
Inclusivity Is a Joke - brakmic
https://medium.com/@hasharray/inclusivity-is-a-joke-32d0e10c65cb
======
zeta0134
Inclusivity is one of those things that you just have to do, and not talk
about. I sincerely hope the irony of excluding this man in the name of
inclusivity is not lost on the crowd. What a mess.

I think more people would do well to practice the tolerance and acceptance
that they preach. As a gay man, I've run into my fair share of loud mouthed,
biggoted people, who say incredibly mean things about me without realizing
that they're affecting someone in the same room. A good deal of my friends are
Christians, and a good deal of my family is as well. At least in our churches,
being gay is considered quite a heavy sin. Somewhat intuitively then, when I
came out to my family, I was simultaneously declaring that I would no longer
be a part of their religion.

And you know? We didn't fight about it. They understand my limitations, and I
still love them. I'm still friends with my Christian friends, and I'm still on
great terms with my family. We disagree on certain things but that's OK,
because they've learned to see the good in my unique outlook on life, and I've
learned to understand the love tolerance that their Jesus teaches, because I
watch them practice it every day. We've learned to accept one another, despite
our differences.

Inclusivity is not hard, but it starts with avoiding conflict. You're going to
have to tolerate that which occasionally offends you, and learn to let it go.
Learn to love people despite their flaws, because goodness do people have
flaws. We're not perfect. Nowhere near it. But all people still have some good
in them, and it's worth making the effort to see past that which you dislike
to appreciate the human being underneath it all.

~~~
chme
I don't understand what straight men have against gay men. They should be
happy, because that means less competition. ;)

~~~
zeta0134
I think the idea that another man might find them attractive is a source of
discomfort. When I came out to my straight friends, almost all of them asked
me if at any point I found them attractive, and were visibly relieved when I
informed them that I did not.

~~~
chme
I suppose even if you are attracted to one of them, you might not admit it,
because that could make thinks awkward between you in the future.

So they ask you, not because they want to know the truth, but because they
want your assurance that nothing will change in the relationship between you.

------
trjordan
The part of this article that highlights what Douglas Crockford did to get him
removed from Nodevember is fine. A bit boring, but fine.

The part of this article that generally hand-waves towards "inclusivity" as a
movement and dismisses them as people with "unicorn-colored hair" is
frustrating. There's little here that actually discusses the issue. It points
out a couple of things that Douglas said, trivializes the issues that the
inclusivity group cares about, and seems to make its primary point by arguing
semantics (oh, look, the inclusivity group excludes people, har har).

I get that its an opinion piece, but there's nothing of substance here that I
could possibly disagree with, because it's not defined. If you want to get a
bunch of people agree with you and give you internet points, it's spot on. But
there's not a lot here that's interesting if you're not already on board with
this point of view.

~~~
fatbird
It's worth noting that the details of the reasons Crockford was uninvited have
not been confirmed by any of the parties. This article takes speculation from
elsewhere as announced truth and proceeds to dismiss inclusivity as a goal on
that basis.

~~~
noobermin
Here is a good update I missed: Formal statement from Nodevember[0]

[0]
[http://nodevember.org/statement.html](http://nodevember.org/statement.html)

~~~
mzw_mzw
"While we have a tremendous respect for Mr. Crockford's abilities as a speaker
and his contributions to our craft, we became aware that based on private
feedback - not simply the dialogue on Twitter - that his presence would make
some speakers uncomfortable to the point where they refused to attend or
speak."

Any speakers who are made "uncomfortable" by Crockford's presence are pretty
much guaranteed to be the sort of speakers who don't bring anything to your
conference anyway.

"We are in over our heads."

Well, that's certainly the truth.

I also notice that while they apologized so unreservedly, they didn't go so
far as to reinvite Crockford.

------
noobermin
Sometimes I wonder if these groups are false flags. I know they aren't, but
perhaps it is better to say they are their own parody. There are serious
issues out there, discrimination is alive and has been demonstrated in
studies, statistics, etc. Garbage like this makes a mockery of the whole
thing, the real hurt and issues gets mixed in with this trash and gives some
people, I'm sure, solace that all of it is just a tempest in a teapot, and
there are no real issues out there.

