(Presumably you mean the ‘Paradox …’ post. I’m continuing to avoid expressing a political view on the matter; I would describe that blog as highly contentious.”I beg everyone to just use basic logic.“, he says. Then he should apply his logic to how the modern State of Israel was founded in the chaos of the Ottoman Empire.)
What I do find alarming is that right in front of you on the blog are links to Yesod, Rust, github. Snoyman is failing to segregate the technical content from the political. Then I’m finding it difficult as a Haskeller to ignore/look past his politics.
Before the thread inevitably gets locked, I wanted to toss in my two cents on the topic.
In short, this sort of thing reminds me of an old adage about sustainability: “it’s not about a few people doing it perfectly. It’s about everyone doing it imperfectly.” For the sake of this discussion, it is being careful about our associations.
Nobody can be (or should be) expected to police their friends at all times. But if you find out that your friend is unapologetically racist, and choose to carry on as normal, what does that say about you? And similarly for the community as a whole: if someone influential turns out to be a reprehensible person, and we let that person keep their influence, what does that say about us?
Someone new might not want to join the Haskell community if they see that we’re hesitant to disassociate ourselves from someone so openly cruel. Or worse, that people actually defend him.
The flipside is that there is a lot of value in documenting history. Many important ideas we benefit from today came from people who we would find deplorable by today’s moral standards. And documenting the people themselves is just as valuable. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, after all.
The crucial factor for good historical documentaries is always context. We can safely show and talk about awful things that have existed throughout history without endorsing them, provided that we do so with the mindset that those things ought not be repeated.
The community can’t be expected to purity test every member; that would be toxic in its own way. The reason I’m reminded of the adage is because I believe the foundation of a good community isn’t a few people being perfectly moral. It’s everyone imperfectly trying to do good. Which includes trying, perhaps imperfectly, to fight against hate in whatever ways we can. I think a non-endorsement disclaimer would be a good start.
The effort alone to do good - and to encourage each other to do good, both within and outside the group - speaks volumes about the character of a community. So, how do we want non-Haskellers to see us?
I see we’re experiencing the normal reaction when something like this happens. One half of the replies are “well we should not censor thought, free speech, freedom of expression, what if the substance was different, what if you agreed with it, etc”.
The other half is “look at this actual thing they did, repeatedly, in public, that will be immediately associated with the individual”.
I don’t know why we need to have discussions about hypothetical slippery slopes of freedom of thought when you can go “do we want to associate with someone that thinks Palestinians are subhuman and should be slaughtered [1][2][3]” with citations. You don’t need to introduce things like “freedom of speech” or “thought police” or in fact anything other than “is this acceptable to be associated with us”. And I would strongly hope that’s “wtf? of course not”.
I am setting this thread in “Slow Mode” for the next few days.
This means people will be able to comment, but will have to wait 24 hours between messages.
I think you are right that people understand ‘dehumanization’ to mean different things. In the context of genocide studies, it has a particular meaning, and I would recommend taking a look at some of the accessible articles covering this. Having recently read about some historical examples, such as Myanmar (where social media posts played a large role), I found the sort of language in these tweets particularly disturbing.
There seems to be a general consensus that the tweets referenced support
genocide. That is one interpretation, but it feels rather unfair to my
eyes. Three of the posts appear be an attack on journalistic standards, there
have been a number of negative reports about Israeli actions in western media
that have subsequently turned out to be the regurgitation of Hamas
propaganda. The other post is rather puerile, however the accused references
Hamas (in many western countries a proscribed terrorist organisation) not all
Palestinians.
I see there is the suggestion that the accused should denounce ‘the genocide in
Gaza’ to be allowed to remain in the fold. As mentioned above, I don’t see
anything in those tweets that supports genocide. For the sake of arguments, lets
say there is, does that mean Haskell now has some form of moral virtue clause?
How does that work in practice? Who polices it? Who judges it? Who does the
investigating? What are the biases of those involved?
Do people commonly go checking, the social media history of others, for
offensive content? There are a number of comments along the lines of, don’t
search for it but act if found. That strikes me as leading to a witch hunt by an
activist minority. Has anyone revisited the previous podcast interviewees to
check they are on the right side? I wouldn’t be surprised if cancelling this
podcast discourages others from being interviewed. It’s better to be safe, who
knows what offence archaeology might find!
Another way to see this situation is that a Jew has been singled out and is now
being publicly attacked and judged - this could also be seen as racism. Please
note that I am not accusing anyone of anything, but different people can
perceive things in different ways.
If interviewees are being targeted based on race/nationality, I have some
suggestions for future investigations:
Many accuse China of genocide in relation to the Uyghurs. Chinese nationals
should be checked to ensure no statements supportive of their government
actions.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has lead to a lot of anti-Russian (as opposed to
anti-war) sentiment online, this strikes me is likely to be a mine of
offensive comments.
I’ve read enough rhetoric online regarding Trump supporters to be sure that
anyone publicly supporting him must not be allowed on the podcast. Has anyone
checked the political affiliation of Americans interviewed?
What should be the policy for community members associated with oppressive
regimes? Do their speech crimes get a pass?
