You might’ve noticed Framework, the laptop manufacturer, embroiled in a controversy as of now. The Discord server is on lockdown because the volunteer moderation team has gone on hiatus, and the Framework forum post about the controversy has been gaining unsightly amounts of steam from people disappointed at actions taken by Framework.
Fair Warning: Long rant ahead.
Great article, and it gets to the heart of something I’ve felt is becoming more and more prominent in the Linux and Open Source Community, and really any community. And it’s something we simply can’t ignore.
That is that you can’t separate politics from life. It’s everywhere. The author points out that Framework’s mission is to encourage right to repair and responsible consumption by discouraging planned obsolescence.
While right to repair might be popular in both left and right wing circles, that is only because both sides want control over their devices and to distance themselves from Big Tech. But their views on regulation with regards to the environment and social equity/inclusion are as far apart as the general right left paradigm is as a whole.
To be blunt, you simply cannot have normal people work under the same tent as crypto fascists, transphobes, and general right wing grifters, no matter how significant their individual contributions might be.
I personally am tired of these sorts of controversies being brushed under the rug by tech influencers like BashBunni and Brodie Robertson who in their coverage of Omarchy did not broach this topic even just to say that there is a controversy at all. It’s cowardice at best, and right wing apologism at worst.
Yes, there are particularly brilliant software engineers that are also assholes. And yeah, without those assholes, we wouldn’t have the technologies we have today. The mistake is thinking that they are brilliant because they are assholes. Another mistake is thinking that holding onto one productive asshole is better than hanging onto the good will and contributions of many normal people that still provide worthwhile contributions.
To be very frank, fuck that. I refuse to believe in the false dichotomy that in order to create good software we have to put up with bigots. If anything, their attitudes end up holding themselves and their colleagues back. We shouldn’t be asking ourselves, “How much less productive would that person have been if they had wasted time/energy on being socially conscious and empathetic.” And instead have asked “How much more productive and better off we all would have been had they been a more empathetic and compassionate person.” Because we’re all worse off when a colleague is being a bigot, and it’s in all of our interests to call it out when we see it.
Preach. thank you for this ❤️
They’ve already abandoned this with the Framework desktop.
How did they do that?
They didn’t. Homie is just mad they expanded into an area that didn’t actually need to revolutionized with repairability in mind. That’s not abandoning repairability in the slightest. Mayyyyybe they’re mad they’re selling a CPU with soldered RAM, but they tried to make it with swappable RAM and it turned out to be impossible from a physics perspective. Something about the timing, if I remember correctly. They’re really just selling that desktop because they were hyped on the CPU and thought it would make for a great enterprise workhorse. They threw it together crazy fast, too. It’s not like it took meaningful time away from their other projects. I would imagine a good chunk of their business customers have been asking for a desktop so they can source everything from them, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying.
I just want people to ponder this: What happens when we ostracize people with bigoted beliefs from our communities? Does that mean we have given up on the idea that communities can change people? Does that mean our community is not responsible for helping people realize their bigotry?
The purpose of these communities isn’t to help people learn to not be assholes. A Framework community, for example, is a community centered around Framework’s products and ecosystems.
As far as responsibility, a community is built by its people, and it is not my responsibility to change someone’s views. I have no sympathy towards people who would harm or advocate/celebrate the harm of myself or anyone close to me. They can fuck off.
These views are harmful to communities because when acted on, they exclude entire groups from the community. They tear apart communities, turning it into a political “us vs them” rather than discussions about the original topic.
Nobody is saying people with these views can’t be members of the community, but that they are required to accept the presence of those they are prejudiced against in order to contrbute to it. But if they make the rules, they will forbid those they are prejudiced against from being members at all.
If someone’s actively interested in a discussion and wants to learn, then that’s one thing. But it’s still off topic for most communities.
Note that none of what I just said is specific to far-right views. It’s just most common with them.
Well, I do think the first step would be calling out their bad behavior. Maybe they don’t think what they’re saying is so bad, or maybe they think their peers are okay with it. On that point, I don’t think financially supporting them will indicate we don’t approve of their statements or behavior.