Groups and fake controversies like this distract from _real_ issues of
discrimination. They do more harm to inclusive movements than good.

~~~
andybak
As much as I'd like to think this is true, I don't think it's plausible. It
would require a conspiracy of epic proportions.

It's a flaw in human psychology that is related to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences)

Another aspect is that as that any idealistic movement is prone to being taken
over by it's most intractable members. There's a game theoretic spin on it by
Nicholas Taleb if I remember correctly:
[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf)

As the emotional tone of a debate is heightened, it's hard to argue for
moderation. Anything that pushed emotional buttons forces people to the
extremes and those arguing for compromise are often ridiculed by both sides.

Therefore we have the phenomenon that many debates end up being between over-
the-top SJWs on one side and crazy racists and Red Pill types on the other.

And back in the real world, there is still indisputable injustice and
discrimination that would be eminently tractable if everyone would come back
down to earth.

EDIT - I'd like to point out that I'm aware of a major flaw in the above -
_everyone_ \- myself included regards themselves as a reasonable moderate and
others as dangerous extremists. I suppose I'd be quite content to be regarded
as a flakey liberal by my friends on the right and a closet imperialist by
those on the left. (Except - what happens if the sample of my social group is
heavily skewed and my 'left/right' is off the scale? And down the rabbit hole
we go...)

~~~
derefr
Everyone is a moderate; people reposition the callipers around their social
group, defining people into and out of it, so as to always stay its most
central and reasonable example.

------
okket
See also:

"In defence of Douglas Crockford"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420)

"Crockford"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425061)

------
dasil003
I consider myself an ally on most social justice issues. The kind of abuse
heaped on women online is unconscionable to me. Not to mention Black Lives
Matter where people are actually dying because of systemic prejudice. So you
have those issues on one side, there are a lot of them and we need to work on
them as a society.

A step down from that big stuff, you have crass offensive behavior like sexual
innuendo in conference talks and other things that can pretty readily be
identified as going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. It makes sense for
professional conferences to have policies against those things.

Then you have this long tail of ways that a person can be offended by subtle
interpretations that are impossible to wholly avoid by premeditation except
through sheer paranoid blandness. This is the bucket where it seems like this
Crockford nonsense falls, and this is also where the movement loses my
support. They've crossed the line from helping people to just reaching for the
torches and pitchforks, and completely lost the thread that liberalism was
once about _tolerance_.

~~~
noobermin
I feel that these people do not and should not speak for liberalism. The are
like the Alt-Right, they are an extreme fringe which give the movement and
causes (very important causes) a bad name.

------
hubert123
Inclusivity is an attempt to ban certain kind of speech. I have found that
these people are downright religious in their zeal. Example:
[https://github.com/nodejs/inclusivity/issues/9](https://github.com/nodejs/inclusivity/issues/9)

I'm not even going to comment further on this, I have found that arguments,
sanity and reason do nothing here.

~~~
Flow
Of course there's a subreddit for these GitHub issues written by SJWs.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/GitInaction/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GitInaction/)

I think it's striking how these people seem to be on a crusade, often they
don't even seem to be users of the code in question and often barely
developers at all.

~~~
generic_user
The intention is to take over and subvert the organisation into a platform for
there activism. The goals and tactics including codes of conduct are
premeditated. Its a trojan horse technique called entryism used by radical
leftist political groups.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism)

------
pkd
I liked it much more when open source was about the code and not the people
behind it. Nowadays I worry that I might be called out for using a piece of
code (however good it might be) just because the person who wrote it does not
use "inclusive" language.

~~~
brakmic
AFAIK, this only affects the JavaScript-based communities.

I sincerely doubt one would find anything remotely similar in C++, Linux (C
lang), or Assembly-programming communities.

