| 7 Nov 2021 |
 Irenes | like any community, we're made of people | 07:04:09 |
| Irenes | people are messy, people bring all their complex stuff from the outside world with them, wherever they go | 07:04:21 |
| Irenes | again, people from marginalized backgrounds tend to be hyper-aware of this stuff when it happens around us | 07:05:07 |
| Irenes | whereas people who don't have as much immediately at risk, are more likely to tune it out and forget about it | 07:05:35 |
| Irenes | so that's why there's these divergent views with some people pointing out, correctly, that fascism is a huge issue that's been sweeping through tech communities of all kinds over the past few years | 07:06:18 |
| Irenes | and others who are surprised to even hear the word | 07:06:26 |
| Irenes | and I don't blame people for not being aware, everyone comes to this stuff in their own time | 07:06:37 |
| Irenes | but yeah. | 07:06:42 |
| Irenes | the point here is to have the difficult but necessary conversations up front, so that they aren't even more destructive later on. | 07:06:59 |
 @asymmetric:matrix.dapp.org.uk | In reply to @irenes:matrix.org
so that's why there's these divergent views with some people pointing out, correctly, that fascism is a huge issue that's been sweeping through tech communities of all kinds over the past few years Could you clarify what you are talking about when you say that “fascism has been sweeping through tech communities”? Like, what are some examples of fascism you would point to? | 08:49:49 |
| Irenes | as an issue, I mean | 09:33:55 |
| Irenes | maybe in the morning when I'm better rested, I'll be able to better think through the consequences of linking to examples and pick some good ones | 09:34:34 |
| Irenes | if you look at the stuff that's been happening in Scala this week, it's the kind of thing I mean | 09:34:54 |
 Ellie | I don't know if you'd consider it a tech community just by virtue of it being online, but the Canada subreddit springs to mind as an alt-right takeover | 09:36:20 |
 @piegames:matrix.org | In reply to @irenes:matrix.org
if you look at the stuff that's been happening in Scala this week, it's the kind of thing I mean Yikes. The Scala community has a really bad reputation for being toxic in general | 09:36:54 |
| Ellie | https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/pco186/uusedtodonateblood_shows_how_the_canadian/ | 09:37:16 |
| Ellie | In fact, the comments on that thread allege a few other examples | 09:38:13 |
| Irenes | I don't think it's a tech community but it's certainly a good example. Tech isn't special in that regard. We aren't immune to stuff just because we're about technology. | 09:39:38 |
| Irenes | I do think there are people who will only find examples persuasive if they're from tech, though. | 09:40:10 |
| Irenes | Everyone comes to this with different backgrounds. | 09:40:26 |
 @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | tech is slightly different, as you are not supposed to normally touch subjects sensitive to racial or other identities or roles? | 10:00:11 |
| @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | obviously not saying it could not be pulled in somehow, but as a normal case | 10:00:41 |
| @piegames:matrix.org | I think tech is only different if you buy into the "tech should not be political" thing | 10:00:45 |
 problems | ofc, "should not be political" is implicitly accepting and reinforcing the status quo as well | 10:04:00 |
| problems | keep in mind that "no politics" isn't a thing that exists | 10:04:33 |
| @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | I am not saying people suddenly become pure beings of light, but I'd expect "Canada" to be blatantly political in a way that is not clearly visible in nixos, or maybe I am just missing something | 10:07:42 |
| @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | ie. I do believe it's plausible that people do get harassed etc. and it can be done in a way that's not clearly off-topic, but you are not supposed to start talking about eg. immigration out of the blue in a pull request | 10:09:09 |
| @piegames:matrix.org | In reply to @jkarlson:kapsi.fi
I am not saying people suddenly become pure beings of light, but I'd expect "Canada" to be blatantly political in a way that is not clearly visible in nixos, or maybe I am just missing something Not sure. /r/de for example is just a bunch of memes making fun of themselves in some way or another. But maybe that's simply a result of healthy community moderation. | 10:11:11 |
| problems | well for example, women in tech have to deal with a lot more roadblocks to being seen as competent peers (i'm having trouble wording this at 02:00). that's a political issue, and one that needs to be addressed or else we implicitly accept the status quo | 10:12:52 |
| problems | refusing to talk about these issues doesn't make them go away, it just sweeps them under the rug | 10:13:46 |
