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Comment by stirfrykitty | Hacker News Reader

I for one despise the political correctness that has occurred/is occurring in the current online communities. Anything and everything can and will be misconstrued to suit the needs of the "offended". Offense is taken, not given. I am sick and tired of the entire SJW mindset that has permeated the WWW and development circles.

What was "innocent" a few years ago is now grounds for doxxing, shutting down of accounts, getting people fired, you name it. It seems that "tolerance" is only tolerated if it is agreed with. Voltaire comes to mind here.

I never thought Linus was in bad form. His project, his rules. Ditto Theo de Raadt, who I think is a great project leader. I've heard him speak more than once, and he is a very nice guy. Like most leaders of tough projects, these guys endure massive amounts of BS from BS artists, and they need to be able to trounce the idiots and expose them. I have a feeling the majority of people would disagree with me anymore, but then again, my mindset and attitude were largely set by the military long ago, so I like strong leaders who don't brook BS.

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> I never thought Linus was in bad form. His project, his rules.

I think this is a problematic way to view things.

Linus was usually right on the technical aspects, but he often made personal insults that were really just irrelevant. There's no need to attack people personally to get your point across. Honestly, his attitude in many of those famous comments strikes me as immature — he presents himself as someone who would rather spend time berating a person who tried to make a contribution and didn't do a good job than simply explaining why their contribution isn't good enough.

Sure, "his project, his rules", but that doesn't give him carte blanche to be a dick to people without any repercussions. Just as he is entitled to speak his mind, so too are the people who felt that his comments were out of line.

Insults are technically irrelevant but aggressive tone one proven way to manage open and popular projects (it's not the only one).

The problem with successful open source projects like Linux is not lack of good people, it's too many people wanting to contribute and push their ideas. Increasing the emotional stakes for committing, commenting or contributing helps. If your heart starts pounding before you press send, and you decide to read and think it again, the quality of communication and contributions increases.

Insulting someone is not as bad as politely not engaging. "Than you for participating." There is very popular and extremely PC open source project where the leadership politely avoids conflict. You try to push new ideas, corrections and features and the leaders never explains what is wrong with them or where they stand on things. People waste years before they realize that there is invincible barrier and passive-aggressive culture.

ps. I think SJW's have their place when the insults become gender based and diverge from the technical aspects. Linus-type leadership can evoke copycat behaviour that is not called for.

> he often made personal insults

Was it often?

I was never an ardent follower of his -- I primarily work in another field -- so I certainly haven't read or listened to all he's said. I did catch those handful of instances where he rocked the boat, but I don't recall the personal insults. Obviously that isn't to say it never occurred, but I'm wondering if he personally insulted people as often as you state.

Yeah, it used to be way more often > a decade ago. Most of the famous rants people know of are from more recently, and are fairly insulting.

I don't store old mailing lists, but the thing I generally point to is his statements towards the security community and, back then, specifically PaX team. I've stumbled on tons of personal attacks from him, either escalating an already negative conversation, or starting it himself.

I also challenge the "usually right". To my knowledge, Linus is quite often wrong. And that's fine, really, everyone is wrong a lot of the time. But hero worship, or feeling the need to excuse his behavior even somewhat due to a false sense that it's helping things, is not a good idea.

If you walk into my house, or request entry, I can treat you however I like. It's my house, my property. If you don't like it go somewhere else. We are all individuals. If he wants to be angry and make personal insults then people can choose not to interact with him or the things he works on. It should go no further than that.

I both agree with you, and disagree. Using your analogy... you've got 20,000 guests over at your house, and a bunch of them are telling you that you're being an asshole. You like the party you're having, and want to keep the party going. Do you listen to them and consider that there might be some validity to what they're saying? Or kick them out?

There's nothing saying that he must listen to them, but it's pragmatically probably a good idea.

Expect you are wrong. Its like having a party of 20,000 guest over and a hand full of them are complaining. I have read enough comments to know that nowhere the majority of people seem to care what Linus says.

Enough seem to have a problem that Linus thinks that, to be a better and more effective leader, he has to improve his behavior. Nobody made him do it. He listened and reflected and changed. That's what a decent leader, and a decent human, does.

Why does that have you, to use a Linus-ism, so hot under the T-shirt?

I don't buy that for a second. I think Linus is smart, and knows there is a mob out there ready to enforce and pounce for language they don't like.

