There have been some very decisions taken by the CppCon organizers that I feel that I can't fully support.
Here is a thread about it: https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1501211140310904841
Here is a thread about it: https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1501211140310904841
This whole public shaming and social justice warrior thingy feels to me just medieval wrong. This is also the reason why I like HN as here the focus is pretty much tech related which gives me somewhat peace of mind.
I'm sure it's nice to be able to put your feet up and ignore that whole messy social justice thing, but unfortunately a lot of people don't have that opportunity.
Courts have the power to truly end people’s lives. Because of this power they must have the highest standard of proof: innocent until proven guilty.
However, many crimes are very difficult to prove, which means courts mostly can do nothing about things like rape, harassment, etc.
That’s a good thing on some level, we don’t want to put innocent people in jail.
But if we leave it at that, and simply disbelieve all stories not proven by courts, then the vast majority of victims of crime will be totally left without support.
That’s why personal policies like “believe women” exist… not because they are more true than “believe the courts” but because both policies are flawed and so together they provide better coverage of innocent people than either policy could alone. For the innocent victims who haven’t been protected by the law, the “believe women” community has their back. For innocent victims who have been falsely accused the “believe the courts” community has their back.
I believe this diversity of belief is essential.
And so, I support you being a “believe the courts” person. But I would like you to consider that this leaves you in a position where you can’t support a large number of victims of crime. And therefore that’s a job other people, with a different attitude to the courts, must step in and do.
When some terminally online lefties doxx you and try to get you fired, does some other group of people sweep in to your defense, in your experience?
Your characterization of “believe women” existing as a counterbalance to the flaws of the legal system is compelling, although it still doesn't seem like a good idea. One system is unchecked vigilante bullshit, while the other system is a transparent, evidence-based process. It's like "the medicine doesn't work; let's sacrifice goats and bloodlet instead".
Nitpick: it's not “believe women”; it's “believe ALL women”, which is more hilarious. (And frankly sexist, as it strips women of the agency to lie, which -- spoiler-- is a thing people do all the time.)
Although I am curious about your opinion about other senarios. What is the person was found guilty in a US college Title IX court? Or what if it was just an accusation online? These are the questions we should get clear answers to now so when they (inevitably) happen, we know how to act, we don't have a twitter debate war to decide.
Sometimes I may believe an accusation and sometimes I may not. I don’t want to offload that responsibility to anyone else, in a court or anywhere.
On one hand we would like to support folks serving their time and coming back to society as full citizens. I don’t think any of us would support stripping ex-cons of the right to vote or support themselves.
On the other hand, we also recognise that we can’t force people to work with those they don’t want to. This isn’t theoretical. One of the members of the committee is a rape survivor and doesn’t want to work with a rapist. The wide support in society for sex offender registries indicates that many people feel the same way.
That’s the dilemma - only one of these two people will ultimately work on the committee. Inaction is a choice. If we do nothing, it’s the ex-con, and we lose the other person. This is the choice the ISO CPP leadership has made.
It’s complicated a bit further. Many other folks on the committee aren’t comfortable working with a rapist either. So in exchange for supporting one ex-con, you lose several people.
If I don't want to work with a black person, do I have a right to demand they be fired?
(this is a theoretical question)
Unless this is true, your comparison between being black and being a rapist isn't valid.
Well, in USA many people served lifetime sentence of forced labor for being black, so I guess the answer is "yes"?
And is it moral to ostracize someone from society because of a crime they have been punished for?
The morals of the community in question. The laws and customs of unrelated countries or communities are immaterial to the decisions of this particular community.
> And is it moral to ostracize someone from society because of a crime they have been punished for?
It's one thing to ostracize someone from society entirely. It's much less extreme for one particular community to say that someone with a track record of abusing authority or positions of trust shouldn't be put in a position of authority or trust.
