The Absolute State of Linux

[Silent-Hunter]

Equality in opportunity is very important, by all means everyone should have access to the same opportunities for education, career advancement, etc., regardless of who they are. But a lot of people want equality of outcome, where there's an equal number of each group graduating, getting hired, etc. And that is untenable. It's a fact that even if everyone has the same opportunities, there isn't going to be an equal number of women and men, or any other group, in each job or class. It just won't happen, because some people may not choose that job or class to go to.

However, I want to reiterate that I think equality in opportunity is very important, and we don't have that yet. We need that.

 

[levi]

The way the racists and sexists on the internet seem less cowed against posting their hateful speech on twitter and facebook does seem to be a thing that's happening, and the conflict between Voltaire's ideals and the idea that words themselves can be dangerous (as evidenced by Das Kapital and Mein Kampf on either sides of the traditional left-right scale I guess) seems to be a rising conflict.

Not that that has anything much to do with the linux mailing lists and commit messages. Any hate speech would pretty much automatically be off the topic of any technical discussion, so can be excluded simply under that criterion.

 

[Klumpen]

do you have numbers on how exactly equal we all are? it would still seem that not many women/minorities are in top roles at companies...

It still would also seem, that the vast majority of homeless people and workplace injuries/deaths are still male. Also three times as many suicides. Do women get drafted in your country or any of the neighboring ones?
So?

https://www.avoiceformen.com/men/mens-issues/is-homelessness-a-mens-issue/

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

 

[ible]

what i don't understand about certain issues is why people have to attack the other side to prove their point, as if it's either-or. maybe we should be working to reduce workplace injuries for men and helping women/minorities get into positions of influence.

 

[Klumpen]

what i don't understand about certain issues is why people have to attack the other side to prove their point, as if it's either-or. maybe we should be working to reduce workplace injuries for men and helping women/minorities get into positions of influence.

Also make it less hard for men to get a job at all in spite of the lack of boobs (see homelessness) and not drafting to military service by gender and take depression amongst men serious and not telling them to "man up", etc...
Around here we have had women's shelter for a long time but if you're a male and under 25 years old, you have no options if you're unlucky, especially if you're over 18 and the youth protection service doesn't apply either, another reason for the massive disparity when it comes to homelessness.
The thing is, that in the western world, women already have the upper hand in most regards but the narrative is decades old and is not fact checked anymore.

If I had to choose, I'd choose having a slightly harder time getting into the highest positions of power over all of that any day.

 

[Haraldur]

Or we should have socialism (so very little income and wealth inequality) and workplace democracy, then it would be much less relevant whether it is easy or hard for men or women to go into management etc..

One good argument for aiming for equality of outcome is that it is much easier to measure than equality of opportunity. Do you have a decent house and a decent income? Fine, problem mostly solved!

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Can somebody make me a TLDR of the video please?

 

[ZXDunny]

So, getting back to Linux and the much-discussed CoC. I would say that although we can all agree that a meritocracy absolutely is the perfect filter in something like kernel development we can also agree that the CoC is something that the typical Linux developer absolutely needs.

Consider the average Linux kernel developer (and "hardcore gamer") - usually overweight, pale through lack of sunlight due to spending way too much time indoors (and usually below ground), socially inept - after all, Linus himself is only relatively slim and popular because he's rich, and on those occasions when he is forced to interact his skills in that department are phenomenally lacking (video and anecdotal evidence abounds) - and due to all these things the average Linux kernel dev will almost certainly have "opinions" on things he knows nothing about; race, sexuality and gender, equality etc, all reinforced due to the echo chambers he inhabits where despicable people spread their hatred for anyone they don't like. And believe me, there's a lot of people they don't like, pretty much half the population that won't sleep with them due to the above personal issues, on the rare occasions they do venture out of doors.

So in an effort to keep these rather unpleasant folks from harming anyone else, the CoC has been implemented. Naturally, the average kernel dev is up in arms about it because they have these twisted and sickened views about other people, but at least now something can be done about them should they start spouting their bile around Linux development discussions - and maybe... just maybe, they might improve as people. After all, their leader is taking this opportunity to improve himself. We can but hope that this continues throughout the developer scene.

Do bear in mind that this is squarely aimed at the average Linux kernel dev - there are many at the fringes of the bell curve that don't conform to this stereotype (sadly half of them are worse) but they're not the ones whining about having to behave in a decent manner.

 

[shaddim]

and helping women/minorities get into positions of influence.

First question is, is this a beneficial goal or even required? Or is this already addressed by "equality of opportunity" + "colorblindness" in our society and differences in gender ratio in specific fields can be explained with other reasons (than oppression)?

In 2008 an Norwegian comedian and journalists challenged the assumption that there is inherent gender inequality in society and made a quite eye opening investigative series: "Hjernevask"
https://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x1xv47
First part is about the gender equality paradoxon: in societies which are the most egalitarian (Scandinavian countries) the gender ratio are further from 50:50 than in less egalitarian and more poor societies. Reason is: most non-parity in genders in professionals fields is explained by plain: biological preferences of the sexes, men prefer to work more in fields with things and abstract concepts, women prefer to work in soft fields with humans.