One thing I find interesting in these types of situations how only social
cancelling tends to be performed. When there is a material effect on the
canceller, a justification is found to preserve the benefit. We see that with
the E.U. castigating Russia whilst still buying oil from them, and we see that
here. I don’t see anyone suggesting boycotting the contributions he has made to
the community. This public condemnation would seem a lot less performative if
people were rewriting libraries and excising code.
I note that as the discussion has progressed, it has gone from the initial
suggestion of removing the podcast episode to implying a full ban (of speech)
from the community. He is apparently now unclean and must be purged lest others
associate him with Haskell. How does anyone infer that a whole community of
people, associating for the purpose of sharing knowledge on a programming
language, are all of the same political mindset.
For those that made it to the end (assuming this hasn’t been flagged preventing
readers from drawing their own conclusions), I would summarise my thoughts as:
it is most important to uphold free speech when you don’t like the speech
persecuting perceived speech crimes is far more chilling than any speech could
ever be
people shouldn’t need to live there whole life by some random community code
of conduct
@PPK I think you answered your own question: these discussions keep happening because there is no consensus; some people think what Snoyman says in other contexts is relevant to judging the technical podcast, and some people think it’s irrelevant.
But regardless of the ir/relevance of Snoyman’s non-technical opinions here, I’m perplexed by the claims you and others are making about the cited tweets. As far as I can tell, the most accurate summary of their actual content was given by @lurker:
But to be clear, my position does not depend on whether his tweets are as bad as some are claiming. My position is that they’re irrelevant.
But to be clear, my position does not depend on whether his tweets are as bad as some are claiming. My position is that they’re irrelevant.
I ask you to reconsider your opinion. If behavior of Haskell-ecosystem contributors external to the Haskell ecoystem influences the community as a whole, this behavior is relevant. For example, if we ignore such behavior, we may drive away existing, or new contributors. That is why we are discussing such issues, and, in my opinion, discuss them in a civilized manner and with great success.
I think at the very least everyone should be allowed to retract some of the statements they made in distress during the time of a literal war. Particularly when those statements are jokes, distasteful or not.
I find the demand and its effects intensely disproportional. Nobody forced anyone to read those posts. And everybody would be forced to check whether jaror is “feeling comfortable”.
One may argue that it only represents a virtuous general position and limited in scope, but this just gets further into the undecidable debate of “does it really?”.
I feel the thread took an unfortunate turn and has become quite social/political.
I think we have to remember that the Haskell Foundation is a non-profit organization and its public image is important for its survival too.
I think we should stop debating the concrete case of Michael and focus on how to deal with such cases in the future. I think a good rule of thumb for “what podcast guests can we reasonable feature?” is asking the question if the guest’s employer or client would be ok with their public behavior, especially if they were in a position of representing them.
Is this too high of a standard for a mere podcast guests? I don’t know, I think it’s fair.
And no, freedom of speech doesn’t mean the host is obliged to air the episode or keep it online. They can choose not to. You’re a guest on someone elses platform.
For anybody still worried that we’re trying to “cancel” Snoyman, or worried that it’s a slippery slope…
Nobody is trying to “cancel” Snoyman. It’s much simpler than that. We’re treating him as an adult, who is in control of his own actions, and responsible for them. Many of us here have lost the trust and respect we once had for him, as is our right. If Snoyman doesn’t like that, his course of action is very simple: he can delete the posts and apologize for them. After that, it’s up to each person individually to decide whether they forgive him or not.
Here is the initial reply that sparked this whole debate:
@jaror‘s reply is a suggestion to the Foundation that they may want to reconsider whether they want to have anything to do with him either. And not because of some clandestine plot to eliminate any trace of Snoyman’s influence in the Haskell world. But because we don’t want the Foundation to lose its credibility in the same way that he did.
I want to be clear that there is a slippery slope here! Just not the one most people are probably thinking of right now.
The slippery slope that concerns me is: if the Foundation, or the community more generally, cannot agree to condemn Snoyman’s very public, very racist posts, then what else will they tolerate from other influential people?
Would they knowingly platform someone who was openly homophobic or transphobic?
What about someone who’s an overt white supremacist?
What about someone who was vocally anti-semitic, who made posts like this one, suggesting that it would be an effective way to stop a fictional Jewish conspiracy?
I suspect that the answer to all of these is that, no, the foundation would not want to be publicly associated with such a person. At least, I hope that’s the answer.
Make no mistake: we are not asking the Foundation to police the entire community. As I stated earlier, nobody can be expected to police all of their friends at all times. It’s even less realistic to hold a small team responsible for an entire world-wide community.
What we are asking of the Foundation is that they take appeal’s like @jaror’s seriously. Ideally, we should all presume that someone is innocent until proven otherwise. None of us here expect anyone to take unfounded rumors as evidence of guilt. But in this case, several people have already provided hard evidence that Snoyman did indeed voluntarily make the posts in question.
If we cannot all at least agree that we don’t want to be associated with the kinds of hateful things that Snoyman, a very influential Haskeller, posted for all to see, then I cannot in good conscience tell people that the Haskell community is kind, welcoming, and safe.
