Politics, Safety, and the Future of Scala

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My life would be significantly less stressful if I didn’t understand the other side of the argument. I just don’t condone it.

I don’t condone the view that those who abuse others should be given a pass because they happen to be good at doing something useful. There’s 7.9 billion people on this planet, we’ll get along fine without them.

I don’t condone the view that those who support people with abhorrent beliefs should get a pass because they’re at least quieter about it. Those who support people who would do harm to me and mine are just as dangerous as the ones willing to do the deed themselves, their personal beliefs are surprisingly irrelevant to the harm they cause.

I think that’s an oversimplification. Nobody is asking for boycotting everyone who’s ever screwed up. That’s way different from boycotting an out and proud racist (how was this controversial in 2016?). That’s nowhere near asking @odersky to not drop a comment that appears to cut ties to a project because the maintainer declined to support a project headed by someone who has a history of abuse and troubling associations with white nationalists.

I can’t speak for @NthPortal , but generally this isn’t a good solution for most people because masking your identity online like that is basically “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for the digital age, and the burden of policing your words and behaviors to avoid accidentally outing yourself, on penalty of getting dumped on by the people you’re trying to work with, is beyond exhausting. It’s a good idea, if you’ve never had to actually do it, and unfortunately there’s a lot of stuff like that.

Funny thing is that most people know this already, if they take a moment to think about it - because this is exactly the sort of burden people complain about when they start in on “woke culture” or “political correctness” or how they “can’t even talk to women anymore”. Having to take a minute to self-censor is easy, once. When it’s every minute, it gets exhausting really quick. Given the choice though, I can’t help but think it’s better to lift that burden from people simply existing online (like female devs), and put it on the people who just have to keep themselves from saying bigoted crap that’s always been offensive.

It’s not really slander when the trans community suffers violence at 4x the rate of the general population.

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Welcome to the forum! It says you haven’t posted before.

Since this is already kind of off-topic, can you please try to keep the messages civil?

If you aren’t just trolling, my apologies. morgan-peschke has engaged with what I believe to be the actual meaning. If you have thoughts–at least until someone decides to shut this thread down–please feel free to engage.

(I am not a moderator, but I have been around forums for a long time, and a member of the community for a long time.)

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I have done this for decades, FYI.

But I admit that it may be easier for me than for some, and that the stakes may be higher for others than for me.

And I certainly agree that it’s not an ideal solution. But we don’t live in an ideal world, do we? So isn’t it worth evaluating as a possibility? What are the alternatives?

Yep, certainly agree with that! But we did that already: we have a Code of Conduct that has very little tolerance for bigoted crap, and as far as I’ve seen there isn’t any (obviously I don’t watch everything, so I could have missed something). Now what?

(Again, I’m refraining from discussing the other issues which I suspect are not core issues, though I am open to being convinced that in fact they are the core issues.)

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Maybe offtopic if there’s a topic at all here. On the original thing that started the thing, I’m with Rob, not because I necessarily agree with any personal opinions they might have - but because I don’t have to. It’s his project, he built it on his own time, we are using in in production for free and making money off it. He can do whatever with it, it’s fair game, and we get 0 to say. This is not democracy - it says tpolecat on the repo name.

I don’t understand @odersky 's comment at all, but also I don’t need to. With all due respect, for all the work you’ve done, why do you feel it’s okay to comment there at all? AFAIK you’ve contributed 0 lines of code to doobie, nor have I seen you helping people on gitter or discord. Honestly, I think you made a mistake. We are not entitled to anything going on on that repo. Rob can do whatever.

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Then again I contributed 0 lines to scala/scala, so probably my comment out of line too, but just my 2 cents.

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It sounds like you’re misrepresenting it.

I don’t think it’s “giving a pass” to not sabotage projects. There are ways to deal with people that don’t include doing so. And we’re not getting along fine. Scala is not doing fine. It’s ridiculous and inexcusable that it has such a bad name and small community. Ziverge is a major lifeline. Fury could have been a major lifeline. Ensime was a potential lifeline.

