GitHub Takes Down Satirical 'C Plus Equality' Language 575
FooAtWFU writes "Some clowns and jokers over at 4chan thought it would be a funny idea to put together a web page for a programming language named 'C Plus Equality' as a parody of feminism, dismissing OOP as 'objectifying' and inheritance as "a tool of the patriarchy". But this parody was apparently too hot to host at Github, which took down the original Github repository after receiving criticism on Twitter, prompting a backlash and inquiry into the role of free speech and censorship on Github's platform. The project has since found a new home on BitBucket, at least for the time being." Comments on an article describing the research which sparked the parody call the parody's language "fake," and compare it to the 1996 Sokal affair. (It also reminds me a bit of Jesux.)
The worst thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that Github also killed off all the forked versions of the repo as well, not just the main one.
I'm a little bit annoyed that they both have this power and used it in this wya.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The worst thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The worst thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? It's wrong to say "I don't want a random stranger walking around in my business with a gun"? It's not like it is readily apparent the individual is sane or crazy, properly licensed or just waiting for the right moment to pull it out to rob the place. And that garbage about "it stops other people from robbing the place" is false, because I sure as hell don't want two people shooting it out in my business.
Re: (Score:3)
It's wrong to say "I don't want a random stranger walking around in my business with a gun"?
I gather the complaint was about the alleged toothless banning. That is, telling everyone that they can't bring guns on the premises, but not actually doing anything about it when they do anyway.
And that garbage about "it stops other people from robbing the place" is false, because I sure as hell don't want two people shooting it out in my business.
That's a non sequitur. How does your desire not to have a shootout in your business keep people from robbing it?
I hope they made it easy to get the data (Score:3, Insightful)
As a matter of being polite, free hosting services like GitHub should have a "standard practice" of providing an "easy download of all data" for discontinued accounts.
For collaborative projects, this might be either putting the thing in "read only" mode for several weeks or bundling up the whole thing in a tarball-like dataset (in a non-proprietary format of course) and letting anyone who previously contributed download the thing for a reasonable period of time.
This would be "standard practice." There would
Re:I hope they made it easy to get the data (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed.
"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire
Now we know.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is with everyone bastardizing the quotes of Voltaire and taking them out of their literary and historical context everytime they want to justify something stupid? Yes 'Wonko the Sane' because a US company (particularly one that has nothing to do with political activism and gender-based activism) refuses to be platform for the voices of sexist (or racist or homophobic individuals) means that women, minorities and gay people definitely have *all the power* in the US.
Maybe write a complaint to the female-dominated tech industry and ask them to have some empathy towards your historical experiences of oppression by women and modern discrimination you face by women? Or write a complaint to the female-dominated congress who are trying to curtail your rights and freedom along gender lines? Or no write a comment on the male-dominated website slashdot expressing your concern about how all the women are taking over!
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly I was talking about the multiple calls on Twitter [twitter.com] to hunt down the people who dared to star the repository on GitHub and seek to get their employment terminated.
Some people clearly can't take a joke, and are enraged that anyone else might, and will punish anyone who doesn't comply with their demands.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
What morons - the tweeters, that is. On Github, starring a project means that you want to keep track of it, not that you endorse it. Out of over 100 starrers, at least some of them surely followed it so that they could watch the conversation unfold or even track active participants.
Refusing to hire someone because they're listening to a conversation makes you a world-class moron. Ironically, it may be that they're listening because they have the exact same opinions on it that you do.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the best of times "everything is a joke, and everyone should never be offended by my joke"
It's not that nobody should ever be offended by a joke. It's that people don't get to have a right to not be offended. If you're not offending someone, you didn't say anything of value. The point of free speech is to cause people to question their deeply held beliefs, which invariably will leads to taking offense, or they wouldn't be deeply held beliefs.