Many of my closest friends are Arabic. If it becomes a choice between supporting those friends, and remaining in a community that defends racists posts like Snoyman’s, I already know which side I will choose. And I expect many of my friends here feel the same way.
This is all deeply fundamental to the ways that healthy relationships work. People should not be expected to associate with anyone who they cannot trust, or who make them feel unsafe or unwelcome. Frankly I am shocked and disappointed that so many people don’t seem to realize that.
To close, I want to say that all people are welcome and safe in my house. Regardless of their skin colour. And regardless of their religion (or lack thereof). The only people who are not welcome are those who would hurt my guests without remorse. And I would very much hope that the same goes for all of you.
This all feels like a replay of Lambdaconf 2016. I think lambdaconf made the right decision then, and I support the Haskell Foundation here.
I think we should avoid censoring people on technical topics for their views on non-technical topics, as much as possible. Especially when the non-technical views are far from the things being discussed.
John De Goes did an excellent job not only stating where he comes down, but also cataloging what the differing opinions were and why he came to the conclusions he did. I like the line he draws, and think that the podcast episode was on the allowable side of it.
Yes but there is a catch: I think it would be misleading to consider the tweets that are discussed in this thread as an individual opinion. We are talking about a highly divisive geopolitical topic. Each of the sides has supporters.
If you refuse to host a person based on their opinion on this topic, you may alienate a particular group. If you accept to host them, it may be unacceptable to another group. Both options are bad for the image of the Haskell Foundation. That’s the problem with divisive issues.
The more I think about this, the more I think keeping politics outside of a technical community is the safest bet. We may not like what some people do or say outside of the Haskell context, but it’s ok as long as it doesn’t affect their technical contributions.
The alternative presents a much worse risk: contaminating the community with politics, dividing it and alienating lots of people. Are we really sure we want to take this risk?
I don’t care to hash out with anyone what I think of Michael’s comments - the backlash has been severe enough and the decision is up to the Haskell Interlude people to make known what they expect of people with whom they interview. However, I do think Michael’s comments are tactless, distasteful, and he’s clearly suffering some strange illness that makes him think it’s okay to publicize those kind of comments, and that’s what I find to be disqualifyingly poor judgement.
The fact that it keeps happening over and over again is the general question I’d submit to the Haskell Interlude people. Is this what you want to be associated with?
From my personal experience, being to ZuriHac, MuniHac few times, I feel it is kind, welcoming, and safe.
I now feel safer, after seeing this thread, while heated, staying rather civil, where many also feel okay to speak up for what they believe in.
If it goes the other direction, I might feel less welcomed. But I can learn not to speak up, and many of us learned not to over the years to avoid the controversies. It may sound sulking, but it’s true.
Maybe these are just separate questions:
Was it a good and informative podcast? For me, 8 out of 10.
Was Snoyman being a bigot in the podcast? For me, none.
Were Snoyman’s tweets, singled out here, of poor taste? For me, probably. But I say stupid things a lot over the years, too. I should let others judge themselves.
Was Snoyman a racist? That’s a big accusation, and I think Snoyman deserves to speak and defend himself someday.
Twitter format is not exactly well recognized to provide clear and unambiguous context, right?
I share the view of @tomjaguarpaw: you bring up very serious charges against Michael and I’d expect them to be backed by something more solid than random twitter replies, all shorter than 100 characters. One can easily come up with a more charitable interpretation than you prefer to insist on.
I reviewed the referenced material and it does not seem to say anything like this.
Up to my best knowledge of law, the posts in question do not constitute a crime in any relevant jurisdiction.
It’s alright to take a stance that Michael’s posts cross your personal tolerance threshold and never talk to him again or never invite him to your house. Yet, given that our current discussion happens in Haskell sphere, GfRC guides us “consistently honour and affirm the passion, professional expertise, and good intentions of others” and “be curious about the perspective, goals, motivation, and priorities of the other person”.
My allegations are serious and require solid backing, but the allegations are precisely that he is facilitating genocide — albeit in a minor way — with his tweets (note that I do not assume this is intentional), so the tweets themselves are the most relevant backing that there can be. Also note that one of the linked tweets is currently the 7th tweet on his timeline, so not a “random reply”.
I’d love to know of more charitable interpretations. I haven’t seem them mentioned in this thread. For the record, my interpretation is that he is questioning journalistic standards. Normally, this falls well within freedom of speech, but in the context of an ongoing or looming genocide one should be careful with such criticism. Criticism of the press is one of the weapons of perpetrators of a genocide after all (e.g., Lügenpresse).
So, in this case, I expect people who want to criticize the press to either set clear expectations of satire or acknowledge the actual undisputed suffering and point out precise shortcomings of the press. Neither is the case here: the posts are mixed in with his serious posts and from his main personal account, and the criticism casts general doubt on all Palestinian reporting without actually pointing to specifics or sources.
I admit that I have not consistently affirmed the good intentions and have not been curious enough about the perspective of others. I understand that being at war is horrible and can cloud your judgement. Perhaps this can be a wake-up call that this behavior is really not acceptable, but I invite anyone, especially Michael Snoyman himself, to try to change my mind on this matter. I will try to listen to your perspective.