Ruby Central Is Not Behaving in Good Faith, and I've Got Receipts
jaredwhite.comHis tone is so histrionic. I'm glad the influence of people like this is now somewhat lower than 5 years ago.
Reading this post is like playing 2021 Internet Millennial Outrage Bingo. It's quite fun if you make a game of it.
I stopped reading at the point he described Basecamp as having imploded.
Can we please at least try to be a little more objective in how we use language?
You may agree or disagree with what Basecamp, now 37signals, did but the company did not “implode”.
Many of their employees - one third - did disagree with what they did and chose to leave.
Was their leaving a protest? Well, maybe. But IIRC they were offered very generous severance terms, which would have made that choice much easier to make and so perhaps robs it of some of its value as a protest.
And what about the company? Well, as far as I can tell, they seem to be doing fine. They’re offering junior devs, was it 125k or 150k US fully remote? Somewhere in that ballpark anyway. And just about anywhere within a certain range of time zones. That’s not a sign of a company that’s struggling.
I have read DHH’s blog post about London, and I am a Brit, so think I can offer a somewhat qualified point of view here. DHH is correct about the demographic changes in London over the past decades, but he’s absolutely wrong to cast Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) as some kind of good faith activist standing up for the rights of ordinary British folks. The guy is a criminal and a low-life grifter. I can’t even really call him a fascist because I’m not convinced he really believes a word he’s saying. So I’ll stick with con-artist.
Back to the post: the most charitable interpretation I can put on it is that DHH simply hasn’t done his homework on Robinson. Is that an accurate characterisation? I honestly don’t know.
And I don't even know much of these stuff is related to Ruby Central Is Not Behaving in Good Faith. Not a good sign for an article if it's for showing evidence... (maybe it's not
I wish I can see more summary, state facts mostly (with sources even they might not be reliable but better than just guessing without source)
And this type of person seems to be exactly why Ruby Central did what it did: To save the projects from being misused as protest tools by histrionic people that make sweeping derogatory remarks about other people whose benign opinions they dislike.
I am not affiliated with either “side” so I allow myself this small outburst of my own because I see no receipts and the tone of this blog post set the stage for it.
> I am not affiliated with either “side”
Then why are you carrying water for exclusively one "side"?
I made up my own independent opinion. I’m not affiliated with any side, I just happen to personally agree with one side’s actions this time.
Do I have to be neutral?
This is the decay of the current political discourse.
World views that disparage human beings where previously condemned but the overton window slowly shifted the topic of eg. "degenerates" back into the public. Even though we are thankfully not quite there to talk openly about a final solution (that time might come!).
It started with "edgy humor" and ambigous statements and slowly increased in misantrophy and number.
Ofc it is predominantly the political right that, openly or indirectly, revolves around conservative identity politics and in turn is more susceptible to disgust driven out-group biases.
But this behaviour can be seen on the political left too. As a reaction to the right communicating in dog whistles, they got kind of conditioned on it too and that is IMO the prime motivator of this blog post.
Jared White could have done a better job by collecting more examples of such "hate speech" but to be pedantic here, DHH -- like any reasonable person -- should avoid ambiguity and take a big step back from any ambiguous public communication or at least clarify.
When this open, clear and construstive communication doesnt happen, you can observe stuff like this. Name calling and blame around "banalities". Its just the surfacing part of a bigger conflict, which can be hard to pin point since one side is (intentionally) ambiguous/evasive/ignorant.
Reading DHHs quoted X post is a good example of deteriorating communication:
> @dhh: While the rest of the tech world has mostly moved on from the nonsense of the early 2020s, there are still a few ardent ideologues fighting the last war on Reddit, believing that ridiculous accusations like “nazi” and “fascist” still carry any weight
I wouldnt put a text together, where (1) i am not adressing the other sides concerns, (2) frame them negatively and (3) normalize allegations, others take very serious (nazi, fascism) as wheightless when i am in charge of managing (and uniting) a community. This is a serious red flag.
I fail to see any receipts.
Sounds rather dramatic. For some reason, the rails community seem to have some drama going on every few years. Wish nodejs or golang would have this kinda thing. I'd be shocked though. I think it is fairly easy to see that the ruby eco-system seems somewhat politically charged.
If you don't like him don't go to his talk.
So... Did this get flagged because of its content or because of the backlash?
So making a switch like this can never happen perfectly. You will always have people hurt. The changes do make RubyGems more secure, right? Feelings are hurt, but no software is in danger.
I think that's debatable.
All the maintainers quit, including the single security engineer. The code is now unmaintained. There's a good argue that security has been reduced.