To put it bluntly, if you are not friends with the person, you absolutely should not be joking at them in a way that will provoke a response
As an example, I'm offended by your attitude. It violates my deeply held belief in the value of free speech and the nature of good jokes. Despite my offense, I don't wish you to get you fired, nor think you deserve to be. I just think you're an idiot, and move on with my life.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, "offensive" is not the same as "humour" - good humour is when you are able to persuade the "victim" that you are playing, that you want them you to laugh with you.
Human beings are not like that. I wish you could just go up to someone, present a convincing argument that they're wrong about something, and have them say, "you know what, buddy? You're right. I'm going to abandon the position I've held for the last 25 years now that you've shown me my only justifications for this belief are fallacious." Hell, I strive to be that person, I strive to be that open-minded and I know I'm not. I've actually changed my mind on issues I used to strongly believed in, so I'm proud of the fact that at least I can do it. The thing is, it took years before I gradually reversed my position.
When you first make a joke, somebody's going to feel like the victim and be offended. However, if you really are making a good point, ten years down the road and hundreds of similar jokes later they may agree and laugh with you.
Re: The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, women rule over us. That's why they make more money than men, dictate what men must look like with fashion magazines, hold 90% or more of the political positions, and head up most corporations.
Clearly, just because GitHub doesn't want to be associated with this idiotic and vile bullshit, they're being controlled by feminists. Quick, everyone, to the free speech mobile. Let's tell GitHub that it's us who get to tell them what they can use their own web site to say. In the name of free speech, of course.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, building a house on private land that you do not own, but are allowed to build on under the understanding that the land owner has final say at any moment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the land owner puts forward a set of conditions to allow you to build on that land, and you agree to those conditions, you and the land owner entered a contract. And that contract not only binds you, it also binds the land owner. And if you didn't violate that contract and the contract doesn't specifically allow the land owner to tear down the house even if you didn't violate the contract, the land owner has no right to tear it down.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Informative)
GitHub, in its sole discretion, has the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of the Service, or any other GitHub service, for any reason at any time. Such termination of the Service will result in the deactivation or deletion of your Account or your access to your Account, and the forfeiture and relinquishment of all Content in your Account. GitHub reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
So which part of "the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time" don't you understand?
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see where it mentions anything about a house.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just having a right to do something does not guarantee it is what you should be doing, and it does not mean your decision is beyond criticism. In this case it appears to be a decision that was indeed entirely within their rights, but also a very poor decision that they can and should be spanked hard for in the arena of public opinion.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're obviously not a developer if you think that a site specifically for posting code "should" allow itself to be spammed with fake projects that are actually designed to take offensive positions for shock value.
No, even if the right wing media misrepresents this as some sort of liberal conspiracy to destroy freedom of speech, they actual public opinion that should matter to github is that of software developers and companies, which is who buys paid accounts. And to them, adding fake repos to clutter the indexes and search results is clearly bad. Even if you think the offensive jokes are funny, it is still functionally bad to have that content on github. It really doesn't matter what the content is.
Re:The worst thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
No one disputes that GitHub has the right. They are arguing that GitHub was wrong to do it. There's a difference. They could yank repositories of any project that mentions evolution; would they be right to do that?
You can criticize behavior without believing that behavior should be illegal. It's partly because that behavior is legal that the public criticism is so important. Marketplace of ideas, and all that.
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I am old enough to remember seeing restrooms marked "white" and "colored". During the bad old days everyone understood that a sign that said "We reserve the right to refuse service to any person" was a code phrase for "whites only". It is sad to read that GitHub is so tone-deaf to the lessons of American history.
from http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/restaurants-right-to-refuse-service.html [legalmatch.com]
"Does a Restaurant Have the Unrestricted Right to Refuse Service to Specific Patrons?
No. The Civil Rights
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1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about whether they had a RIGHT to take it down, it's about whether they SHOUULD.
Cinemas have a "right" to not screen movies that are offensive to christians/muslims/jews, but should they? Is that the kind of society you want to live in?
And what does it say about feminists if they're acting like an organised religion?