And please let’s not lump together all the different meanings of “abuse.” Maybe I’m missing something but the only accusations that I’ve seen that have evidence and merit are not what most people would call abuse.

What is the evidence that Curtis Yarvin would harm you and yours? All the quotes that I’ve seen are taken way out of context. Some time back when I heard the accusations I was curious if they were true and I read and watched a bunch of his stuff. He definitely believes some weird things and has a really rambly, hard to understand way of making points. But it was pretty clear that he was not saying the things that it might sound like when you engage in quote mining.

There have been many times that far worse people were platformed, people who absolutely would do harm to my people, and there is no protest. If you stood where I do it would be as clear as day to you from the double standards that it’s not really what it’s about. It’s about politics, and spreading hysteria is a really effective tool in politics.

Please see my other comment, it’s far from clear to me that that’s what he meant.

And again, having a policy of no politics is not the same as associating with someone, and I have not seen evidence of white nationalism either. Which is another term that’s been completely distorted for political reasons. Words have meaning. I would like to see evidence that Yarvin has those views. It’s been a while but I did go through all of Travis’ links at one point and didn’t find anything. Although I’d really need to see evidence that the accused knew about it and understood it that way.

It’s slander when they imply things like anyone that disagrees with compelled speech or how to help people wants to kill them.

You don’t have to mask yourself. Just don’t share details publicly that you feel put you at risk.

That’s what I’ve been doing. I must be a reasonably active participant in the scala community for around a decade now, and I don’t think almost anyone knows what minority group I am a member of. And it’s a good thing to because unlike the groups the media likes to sound empathetic about, my group is the target of way more violence and hate than any other group. Not only that but they accuse us of being the offenders and make the offenders into the victims.

So forgive me for being a little skeptical sometimes, especially when many of the claims are made by people that have been quite nasty to me or to other people.

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Or, you don’t truly believe it’s out of line to share a comment with someone.

At this point I’m quite sure that no one cares what code Rob maintains or doesn’t. But he didn’t have to make a public comment about his hatred for ZIO. My personal opinion is that Martin got scared that this would affect Scala’s growth, and I think he’s right. Scala is his magnum opus and he puts a lot into trying to get it to grow, and seeing people sabotage its growth like that must be really frustrating.

Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had a time machine I might suggest to Rob that he first reach out to Alex, explain his policies and ask him if he would take over maintenance of this, again, this 2-file library, which Alex would surely agree to do, and then the pull request would simply state that this code is being moved to a separate repo. Otherwise, at a minimum he could have just left out the part about his “Never ZIO” politics. I don’t condone giving untrue reasons, but there was no need to include anything inflammatory.

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I’m very sorry that the poster had such a bad experience. It is important people feel able to speak up about their bad experiences, or things can’t improve.

I think we must approach this by judging actions by objective standards. The idea that the Scala community can be held responsible for whether individual members subjectively feel safe is not something that should be embraced. If we go that way it will lead to more division and animosity.

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Crazy how when a person posts about their bad experience as a trans woman in the community, some people answer “well have you tried not saying you’re a trans woman?” - putting the burden on the victim as a band-aid, instead of trying to find a proper solution.

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@NthPortal I’m very sorry for your bad experience :broken_heart:

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Hi folks, I have not read any of the comments above, because I am close to ending up on the street with my family, having used up my savings working on decentralised social networks, so that we can avoid the Police State that we are witnessing being deployed in front of our eyes. So I really can’t get into the debate here for lack of time.

I would love everyone to get along here. But I think the best way to get that is to remind people that there are just very different psychological character types. To illustrate: in the 1980s there was a club in London called Limelight where Goths, Punks and Skinheads would go. They never talked to each other and absolutely detested one another, but they preferred to be together rather than go to the Limelight nightclub where the fashionistas preferred to go. These form of life are well described in the reality TV series The Young Ones from the 80s showing a bunch of students living together. I recommend people watch this and relax a bit and learn the art of laughing at themselves.