What DHH said:
“First-world problems” shouldn’t be seen as an insult, but a celebration! Hurraaaay, I have ascended from the daily toils and tribulations of a life in the third world, so my worries may now include slow laundry machines and air conditioning, not starvation or failed states [party confetti emoji]
What this guy feels about that:
I regret to say I am unable to support an organization which seems unable to publicly disavow a man who has demonstrated numerous times to be a racist, homophobe, transphobe, fatphobe, ableist white nationalist who is now apparently cheering on death via starvation in third world countries
It's too much. I don't have the patience for this. The complaint is so out of left field I have to assume DHH and the RubyCentral guys are right.
> The complaint is so out of left field I have to assume DHH and the RubyCentral guys are right.
"the drama never ends" because people like the author continually attempt to induce it, by doing things like demanding a guest at a tech talk be uninvited because of their non-tech views.
I don't really understand the outrage either. If he was planning on including his political views in the speech, that's something else, but I personally don't give much of a fuck about the political views of anyone, especially wouldn't use it to inform my technology choices.
It seem impossible for some people to allow anyone with dissenting views to their own to even exist anymore, pretty sad set of affairs.
What's the old quote? "Your right to swing your fist ends at the other guys nose?" Perhaps we'd all do better keeping that in mind.
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Eh, maybe I would actually.
Firstly, I don't give enough of a fuck about what any individual thinks and I certainly don't do background checks on conference speakers.
Secondly, where do you draw the line? Shop workers? Hair dressers? Your taxi driver? Many of those in the country in which I am an immigrant would gladly forcibly deport me and separate me from my family; but I don't run scared enough of them to try to silence them or hide from them.
Also, I think you're being somewhat dramatic here saying he openly called for imprisonment and executions, but please provide sources if I'm wrong.
I've literally asked a taxi driver to let me out early because he started a racist rant. With a hairdresser, I'd leave a bad review (never argue with someone holding scissors).
The thing is, now that you do know someone's views - what are you going to do?
People with abhorrent views should learn that people disagree with them. Otherwise they will continue to spill their toxic poison everywhere.
Don't you realise this cuts both ways though? Your views are abhorrent to them, why are theirs worth less than yours?
For sure I don't agree with those people, but they absolutely have the same rights as we do to have their own opinions. Trying to silence them just makes you as bad as they are. We can't change the current state of global discourse, but we can each be more tolerant of each other and that starts with ourselves.
It's kind of amazing when leftists post this unironically, given recent events.
You mean like the president trying to send the military into our cities?
I think democracy and the market are amazing tools. We can strongly disagree with people but are able to peacefully choose how we are governed without resorting to violence and then we are able to peacefully trade and exchange with people we otherwise hate to our mutual benefit. This is an amazing piece of technology that makes the world a much better place but people seem very determined to throw it away.
DHH has proposed killing people?
Have you read his blog post about London? The one where he praises the racist convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon? The one where he described the violent march as being full of "normal, peaceful Brits"? The one where he stirs up ethnic tension by talking about "rape gangs" from one minority (despite the stats not backing up his assertion)? The one where he lavishes praise on an obsessive trasphobe?
What do you think he is trying to do if not incite violence and hate?
By that standard, wouldn't DHH say that you're trying to kill him and people like him? Has he used his power to demand that people that share your viewpoints aren't platformed at tech conferences?
No.
I am not advocating violence against him. I am not trying to get him thrown out of his home.
The thing is, DHH can really easily stop being racist. Then people won't complain when he's invited to speak.
But the people he is complaining about cannot change their skin colour. They cannot change their nationality (according to him).
The people DHH support are advocating violence. They aren't asking politely for people to leave - they are threatening.
DHH is welcome to tell people not to come to my conferences. People can make up their own mind whether to listen to his opinion (or mine).
> Shan Cureton and Ruby Central, as of June 10, knew DHH was already weaponizing his return to RailsConf to attack his enemies, because I was the one who shared this information with them.
What's that about? Who are DHH enemies here?
Mike Perham has been quite vocal on microblogs, and he pulled 250k/year funding from RubyCentral, which is why Shopify is the main sponsor now. AFAIK, he pulled his funding for reasons related to DHH.
The article did not live up to the title and shifts focus to DHH and his political tweets, which is totally irrelevant of RubyCentrals hostile takeover
What is even weirder is that towards the end, after all of the pie throwing, the author ends with "I am done. I am done with this drama." and suggests building a separate ecosystem for Ruby from the ground up
I can barely take the article serious at this point. I am afraid the author caused more damage and confusion than good, if anything, this might even make people feel like what RubyCentral did was right
> DHH would be platformed—and ironically at the very conference he was asked not to keynote in 2022 seemingly as a result of Basecamp’s politically-charged implosion which led to a third of the entire company resigning in protest.