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing. Standing up for freedom of speech is meaningful especially when it is speech you disagree with. "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." (another Voltaire quote). As someone living in France, I hope this means something to you.
Shachar
Re:The worst thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
But it doesn't. "Meet the projects that prove GitHub is a collaboration tool for all stripes" [readwrite.com]. Well, all stripes except for collaborative satire against the wrong group of people.
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"When conservatives tell me it's "politically correct nonsense", that to me is a denial of my identity."
If you choose to tie up your identity in politically correct nonsense, sorry, you're bringing it on yourself.
While we're at it (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems it was also too hot for Hacker News to discuss [twitter.com].
Popcorn! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh this thread should be good, combining programming, version control, feminism and censorship in one delicious gooey filling. Making popcorn. BRB.
Re:Popcorn! (Score:5, Funny)
I have much experience in dealing with the topic at hand, and feel obliged to warn you of the inherent danger of your snack selection preference in this instance.
The social justice warrior will insist you be eating all the popcorn whether it pops or not. After all: Should not all the kernels be treated equally? You're not a popist cornsagonist furthering strict kernel roles, are you?
Others observant of finer detail than applying the label popist or not based on eating preference will note that all the kernels were treated equally: They were given a chance to pop, but some did not choose to be popped and digested by the system. Indeed there could be physiological predeterminations for the unpopped vs popped variety of kernel, and it would be equally wrong to pressure the eater to consume those that are incompatible with digestion as it's wrong to shame the unpopped kernels for not entering the food cycle; Certainly it would be moronic to claim the plight of the popped ones is a privilege.
The social justice warrior will then declare that the popped or not state can't be determined at kernel creation, it's the environment that has a bias for exactly what types of corn are suitable for popping and creates repressive constraints on which kernels are allowed to pop. They'll demand a more fair popping system be devised, but not actually outline any exact plans for such a system so you'll know when it has been achieved, and they'll ignore how the popping system may affect the popped corn itself.
Others with a knowledge of botany and thermodynamics will point out that kernels of certain genetic predispositions have known traits, and that there are many systems for popping, which all yield different types of popped corn and unpopped kernels. Air popping gives kernels more time to pop, but creates a drier popcorn that's not suitable for everyone's tastes. Kettle popping creates a more traditional flavour, and yields more unpopped kernels. The most unpopped kernels are produced via microwave environment due to the heat being applied to already popped kernels which limits the duration of popping time and kernel batch size, it's also more likely to produce artificial flavors; However, nuked kernels have utility in being compact and accessible to more eaters. It's too simplistic to blame the eater for the kernels or popping environment available, or the environment for the consumer's preference, or either of these for the physical properties of individual kernels or how the laws of thermodynamics and genetics work. Neither the eater nor the popper are being cornsagonist against kernels; To them all the kernels are given equal opportunity to pop and enter the digestive system.
At which point the social justice warrior will leverage a collection of statistics on the types of popping and evidence of past abuse of corn, burning, neglect, being feed to lesser animals, etc. They'll point to select occurrences of popping gone horribly wrong. If one's not careful to interject quickly it will turn into a gish gallop. [rationalwiki.org]
While admittedly the tragic popping can't be ignored, one must examine the frequency of such occurrence and the attention that society does give -- A slew of firemen may arrive to deal with a single bag of over nuked corn; It's clearly not cornsagony. The scientific minded observer will point out that past abuses do not reflect current corn popping culture and that anecdotal evidence is not really evidence; They'll note that the statistics only show a trend, not a causal link to cornsagony, and that sections of the studies have gone ignored: The uneaten popped kernels. If the study was performed by the social justice alliance you'll likely find a bias in the selection criteria (went looking for evidence for a preconceived kernel popping opinion) and there'll be no testing of the null hypothesis, or unequivocal evidence that the conclusion is correct, or that popping trends could not instead be formed by
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Re:Popcorn! (Score:5, Funny)
She's at the store picking up my beer and cigarettes. I expect her back in about 30 minutes.