There are only a limited number of positions of authority in this community, and plenty of people who are perhaps more deserving of that position who don't have a track record of abusing such positions. It was noted that this person received financial support from the conference. Maybe that didn't need to happen, given there are others who were not financially supported?
So it is OK for me to demand a homosexual co-worker be fired if the community of my workspace is homophobic?
For instance, I have no problem with the Catholic church banning gay priests. But I'm not outraged because doing so isn't banning gays from society.
Who gets to decide that? For many religious people, it is both (and actually criminal when proven). We take our religion seriously.
If someone in a conference is open about being a nazi or a racist, you call the police, maybe collect some evidence first, etc. Whatever is needed in your country to report an offense.
And yes, I agree... usually the victim will leave the place, not having enough energy to be an activist on top of dealing with their troubles and/or fearing the consequences. That's unfortunate. But that's where it gets complicated, for the victim. Not for the conference organizers.
But you are making the decision that this is something for the victim to deal with, not the organizers. That's not at all a given by default. As you yourself point out, the same standard is not applied to nazis, so why pedophile rapists? If you are in a position of power it is your job to make these decisions one way or the other, it's not a foregone conclusion.
The relevant quote from The Open Society and Its Enemies is:
> But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
It's about the right to suppress those who leave the arena of debate and move to extra-judicial force, such as the extra-legal violence used to keep black people subdued during segregation (the work was published in 1945, segregation is very relevant).
What you described is people not wanting to work with people that hate them.
> "That’s the dilemma - only one of these two people will ultimately work on the committee."
There's actually nothing preventing either of those people from working together on the committee. The individuals in question should be allowed to make their own informed choices, based on their individual situations. This should include things like the degree to which they would be cooperating together, the nature of the cooperation, and the practicalities - as long as they are within the boundaries of the law (which also includes anti-discrimination laws).
It would be good to show a bit more empathy. Don’t dismiss them just because you don’t feel the same way.
> diversity and inclusion
Don’t misrepresent what this means. Inclusion is about including people who’ve been excluded through no fault of their own. Is your claim that a convicted rapist has done nothing to deserve to be excluded?
The fact that some people may "feel safe interacting with them in person, but others might not" is exactly my point. We shouldn't be locking people out of society forever and ever based on feelings. We need to work locally to try and find optimal solutions to specific problems, and provide the tools needed for the individuals involved to make the best out of the situation (within the boundaries of the law, which includes anti-discrimination laws).
> "Don’t misrepresent what this means. Inclusion is about including people who’ve been excluded through no fault of their own."
That's your interpretation of this, but that's not the universal definition of "inclusion".
Also, do you actually know the specific people involved, and the specific details of what happened? People commit crimes due to any number of factors (experiencing abuse earlier in life, mental conditions, being a victim of a crime themselves at some point, different struggles, etc). You yourself just suggested that "it would be good to show a bit more empathy", so how about you actually follow your own advice?
> "Is your claim that a convicted rapist has done nothing to deserve to be excluded?"
No, that's not what I claimed at-all. It's always amusing to see the logical leaps a SJW will go through to try and get a point across.
First - when you say "excluded" - could you be more specific? Excluded from what exactly? From life on earth? From ever leaving home again? From ever interacting with other human beings? What exactly would be an appropriate life for a person in this position, according to you?
Second - this person, according to you, has been convicted. In a democratic, law-abiding society - this means they've been handled by the legal and correctional systems, which are the only two systems that have a monopoly on "judging" and "correcting" people. It's not up to a C++ conference to "judge" or "correct" people.
Third - this person may very well be trying their hardest to heal, move on, and start over. What are you doing to help such people come back and reintegrate into society?
Fourth - why stop at one specific class of crimes? Let's throw out everybody with a record. Tax issues? Stealing candy at a gas store when you were 12? Bad divorce?
How about speeding tickets? I don't feel safe working with people who drive recklessly. We must make sure there aren't any such people in CppCon 2022.
Got arrested by the police at a violent BLM protest? Too bad, you're locked out of society forever. Or... wait, that's not the people you're actually after here, are you?
