Inclusivity Is a Joke
A few days ago, Douglas Crockford, who was to be the keynote speaker was removed from a JavaScript conference called Nodevember.
The reason for his removal? Sexism and intolerance of course!
Yikes, this Crockford character must be some pretty toxic shady character right? Well, no he’s as tame as they get. For those who haven’t seen his talks, or read his books he’s basically the closest thing the JavaScript community has to an academic. If Scott Meyers wrote the book on C++ then Crockford wrote the book on JavaScript.
So he has technical merit for being a good speaker, but what about these allegations? Well, it basically came from some very vocal, public bullying from “inclusivity” folks on Twitter. Whom, are incidentally also a part of the Node.js inclusivity group.
There are essentially two things being pointed out that stands testament to what a terrible a person, despicable Mr. Crockford is.
In one of the incidents, he is “slut shaming” the web, by calling the previous generation of web applications and development promiscuous.
So the old web was great because it provided promiscuity. It meant that you could go and connect to anything and you’re probably going to be okay. You might get shocked and embarrassed but your machine’s not going to get taken over, your identity is not going to get stolen. That hasn’t always been true but pretty much the web can do that and that’s good because that allows us to get introduced to things. We used to call it surfing. That you could go from one thing to another and discover stuff and start forming relationships. Unfortunately, the same thing which allows the promiscuity to work is very bad for dealing with commitment. So that’s what the new web is for. You know, once I have found my bank I want to make sure from this point on I’m talking to my bank and I’m not talking to anything which pretends to be my bank.
I’m not sure if there’s some nuances that’s specific to San Franciscoism here that’s lost on me but, that fits the definition of promiscuous just fine.
promiscuous
adjective
1. characterized by or involving indiscriminate mingling or association,especially having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis.
2. consisting of parts, elements, or individuals of different kinds brought together without order.
3. indiscriminate; without discrimination.
4. casual; irregular; haphazard.
When talking about things, obviously the first definition does not apply. It’s not that unusual to use the term either, see promiscuous mode for example.
The second issue, is that he made a lame dad joke about weak maps.
Instead we’re adding a second kind of object which unfortunately is known as weak map. And that’s a problem because nobody wants to put anything weak in their program, right?
At the end of which, he made a half-hearted minor “flex” motion with one arm.
Normally I keep my nose out of this sort of drama, but we’ve seen it time and time again and I’m getting fed up with this crap.
If you are in an inclusivity working group, or just for inclusivity in general. Please find a better way to contribute to the community than complaining on Twitter, getting people fired over trivial matters and excluding anyone who do not comply with your particular culture.
Inclusivity has just become a thorn in the community and reduced to a joke, something that should be a good thing has become toxic as hell. The world is a big place, with tons of diversity but for the most part everyone who isn’t in the this little clique culture, are essentially excluded.
