Hi Jonathan, Thank you for stepping forward to present yourself for potential criticism in a discussion forum. Unfortunately that is the only laudable aspect I can locate in your message. At 2022-11-21T15:39:24+0000, Jonathan Dowland wrote: > On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 12:07:53AM +0100, Michael Neuffer wrote: > > As it was an NMU, this should be easily rectified. > > Don't let cancel culture win. > > Indeed; my action is not irreversible. It might in fact be; as I observed earlier, the archive administrators have some power in this area as well. But this does not absolve you of responsibility, to the extent that their (in)action is a foreseeable consequence of your own actions, particularly if they would regard it as tedious if they had to deal with the package henceforth, and especially if they can expect accusations of pro-racist, pro-sexist, and pro-Nazi attitudes from people just like you if they defer to the wishes of the uploader when a package is otherwise in technical good order, then you retain considerable accountability. > Anyone who has a problem with what I did and believes I should be > censured or subject to some other form of disciplinary process, please > just go ahead and do it, don't beat about the bush. Why ever not? Why should process be immediate? If you have erred, should you not have to worry about the possible consequences to yourself forever more? Would you not find it just for a racist, sexist, or Nazi to endure the remainder of their life with a sword of Damocles dangling over them? Even if not just, wouldn't you find it satisfying? > Anyone who wants to put their name to explicitly racist, sexist and > pro-nazi material in Debian is free to re-upload it. I see: you assert only one possible motivation, an inherently repulsive one, for preserving the status quo ante, and offer yourself up as a martyr to your noble cause of anti-prejudice. What a sacrifice. This is civil disobedience as cosplay. You cannot possibly be this simple-minded. You are putting us on. If inspectors were to enter your home and catalogue all of the physical and digital media in your possession, would they be correct to infer your personal full-throated endorsement of every utterance they can find within? (Don't think you can escape punishment by pointing out contradictions within such a notional corpus of propositions; inquisitors curate, too, often to the disadvantage of the suspect.) If I were your judge--which I am not--I would sentence you to produce the equivalent of a master's thesis, say ~20,000 words in length, on one of the following works of your choice, relating it to the processes and culture of the Debian Project. 1. _The Open Society and Its Enemies_, Karl Popper 2. _The Origins of Totalitarianism_, Hannah Arendt 3. _Doubt: A History_, Jennifer Michael Hecht 4. _SCUM Manifesto_, Valerie Solanas 5. _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_, Patricia Morrisroe I would serve as your academic advisor but would not hold the authority to claim your task fulfilled--instead, that would be done by a jury of your peers; if, say, ten Debian developers[1], sponsored the inclusion of your thesis in the distribution as a package. (Possibly in non-free, as I would not insist that your work product be Free Software...simply that it be freely distributable, as in CC-BY-NC-ND.) Fortunately for both of our time commitments, I am not empowered to impose such a sentence. You might nevertheless wish to consider developing yourself as a person by reading at least one of the above with sufficient attention to discuss it intelligently. If you did, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Pluralism and diversity work not because everything heard or seen in a society meets with approval by everyone all of the time; they work because people practice toleration (contrast: approval) even of speech or appearance that they find repugnant, because they understand that their own words or physical presentation might be odious to some. Regards, Branden [1] Thanks to Steve Langasek for suggesting this "unmotivated" number.
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