It is a long walk though, so it may be 45 minutes. What, with the snow and all.
Barbara Streisand called (Score:5, Informative)
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GitHub aren't trying to stop people finding out about it. They just don't want to host it. The Streisand Effect isn't relevant.
Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Funny)
Specifically it looks like it might be a satire of the entirely serious Feminist programming Language discussion (http://m.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages).
"The idea came about while discussing normative and feminist subject object theory. I realized that object oriented programmed reifies normative subject object theory. This led me to wonder what a feminist programming language would look like, one that might allow you to create entanglements (Karen Barad Posthumanist Performativity)."
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Ludicrous rantings that apply sexism to tools deserve scorn, satire and parody.
Are there "Feminist" wheels?
A better (but still stupid) question might be: Are languages Anglo-centric? At least we could make some sort of case and fluff up enough flowery academic language and references to make it stick - and yet it would also be pointless.
Programming languages only deserve to be criticized in terms of their ability to produce usable software, measured by productivity, ease of learning, flexibility, and robust
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Funny)
> This led me to wonder what a feminist programming language would look like,
> one that might allow you to create entanglements
Ah... in other words... a language based upon dependency-injection for non-deterministic multithreaded runtime environments with planned monthly maintenance cycles. It's mostly interrupt based and requires extensive exception-handling. :-D
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Interesting)
What makes you think this 'research' isn't a prank?
This Arielle Schlesinger person doesn't appear to have any social media or web presence prior to a few months ago. There is no link to published articles on or related to the actual "research", either in peer-reviewed journals or on-line forums. There's only a couple of brief blog posts in what looks like a deliberate parody of critical studies jargon ("reifies normative subject-object theory" and "non-normative paradigm").
It sounds like a parody to me. Granted, it's often hard to tell the difference, but one thing that strikes me that the example is rather puny. Yes, it is dense and incomprehensible, but real examples academic writing in the critical theory style go on at great length and detail. The Frankfurt School of neomarxism is very influential in this kind of academic writing, so what you're aiming for is a kind of faux teutonic grandeur.
There's no evidence that the purported research has taken place; nor is there evidence that this person is actually preparing to do research. The very first thing you'd do in this kind of academic research is to assemble a bibliography, yet the post doesn't even bother to drop names (e.g. Michel Foucault, Andrea Dworkin). It strikes me that the post displays little actual knowledge of the field it is supposedly discussing, other than a superficial familiarity with the jargon.
So -- yes. The entire thing appears to be hoax.
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> social media or web presence
who cannot be googled does not exist.
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This led me to wonder what a feminist programming language would look like,
IF it's anything like the feminists I know, it would consist of a "garbage collection" routine that promised to take out the trash if you do the laundry, then when the laundry is done, cries about the trash, complaining how she always does everything and you never help. The garbage is taken out manually, and the garbage collection can be called at any time, but results in an "oppressive misogynist" error.
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You know, while I find that funny too (on first, and second readings), once you look at it with an open mind you realize that she might be onto something.
For starters, there is a lot of evidence that OOP reflects how people think the world should be organized, and not how it actually is organized. No idea if this is what is meant with "reifies normative subject object theory", but it sounds as if that might be the idea
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's the point of postmodern language.
The purpose is to allow practitionors to show off verbal proficiency without requiring any intellectual rigour, or indeed saying anything falsifiable at all.
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Interesting)
It's how I learned to ace written exams on topics I never bothered to study. :) Truly I should have been called on the carpet for it, but the sharpest people do not end up as schoolmarms.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit!
It is my firm belief that verbal bullshit should be taught in high school as a semester-long subject. It would lead to a less gullible public, a public more skeptical of their politicians -- because, as everyone knows, you can't bullshit a bullshitter.
I think it was called "rhetoric" back in the day, and it was indeed taught in schools. We need it now more than ever.