Scala has very different character types I believe since it brings together FP (maths, algebra), Web (Hippie) and OO (pragmatics, coalgebras), Actory Systems (multiplicities). Those all meet in Category Theory somewhere, it’s just CT is a lot weirder than you ever thought.
Well it’s all about translations. But watch out for the very real dangers of mistranslation.

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To everyone …

Maintainers working in their free time can drop code from their repository, whenever they feel like it, for whatever reason they want — and that reason is even more legit when keeping one’s mental sanity is involved. They don’t owe you anything, especially when talking about how they spend their free time.

This thread is a trash fire giving credence to everyone that wants safer / more inclusive spaces :clap: kudos to all those that care.

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thanks @alexandru . This is important. Maintainers of real floss (ie, not company backed) are a scarce resource, we need to protect it like a common good.

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As others already said, there’s much more that can be done besides being sorry. For one, stop supporting harassers, condemn the specific harmful actions, and let know others that no more harmful behaviour will be tolerated, so they can gain some confidence on the community and feel safer.

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It just will lead to situation where somebody will ignore others instead trying to explain what happens.
It will be very safe. But I am sure It will not be very effective.

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@NthPortal I am deeply sorry for what has happened to you.

Scala community should be an open and safe space and Scala Center shared a plan how to improve the situation during Advisory Board meeting in June (see Darja’s direction report)

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Politics and ethics are and have always been inseparably intertwined. To believe otherwise is to believe that the political status quo is equitable, just and fair, which is demonstrably false.

And I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but honestly, most people who make the false differentiation between politics and ethics do so with the express intention of obscuring the fact that their politics are bereft of ethics.

My very existence is “identity politics”. Those who bemoan identity politics are inevitably those who do not want minorities to have rights and equality, or often to even exist. If that is indeed you, you are not welcome in this community. If that is indeed you, leave.

Politics are not anything more than personal views. And yes, I’m quite capable of of understanding the other side.

Lily Cade’s views are that all trans women should be murdered, and she’s so strong in her conviction that she would do it herself.

(This is hard to transcribe, and I apologise to those who read it. But I’m tired of people saying it’s “just a difference in views”. Content warning for transphobia and murder. Emphasis mine.)

Speak truth to power. Trans women are men. They know they are men. If these men can’t slit the throats of these vile personas in public, admit what they have done, take off the dress, look with abject shame upon the affront to God and nature they have wrought in the service of their masturbatory fantasies, apologize for the children they have hurt with their lies and their drugs and their grooming, apologize for the incarcerated women they have fed to rapist monsters, apologize for the lesbian spaces they have desecrated, and devote the rest of their lives to repairing the damage they have done, if you left it up to me, I’d execute every last one of them personally.

Not all “personal views” are reconcilable. Not all personal views are acceptable.

The other side says that whites are smarter than blacks. The other side says that women are lesser than men. The other side says that trans women don’t exist. Etc. etc.

Our issue is not that we disagree with their views. Our issue is that their views are reprehensible. Our issue is that their views cause harm both directly and indirectly. Our issue is that even if they do not treat us differently, they encourage others to treat us differently, and often violently.

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Several people did not take from this the point I was trying to make, which is on me for failing to be clear enough. So I will try to clarify.

I’m not torn up about this. I’m not still hurt by this. I can’t even remember the person’s name. They do not matter to me in the slightest. But at the time, it did hurt me, and it almost caused me to leave the community. Likely there are others for whom such treatment by that person did cause them to leave the community. There was a person who made the community unsafe, and pretty much everyone in the community knew it. But because they were allowed to remain in the community (and AFAIK still are), they caused harm over and over and over and over again. My intent is not and was not to request sympathy; I wanted to illustrate what happens when such people are allowed to remain in a community.

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Please stop saying this. It’s “transgender people”. It’s not hard to google. It’s not hard to find out the correct and respectful ways to refer to trans people.

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Not at all. You can believe that people are hurt and need to be made whole independently of any non-extreme political position. You can recognize the injustices done to others independently of any other sane belief. All you have to do is give others the benefit of the doubt (thank you for that by the way) and to treat them as you yourself would like to be treated were you in their place. Why can’t we have respect for one another as human beings independently of anything else?

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