I don't think it's marginalization. I completely agree with you on this, but my comment probably sounded like I wouldn't, since I was covering both sides.
259 karma · joined June 15, 2012
On the other hand I'm not concerned that left is becoming the new right. Not right now. People get alarmed when scales are tipped and change is afoot, but as long as there's a clear inequality -be it in skin color, gender or orientation- the complaints will sound ridiculous like 'reverse racism/sexism'. If and when there's no longer a gap in equality and people start to oppress today's oppressors; that will be the time to stop. Until then my complaints will be minor.
First of all, him stealing research from Rosalind Franklin comment is a bit of a hyperbole. Sure, not asking for her permission before using data and not crediting her at all are major dick moves, but I'm pretty sure he was a brilliant scientist. The quotes from his book The Double Helix don't really help here, they are extremely misogynistic. But The Verge does not mention that in the epilogue of the same book, he said he was usually wrong about Franklin and he acknowledges the hardships she endured as a woman in science.[2] This is just the part about Franklin.
The rest of The Verge article mentions about him being a generally horrible person and does not even quote the parts about obese people and genetic screening, so bonus points for them. But one thing we need to consider is that he is old. Really, he is 86. Of course this shouldn't shield him from criticism, but he was born and lived in a different world than ours. Bad behavior should be called out and shunned, but there's a fine line between this and marginalization. We should all be responsible about it.
The last thing I want to add is how everyone thinks if you made one great achievement you win all the points. This reminds me a lot about what's going on with Linus Pauling.[3] He did awesome things, yes, but at some point he stopped being a pioneer in science and bullishly promoted benefits of vitamin C even though scientific community was mostly united against it. People want to see them as authority figures even after they age and lose their touch. This is sad, really. But continuing taking them seriously is usually more harm than silently ignoring them.
I'm sorry no one takes him seriously anymore. But I understand universities not considering working with him anymore. I understand press not caring about what he says anymore. They all have good reasons. But that's where my pity ends. Him deciding to sell his Nobel medal makes him look like a victim, but as far as I know he didn't do it because he was poor or anything. He wanted to buy a painting, which I'm perfectly fine with. And maybe he wanted a little attention? People get old and sad, which is depressing, but there's not much we can do about it.
Sorry for the long comment.
[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7363969/dna-pioneer-james-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Use_of_King.27s_Co... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitami...
Are you even aware you made my exact point?
Is it putting words in someone's mouth if said words are their own, I wonder?
...no wait, I wouldn't.
I have a hard time understanding the knee jerk reaction to the change and the willingness to maintain the status quo. We have nothing to lose if the image is swapped with one that is less ostracizing --which is something Mozilla did in the past. Why defend it?
This sounds a lot like Redskins argument.
> The source code for various compression algorithms may have been lost, but the encoded Lena results for that compression algorithm may very well still exist.
We need to compare a new algorithm to an obsolete one where we don't even have the source code and this is beneficial... how?
By the way, the image is remastered in 2013 so none of this is relevant anymore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Remastering
Not doing something you are permitted to do is somehow denying their right to permit? It's nice of her permitting the use, however her permission doesn't force us to use it. By the same logic, it would be perfectly okay use goatse image if the guy permitted it, right?
By the way, Z notation rocks.
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I'm not sure laws will be able to stop all this single handedly. What we really need is something like shaming. We need to show no tolerance to those who take part in harassment, and even supporters, maybe. We kind of have this for racism and it works more or less. It's amazing we're still going through it when it comes to sexism.
Every change is prone to break someone's workflow. But if there is a good enough alternative and if the change is better for everyone, I think that should be left alone. If there was no way to disable JS after this update, I'd be pretty mad as well. But having an option deep enough to keep away from unsuspecting eyes is only sane.
"There are similar capabilities available in other browsers. Analytics firms can expect to do viewpoint detection in IE similarly to how they do this in other browsers."
Aren't they just throwing their hands up in defense and telling us "We're not the only ones! Everyone else is doing it too!" That's slimy.