Its odd, that people keep saying this. He is the leader of one of the largest most successful projects mankind has seen. He has the most diverse portfolio from around the world. But yet, some how what he has done has not worked, and is not working...

Linus has always struck me as a decent guy. Decent people look at what they're doing and decide if it's actually the way they want to live their lives. The cynicism in your take speaks more to you than to him.

And the rest of your post blows my mind--the idea that something can work and yet be imperfect, can work and yet can be better, is so foreign to you?

Me, I'm always trying to improve. Why shouldn't he?

> something can work and yet be imperfect.

I never said it was perfect, I just commented on what he was doing was worked well considering the goals of the project.

> can work and yet can be better, is so foreign to you?

Absolutely not, I just think the methods being used to achieve the "better" in question is actively making it worse.

And yet you immediately discount the notion that Linus might thing that it's...not making it "worse".

Which I find kind of interesting, you know? He might just actually know what's going on in his own head.

The thing is with linux is the the party is going to keep on going regardless. He should just ignore them, because what are they going to do ? leave ? fork ? Then go ahead fork.

Not pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, not contribute billions in development time, etc.

This is already happening. People already choose not to contribute to Linux and Fuschia isn't just some hobby project.

So were are back to "if you offend me, I take your job away".

He clearly has added value. He has run one of the MOST successful projects EVER. Most CEOs are never this successful, to so say he is not doing something mostly right is weird to say.

> so say he is not doing something mostly right is weird to say

He has done a lot of things right! But that doesn't mean that he needs to continue with personal attacks during patch reviews and feature discussions in a public forum.

Does it seem possible that the quality of the project could have remained the way it was without things like this being said to contributors (no matter how misguided they are):

> Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?

Yes, reading anything one byte at a time is generally a bad idea. That patch should not be accepted. But... saying things like that probably isn't necessary to get the point across. People have been telling him that for a long time, and he's finally sat back, reflected on it, and decided to change.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the project hasn't been wildly successful, nor that it hasn't generally been a great project to contribute to. But over the years there's been some pretty wild things said to nominally-valued contributors, and some of them have left over it.

That is if you care about other people feeling.

He's not a CEO. I'd be shocked to see a CEO behave this way and have a board that continues to support them.

Fuschia isn't existing because Linus occasionally flames people though. It's because Google has tons of employees who want to write operating systems, and maybe because of the desire for driver ABI stability.

I don't think all of this really matter to him anyway. He started this linux thing for free.

> He started this linux thing for free

In 1991 as a college student. The situation has changed drastically. I'd guess his primary source of income matters greatly if it were to disappear or drastically shrink.

Then why the attitude adjustment?

Which i don't think he should do.

You don't think Linus should reflect on his behavior from time to time and maybe change it if he no longer feels that it's a good idea for him personally or professionally? He should keep doing the same things, damn all the consequences, just because other people--people he may respect and trust--have told him it's probably not a great idea?

That's a hot take, indeed. Me, I think one should be constantly reevaluating what one believes and making sure one's actions are congruent with the life one wants to lead, but--you do you, I guess.

>You don't think Linus should reflect on his behavior from time to time and maybe change it if he no longer feels that it's a good idea for him personally or professionally?

He should, only if he is truly care about that.

And yet all your posts implicitly assume that he doesn't care.

Doesn't that level of cynicism...hurt? Like, personally hurt? It's not good, dude.

Thats the trait i personally like and admire about linus, the fuck you，my way or highway attitude.

So because you, for reasons that if I'm being frank don't seem great, like that he does that, he shouldn't reflect on his actions and decide if they're actually congruent with the life he wants to lead and the example he wants to set for other people?

Hm.

He should but every person definition on what life one want are different.

For example, someone want to just work on project according what his style and if other people feeling get hurt by this, as long as this project owner happy and fine by the situation then the logical action he should take is to just ignore the them.

Some other people who do care about other people feeling then sure, they should listen to them.

These 2 people are different so too differ on what life they want and what makes them happy.

There are no right or wrong from any this.

One problem with your nuance here is that this is the internet. Numbers mean basically nothing when one group with extreme views can then go 'alert' their echo chamber to an 'incident.' Whether the only comment you receive is me or whether it's me and my 50,000 adherents should not sway you more or less. What should or should not sway you is the logic in what I say. And so too with Linus whether 10 people say something or a million people say something is nowhere near as relevant as what they say.