This is really disingenuous. When you're interacting with a stranger, and you find out they had a bad divorce, do you suddenly feel concern that they might divorce you?
Let's go in the other direction. Do you believe child sex offenders are suffering injustice when they are not allowed to interact with children? How about drunk drivers that are permanently banned from driving (hypothetical though that may be)?
I think you got the general spirit of my comment, and I don't want to play tit-for-tat over the examples I provided. Why should the bar for banning people from associating with C++ conferences only stop at one specific class of crimes?
> "Do you believe child sex offenders are suffering injustice when they are not allowed to interact with children?"
No, I never said that.
What we're seeing here is a coordinated social justice campaign (taking place on Twitter and other social networks) to ban an ex-con, who is an otherwise free human being, from associating with a C++ conference.
"Megan’s Law refers to a collection of laws that mandate the notification of sex offenders in a particular community to the people that live there."
Here is how it looks in practice https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/yonkers/news/sex-offender-co...
Would you send your daughter to an event with knowledge organizers conspired to hide the fact one of the speakers, authoritative figure young people would look up to and trust, is a registered sex offender? More specifically the one from above link.
The person in question is a registered level 2 sex offender. This means they are not a full citizen and are still serving their time.
So, no, we don't want to support allowing registered sex offenders to attend, present, plan, etc. a large conference and community, and this is less complicated than you describe. The community has been very clear and aligned in their dismay.
As a female PoC, I am convinced that all of this pseudo-activism is either out of pure fucking boredom or personal vendetta.
From their proposed letter[1] they say: "We are not pursuing this person throughout their professional life trying to remove their livelihood." while simultaneously saying: "In this case we see no other option than to remove the person fully from the conference and we recommend that most other C++ communities consider this as well." And they re-iterate over and over that the offender shall not be named (while simultaneously being known to quite a few people apparently - which would be a prerequisite to have the offender removed from other communities as well) and therefore the only alternative is removal to prevent the offender from abusing their position of power to harm someone again.
While this is a little shaky I wonder why there should not be other options. Since apparently the board knows who X is, they could easily book security for the event and keep a tighter watch on the person. I will go out on a limb and say if person X was excluded from the conference while also seeking to repeat their offenses they will find another venue so the problem is not solved, rather offloaded on someone elses shoulders. Surely the person proposing the removal would not see that as a viable alternative?
There is also a linked petition to ban convicted sex offenders from the standard meetings which I would find more rational if the crime was very recent, the person had repeatedly commited the crime or shown inappropriate behaviour since. It[2] verbatim says: "The choice WG21 has is between an individual convicted felon and diversity and inclusivity. There is no third option, as inaction is a decision for the status quo and the convict." which I find bewildering. First of all I don't understand the logic behind only including sex offenders because even in their frame of reference inclusivity would be threatened by people convicted of fellonies regarding racism or any other type of violence, and second of all - leaving their frame of reference - why is it that they insist that a person who did something bad will do it again. They make it sound like the harm that has been done is inevitably gonna happen again. I am not so sure if this is a smart position to take.
I was very hesitant to write this and I'd like to be educated if I am missing something fundamental here, but I have trouble agreeing with the position that people who served their time after being convicted of a crime (which is the legal and at its core societal measure for "things being settled") should continue to get punished because someone feels like it's not enough. And I also have trouble seeing how harm is actually prevented this way and not just off-loaded.
[1] https://patricia.no/2022/03/08/proposed-cppcon_safety__inclu... [2] https://www.change.org/p/ban-convicted-sex-offender-from-iso...
It's not the CppCon's responsibility to play court/police here.
If this person served time and is not a suspect in any other ongoing investigation, CppCon has no role to play other than accept his presence. If they remove him based on other people's feeling torward ex-cons, they open themselves up for getting sued for discrimination (which, ironically, the people complaining here should know how that feels like very well).
Why am I not surprised?