That's a funny way to say that he asked for people to refrain from politics when they're at work and a third of the company said no and left, I really struggle to see this in a bad light. I don't have beefs on this whole discussion and only sporadically follow DHH blog posts, I think the main conflict people are having with his views is that work is not just work anymore, people are expected to share a vision, to have the same cliques, to live the same live, work became for some people what family, church or the local community used to be for most before that. See for example https://medium.com/signal-v-noise/the-company-isnt-a-family-... or his book "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work".
I was talking to a friend who worked in the US and the UK about the culture differences, and he mentioned how the US leaned more towards a family culture where the UK was more of a pub culture. On a family you feel required to cope with whatever bs is thrown at you because you're supposed to stick together. On a pub the more off putting you are the more chances people are not gonna talk to you.
I think one would have a hard time figuring out who quit because of the policy change, and who was just taking the buyout package.
So how is DHH a fascist? Or is this just the in vogue ad hominem attack right now?
Yeah, I don't really think it's addressed much in this article, but it's fairly clear from his posts. There is a thread here discussing it[0].
Essentially, he is posting articles[1] saying he wants fewer non-white people in London.[2].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303111
I was not aware of his opinions till yesterday, but I am still not sure how that is fascist, it might be something else but not fascist?
Ahhh, sorry, I was focusing on the rascist side.
In the article he supports Tommy Robinson[0], who I think most people in the UK would consider a fascist. He started the EDL (english defense league) which was a more violent extreme version of the BNP (british national party), which the ADL article I just linked describes as "fascist".
I only found out about his views the other day too, so can't say I've noticed any articles that are explicitly fascist, but given what I've read and his support for fascist figures I wouldn't necessarily be surprised at the moment to be honest.
You do raise a fair point though.
[0] https://www.adl.org/resources/article/tommy-robinson-five-th...
I am from the UK and know about Tommy Robinson in passing. I read the ADL article and am struggling to see how he is a fascist, he is anti-islam and anti-immigrant but how does that translate to wanting a dictatorial leader, autocracy, forcible suppression etc like Russia?
So you at least agree he's racist then?
Sure, just struggling to understand how to get to fascist.
The EDL is basically a union of street thugs, fascist politicians who split off from the BNP, and political opportunists like "Tommy Robinson".
Fascist is an accurate enough term for their politics, the stated political positions may not align 100% to historical fascism, but given all the fascist associations most objective observers would say that's likely to be a product of political positioning rather than any genuine ideological differences.
Sorry are you saying you believe they are ideological fascists/neo-nazis but are pretending they are not so they can get elected etc?
Yes
you don't think of Tommy Robinson as fascist? that's surprising to me. Ok, so I've grabbed a random definition of fascism[0] (first thing that came up googling).
> a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition
now, let's think about tommy robinson and the EDL.
* exalts nation and often race above the individual - check.
* wants a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader - check.
* by forcible suppression of opposition - I mean... it's the EDL, big check.
> you don't think of Tommy Robinson as fascist? that's surprising to me.
I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the British public don't think he is either. Which is why I am asking how he is one.
> Ok, so I've grabbed a random definition of fascism[0] (first thing that came up googling).
Yeah that is the same definition I was using.
> now, let's think about tommy robinson and the EDL. > * exalts nation and often race above the individual - check.
Sure I agree.
> * wants a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader - check.
Where did this come from? I don't think that article said anything about this.
> * by forcible suppression of opposition - I mean... it's the EDL, big check.
I don't know much about the EDL & what they have done so I couldn't comment on this.
So has he ever expressed anti-democratic ideas? Such as wanting a dictatorial leader, autocracy etc that kind of is a key component of fascism.
I am not sure how I was being a bad actor, I asked the same question three times and was not getting an answer.
> how does that translate to wanting a dictatorial leader, autocracy, forcible suppression etc like Russia?
> > * wants a centralised autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader - check. > Where did this come from? I don't think that article said anything about this.
You responded to this with a wikipedia article, which said he denounced fascism/neo-nazis & banned people from events.
> So has he ever expressed anti-democratic ideas? Such as wanting a dictatorial leader, autocracy etc that kind of is a key component of fascism.
I don't see how my follow up question was unreasonable given the wikipedia or ADL article you linked never said he expressed anti-democratic ideas.
However, projectazorian has convinced me that while they may not have expressed fascist views directly, with their deep connections to neo-nazis/fascists they could be hiding it to be electable.