The "harder" the language the less non-coding politics around.

~~~
oldmanjay
When you have two people, you have politics. Nerds just have this ridiculous
social signal where they have to pretend to be above it.

~~~
Puts
I sincerely do believe that as technology has become more accessible and more
"normal" people get into the industry, this has lead to things being more
about politics and less about solving problems. Sometimes I even think that
ordinary people like arguing and drama and willingly misunderstands each other
just to not get bored. True aspie-nerds don't need this, they have other
interesting things to fill their head with.

~~~
tangent128
Alternatively, is it possible that "normal" people have problems that are
generally not encountered in the experience of "aspie nerds"?

The necessity of Unicode is a great example of how a seemingly-straightforward
technical design can prove inadequate once it needs to serve the full set of
humanity.

------
elmigranto
Some people hear someone say X, put the most sickening meaning into it, get
offended, cry on twitter. Pretty sure "saying X" is not the problem here.

------
fennecfoxen
Anecdotally, this seems to be a stronger thing in Node.js community than
others. I recall on occasion on the Node channel on Freenode when I got chewed
out by the ops+ for not being inclusive enough with a casual "later, guys" (or
"later, dudes").

(+ bona fide opped ops, notwithstanding the Freenode "low channel temperature"
guidelines)

~~~
mdadm
>Anecdotally, this seems to be a stronger thing in Node.js community than
others.

I have seen people speculate that this is due to the lower barrier of entry in
the JS community (as a whole), although I'm not certain how true this would
be.

~~~
mgkimsal
there's a pretty low barrier to entry in the PHP world, and I don't think
we've seen anywhere near the same level of scrutiny.

~~~
67726e
Well I think PHP has fallen out of favor for Node among the "I wanna program"
crowd. Of course this whole "social justice" shit-show is a more recent thing
so all the heat is in that community, leaving PHP out of the festivities.

------
oli5679
Paul Graham's Essay on 'What You Can't Say'

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

------
knucklesandwich
Some people in the developer community need to get better at recognizing when
a witch hunt is brewing. This blog post has essentially the same content as
the one yesterday on the same subject[1].

Like the one yesterday, it attempts to provide its own explanation for why
Crockford was disinvited as the keynote speaker. However, none of these
details are mentioned in the actual statement given by Nodevember[2], and
there are no sources given for how this explanation was arrived at. The
Nodevember statement claims he was disinvited based on some public and private
feedback from speakers who felt uncomfortable attending with him as the
keynote speaker. Why should we take it on face value that the circumstances
documented here are actual set of circumstances that lead to him being
disinvited? Where is this information even coming from?

One of the alleged sources is a blog post from Kas Perch[3]. The alleged slut
shaming incident seems to be a minor note in a post otherwise focused on his
negative and dismissive attitude towards some of the other speakers. Perhaps
this is the more salient part of why this person felt uncomfortable attending
with him? Perhaps there's more feedback being kept private to protect the
witch hunt from targeting those coming forward?

Notably I haven't even seen a statement from Crockford crying foul over this
incident. It seems to be coming entirely from other Node developers upset
about the fact that he was removed as the keynote speaker. It seems like this
is an argument being played out as a proxy over political stances about
diversity and inclusion tactics, without a lot of consideration for the actual
circumstances. Furthermore I find it very disappointing that this poorly
substantiated argument is being used to demonize inclusivity and diversity
overall, which is something badly needed in developer communities.

[1]: [http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-
crockford](http://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford)

[2]:
[http://nodevember.org/statement.html](http://nodevember.org/statement.html)

[3]: [https://medium.com/@nodebotanist/why-i-won-t-be-speaking-
at-...](https://medium.com/@nodebotanist/why-i-won-t-be-speaking-at-
conferences-with-douglas-crockford-anymore-61bc29f028c8#.b640mips1)

~~~
tobltobs
> on some public and private feedback from speakers who felt uncomfortable
> attending with him as the keynote speaker.

So you want to say, that there doesn't need to be a real reason anyway, it is
just enough that a few other speakers have a problem with him. It doesn't even
have to be made transparent what the problems actually is.

And you believe that this kind of closed door denunciation will result in a
better, more inclusive world?

And that Crockford doesn't respond to this hypocritical nonsense is a kind of
confession of guilt?

