kovarex

Originally posted by emlun

I think that at this point, how we got here isn't the most important part. What's more important now is how we go from here. As always, I think the best approach is to assume the best of everyone involved.

At this point, whether or not Uncle Bob deserves a platform is largely irrelevant. What's relevant now is that many people in the community are feeling betrayed, and some unsavoury people are feeling empowered. Trans people in particular are feeling alienated, and Steam is getting review bombed with people praising a "transphobic dev". As far as I can tell this seems to originate from Kovarex's use of terms like "cancel culture", and how those terms are tightly coupled with racism, transphobia etc. in USA culture. I've found nothing in Kovarex's comment history to support that he is transphobic, racist or misogynist (some comments display a lack of empathy, but not malice), but nevertheless there is now widespread worry that he is, and actual transphobes are now seeing th...

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Originally posted by Base_BEAST

Here's something important to understand, in context of your recent posts about free speech:

The NFL is a gridiron football (rugby but intentionally smashing each other, essentially) league that is disproportionately peopled by dark-skinned African-Americans because of the way the US's society is set up. Before each game, the players and the audience are treated to the national anthem as a point of tradition, and the common practice is to remove any head coverings, stand, and usually cover your heart.

In light of recent perceived social injustices - whether you agree or not - some players and teams have taken to instead kneeling during the national anthem, in a similarly respectful but noticeably alternative pose. This is to bring attention to these issues and recognition of African-Americans' contributions to the NFL.

In response, your boy Bob and many of his GOP pals, while getting red in the face talking about cancel culture all the time, threatened to ...

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Originally posted by SlickSinkBro

But right after that you said "If teacher seduces his/her student and the act is voluntary, we can't really talk about rape right?" which does sound like defending child abuse.

Originally posted by Wiwiweb

Yes. Bob's blog post was referring to that.

Because no one is saying that "women are genetically inferior coders" there.

... that's kinda what the whole Google memo was about? Like the entire "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech" part? The whole reason the memo was news 4 years ago in the first place?

Some quotes for people who won't click the link:

"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership"

"Women, on average, have more​: Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in ​people rather than things"

"Women, on average, have more​: neuroticism"

The whole memo's argument is: "Google says their hiring bi...

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Originally posted by Wiwiweb

Example 1 is someone hating on Uncle Bob for wanting to disprove ideas instead of hating the person who said them.

The specific idea here being, "women are genetically inferior coders".

Imagine someone said Czech coders are just genetically inferior. And then I said "wait hold on, I know it sounds racist but we should hear him out, what if he had a point?"

Now imagine that there's already lots of science done about this gender difference, but we're both still saying the exact same thing.

Would you want to argue for your own non-inferiority with someone who had not bothered doing the research, and will never actually be convinced by anything you say?

Not all ideas are worth "debating on the marketplace of ideas".

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Example 2 is a dead link, it contains just so...

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Originally posted by mithaldu

I don't know what Bob believes in his heart of hearts, i will however confidently state that he actively spread racist beliefs at one point in the past at least, with evidence.

As such, unless there has been a concrete change in Bob's engagement with political matters, i would prefer that my second-favourite game in the world does not provide even indirect free publicity to Bob's political opinions without at least a disclaimer.

Also yes, i'm one of those trans folk who love Factorio.

Originally posted by faustianredditor

Important context here that apparently a similar law doesn't exist in CZ.

That does not mean that CZ has shitty child protection laws. It just means that they deal with that differently. Frankly, the fact that US/anglo law isn't the best solution here is illustrated that in some jurisdictions, a 17/18 couple can not have consentual sex, while a 17/16 and a 18/19 couple can. Because the law treats these situations quite simplistically.

Compare continental European laws which (to paint a few dozen countries with a single brushstroke) tend to see more nuance and look for abuse/power imbalance/grooming instead; however, these laws can often also apply to other personal constellations, like patient and caretaker, (adult) student and professor, etc.

Is it a shitty take to frame a decades old legal concept as SJW newspeak? Yeah, probably. Could kovarex have read up on the term before typing that? Yeah. Is it necessarily a pedo/pro-rape take? Absolutely not. It's un...

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Originally posted by sawbladex

I think that this is an issue of left leaning American not noticing how much of a trauma Communism was for former Soviet countries.

I will say that kovarex made a mistake in responding to one post that complained about political differences politely with venom, which basically means all of the stupidity that came out is his fault.