Alright, I wasn't planning on posting any more, but let me editorialize, and simplify:
How is DHH fascist?
- here he is espousing ethno-nationalist viewpoints (one key fascist ideology).
How is that fascist?
- ok, here he is supporting a fascist. See this article specifying that he was a member of a fascist organisation for 5 years, and then started a more extreme offshoot of it.
How is tommy robinson fascist?
- Here are some reasons.
How is the EDL fascist?
- here is an article discussing fascism and the EDL
Has he expressed a specific viewpoint?
- point out sealioning.
Fascists tend to downplay that part of their ideology until they're in power. Even the Nazis did this to some extent.
I think the point is that was in vogue 5-10 years ago but now people are treating it as background noise due to overuse.
Which sucks because there is real fascism in some parts of society. But DHH? I have no idea.
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That is not true, the phrase is non-native brits, and that is very different to what you wrote.
Do you really think he's complaining about the white Aussie bartender who comes over here?
Maybe not Aussie bartender but even a lot of typically 'white' Europeans have very different cultures than English and Australian. For example when it comes when it comes to punctuality or queuing. Even stuff like how contracts are treated can be very different depending on the culture. DHH is Dutch and maybe closer to English culture than Italian/Spanish/French.
EDIT: removed unnecessary trailing inflammatory comment
"Do you really think he's complaining about the white Aussie bartender who comes over here?"
-> Theres little complaint about the "white" Ausie bartender, BECAUSE he probably speaks great English, came there legally, isn't consuming wellfare resources, isn't advocating for Sharia law, and might even end up going back to Ausie land.
It's not about *skin color*, it is about culture/crime/wellfare resources and legal double standards.
If an Ausie entered the UK illegally, he would be deported. If an Ausie committed a crime, he goes to jail and/or deported. With these other people, they enter illegally but then get placed in tax payer funded hotels and politicians conspire with police to cover up their crimes (see the rape gang scandals) and they literaly arrested the victims.
At one point there were plenty of complaints when *too many Polish white dudes* rocked up in the UK and competed for jobs and didn't always speak good English.
Not about race - it is about Language, culture, job competition, crime rates, wellfare resources, values (sharia-law / treatment of women), social integration vs enclaves.
And only when it involves so many millions of people comming in that it rapidly alters the local culture. (or shifts votes! or whatever other thing people care about - overwhelming of infrastructure / housing availability)
Why is DHH a racist for sympathising with some Britts whom are unhappy with the 60% cultural transformation that is occuring in London?
You are reading between the lines to hastily conclude that DHH is a racist. You need more than just "he wasn't complaining about white Ausie bartenders".
Quote me an actual paragraph or sentence where DHH says he dislikes anyone because of their race ? Or stop calling people racists without hard proof. The tone of that DDH London article seems quite radical. But tone is not enough to indict.
Literally none of what you have said is true. Stop reading the Daily Mail / watching Fox News and go do some research.
It isn't my job to give you a point by point rebuttal of all the racist talking points you've regurgitated.
Calling people racist is cheap. I literally just explained how people can have legitimate concerns about illegal migrants entering in large numbers, concerns which are COMPLETELY UNRELATED to skin color, and all you do is call these things racist talking points.
He says "non-native brits" and says there are "about a third" and links to a page showing 36% "White British"[0] (note: explicitly excluding non-white british)
Can you define that term?
he excels in this kind of dog whistling. it confuses people who were born yesterday, but it is loud and clear to people who agree with him or are the intended victims.
Agreed, but being a conservative or right wing person does not equal being a fascist. We should be reserving those words to the people that really deserve them, otherwise the word loses the meaning.
We as a society keep coming up with more and more esoteric definition of "fascist" just to avoid having one that fits modern day political actors. I feel like the word has far more meaning here, where it's used to describe a set of policy prescriptions than it is as only referring to a list of groups with all criteria for entry erased.
Personally it seems the other way round, more and more esoteric definition of X so you can label your opponent it and discount everything about them without having to debate. Hence why I had to ask if he actually is one.
Let's start with the simplest definition I could find, just to walk you through it.
> "(n) an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization."
Is this what DHH is advocating for? Absolutely. I'll skip past right wing because that part is obvious. Nationalistic in terms of "non-Londoners" being used interchangeably with immigrants, a person from Birmingham meets his "Native London" criteria, and using that criteria for social organization.
Pretty cut and dry for anyone using just the basic dictionary definition. Obviously, there's a version with more stipulations and exceptions you'd rather use but those can be safely filled under "overly esoteric".