~~~
knucklesandwich
> So you want to say, that there doesn't need to be a real reason anyway, it
> is just enough that a few other speakers have a problem with him. It doesn't
> even have to be made transparent what the problems actually is.

No, what I'm saying is you (and everyone else) aren't owed an explanation, and
furthermore there are good reasons for not offering a public explanation.

> And that Crockford doesn't respond to this hypocritical nonsense is a kind
> of confession of guilt?

No, I'm acknowledging that this is a lot of frenzy being whipped up when the
party directly affected by the decision hasn't released a statement
questioning their motivation. He may have been given an explanation and has
chosen not to make an issue of it for all you know. The only people seemingly
angered by this decision are people who aren't affected.

~~~
derefr
> No, what I'm saying is you (and everyone else) aren't owed an explanation

Conferences are for-profit things, yes? Companies don't owe their customers
anything, but if they don't _give_ their customers anything, then customers
don't have any reason to give the company their money.

Or, to put that another way: a conference about Javascript that kicks out
Douglas Crockford is pretty much in a default state from the moment they
decide to do so of "so why should anyone attend this?" until they provide an
explanation that serves to ameliorate the bozo-bit they just seemingly
flipped.

------
jegoodwin3
Yes, one of life's harsher lessons is just how vicious Unitarians can be.

~~~
throwanem
"Other grain."

------
kazinator
Donald Trump:

\- "[Mexican immigrants are] bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re
rapists."

\- "Rosie [O'Donnell] is just disgusting --- she's fat, she's a loser. She's a
farm animal pig. She's a beast, ok. She's just a loser. She's no good."

RESULT: _Just might get elected US President in November!_

Obscure JavaScript geek:

\- "blah blah ... promiscuous ... blah blah ..."

RESULT: _Removed from speaking at some JavaScript conference in November._

These inclusivity people need to look around a little and have a reality
check. Their incredibly narrow standard for what is acceptable is not even
remotely shared by the American society they live in.

------
pvg
The statement of the organizers doesn't give a very detailed reason why they
didn't want him giving a keynote at their conference and it certainly doesn't
say it was over a tweet or using the word 'promiscuous'. That part seems to be
much-repeated speculation that does nothing but fuel outrage.

------
kazinator
You can put a network adapter into "promiscuous mode".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode)

This causes it to disappear all night and crawl home at 11 in the morning with
a hangover.

~~~
kazinator
Hmm; I didn't think that was a good comment and am positive I deleted it.

------
dbg31415
The number of people who go around looking for ways to be offended is
seriously troubling and a fat greater theeat to humanity's advancement.

If someone has something to teach me, I don't care what he does outside of the
conference -- if he uses gender biased words or votes for evil bunnies, I'm
not there to talk to him about those things.

It was better when people knew how to comparatamentalize work and politics and
religion and all the other stuff that's personal and not relevant to the
discussion at hand.

------
wozer
If this is true, it is both ridiculous and terrible.

------
generic_user
I think the takeaway is that when you set up a group within your organisation
to promote 'inclusion' or 'diversity' you open the door for entrism by
seasoned radical activists who have an agenda. An attempt to include
'marginalized' people by excluding everyone who fails there ideological purity
test is simply a witch-hunt tactic to consolidate power and subvert the
direction of the organisation.

everyone has to be more diligent to protect there projects and communities
form these corrosive people.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism)

------
brador
Question: Is that Tweet Libel?

> "We will also be removing Douglas Crockford from our keynote speakers list
> to help make the conference a comfortable environment for all." \-
> Nodevember Tweet

The implication is he creates an uncomfortable environment.

Libel?

------
tptacek
We only need the one story on this on the front page, and it's here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420)

------
xwvvvvwx
pastebin of a nodevember slack channel discussing the incident:

[http://pastebin.com/3mQc7DfG](http://pastebin.com/3mQc7DfG)

Source:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/50u77r/douglas_crockford_removed_as_a_keynote_speaker_at/)

------
Animats
Inclusivity is so last year. Look how well Trump is doing. Trump brought
intolerance out of the closet. Like him or not, he's changed American
politics.

------
PedroBatista
I'm guessing even the hardcore Victorians would consider this whole thing "a
bit much".

------
coldtea
> _Well, it basically came from some very vocal bullying from “inclusivity”
> folks, incidentally also a part of the Node.js inclusivity group._

The problem with "inclusivity groups" is that they have to find work for
themselves -- even if that means busywork.

------
EdiX
This post is currently in page four where it's the most recent post of the
page (by a large margin) and the third most upvoted post in the page.
Sometimes it's weird how algorithms work.

------
erichocean
Node•vember? Or No•dev•ember?

Seems like it's trending towards the latter.

------
thiht
It seems the SJW movement became a new form of inquisition. What's terrifiying
is it actually convinces in real life.

------
wyager
> No, inclusivity is not about banning speech

> Sometimes that means enforcing certain standards of speech

Do you hear yourself? The cognitive dissonance is incredible.

