The Right to Be Rude | Hacker News Reader

The Right to Be Rude

esr.ibiblio.org

36 points_pgmf9 comments

Freedom of speech is not the freedom from consequences. One has the right to be rude and the inextricable burden of being judged.

Intentional rudeness is an expression of emotion. Fundamental truths and well-reasoned arguments, despite the article’s claim, do not require emotional expression. Open source contributors are neither punching bags nor therapists.

Cold analysis and reason are rarely motivational or persuasive on their own. None of us like to admit it but our lives are emotionally driven pretty much all of the time, even when we're trying to be reasonable. To lead, persuade, and negotiate effectively with other human beings you need to be able to press emotional buttons.

While someone who is rude all the time, or unnecessarily, is probably not someone you want to work with. Well timed rudeness does have its place in a constructive conversation. Just like analogy does, or hyperbole, or reason - each have their place. To snap people back on track, to be understood, to escape being bogged down in irrelevant detail, convincing others of behavior or actions that are truly unacceptable to you, etc.

Birds eye view:

Movements to change things almost always have a good reason and almost always happen in a low resolution way that makes a mess of the merits of many specific situations.

Most individuals tend to focus on either the legitimate need for change, or the legitimate messes being made by promoters of change.

The two imperfect viewpoints strongly reinforce each other.

Rudeness is a very blunt instrument. Even in small groups with well shared context.

Any use of rudeness is going to beg legitimate, illegitimate, and well intentioned but off the mark responses.

The larger a community becomes, the lower the chance that “constructive” rudeness actually is constructive - including in “brutal” meritocracies. Rudeness just adds noise and creates dissension no matter how nuanced it’s intent.

Merit regarding work includes how the work is communicated, negotiated, etc. It is part of the work, and in larger groups becomes more of the work.

In merit based communication, intent means almost nothing. Avoiding creating unnecessary side issues and misunderstandings means everything.

Want to grow a community, hear from many voices, remain focused on merit? Avoid rudeness.

It's just a zeitgeist. We'll get through this eventually.

The only thing that bothers me is the possible schism in the culture. We will have communities where openness and meritocracy are valued more than being nice, and the ones with code of conducts. This would be hard to glue back together when the fashion for suppressing expression passes.

More here in this [Flagged] Thread, including original message.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518370

He seems totally in the right.

Thanks I didn't see this.

Typical ESR

What are "attempts to subvert OSD clauses 5 and 6."?

A link would have been helpful...

The thread is difficult to find and dense. It's not helped by the OSI deleting the supposedly incriminating email, which is nice because we don't get potentially emotionally scarred by having to read it, and also it makes it impossible to transparently judge who the real bully was.

Installing rules contrary to:

- 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

- 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

were at discussion. Along with codes-of-conduct. At one point involving a so-called "Persona-non-Grata Preamble". Good Heavens! That would get me up in arms too. And yes, there were people supporting the position that it was fine to study a "Persona non-Grata Preamble"...

Now we all know ESR is a complete right-wing libertarian wackadoo right? And he doesn't ever mince words. So one can totally read the headline and just imagine what a profanity-ridden racist, sexist, response. It would probably have offended Linus Torvalds and made him cry, right?

Actually, most of the comments from ESR and the other OSI contributors were fairly measured. Finally found what appears to have got him hauled up to the secret kangaroo court here: http://techrights.org/2020/02/29/getting-banned-osi/

Make your own judgement. It's not nice. It is abrasive. My opinion, however, is that I think ESR is 100% right in his characterization of SJWs and the situation. It always seems over the top until you really see them in action. IMHO.

Good luck with your OSI thingy, Ehmke (and your like-minded pals). Meanwhile there's a lot of us who won't say a lot publicly, but will keep on doing good things and judging others by how good they are at doing work. When you argue against meritocracy, I know better than to argue publically. But I'll never ever agree.

That was interesting.

ESR says "Make no mistake; we are under attack". Too right. Good thing too!

But the attack is from projects making huge progress with codes of conduct and efforts to seek out under represented groups and include them.

This is not a attack on "meritocracy", it is a adjunct.

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