"The logic in what [you] say" is part of it. Your humanity does, too.

"That hurts me and you should stop" need not be "logical" to be deserving of respect.

Do you not intuitively see the problem with your argument?

"You claiming women should be treated equally to men hurts me, you should stop."

Do you care or respect this view? What if you consider the fact that there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people that would completely genuinely state and agree with the above? Does that somehow make it a more legitimate claim? Obviously not. This is precisely why logic is what matters. Appeals to emotion can be used to argue for great or awful things using the exact same language which ultimately makes the entire notion completely pointless. This is likely the reason the word pathetic has the etymology that it does. At the point one is appealing to emotion, they've long since lost the thread.

I'd also add here that behind nearly all great travesties in history there was some charismatic leader who likely thought he was in the right, swaying people largely through appeals to emotion to his cause. And this is because emotion sidesteps the necessity of actually having to show that e.g. the people you are demonizing are actually bad.

I see the asserted problem. I discount it, in this very specific sphere, because at present the protests of "but the logics!" is acting as a sinecure for shitheads.

Not empowering shitheads is more valuable to me than Emerson's foolish consistency.

When the situation on the ground changes--and it hasn't yet, don't @ me--I will reevaluate my position, because my brain works and I do not feel tethered to immutable positions (on topics like this, at least).

I fully respect the honest reply. That is surprising and refreshing. This is the point that most people begin to engage in mental gymnastics. The one thing I'd clarify is that I'm not critiquing what your opinion is. Everybody is entitled to their own perspective on issues, and like you implied many of those those views will, and should, change over time. Imagine if you held all the views you did when you were 16, or 20, or so on upwards, depending on your age. That'd be quite the underdeveloped individual!

The only thing I'm critiquing is how you came to your view. It's a rationale that, as illustrated, leads to views you'd obviously never endorse. So should the views of masses of people mean something? Of course my opinion on this is clear, but I think if you want to argue that it does surely you must be able to find some form of logic or evidence to support the view. Alternatively, you might even focus on how Linus' behavior is likely harmful to himself. I think it's extremely likely that he changed his views not because he changed his actual view, but because he got tired of years of harassment because of his behavior. But of course such harassment is to be fully expected when you act like a dick. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and all that. I don't really agree with these notions, but they are at least reasonable and mostly logical.

>If he wants to be angry and make personal insults then people can choose not to interact with him or the things he works on

They did. Enough people said "hey if you keep behaving this way we will no longer want to interact with you or the things you work with" that Linus stopped acting that way.

It went no further than that.

> If you walk into my house, or request entry, I can treat you however I like.

If you then give out keys to dozens/hundreds/thousands of other people to come over whenever they want and tell them "Make yourselves at home", you can't be surprised when they start calling you out for shitting in plastic bags in the living room and leaving them there for guests to find.

You can try to kick them out, but you'll find it difficult at this point, and you'll lose a lot of your friends in the process.

Choices have to be made: do you stick to your guns, or do you choose to reevaluate how you're living your life?

Nope, Linux stopped being Linus's house a long time ago. the fact that thousands of developers have contributed to it made linux what it is right now. you cannot ignore the millions of lines of code contributed by non-linus humans purely because of the virtue of it being opensource. This childish mindset that its 'mine' (mind you not Linus but other projects) has led to unnecessary fragmentation in opensource world and led it to the state it is in now.

regarding the situation at hand, linus is effectively a project lead for linux. though I understand the need to create a certain persona or quality-barrier for maintaining quality of linux, I feel his personality & the name calling attitude is actually hurting the kernel community and hindering more active participation.

> the fact that thousands of developers have contributed to it made linux what it is right now.

If I invited you over to help me work on a car in my garage do I now not own my car?

Linux is much more than just the code. And the fact that it simply was not forked to remove Linus shows you this. It is his project, he is the gate keeper.

> If you walk into my house, or request entry, I can treat you however I like... If he wants to be angry and make personal insults then people can choose not to interact with him or the things he works on. It should go no further than that.

This is inconsistent. Even if you believe OS projects are like “homes” and bullies have the right to treat people however they like in their homes... By the same logic everyone, typing on keyboards in their own homes, has the right to criticize bullies and express their opinions. By proclaiming “it should go no further” that keeping quiet you are implicitly placing restrictions on what they can do in their homes. Heck, they can even do it in your home if they want, until you uninvite them.