~~~
lukev
Sigh. What I obviously meant (btw, you should read up on the Principle of
Charity [0]) is that banning speech is not the goal, it's a means to an end,
and one that society has already largely accepted.

Enforcing a certain level of civility in a given place of discourse isn't
"banning" and it isn't a free speech issue. It's a basic prerequisite for
human interaction.

The "inclusivity" movement is just trying to extend that concept to be
sensitive to groups of people that historically have not felt comfortable in
certain technical environments.

Argue about the implementation if you like, but please don't assume bad faith
on the part of everyone who tries to make tech a more welcoming place.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think we're conflating all kinds of stuff here.

In small social groups, the group norms around certain behaviors. That's
normal. It's also normal that different small social groups will have
different norms.

As a personal matter, don't be an asshole. You shouldn't say things to others
to deliberately hurt them. The principle of charity is valid here as well, by
the way. Sometimes people are hurt because even though you mean well, they
take things the wrong way.

In larger groups, probably somewhere around Dunbar's Number, it becomes
inevitable that norming will not work -- nor _should it work_. That's because
larger groups of people naturally become echo chambers full of groupthink.
It's imperative to have voices and opinions that some find harsh. c.f. On
Liberty

These are three separate issues. They are related, yes, but one doesn't trump
the others. Society needs all of this to function well.

ADD: One of the interesting things that happened with the invention of the
television was that _there was no more adult talk anymore_. Adults said that
in the past, there was plenty of time when the kids ran off and the grown-ups
talked about more mature topics.

The TV took every kind of conversation and threw it into the middle of the
living room with your 4-year-old. (Or 15-year-old, for that matter). Adult
talk radically changed.

Perhaps the net is doing the same thing with small social groups --
eliminating them as a place where local norms can be far outside what most
people would find polite. Everything now is just in one big bucket. If so, it
promises a more radical change to human society than anything we've seen so
far.

~~~
CWuestefeld
You make a great point about TV. I'd like to go farther.

We've evolved to function in small tribal groups, and that we instinctively
want to do so in all sorts of contexts, be they political, economic, etc. But
the fact is that the incentives that allow this to work on a tribal scale
break down when we try to apply them so broadly. F.A. Hayek argues that this
is a big part of the "Fatal Conceit" through which socialists wrongly believe
that they can successfully manage an economy (and thus a society).

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Yes, it's the same fallacy just in a different context.

I feel like mankind is having final exams and although we were given all the
answers, none of us have studied very much. Whether it's the efficient
allocation of resources, the nature of public versus private discourse, the
necessity of reproducibility in science, or the overuse of aggregate data and
correlation as a proxy for causation -- there are a bunch of fundamental
topics we all need to be on the same page about. This is because they're all
converging together as we as a species converge together online.

