Response to conversations about me
garfieldtech.com
garfieldtech.com
Also, given international participation of many projects, the moral inquisitors may hold views that are significantly different than anyone you've ever met or interacted with in a non-technical setting.
I think the TV show Black Mirror should be shown in high schools as an educational video.
It seems these days more and more like if you want to actively participate in open source, you either have to fit a narrow definition of a Good Person, or else be a cold oracle of code, producing nothing but fact.
I have to say that my impression of "Larry" (who I've never heard of before) is pretty bad after reading his essay. I think he ended up saying something to offend everyone - I've known plenty of people like him. The upshot is that you don't have to agree with everyone (or anyone) but you can still be civil. Good luck Larry.
While I will not share the evidence that I believe would validate the decision that I made for reasons of liability and confidentiality
Is pretty much the new "I don't have to justify my decision, it is right, and you don't get to argue" phrasing. You get to kick them out, and everyone gets to use their imagination about what further nastiness occurred. Also, they cannot fight back effectively.
I feel that your observation is correct, with one caveat: Several people kept pushing on this against Larry. They, too, are the problem. Blackmail is NEVER acceptable.
This is direct from a senior Labour lawyer I know think a shorter Malcom Tucker
This piece has made me wonder whether I'm wrong.
So, if would be more concerned about not making people want to blackmail you, than about the particulars of how accepting people will be od what you could be blackmailed with.
That might be career limiting if he is ambitious. If he is ambitious and has competitors willing to hack ethics, then particulars on what happens when they cease the info are relevant.
Basically, what you mean to say is that Larry Garfield is an asshole (I apologize if I'm guessing your intentions wrong). While you claim to know him, I don't, but I read a few comments from other people, who apparently regard him "a model community member".
Could you share some details on why do you think he's an asshole, who almost surely did do something bad?
I wouldn't disagree with this statement.
> Could you share some details...
Sure.
Larry was a very productive and highly valued contributor in the community in which I knew him also. He was also simultaneously an ambitious jerk who sought high status for himself, engaged in a lot of manipulative, bullying behavior to keep that status once he attained it, and sought to change the customs of our community to permanently enshrine himself in a highly privileged position. This created a rather complex dynamic where members of our community either thought that he was a "model community member" or an "asshole" depending on what they happened to notice him doing.
Eventually there came a time where his positive contributions outweighed the negative ones, and decisions were made to relieve him of certain responsibilities. Not a secret star chamber thing like with the Drupal project; it was really more of a "well, you haven't really done anything for the past 5 years because all your time is spent on Drupal, so you should really step aside now for someone else to do this work that we really need done."
When that news was delivered to him, he engaged in this sort of behavior that he's doing now; sharing publicly details of the decision in a misleading way, in order to gain immediate public sympathy and hide the fact that he was asked to leave his high-status position (not our whole community) because he wasn't meeting the obligations that he committed himself to. He got away with this for a little while because the people who dismissed him decided to let him have a face-saving exit because of his valuable past contributions, but eventually everyone heard the story through the gossip chain years later.
So, that's why I think he did do something bad which we don't know about; he's exhibiting the same pattern of deliberately misleading behavior when he did something not-even-bad. Either he's trying to flip Dries et al through public pressure, or he's trying to save his career by painting himself as a victim (he probably still is a victim, even if he's an asshole who did something bad; blackmail is always wrong). He's made a bet that Dries et al are not going to spill the beans, so he's taking control of the narrative for his own advantage.
I will say one nice thing about Larry though: I have never heard any woman ever complain that he acted inappropriately towards them in any way related to their gender while he was in our community.
However, I still don't understand why Dries wrote that "promoting Gorean philosophy" was the reason for the ban. He could have simply said that Larry did something bad without getting into details and without mentioning unrelated things.
The problem is that - as I wrote in another comment - the reason as stated is very weak. It looks like it's designed to be defeated by Larry and to give Larry a way to retaliate. Even you say that:
> I have never heard any woman ever complain that he acted inappropriately towards them in any way related to their gender while he was in our community.
So really, saying that the reason for the ban is that Larry promoted "females are subhuman" philosophy was bound to stir up some controversy and generate some support for Larry.
I guess I understand less and less...
