

I am not an asshole, and so can you - jarcane
https://medium.com/@chrispickard/i-am-not-an-asshole-and-so-can-you-cae53109e619

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hellbanner
I tend to side with @meh on this one. Work is about work, not about their
private life or opinions. I don't ask my coworkers about their political
opinions, and frankly I could care less if they were Nazis, Christians, Gay or
AntiGay.

Calling a developer out for what they said on Twitter is like hating on a
mechanic for something you overhead at a bar. You might choose to not get your
car serviced there, but don't imply that they shouldn't be working on cars.
They're obviously skilled.

I'm sure the poster has their own political views which others would find
inconvenient or even downright horrible.

~~~
balls2you
tell that to that Brendan Eich guy at Mozilla

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vezzy-fnord
Generalizing entire groups of people clearly isn't asshole behavior by your
interpretation given that it's a natural staple of identity politics, though
of course those have convenient escape hatches to absolve themselves of their
own terms.

Furthermore, the inability to compartmentalize between an individual's work
and their beliefs creates lots of practical problems. When one writes code,
they are subject to the guidelines of the project and represent themselves
purely from their role as programmer. What they do outside this is not in the
scope of the project.

Discounting an entire software project because one of the contributors outside
their duties as a project member said some unsavory things, is outright
idiotic. The relevant things here are whether they're good maintainers (and
_not_ good people, that's irrelevant) in addition to the technical qualities
of the software itself.

(By the way, I love how the question about working with a child molester used
a gendered pronoun.)

------
Nadya
_> I am a white male in my 20s in the tech industry. I support LGBT, people of
color, and women. You sensed a “but” there?_

Mark 1 against the author. The presumption that I would sense a "but" there
makes you an asshole. Quit projecting onto other people. Beyond that, what
"but" would there even be? I can't even imagine a "...but" statement that
would connect in a sensible manner to the previous statements. But what? But
you don't like icecream!? What exception is a person who "sensed a but" there
supposed to expect?

 _> As I waded through that trainwreck of thread (I don't recommend actually
reading this, you will end up a worse person for it) a few thoughts struck
me:_

Mark 2 for the author being an asshole. The presumption that you are
absolutely right with no ability to be wrong - so people should simply take
you at your all-knowing word instead of investigate for themselves. A
respectable person would say "Take a look, make your own conclusions. All the
evidence is right there in front of you." while an asshole would say "judge
them how I judge them because I'm right, don't bother looking."

 _> we are seeing this deluded concept of freedom of speech butt heads with
doing what is right._

The consistently loaded terminology to form a bias in the reader is quite
annoying to read.

Free speech means that people have the right to say things you don't agree
with. In the letter of the law, it's merely a guarantee you won't be
imprisoned for anything you say (with very few exceptions related to national
security and local jurisdictions against hate speech and threats against
another person). Regardless, when most people say freedom of speech they
_actually_ mean freedom of expression. Typically as defined by Article 19 of
the ICCPR [0]. That includes opinions that the author might find distasteful.

 _> nor does it mean that anyone has to give you a platform from which you can
spout your hate_

Twitter is a public platform where anyone can spout their hate until Twitter
decides to close their account. As a public platform, people are free to
publicly criticize anyone using it as a platform. What the author should mean
to say is that nobody is required to give the person an _audience_.

Personally, I agree with @meh - with the exception of working with a child
molester. Knowledge of a crime and not reporting it would get me in trouble
with the law. Furthermore, let's make this example a bit less hyperbolic and
more realistic.

"Would you accept code and work with someone you know is a 3rd wave feminist?"

The answer is, of course, yes. While I don't agree with a majority of their
views for various reasons - that doesn't matter. If their code is up to
scratch and they are contributing to the project, their personal beliefs _do
not matter_.

In a hyperbolic statement:

"Would you accept code and work with someone you know drinks alcohol?"

Well I'd be shit out of luck if I didn't. Nearly every single programmer I
know drinks. I'm as rare as naturally occurring astatine. Luckily I'm able to
put these sorts of differences behind me, because in the context of coding,
they are unimportant. If I were running for President and my selected Vice was
a self-declared Communist, these belief differences might matter a bit more.

[0]
[http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