This project influences a ton of people, and if we have a lot of contributors going somewhere else, we'll lose progress we could have gotten otherwise. Linux is bigger than he is now, progress on it helps millions of people directly or indirectly.

Think of it more like a company instead of a house. The founder doesn't have free reign to do whatever he wants to his employees. Everyone deserves to be treated respectfully, regardless of the situation.

Yes, that's why people asked him to get a handle on himself. Because he has driven away dozens of talented contributors with his bad behavior.

The communications which people are talking about are those which were seen by the world, which is quite beyond anyone's "home", and the public having commentary about it is a kind of natural reciprocation. "It should go not further" (than the home?) is a little odd when things are being hashed out in front of an audience of thousands.

And that's, in essence, what's happening...?

People are saying that "we will not work with you unless you stop being an asshole". It's just happening at the organizational level.

Linus is more than free to say whatever he likes, and people are also free to tell him to buzz off. That's how the rest of the world works.

"Linus was usually right on the technical aspects"

Memory overcommit. OOM killer. "Security is just a bunch of masturbating monkeys"

Linus is frequently extremely wrong on the technical aspects, in addition to being a huge jerk

I despise the anti-SJW stance. I think it's about time loud-mouth, offensive people think twice before speaking. You used to have the power to offend whomever you wanted and now you don't. We haven't lost anything as a society and have gained so much more: the people who used to bear the brunt of such bullish behavior can finally have a voice in addition to yours. That's a good thing.

You're imagining shadows on the wall coming to get you if you think that there are people literally waiting for you to say something to take your job away. Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that.

Maybe you should check yourself. Learn some non-violent communication. Empathize with other people. If we're all kind to one another what is it we need to be afraid of exactly?

I feel pretty caught between two extremes. Loudmouths still exist and bother me from time to time, but it's also getting easier and easier to accidentally run afoul of SJWs.

I wish people would just relax, but I don't think mass-communication works this way. In a small group, people negotiate the morals and the social values of a group. (and then, of course, push those boundaries and re-negotiate values, etc) I've often felt that this process breaks down in larger groups. Moral values are seldom "settled," since the group is too large and disperse for any given values to really propagate. The outrage and accusations don't stop, they simply aren't resolved. There's more to it than this, but it's a bit like getting angry at someone in a road rage incident. You're never going to meet that person again. Even if you "won" the debate and "taught" them a lesson, you won't ever encounter them again. It's possible you've modified their behavior, but you'll never be able to notice a difference in the environment. The scale is too big for your anger to have been useful.

Of course, even this poor example is pretty optimistic. Often the conflict makes things worse, and not better, whether or not you could measure the difference of your singular action.

Keep that straw-man away from the fire lest he burn.

You are intentionally misinterpreting the GP's comment or at least seem to be from my interpretation. Nobody is annoyed that they can't sprinkle legitimate criticism with personal attacks. That was never considered normal or ok though it may have been tolerated in some contexts. People are annoyed that any direct criticism can be construed as a personal attack.

GGP’s comment is that he can’t keep doing the things he used to do like calling foolish behaviour “retarded”, slapping the female members of the seam on the butt in place of the high-five his male colleagues get, or asking female colleagues out on dates.

The people most upset about being called out by “SJWs” are the ones whose behaviour is most problematic and exclusionary.

> people who used to bear the brunt of such bullish behavior can finally have a voice

Except they always had a voice, and acting like they did not does not help. They also had the choice to not listen.

> You're imagining shadows on the wall coming to get you if you think that there are people literally waiting for you to say something to take your job away.

I am not sure you have been keeping up with things. That is exactly what is happening. Say the wrong words, end your job.

> Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that.

While I am sure this has happens to people, and has to many people on all sorts of sides of any conversation. This is not a "them us" issue. If things like this have happened to you I am very sorry that you had to experience that. But that has nothing to do with all peoples who are 'loud-mouth' and all peoples who are 'anti-sjw'. The actions described belong solely to the individuals who did them.

Please stop grouping people based on different attributes, it leads to racism and bigotry. Each one of us are individuals and should be judged as so. Doing any thing other is outright nonsense. I will not let you take my or any other persons individuality and water it down to some group you define.

We are all individual and and can only be held accountable for your actions good or bad.

> Learn some non-violent communication.

Words are never violent. Words are not physical. (I am with you if somebody starts throwing wood cutouts of words at people, yeah that is probably bad)

> Empathize with other people.