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And this is why these very serious words have lost their power. Racist, Sexist, Fascist.... When half the country is deemed to support "literal" Himler, or when Elon Musk, or Jews with family impacted by the Holocaust, are called Nahtzees, then these words have been diluted to mean nothing.
I hope people who so overused&misused these words are happy with what they achieved.
Congratulations you made these words lose all power. I would have preferred a world where these words still had serious meaning attached to them.
I agree the words are misused, it is the boy who cried wolf. Hence why I had to ask if DHH was X.
I read through this and got to this bit. The first paragraph is DHH. The second paragraph is the author's interpretation.
>> “First-world problems” shouldn’t be seen as an insult, but a celebration! Hurraaaay, I have ascended from the daily toils and tribulations of a life in the third world, so my worries may now include slow laundry machines and air conditioning, not starvation or failed states
> I regret to say I am unable to support an organization which seems unable to publicly disavow a man who has demonstrated numerous times to be a racist, homophobe, transphobe, fatphobe, ableist white nationalist who is now apparently cheering on death via starvation in third world countries.
The quote clearly doesn't "cheer on death via starvation". Given that, I'm extremely doubtful about the author's other claims that DHH is a fatphobe, homophobe, thisphobe, thatphobe.... If the author can be this silly and/or dishonest about something he himself quotes, then why should I trust anything else he says?
I then went and checked one of his links to DHH, which he describes as being "hateful to therapists". Here, check it yourself: https://world.hey.com/dhh/building-competency-is-better-than...
Calling this "hateful to therapists" is just ridiculous. DHH is arguing that there are good alternatives to therapy! There is nothing remotely close to hate in the whole article.
Maybe DHH is actually a total Nazi - I'd never heard of the guy till today. What we can clearly see is that Jared White is either a liar or an idiot.
I'm sorry to see this sort of nonsense still thriving, and it is 100% right that it should have been left behind. More than that - people who slander others deserve to be shamed themselves.
This is unrelated to Ruby and the author is against free speech because he wants to professionaly censor someone because of his work-unrelated opinions.
Plus there are perfectly valid reasons to prefer some categories of people over others. It has nothing to do with hate or fascism, it's only natural.
I'm a DINK (double-income no kids) and I don't feel the hate of DDH, I only see someone who thinks it's worthwhile to be a parent and it's a dead end not to be. It's technically true and you can't argue against that anyway.
Wait, people are complaining about his views on having children now?
TBH my comment was a reaction to the tiniest bit of the article. The author just HAD to add this part after all the rest didn't he?
Hilarious
I mean, what's the take here? Discrimination against people who can't have children? Hatred towards those who won't? Did he only encourage people of a certain race to have children?
I remember listening to some interviews/podcasts where he discussed this. I don't have children myself, but I did not detect any malice in his arguments.
Neither did I and that was why I found the whole thing rather hilarious. This is not even a discussion
The only direct quote from DHH in the article seems to be this, which is quoted as being offensive (?):
> “First-world problems” shouldn’t be seen as an insult, but a celebration! Hurraaaay, I have ascended from the daily toils and tribulations of a life in the third world, so my worries may now include slow laundry machines and air conditioning, not starvation or failed states
How is this offensive? Seems like a nothing burger.
I don't know anything about this topic other than what was in this post.
Yeah I was a bit surprised by that part
> I regret to say I am unable to support an organization which seems unable to publicly disavow a man [...] who is now apparently cheering on death via starvation in third world countries.
I do not understand how such conclusion could be drawn, I even started asking myself how any of this was related to the current issue with RubyCentral and RubyGems?
Author comes off as a bit of a Karen himself. This whole post is a waste of everybody's time.
I really had no idea of DHH's politics and I read through the linked posts and, while I don't agree with a bunch of what DHH said, none strike me as excessively extreme. Worth debating? Sure. Worth protesting? Less sure.
I will say DHH's post on Trump's return is like reading something from an alternate universe (https://world.hey.com/dhh/mega-a0f62cd4). What optimism was there in Trump's second campaign? Trump promised exactly what he's doing: retribution, tariffs, self-dealing and corruption, accelerating climate change, etc. I'm curious DHH's assessment of the past ~9 months and how it matches with his original "optimism".
I think it's tricky because he's vocally supporting Tommy Robinson. It's pretty similar to if he came out in support of the KKK or something like that.
As someone who did enjoy his writing it's quite shocking and really very disappointing.
Yeah I came here to say this, if the author somehow understood that this is cheering for starving children, I believe he has some comperhension issues.
The ideology of the author needs starving children to survive. Once children stop starving, the author’s ideology is no longer useful and dies.
Not only a nothing burger, but isn't this "checking your privilege"?