People were ribbing Uncle Bob for being a big advocate of Unit testing (i.e. separate code maintained by devs) when a whole bunch of bugs are only found by people using the software in ways the devs aren't able to classify in code. and kovarex didn't say anything there.

Originally posted by PulseReaction

Yes, he has given talks in the past about software development where he basically said women are unfit to be software engineers (in the middle of the talk he said masculine traits are good and strong, and feminine are weak and bad, which made several women feel very insecure and excluded from the software community).

He did apologize for these comments, but in talks years later he continued to use that argument and basically repeated what he said.

Aside from that, his views on software engineering itself are outdated at best and outright damaging at worst.

Example one, example two, example three. Also why even his tech views are not that relevant

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Originally posted by lazygibbs

Can we talk about why Uncle Bob is problematic enough to warrant essentially a content warning for his inclusion in the FFF?

I clicked the summary in the original comment to find that he (a) made a sexist remark (can't find what he actually said) and later apologized for it saying that he misspoke, (b) deleted so idk, (c) thought that people complaining about the word "craftsmanship" were being overly sensitive, and (d) said that defunding the police is a terrible policy.

Genuinely, this feels like not enough to warrant any sort of disclaimer. Are there more "problematics" that weren't mentioned? How narrow is the range of acceptable disagreement that you can't mention this guy in an apolitical way without distancing him as a villain?

Originally posted by Bloodshot025

Bob has a tendency to fragment an easy to understand routine into a dozen pieces that are hard to put together and call it clean.

https://qntm.org/clean

But with anything, it's possible to find insight in a lot of places, so long as you don't treat it as dogma.

Originally posted by de4dchicken

I know the discussion about u/kovarex is probably well covered by now. But it is just not letting me go the past hours to express my feelings. Honestly finding out that he (kovarex) is not giving a damn about marginalized people is a punch in the gut.

I've let go of blindly following seemingly nice companies years ago. But Wube never ever let me down. I was so proud of supporting this team which was immensely pro-consumer at so many places it doesn't have to be. Starting with a lovely crafted weekly blog about what exactly is currently happening in development to multiple patches on the same day. But now I have to open my eyes and ask myself how it is to work under such management. Is he as fierce to his colleagues as he was in this comment section? Is he openly "a-political" at work and is it infkuencing the team and development. And is the Wube team agreeing with him here. I know it's probably hard to speak ill about ur boss but I'd also like to s...

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Originally posted by nckl

Trans (queer people in general) are almost always pretty far-left, you're a right-wing bigot, that shit's like water and oil. It's of course not a big deal with you (you will not be hurt financially/arrested) since cancel culture isn't real and there aren't a lot of LGBT+ people, but you've definitely pissed a lot of them off. And again, this game was like, a really big trans game.

Originally posted by nckl

...Illegal ideas are...

...any bad opinion about the occupants was illegal...

...Should we make it illegal...

Nobody is talking about making it illegal. Why are you always bringing it back to that? Nobody, anywhere here, or basically ever, is making that argument. That's why this isn't censorship.

The person said "Saying bigoted things has to have consequences". They never said that should be "making it illegal". Can you not strawman the hell out of every single person you reply to?

Originally posted by reik483

What do you think the link contains? What do you think this line means? "His idea was that there’s something biological about short people that predisposes them against operating escalators."

Originally posted by freetheMonoid

Uh, there's more reasons to not support the police than being an ancap, but the fact that you think that's the only possibility says quite a lot

Originally posted by Formal-Awareness4771

sure im anarcho just not anarcho capitalist because frankly i believe in a thing called "age of consent"

Originally posted by DetachedRedditor

Do you think we should be tolerant of those that are intolerant? Because that is what the linked story seems to promote.
Should you be allowed, without consequence, to voice intolerant opinions, just because free speech?

Because that seems to be the point of the linked story. Robert seems to be a proponent of allowing to voice the opinion that people can be seen as inferior due to their genetics. He seems to think that the only way you can counter this is by (continuously) providing opposing arguments.

Originally posted by buwlerman

Maybe he cares more about ideas than people? (A common trait amongst programmers)

It doesn't look like Uncle Bob was brought up because kovarex likes him as a person. He was brought up because kovarex liked some of his ideas. He might not have been mentioned at all if he wasn't the "face" of "clean code" to the extent that he is.

Originally posted by RedViperPT

This game also has a huge amount of fans who are right wing, it's extremely popular in eastern europe, russia, etc.

Deal with it.