They often have other communities that validate the bad ideas. So they feel “censored” when they act the same way in public and get reprimanded. When it is actually just communities moderating hate.
if Nazis wanted to be changed, they wouldn’t have become Nazis. fascism is where the open minded mentality goes to die. the only way to make them stop is to take their power to abuse oppressed people away
I don’t agree with most of what you’re saying. While fascism and white supremacy causes immense harm, you still have to see individuals as people.
i do not actually. if I start treating fascists as people, that’s how trans and disabled women end up dead with the blame placed on us for not being submissive enough during the assault
I want to start this comment out by saying that I do agree that communities can change people, that if one is exposed to differing perspectives and belief systems, that one has the opportunity to change their outlook on the world. It’s definitely how I was able to get myself out of some very bad thought processes that were ingrained into me as a child. I would, however, like to grain-of-salt that to say that I was open to hearing about differing perspectives and belief systems.
Respectfully (to you and other leftists at least), as a disabled queer trans person, I am tired of the emotional labor it takes to justify why I should exist to people on the right. I agree it should be done to engage with as many people that are willing to take it in as possible. I have done it enough to know that there are times when you can try as hard as you can, but the person just won’t come over to your side of thought. I’m reminded of the saying “I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
Again, I don’t mean to direct any malice or misgiving towards you or anyone else engaging with this topic in good faith. I’m just tired of doing the work that other non-marginalized people should have been doing for years.
Thank you for your response. I hear you loud and clear.
I think the ostracization can be more of a catalyst for individual change than just ignoring them and letting them infect a community.
That is true. To be clear: I don’t advocate for allowing or ignoring hate speech.
Okay. I’ve been pondering myself for a while. I think I asked the wrong questions previously.
The situation isn’t about ostracizing users, it is about a desire for a company to not platform and financially support fascist people. Which makes total sense to me.
Yeah, I’ve heard this response to my argument more times than I care to mention.
Let’s be clear, I don’t want to give off the impression I’m not open to people changing for the better. If you can end bigotry through discussion instead of arguments or worse yet, violence, then obviously that is preferable.
The issue is that for every honest misinformed person I’ve encountered who is open to listening to differing points of view, I’ve easily encountered 10 right wing grifters who are in bad faith trying to distract from the main problem with whataboutisms and other tactics, with the end goal of dehumanizing and ostracizing groups that they perceive as the other, i.e. minorities.
These people are in their adult years, likely grew up in households where they themselves were bullied, harassed, made fun of, and dehumanized. They then went to school where sadly they were likely to have experiences that further eroded their emotional intelligence and ability to connect with anybody who had differing views from them. They then grew up and sought out others who had suffered similar experiences and come to similar misguided conclusions, either online or IRL. These are people who grew up being told that apologizing was a sign of weakness, to never ever admit that they were or ever will be wrong, and to only play at having empathy in order to have a seat at the discussion table where they could then present their ideas as “just asking questions.” When in fact they are trying to sow discord and form a pipeline into their hateful ideology for others who are emotionally vulnerable and open to ideas as to why life didn’t play out for them like they thought it would.
If they lack critical thinking skills and a strong community support structure, these emotionally vulnerable people end up spewing hateful ideology within a few months and it breaks my heart, because usually there’s no coming back for them. They can’t be argued or reasoned with. It’s as if an empathetic child who just needed community died due to abandonment, and some ghoul due to demonic corruption is left in their place.
Its not that I don’t want to believe that people can change for the better. I’ve seen it in myself and others, I know it is real.
But I’ve also been in enough online, and in some cases, offline, spaces to know a bigot when I see one. I can sniff a disingenuous asshole just trying to “ask questions” from a mile away and it always ends up with a bunch of 4chan transphobes either openly or behind closed doors making fun of a minority and in some of the worst cases, planning violence.
My tolerance for even the smallest inkling of hate speech is zero. I’m just done giving these people enough rope to hang people I care about with.
I appreciate your response. I do not want to be in the same room as people that think my peers or I shouldn’t exist based on identity. Therefore people experiencing desires of fascism aren’t welcome. I still personally ponder how to rehabilitate them.
i think there has to be a balance. if these people are not rehabilitated or dealt with quickly enough, it will cause those who are targeted by or against such bigotry to feel like the don’t belong. they will likely interact with the community less and potentially leave it.
i’m not saying we shouldn’t try to rehabilitate those we think can be saved, but there are unfortunately tradeoffs.
I understand and agree.