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It is my firm belief that verbal bullshit should be taught in high school as a semester-long subject. It would lead to a less gullible public, a public more skeptical of their politicians -- because, as everyone knows, you can't bullshit a bullshitter.
I think it was called "rhetoric" back in the day, and it was indeed taught in schools. We need it now more than ever.
While I absolutely agree with you that rhetoric should be taught as a standard subject in schools (perhaps along with a course on "how [NOT] to lie with statistics"), equating "rhetoric [wikipedia.org]" with postmodernist obfuscation is a little misguided.
The whole point of traditional rhetorical training was to teach people how to be good public speakers and debaters. Doing so required precision and clarity in language in order to persuade an audience to accept the speaker's argument. Most "rhetorical flourishes" are
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Feminist Programming Language (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I spewed a little postmodern gibberish that came to me. Then I googled "postmodern gibberish" and found this: http://www.infiltec.com/j-postmd.htm [infiltec.com]. After that I pick a few choice words and filtered them through a thesaurus and strung it all together.
I guess a good magician shouldn't give away he technique. Just don't ask me what any of it was supposed to mean.
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If any of it was written by a female college student or professor, it probably is serious. And they will be offended that you dare to question their legitimacy to create such a project.
Fuck github.....they allow mindfuck and not C+= ? (Score:4, Insightful)
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/pull/8253 [github.com]
I am sorry, but C+= is not the first parody language.....
Re:Fuck github.....they allow mindfuck and not C+= (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mindfuck is also an actual interpreter for an actual programming language. It may not be the most useful programming language, but it is one. The interpreter's source code is what's hosted on Github: it's code, in a code repository, pretty much the kind of thing GitHub intends to host. C+= was not a language implementation, not even an implementation of a parody language.
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No, there are code samples. Here's my fav: https://bitbucket.org/FeministSoftwareFoundation/c-plus-equality/src/mistress/fizzbuzz.Xe [bitbucket.org]
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Right cause that would not happen on github:
https://github.com/Ossendar/octopus-feminazi [github.com]
https://github.com/search?q=nigger&type=Repositories&ref=searchresults [github.com]
https://github.com/k0r3/JewCoin [github.com]
Rather lame of GitHub (Score:3)
they are totally within their rights of being that lame, of course, but they chose to be totally lame here.
Ah well, good for BitBucket.
Surely a feminist language would be delcaritive? (Score:4, Funny)
Imperative languages are patriarchal - some privileged brogrammer barking orders - so surely a declarative language is the way to go?
In fact, the only feminist program you ever need to write goes:
RADICAL NOTION: women==people
...and then any non-patriarchal machine knows what you want done.
Re:Surely a feminist language would be delcaritive (Score:4, Insightful)
women==people
This seems to be an exceptionally hard concept for many people to grasp.
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Feminism is a dogmatic ideology which believes gender to be entirely a social construct. It's as anti-science as creationism. It's an offshoot of Marxism which
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Women aren't inferior, but they are different to males.
Different but equal. Gotya.
Re:Surely a feminist language would be delcaritive (Score:4, Funny)
So, women==people, but also soylent_green==people.
Therefore women==soylent_green.
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Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given this community's gender troubles (e.g. http://www.livescience.com/9772-geeks-drive-girls-computer-science.html), does mocking feminists do anything other than confirm the boy's club. Yes, misapplying feminist critiques of male dominated society to programming languages is amusing, but really lads, time to clean up the house.
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem isn't women in the community (they have been here all along...) its feminists. As with other niche communities, feminists have invaded the programming community, and then demanded that the community change its character and become a 'safe space'.
Actually, I think they just wanted people to stop mocking women and discriminating against them.
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Informative)
Feminist thought doesn't need to be caricatured to be ridiculed. It's ridiculous enough all on its own. These are the "all heterosexual sex is rape" crowd. These are the people who believe, and this is mainstream feminist doctrine, that women are unable to commit rape; and that the accusation of rape (by a woman against a man, only) constitutes proof of the crime.
