Can we define what opinions are allowed to be held anymore? Just put up a list somewhere with all the opinions that should be banned from polite society and rightly get you fired, so everyone can understand what they are?<p>Just as an example, the author wrote this a while back (among similar sentiments):
<i>"Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." lol so true</i><p>Personally I'm not a fan of people promoting negative stereotypes of an entire race/gender in this way, but I would not support calls for Wingo's firing/"cancellation" for expressing this opinion. If this sort of charity for differing opinions is no longer reciprocal though, I see no reason for it be offered by anyone. We can all just retreat to ideological silos.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/andywingo/status/778290363635302400</a>
So many of these nonprofit software orgs seem to be run like small town churches. Board members are selected through some combination of ideological purity, zeal, and nepotism rather than any sensible measure of competence or efficacy.<p>Andy's complaint seems to me to be that they are selecting for the <i>wrong kind</i> of ideological purity (i.e. yesteryear's free software ethos instead of today's gender issues), and I think this criticism misses the forest for a tree.
Here's a suggestion I haven't seen mentioned anywhere:<p>In situations where two camps ostensibly agree on mission but disagree on execution, why don't we just have two organizations? In this case the "show me the code" camp can collectivize their Free Software efforts and the "diversity and inclusion" camp can do the same, both with the internal rules and leadership structure that appeals to them.<p>It seems a segment of the community (possibly a loud minority) here is insisting on a monoculture across not just some but all organizations. Obviously that's not going to serve everyone.<p>Doing this would even let us see objective results about which organizational culture is most effective by various metrics.
Once you kill all your heroes, it's pretty clear that a person (1) can do great things, (2) have completed those things in an environment of exclusion (not to mention Epstein) and (3) might no longer be the best person to lead.
It's a much bigger trending problem. We have entered an era where our leader's flaws can (and probably should) be exposed. There is an old idiom:<p>Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.<p>We cannot watch over our leaders like a hawk and dissolve their right to privacy however. The critical problem we now continually face (Here We Go Again and Again) is how do we forgive and re-trust our leaders? Where is the line that eliminates them from leadership?
> it was his insinuation that it was somehow OK if his recently-deceased mentor Marvin Minsky ... had sex with a 17-year-old on Jeffrey Epstein's private island.<p>Here we go again indeed..<p>> Comments are closed.<p>of course they are, they might point out the factual errors in the premise, especially given that no links or quotes of Stallman are provided to suggest what the basis of that premise is.<p>FYI: <a href="https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/" rel="nofollow">https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/</a><p>Is there a petition <i>I</i> can sign to support removing (from positions of leadership) people who spread malicious/unsupported misrepresentations of people?<p>EDIT: two people at least have down-voted this, without providing any kind of rebuttal to my claim that this blog post is spreading misinformation. So, is this because they believe it <i>not</i> to be the case (but aren't keen on rebutting it) OR is it that they don't care if it is true, it is simply an inconvenience to their political outlook?
> Comments are closed.<p>So the one time you posted something controversial on your blog, you immediately and preventively shut down any kind of discourse. So much for credibility.
Let's not forget Bill Gates remaining friends with Epstein while we're at it and giving him the opportunity to be the face of good regarding Coronavirus.