We on the West are on the brink of entering into a new cycle of social madness, fueled by Postmodern nonsense.
Thank you for being brave enough to confront the self-righteous mob, and thank you for doing it with such equanimity and eloquence. Alexandre Oliva via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> writes: > Nathan, > > I think you identify an important problem of gender imbalance in our > community. It is quite likely that finding ways to make our community > more welcoming to demographic groups that are currently less present > than in the distribution in the global population could reduce this > imbalance. > > However, your diagnosis as to the supposed cause of the problem makes no > sense to me. You said yourself that Stallman has not participated in > our community for decades. Much as I know, his very hands-off influence > in the SC has been mostly limited to licensing and strategic issues, > e.g. the GPLv3 and Runtime Exception relicensing, to ensure copyleft > defenses were in place to avoid abuse of such features as plugins. > > > It may be very convenient to paint a boogey-man and expel it because > that became fashionable. But sacrificing a goat or a lamb does not > expiate our own sins, and expelling someone who hasn't even been present > in the community can't be expected to make any real difference to that > matter; it would rather make us seem *less* welcoming and more > intolerant, and suggest other motivations for the move. > > > Let's be real and honest, when was the last time anyone in the GCC > community was called out for sexist behavior? When was there even > conversation about it, and about how sexist behavior is not acceptable > and not to be accepted among participants in the GCC community? What > was our latest collective action to promote e.g. gender equity within > the community? > > If we were to shift our collective blame over this very real and > undesirable problem to someone who has any direct authority over the > project, why not suggesting expelling e.g. the entire Steering Committee > for its evident failure to address the problem? (I don't think it's a > good idea, but that would be the first thing to try if we were to blame > "management"/"leadership" rather than ourselves for it) > > What could support any rational belief that having RMS one extra level > removed from our technical community would bring about anything > resembling a solution to the very undesirable and unjust gender > imbalance you've correctly identified? > > > The action you propose, besides the absence of effect in making our > community actually more welcoming, because he's already absent, would > send the opposite of a welcoming signal to people with controversial or > impopular opinions, to people at a certain spot in the neurodiversity > spectrum, and to many others who oppose this sort of mob rule. > > > How about we set out to take individual and collective actions that > actually address the problem *in* our community? We don't need anyone's > approval to call out sexist acts, nor to invite and train people with an > interest in compiler technology, nor to maintain a welcoming atmosphere. > > A regime of terror to maintain a false appearance of a welcoming > atmosphere won't get us there. > > If we undertake such actions, individually or collecetively, you might > be surprised (but I won't be) that he, even absent from the community, > would support these actions, which is the very opposite of the picture > you paint. > > Our taking effective action on our own would help show what the real > issues and intents are, and it would tell apart those who are really > interested in solving the gender imbalance and the social injustices > causing it, like you and me, from those who are abusing that flag as a > trojan horse to serve nefarious purposes, as suggested and illustrated > in https://ultralux97.medium.com/stallman-must-be-removed-a3061b09fb22