We already have a perfectly good word and social movement promoting real equality. It's called egalitarianism. Feminism excludes half the population from concern right in the statement of its name. Feminism is not the solution to my problems as a man, and I will not stand to have it said otherwise. I refuse to be talked to in that tone of voice.
Geeks don't dominate anybody (Score:3)
Can the techie community please lose the ridiculous overblown hostility to any woman who dares to suggest that there are real problems in our society stemming from a history of thousands of years of male domination of it. It actually just makes us look fucking stupid.
I would hazard to guess that most techie geeks don't dominate anybody. We tend to be put-upon. We're not the problem.
It seems like that would make feminists more attracted to geeks...but all we get is "Nerds? Ewww! Gross!"
Just sayin'.
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight...
I report my observations about the community, you demand "evidence" - and presumably won't accept the legions of people here and elsewhere saying similar things. You then simply deny everything as "crap" and offer no evidence at your own. You believe that you can assert your views and have them accepted but mine require, what, peer reviewed references?
Demanding evidence doesn't make you a skeptic unless you do so in an appropriate manner (i.e. not after just gainsaying everything someone said as 'crap') and in an appropriate circumstances (i.e. not when someone is simply reporting their personal observations.) You are simply using the idea of asking for evidence as window dressing for the true content of your post: "Nuh uh!"
Quite pathetic, really.
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no problem with treating people with respect and dignity, but hard experience has taught me that isn't what "safe space" means. The fact that you categorize any dissent as advocating mistreatment of people (rather than ideas) is quite telling. And no, I don't think women are oppressed in this culture. "Oppression" is a word with serious connotations. People in China are oppressed. People in Iran are oppressed. Middle class, educated women in well paid comfortable jobs don't get to use that word, and still be taken seriously.
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Given the this community's gender troubles... (Score:4, Interesting)
The feminists being mocked are part of the problem, not part of the solution. A few here have claimed that the brand of feminism being mocked is no longer in vogue, in which case it's merely a parody which misses the target. But if so, why are so many offended by it?
As for the article you cited:
Guess what: tough shit. This stuff is part of geek culture. And it's not inherently anti-female or offensive to women (the article itself admits this). Video games, science fiction, and related paraphenalia are not in themselves any way conducive to a hostile workplace environment to women. And if a "feminist" comes in and under the banner of gender equality demands these things be eliminated, she's just given a bunch of geeks reason to be hostile to feminism... and, unfortunately, perhaps to women as well.
That thread won't be up for long (Score:3, Informative)
Threads on /g/ rarely last more than a day (just due to how fast the board is) and that thread especially will hit the culling limit soon. You should replace the link with this one: http://archive.rebeccablacktech.com/g/thread/38739122 or any other reputable 4chan archive site
TOS violation ? (Score:3)
Re:TOS violation ? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many Feminists needed to change a lightbulb? (Score:5, Insightful)
THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
Re: (Score:3)
Are you saying feminists can't take a joke? (Score:5, Funny)
This would not be the first time. Earlier this year, the Extremely Vocal Minority had Locus Online take down my April Fools piece [battleswarmblog.com].
Original feminists had real complaints. Third Wave/Race Critical Theory/Victimhood Identity Politics feminists seem to believe that they have a right not to be offended.
Re:Are you saying feminists can't take a joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. As I said above, their attitude towards offensive content is basically the same as the attitude of organised religions.
"It offends me and challenges my beliefs, so it must be removed"
Attempting to apply feminism where it does not fit (Score:4, Interesting)
Feminism, in just about all its various forms, is about relationships among human beings, especially where those relationships concern women and girls. Programming, on the other hand, is about human-machine relationships, in particular about how humans -- who tend to think in very fuzzy ways -- can control and manipulate computing devices that "think" in very exacting ways are are very good at doing what they are told rather than what we want them to do. Feminism is certainly relevant to how programmers interact with one another, but not so much with the programming itself.
