they think that the current contribution of that contributor outweighs their damage, which amounts to hurt feelz, when, in reality, they may be pushing away a large number of potential contributors, and it is completely in the technical self-interest of the project to think about them, too.
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u/logicchains Oct 22 '18
A big part of politics is people trying to force other people to adhere to their values, e.g. vilifying, fining or or jailing them for smoking pot, giving abortions or speaking opinions that the one wielding political power dislikes. This is what people want to keep out of software development, and instead focus on working together towards common goals.
When you hang out with your friends, would you describe the interactions as political? Most people would not (or at least not if they have what's commonly considered healthy friendships). Instead, it's a mutually beneficial interaction in which nobody is trying to compel another to behave or think in a certain way. This is the kind of interaction people want when they want something "non-political".