It seems those who find words "violent" are the ones that are not capable of empathizing with the society around them, thus wanting everybody to conform to their subjective views.

> Maybe you should check yourself.

Just because some people do bad things does not mean everybody needs to change their behavior because it reminds you of the things bad people have done in the past.

"They" always had a voice in the same way women always had a voice in science and black people always had a voice in America. "Having a voice" which is technically true but you can't use it for social reasons, and nobody listens to it, doesn't count as having a voice.

I am not sure you have been keeping up with things. That is exactly what is happening. Say the wrong words, end your job.

Sure it happens. Does it happen a tenth as often as the times a woman gets sexually harassed in an office and is expected to ignore it as normal? That any rebalancing of power will involve some problems, doesn't mean that rebalancing is entirely bad and should be avoided, and that the people on the lower side of the power scale should be quiet and stop being uppity because the people on the high side don't like it.

> I will not let you take my or any other persons individuality and water it down to some group you define.

You just grouped a huge number of people from disparate backgrounds into "they always had a voice" to bulk-dismiss their speaking up. Why aren't you taking their situations as invidual situations with their own merits? Why aren't you willing to admit that any of them at all might have a valid point?

> Words are never violent.

Words are not physical, but that's not enough to say they aren't violent. Look at a definition of "violent" and its synonyms, many of them apply to words: synonyms: harsh, rough, aggressive, bullying, threatening, terrorizing, fierce, hot-tempered, frenzied, inhuman, heartless, callous, ruthless, merciless, pitiless, cruel, destructive, damaging, painful; 2. (especially of an emotion or a destructive natural force) very strong or powerful. "violent dislike", synonyms: intense, extreme, strong, powerful, forceful, raging"

If you can have "violent dislike" you can sure have "pitiless cruel intense extreme terrorizing callous bullying" words..

>You used to have the power to offend whomever you wanted and now you don't.

If people are not allowed to offend, being offended becomes a weapon.

Further, polite language does not prevent oppression or racism etc.. It only makes it secret.

> If people are not allowed to offend, being offended becomes a weapon.

Well said. That just went in my permanent quotes file.

No. You’ve just given people the power to offend you. Some people need to be taught, and they also work with the criticism constructively.

My handwriting was once so terrible as to be illegible, and I refused to change it. My teacher called me out by holding up my writing for the class to see. Instead of crying about it, I changed my handwriting, and it changed the way I was able to organise my work. This is so much better the alternative of diplomatically letting crap work slide.

>Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that.

Something bad happening to some people does not justify doing it to others. By all means, dox the doxxers, but don't go full human flesh search engine over some bs someone said.

There is a big disconnect where SJWs see it as life and death survival because they are aware of all the incidences of people getting beaten or killed because of their identity, and the other side sees it as politically correct pedantry because of the blowups over people saying things like "fork his repo". I agree that both sides need more empathy.

It's cultural too. I find the politically correct culture stifling because my culture is endless shit talking to friends and being physical. That is completely unacceptable where I work, and I understand why, but at the same time it's a total drag.

When you ignore the bailey and retreat to your motte, it makes me feel threatened because I need to feel secure. Could you not disavow doxxers and the other people from your mindset that behave in equally bullish ways?

> I despise the anti-SJW stance. I think it's about time loud-mouth, offensive people

At the end of your post you tell people to be kind, but yet here you’re calling people names and using very strong language like “despise”.

And recent history shows that plenty on your side are doing the things you claim they aren’t / only the other side is doing.

> If we're all kind to one another what is it we need to be afraid of exactly?

Define “kind”. Your argument amounts to “if you’ve done nothing wrong what do you have to hide”. Well, define “wrong”. There are tons of people who legitimately have conniptions at the slightest of “microaggressions”. Thank God for the anti-SJWs otherwise we’d be living in hell.

Non-violent communication is verbose, inefficient, and annoying to both read and write. If I deserved to be told to fuck off then someone should tell me to fuck off in the simplest and most direct way available. Maybe you should become more offensive, have you ever considered that?

Cut out the first two paragraphs of your comment, they are irrelevant and misguided. Although there are issues with online mobs and the kangaroo court that social media has become, that has nothing to do with this. Also, complaining about SJWs has become a dog whistle for bigots-- it's not even a useful term, anyways.

Regarding the third, some of Linus's rants were out and out vitriol. Like Linus, I don't hesitate to call BS when I smell BS (as is, perhaps, obvious), but I usually manage to do it in a civil manner.