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there was one coder, who really blogged, that github is racist for not allowing chinese characters in project names.
What. The. Fuck.
The Projectname is the folder name, and normal special chars like german umlauts are bad enough, but you cannot even type chinese chars without being chinese (while the german umlauts work very well with a compose key).
And on the other hand, coding in another language than english excludes many many people. So somebody who wants to do something only chinese people can use claim
What a sad world we live in (Score:3)
I take pity on anyone who takes anything that comes out of 4chan seriously.
Re:Free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not the government. Its a private entity and thus not bound by the first amendment.
But it does bring up an important point- GitHub is a private entity, a for-profit company. Right now, they provide a useful service if you like git. In the future they may not. Many companies have helped the FOSS community then turned their backs on it. Use them, but don't ever fully trust them.
Re:Free speech (Score:5, Interesting)
Not in California, where GitHub is headquartered. California's constitution says "everyone has the right to free speech" and the Supreme Court of the US has interpreted this to mean that it goes beyond "Congress shall pass no law..." and applies, in some situations, to private entities. The more someone opens their property up to the use of the general public, the more their private property rights are circumscribed by the publics. See Pruneyard vs. Robins. I'm not saying that people certainly have a right to use Github like they way they have a right to pass out fliers at a shopping center or outside a big box store, but to deny that freedom of speech applies to private businesses/property in California is wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Can someone explain why so many people in the USA think human rights should only be respected by the government and not private individuals or corporations?
Up here in Canada the government has more leeway to infringe your rights than corporations or other citizens. For example the police can detain you, but private citizens cannot. The government can force you to pay taxes, but corporations cannot. The government can force a website to remove "hate speech", but a private citizen cannot. Yes, as a private
Re: (Score:3)
In the US only protected classes have protection against discrimination.
To an extent that makes sense. Discriminating against crack heads is just smart. Discrimination based on only race is stupid.
The principle is 'public accommodation'. Businesses that deal with the public are examples.
Re:Free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Well. Github's Terms of Service [github.com] clearly identifies that "We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and Accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable". I assume they used that discretion to find it either "offensive" or "otherwise objectionable". And clearly Github is well within their legal rights to take down this content.
But it does illustrate the limits of Github's commitment to freedom and openness: if it offends Github's staff, or if Github thinks it offends people who could get them in some level of trouble, they'll take down your content. So, you can still use Github as a platform to effect change in the world, but only insofar as Github&co agree with you.
Re:Free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering their platform is mainly closed-source, I'm not sure this is the first place we've spotted that they are not fully committed to freedom and openness. They're a business that sells project hosting space, using the free accounts as a marketing & onboarding tool, not some kind of free-culture advocacy group.
Re:Is this within GitHub's mission? (Score:4, Informative)
And you have fallen into the trap that so many feminists do. I make a criticism against an ideology. You tried to show this was a horrifically offensive criticism by transposing into a criticism against a race. A person does not choose their race (or their gender, sexuality etc.) but they do choose to have an ideology. You make the same tragic error as those who believe any criticism of Islam is racism.
Having constructed an absurd straw man, you then top things off with an ad hominem. You know nothing about me - not least the fact that I'm happily married.
Re:Is this within GitHub's mission? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whereas it should either be both unacceptable or both acceptable.
The short response to your comment is that it ignores existing (historical) power structures in society.
So while I agree that both should be unacceptable, the reality is that one is much more unacceptable as a direct result of [arbitrarily long time frame] in which women have been treated as either property or second class citizens.
Re:Is this within GitHub's mission? (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have any rights. No one has rights. Rights are guarantees. In this Universe, there are no guarantees. Tomorrow, you might be killed by a wild animal. Or perhaps, a meteor might come tumbling down and wipe out all life on Earth, including you. What good were your rights?
As society collapses due to feminism, and we return to a state of barbarism, you will come to realize that your rights never meant anything at all.