A better explanation for the lower number of women in high-performer positions (CEO, professor etc) than "bias/oppression" is in this recent Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06292-0?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20180926 the greater variability in men's characteristics & capabilities lead to a higher number of top performers (and higher number of low performers). There are just by probability more really high performing men than women on the extreme end of the spectrum which then will fill up the high performing positions.
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we can also agree that the CoC is something that the typical Linux developer absolutely needs.

Absolutely not. What is now in the water that anyone thinks it is a great idea implementing 1984 like authoritarian style policies? This makes our society only more paranoid and divided, people read 1984!

they have these twisted and sickened views about other people,

Do you project just your mindset on others? It seems you have sickening views of your fellow humans, other people assume the best and believe they can find an agreement & common ground with other people. From my experience Nerds/Open source people /linux guys are among the most nice and open minded people you can find on earth.

And I would argue, the hacker scene managed thriving without "language policies" reasonably well the last decades. And specifically the outbursts of Torvalds, who is in a specifically important position to keep the house from falling in chaos/apart, were always motivated by a technical reason and were in fact supported by the majority of developers.

Consider the average Linux kernel developer (and "hardcore gamer") - usually overweight, pale through lack of sunlight due to spending way too much time indoors (and usually below ground), socially inept - after all, Linus himself is only relatively slim and popular because he's rich, and on those occasions when he is forced to interact his skills in that department are phenomenally lacking (video and anecdotal evidence abounds) - and due to all these things the average Linux kernel dev will almost certainly have "opinions" on things he knows nothing about; race, sexuality and gender, equality etc, all reinforced due to the echo chambers he inhabits where despicable people spread their hatred for anyone they don't like. And believe me, there's a lot of people they don't like, pretty much half the population that won't sleep with them due to the above personal issues, on the rare occasions they do venture out of doors.

PS: I'm really appaled by your indiffentiated stereotype pushing, putting people into a class and labeling them as horrible people. I would have hoped you meant that sarcastic/ironically...but it seems you meant that dead serious. You seems to have "echo chamber" enforced believes & the horrible behaviour and vision of our society you suspect in others... deeply frigthening

 

[ZXDunny]

...gotcha. This, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely who I was talking about! Honestly, sometimes it's like fishing in a barrel with a stick of dynamite.

 

[PCXT]

I would argue that the main reason of implementing this particular CoC is keeping apart people who have opinions about things they don't know. There are still lots of them, and may be even more if they will come from the "blessed" groups. Every extremism is malicious here.
I have some opinions definitely not acceptable for all of You, some might be even called too radical, but, guess what, this is not a political forum. It's the matter of netiquette to talk a civil way here. That's so simple. If someone wants some political discussions, there are forums for it, but this is not related to technology which is the main topic of this forum. I don't know, it it so hard to understand, that technology-related board is not politics-related one?
The mess we're manipulated into with modern propaganda engineering is that we start to think that all people must be crystal. Not even with the smaller questionable behaviour in the past, we're trained to use it as a negative factor. But the truth is that even Mother Theresa and John Paul II have their sins. This leads right to popularization of using censorship, and, for worse, it is putting power in the hands of people who have more power of censorship. It is not important what you do for the project, it is not important who you are (what should some way relate to the project according to new CoC), but the most important thing is how much information about yourself you can censor and how much PR ads about you you can fake.

 

[levi]

That's so simple. If someone wants some political discussions, there are forums for it, but this is not related to technology which is the main topic of this forum. I don't know, it it so hard to understand, that technology-related board is not politics-related one?

Despite my attempts to basically close this thread down using technical approaches, this is not really a technical thread. This is offtopic discussions after all, which tends to be a mix of politics, humour and off-brand technology. This thread seems to primarily be for politics and the trolling thereof.

 

[klapse]

more power to the right to silence the left.

Censorship is a favorite tool of the radical left. The events which the left censor are a thousandfold of that which the right ever managed to do.
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Brilliant! But, seeing that in the interview, Linus called some people racist, and also "lowlife scum", does that automatically make him, drumroll, an SJW?

It doesn't make him engaged in any substantive debate on points of difference, that's for sure.
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A serious outbreak of that things you speak about was the rise of the murdering, slave taking ISIS caliphate in Syria - only related to western culture in the way that it wants to destroy the western culture. Western culture is the literal opposite.

Agree it's bad, but it was fueled and funded, among other sources, by a 1 billion dollar a year CIA budget.
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do you have numbers on how exactly equal we all are? it would still seem that not many women/minorities are in top roles at companies...

Why should they be represented equally?

 

[Wally]

Based on that the OP is engaging in politics now which has it's own thread I am going to be closing this discussion.

@levi, your wish is my command