The growing pains come from the fact that the internet used to be a niche place, and now it's an extremely public place. When you personally know everyone who sees what you post, they have more context and understanding of both you as a person and the things you're saying, and that allows for nuance. For better or worse, most online channels are no longer small enough for that to apply.

We can mourn the loss of an understanding environment in which to speak impulsively, but there's a segment of people who react to this change by embracing their offensiveness and raging against the "SJWs", which is equally bad.

The reality is that one's online words impact a massively larger segment of people than they used to, and typically without context. This has bred constant reactionism and irritation in our society, which is a bad thing. I think the solution is to scale your "carefulness" to the scope of your media channel. Treat Twitter posts like you're speaking on live TV in front of millions. Because you effectively are. HackerNews tends to be a little more homogenous so you can get away with a little more. Private group chats with friends are all the way on the other end of the spectrum and allow you to say whatever you want. Simply don't expect the entire internet to be empathetic and give you the benefit of the doubt. Nuance doesn't scale that far.

All that said, I think Linus' words were referring to his fame and the scale of the Linux project, not the internet in general. His project has gone from a small, tight-knit group to one of the largest software projects in the world. So yeah, some adjustment in decorum is necessary.

Part of the problem, too, is that when you initially join something like Twitter, the only people seeing your posts may be a dozen friends, and then the size of that channel scales up, sometimes exponentially. It can be hard to track that and adjust your expectations accordingly. Historical posts can also be a problem because of this. If you're going to make in-jokes that would be offensive to the public, it could be a good idea to set up one of those services that deletes tweets older than a particular time span (months, years, whatever).

Yeah, crazy that people want to work on a project without being berated publicly and called incompetent on a mailing list. Those darn SJWs!!

Part of the issue is that a Linux mailing list isn't just some private discussion group anymore. If Linux spits fire, it's going on reddit/r/linusrants, and being berated on potentially the front page of reddit (even if the criticism is accurate and/or deserved) definitely introduces a much higher reputation risk for the criticized person.

If you cannot handle the heat, leave the kitchen. If a developer submits patches or bits of code that haven't been tested and/or says dumb things that developers of that caliber shouldn't, I don't see any reason not to call them out publicly. Open source projects, open source comments. I don't want to live or work in a world where I have to constantly guard my tongue for fear of "offending" someone, even though I know offense is taken and not given. It seems like everyone is just so defensive anymore and for why? I'm not bothered by any of it.

> I don't want to live or work in a world where I have to constantly guard my tongue for fear of "offending" someone

I don't understand this.

Essentially, your comment comes down to "I don't care how other people feel. I want to say what makes me happy, and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it."

And that's fine, I guess, if that's how you want to live your life. But offense is both taken and given — it's a two-way street. If you say something and someone says "Hey, that upset me", then you now have a choice of whether to say similar things in the future. If you choose to say those things that you have been told are offensive to this person, then you get to deal with the repercussions of that choice. After all: "If you cannot handle the heat, leave the kitchen."

“You can ignore the consequences of your actions. You cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring the consequences of your actions.”

Direct anecdote:

A couple of years ago, I worked with a large team and there was a gay man on the team who was constantly yapping on about gay this and gay that, almost like he was looking for disapproval among the ranks. He then decided to do a legal union with his boyfriend and invited everyone. Those who did not attend were berated, verbally accused of this and that. I counseled everyone to simply ignore him and not take the bait, which ended up being sound judgement, because he took his leave shortly thereafter. I never engaged in ad-hominem attacks or retaliated against this man. I just refused to play his childish game of attacking people for some imagined reasons.

Linus, Theo, and other large project leaders deal with actual idiots all the time. Serial idiots. Sometimes in the real world you have to step on toes to get someone's attention. It can often be done in "nicer" ways, but sometimes you have to "nuke them from orbit" just to be sure.

Recently, my British uncle told me of a story about a woman in England who went apoplectic about a new tissue range having the marketing slogan "man-sized" tissues. Who cares? It's marketing. The company actually caved to please this woman. I would not have done so. My tissues, my slogan. Don't buy them if you're offended.

Why are you so offended about other people being offended?

Why not just say, “this must be a big issue to them”? Why do you feel the need to prove that these things don’t offend you, and that thus they shouldn’t offend others?