But the other thing to keep in mind, re:
> It looks like it's designed to be defeated by Larry and give Larry a way to retaliate
Remember that Larry was the first one to go public, so he's the one who got to establish the narrative, not Dries. Larry decided to make this about what he does in the bedroom, and that's now what everyone on the Internet is talking about. Dries, for whatever reason, isn't saying what "the real reason is", so he's left with no alternative but to respond to Larry's claims on Larry's terms.
Dries really ought to just spill everything at this point, "liability" be damned. The project has already been hurt because the assumption now is that it's run by bigots. If it's actually run by bigots and bigotry was the reason Larry got canned, it's not like admitting that is going to hurt them much worse.
Bad news: It takes just a few less open minded people to harm someone. Even if majority would be privately open minded, would they be willing to openly publicly defend bdsm? It is something icky to both radical left liberal feminist and christian conservative sides. And even theoretically open minded people can turn out to have bias or prejudice once they are in real situation.
Quite honestly, tech myths about themselves overstate how open or tolerant or awesome overall community is. While some sub-communities are pretty open, others strongly conservative - emphasis on strongly. For that matter, radfem could be danger to you too. So, I guess it would be a good idea to keep that info away of your profile.
In the end, I fundamentally believe that all people are created equally. This belief has shaped the values that the Drupal project has held since it's early days. I cannot in good faith support someone who actively promotes a philosophy that is contrary to this. The Gorean philosophy promoted by Larry is based on the principle that women are evolutionarily predisposed to serve men and that the natural order is for men to dominate and lead.
This sounds horrible, but I think it's just a misunderstanding. I believe that what Dries (and some commenters, like tptacek[1][2]) misses here is a very fundamental fact: BDSM is just a game, and "Gor" is just a series of science-fantasy novels.
In other words, even if Larry did say somewhere that "females are subhuman" it's not enough to conclude that this is what he believes in, even less that he would act on these beliefs. It may look pretty bad - whatever he said or wrote[5], we don't know[3] - when taken out of context, but without solid evidence to the contrary I assume the context here is BDSM. Saying things like these is expected and normal within the bounds of the scene and in conversations about it[6].
Again: default assumption when it comes to BDSM is that it's an act, a game played between consenting adults. Dries seems to be convinced that there is enough evidence[4] to say that this assumption does not apply here. As an outsider, I find it hard to believe him without seeing the evidence myself. In my experience, it's more often the case that the shocked observers don't know (or don't want to know) the convention and interpret what they see out of context.
To summarize: without further evidence and based on the knowledge of what BDSM is about I think it's safer to assume that someone did take offense (contrary to Dries claim[7]) to something he didn't fully understand, which resulted in current situation.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13961655
[2] Since the beliefs that we're talking about could be broadly and probably inaccurately but by how much I don't know described as "females are subhuman," it's the perspective of the Drupal members who did the ousting that those beliefs matter very much to the project.
[3] it is not for me to share any of the confidential information that I've received,
[4] However, I can tell you that those who have reviewed Larry's writing, including me, suffered from varying degrees of shock and concern.
[5] There is no mention anywhere about actually doing something wrong.
[6] tptacek writes that "[...] the claim here [...] is that proselytizing was in fact an issue." - but that would only be a problem had Larry tried to convince someone that "females are subhuman", and again, given that the only context given is "BDSM" I assume he didn't. He may have said something which could be interpreted as such, but that's not really the same thing as consciously "promoting" "the philosophy."
[7] I also don't take any offense to the role-playing activities or sexual preferences of Larry's alternative lifestyle.
He seems to allude that not all the facts are out, so it's hard to tell if this decision was a knee jerk reaction or a reasonable response.
For this guy that reason doesn't apply, and he doesn't have any supervisory responsibility. I can't see why on the facts available that this would have happened, and I can't be help think there is something more.
I mean, with Eich we knew the exact details of why he was shoved-out/quit. We know the exact reason, there is no mystery. With Garfield, we have one side saying that Garfield is a victim, and another side saying "Well, yeah, but we know something you don't, and we're not talking about it."
Which, in itself, is enough to make me highly suspicious about what they say. Or don't say.
tldr; He was involved in a subculture called Gorean, and has been a master in Master/Slave relationships. One of his Slaves was a severely autistic woman. He talks about BSDM being ok between consenting individuals, etc.
I would not be surprised at all if everything he wrote is absolutely true, but key details are omitted.