Feminism is unsustainable. It collapsed the Roman empire, and now it collapses Western civilization.
- 5th century BC: Roman civilization is a a strong patriarchy, fathers are liable for the actions of their wife and children, and have absolute authority over the family (including the power of life and death)
- 1st century BC: Roman civilization blossoms into the most powerful and advanced civilization in the world. Material wealth is astounding, citizens (i.e.: non slaves) do not need to work. They have running water, baths and import spices from thousands of miles away. The Romans enjoy the arts and philosophy; they know and appreciate democracy, commerce, science, human rights, animal rights, children rights and women become emancipated. No-fault divorce is enacted, and quickly becomes popular by the end of the century.
- 1st-2nd century AD: The family unit is destroyed. Men refuse to marry and the government tries to revive marriage with a "bachelor tax", to no avail. Children are growing up without fathers, Roman women show little interest in raising their own children and frequently use nannies. The wealth and power of women grows very fast, while men become increasingly demotivated and engage in prostitution and vice. Prostitution and homosexuality become widespread.
- 3rd-4th century AD: A moral and demographic collapse takes place, Roman population declines due to below-replacement birth-rate. Vice and massive corruption are rampant, while the new-born Catholic Religion is gaining power (it becomes the religion of the Empire in 380 AD). There is extreme economic, political and military instability: there are 25 successive emperors in half a century (many end up assassinated), the Empire is ungovernable and on the brink of civil war.
- 5th century AD: The Empire is ruled by an elite of military men that use the Emperor as a puppet; due to massive debts and financial problems, the Empire cannot afford to hire foreign mercenaries to defend itself (Roman citizens have long ago being replaced by mercenaries in the army), and starts "selling" parts of the Empire in exchange for protection. Eventually, the mercenaries figure out that the "Emperor has no clothes", and overrun and pillage the Empire.
- humanity falls back into the Bronze Age (think: eating squirrel meat and living in a cave); 12 centuries of religious zilotry (The Great Inquisition, Crusades) and intellectual darkness follow: science, commerce, philosophy, human rights become unknown concepts until they are rediscovered again during the Age of Enlightenment in 17th century AD.
Re: (Score:3)
Who is more respectful,
1) The guy who is honest, even when it offends some women?
2) The guy who hides his true opinion in order to 'have a quality relationship'?
How about the guy who's honest opinion is supporting the feminist position, that women are men's equals, with all sorts of hopes and dreams just like I have?
Re:Is this within GitHub's mission? (Score:4, Informative)
No one should support an ideology that believes "shut up and listen" is the way to start a fruitful conversation.
Re:Making satire of equal rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say it together one more time, because feminists like you still don't seem to get it.
"An ideology is not a race"
Criticizing feminism is in no way comparable to having a go at someone for their ethic origin. Your ideology gets no such protection, and trying to claim that it does simply advertises the world that you cannot defend it on a level playing field. This is the exact same tactic used by people who try to deflect valid criticism on Islam on the grounds of racism. Ideas that have to shield themselves from criticism so are almost universally bad ideas.
Re:Making satire of equal rights. (Score:4)
Feminism isn't a sex either. ITS AN IDEOLOGY. Ideas do not get the protection people do, and any attempt to claim that protection is a sign of a bad idea.
Speaking of "privilege" in that manner is also a red flag, that suggests to me irrationality on your part.
Re:Making satire of equal rights. (Score:4)
More irrationality.
I said privilege "in that manner". Its clear that people are born with money, natural talent etc. that others lack - but in the feminist context privileges are derived from group statistics (e.g. men are paid more than women) and then applied as personal characteristics to group members. In other words, people like you don't know their prior probabilities from their posteriors.
Then you go on and equate feminism with anti-racism. Another fail on your part. Feminism is not simply opposition to sexism. Once more for the hard-of-thinking: IT IS AN IDEOLOGY - and a bad one at that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)