I am perfect find on people being offended. What I am not fine with is that the notion of being offended translates into anything other than the person simply being offended.

EG, offending somebody -- because it is so subjective -- should simply be that, they are offended. END OF STORY.

But right now being offended is as if you walked up to somebody and spit in their face, or worse punched them. And the actions being taken by those who "offend" are on par with actions you would take had somebody physically attacked another person.

I'm not "offended". I'm sick and tired of political correctness invading every aspect of life. Leave it for the politicians. I'm not going to change who I am to please someone else. Everyone else is already taken. Like most people, I have strong views on many things, and some of those things are hills worth dying for. Other things are more grey and I overlook them or simply don't care at all.

It's come to a place now in society where even silence can be taken the wrong way. I've been accused of being politically incorrect over the years because I refuse to cotton to certain things the mainstream embraces, but I refuse to budge. My convictions are mine and mine alone. I don't try and change other people's convictions. But... if you stand for nothing, you fall for anything.

> I'm not "offended". I'm sick and tired of political correctness invading every aspect of life.

This is like a gay person saying "I'm not 'offended'. I'm sick and tired of anti-gay sentiment invading every aspect of life."

Your lack of introspection is showing through. You want to be able to say and act however you feel is appropriate — which is fine —, but you don't want other people to be able to call you out for what you say and do. This makes no sense, because those people are just saying and acting however they feel is appropriate — by calling you out.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Society is changing. You don't have to.

People will judge you for what you say, the same way that you judge others for what they say.

What it seems here is that, while you judge others, you demand for the right to not be judged by others.

Your odd story does not in fact provide logical evidence for the need to "nuke [anyone] from orbit".

The use of power have no needs, nor does it required to be justified by "logical evidence". It's only requirement is to have it and a choice to use it.

Isn't it a near perfect sleight-of-hand to subvert societies into celebrating weakness as the ultimate virtue, turning it into straight up a currency for power used to nuke a narrowly defined "anyone" from orbit?

Edit: Added 'narrowly defined' to the last sentence.

"Bond villain" is a novel HN take. Well played!

They might be tiny bit over the top … nevertheless, Bond villains are an excellent choice to illustrate my point, thanks!

The window of what's considered offensive has widened to the point that nearly everything is offensive, up to and including staying silent on an issue. There are real people in the real world that will get offended if you say "hey guys" after all.

What people want is for the grievance hunters to go away and/or toughen up.

> There are real people in the real world that will get offended if you say "hey guys" after all.

I don't want to say that I don't believe these people exist (because I'm sure they do), but rather I don't think their presence is something you need to be overly concerned with because I think there are so shockingly few of them that it really isn't overly consequential. I think their existence is overhyped by people on the internet, because I've never met anyone in my life who has brought this up in the real world.

Just handle things like that on a case-by-case basis. If all the people you interact with don't care... then you probably don't need to worry about it. But if there's someone who says "Hey, I don't like it when you say that", then perhaps take their opinion under consideration and determine what you want to do about it.

The notion that you need to constantly be on guard about everything you say is completely absurd, unless you're a raging asshole whose comments regularly spark resentment in your conversational counterparts.

Or possibly, a lot of people have always been kinda shit to each other, and it's only recently that people have felt confident in speaking out about it.

> I don't want to live or work in a world where I have to constantly guard my tongue for fear of "offending" someone,

If you cannot handle the heat, leave the kitchen.

How about the snowflakes gtfo the kitchen.

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that you have never been bullied, or that any bullying you received was strictly as part of a process of initiation into the club of bullies (i.e., hazing).

It turns out that people who have only been on the receiving end of bullying do not, in fact, like being bullied.

I have been bullied, but ended it quickly, because that's how I roll. I can take massive amounts of verbal assault (former Marine) and physical difficulties, but I do draw the line at actual bullying for the sake of bullying. I don't equate calling someone a "fucking moron" or similar, bullying. YMMV. Being former military has given me some pretty thick skin.

You've entirely missed his point. You were "bullied" but "ended it quickly", meaning that there was no meaningful power differential between you and your "bully". Many (most?) bullied people don't have that luxury, and, to extend the analysis all the way back to Linus, none of Linus's victims did.

You're not doing an especially good job of defending Linus on this thread. I don't think he'd find your arguments especially useful as a tool for persuading people that his previous behavior was acceptable. Your comparison between him and Theo de Raadt, by the way, was especially cringe-y.

While I agree with your point that most bullied people are rendered helpless because of a huge power differential, how can this be extended to a community based entirely on free association? Worst case, you stand up and leave.

Compared to the military, where you are "kept" using a state's monopoly of deadly force, hence any bullyig situation is way much harder to resolve because you're unable to leave.

Is everyone entitled to partake in communities like the kernel org if they so choose, even against it's founder's wishes?

(Edited spelling)

I don't know why you're asking me this. You should reformulate your question as a response to 'jcranmer's comment. All I'm saying is that the parent comment missed the point of that comment.

"You're a fucking moron"

- Linus Torvalds

Just something to think about: many people simply avoid people who have a default mad, cynical or otherwise negative attitude, but they wouldn’t say it to their face. The badass might say ‘Good riddance!’ (or “Can’t handle the heat? ...”), but they will miss many great opportunities.

Would you feel the same about getting insulted by random people for ambiguous design choices on an open source product for which you are the sole maintainer and have no accountability to anyone for?

How are you arguing in favour of being able to publically insult someone on a mailing list, but also saying “offence is taken not given?”

If you think offence is only taken, you would reject the idea that your words are polite or offensive. Instead you accept that some choice of words is offensive, argue that it’s right to be offensive in some situations, then try to disclaim that by saying “you shouldn’t be offended, I wouldn’t be because i have a tough skin”.

If offence is only taken, not given, you wouldn’t need a tough skin because there wouldn’t be anything to bounce off it.

The cure is worse than the disease.

The internet is a big place with lots of views and you'll find whatever it is you're looking for.

On the flip side, there are also people that are looking to be outraged about "political correctness" and inserting their own biases into a situation that doesn't require it.

I think you are overstating the situation dramatically. The fact that you use words like "political correctness" and "SJW" tells me a lot about where you've gotten your ideas from. (Also the cute bit about "tolerance" is getting outdated, but it doesn't even have anything to do with this situation. No one is asking Linus for "tolerance".)

But maybe take a step back from all of that, and try to look at things in a different way.

You say "his project, his rules." But that's not the same as not being in "bad form". Plenty of "nice guys" are also abusive to their subordinates. Linus was verbally abusive to contributors, and it happened over and over again. Sure, he has to put up with a lot and has a ton of pressure on him. But profanity laced rants are not the only way to "trounce the idiots".

Lots of people could deal with Linus's behavior. But it also drove a lot more people away. Talented, dedicated workers who could have contributed to Linux but stopped because of the culture around kernel development. Even if you personally think he's a nice guy and was never "in bad form", the actual impact of his behavior on the kernel community was a negative thing. It was bad for Linux. So I'm glad he stepped away and got some help, and that he's come back a little more thoughtful about how his own behavior impacts others. It was necessary for the continued success of Linux.

Ultimately that's what this is about. It's possible to say the same thing and send the same message in ways that are hurtful to other people and in ways that aren't. Sometimes in anger or impatience or fear we lash out in a hurtful way. But part of growing up and being a good leader is finding better ways to express ourselves to avoid being hurtful if we can help it.

Taking time to be thoughtful and constructive in your communication is part of being a good leader. Insults and profanity do not add clarity--they are a needless distraction. It's not "political correctness" to take a moment and not give into your first instinct to lash out and insult others. It's not an "SJW mindset" to be clear and direct and avoid being needlessly hurtful.

> I have a feeling the majority of people would disagree with me anymore, but then again, my mindset and attitude were largely set by the military long ago, so I like strong leaders who don't brook BS.

So how do you reconcile this opinion with the fact that Linus thinks this new approach makes him a better leader?

Indeed

> "So I'll still call out people (and particularly companies) for doing dumb things, but now I have to do it knowing that it's news, and me giving some company the finger will be remembered for a decade afterwards. Whether deserved or not, it might not be worth it."

"it might not be worth it" is pretty damning. That approach you admire doesn't necessarily have the effects you want it to.

An illuminating exercise: in any sentence where "political correctness" appears, replace it with "treating people with dignity" and re-read the sentence.

> I for one despise the political correctness that has occurred/is occurring in the current online communities. ...

I'm sorry that you feel offended! But clearly Linus thought that his behavior towards other project participants had some scope for improvement, and that's his prerogative. There can be plenty of value in being diplomatic, especially when people might misunderstand your attitude otherwise - and politeness can be a part of that, as well.

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