Re: Informal Discussion: Identities of Voters Casting a Particular Ballot are No Longer Public
Hi,
On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 5:56 AM Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> wrote:
>
> If we are assuming that some DDs might start attacking people based on
> the way they voted, then I'd suggest that it's more important to eject
> such toxic people from Debian than it is to try to mitigate their
> toxicity using measures that have negative side-effects.
On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 7:12 AM Jean-Philippe MENGUAL
<jpmengual@debian.org> wrote:
>
> This point is right. But I am not sure Debian is robust enough, today,
> to expell easily, quickly and without the victims to be disappointed to
> make part of the project, someone. recent examples show how such
> decisions are difficult, controversial, and while CT + DAM + DPL work on
> this, I think it is a long-term thought, given the original culture of
> Debian and the current society state of mind.
Based on the way people with minority opinions are treated, you would
have to expel a lot of people.
Moreover, the community cleansing effort being proposed here—which was
also proffered in private channels—is a sure way to destroy Debian as
we know it. It would not be the first time that a society attempts to
exorcise a perceived evil from their midst. There are many precedents
in history.
All of them were condemned by later generations: the Salem witch hunt;
McCartyism; the cultural revolution in China; collectivisation under
Pol Pot in Cambodia; and perhaps most infamously the many attempts
over time to expel or eradicate the Jews from various territories.
The collective condition that leads to such madness is now well
understood. It is a group form of splitting and projection [1] that
affects entire societies. The phenomenon is easily recognized once you
understand it. Because of the extreme danger, Orthodox Jews teach it.
[2]
One of Germany's great insights after World War II was that all calls
for social upheaval are in themselves barbaric. The country now has
special local and federal police agencies to monitor such corrosive
speech (Verfassungsschutz).
In 1949, Arthur Miller wrote the play "The Crucible" about it. He won
a Pulitzer and many other accolades. In 1954, William Golding dealt
with similar group dynamics in the novel "The Lord of the Flies." He
received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I am embarrassed to read the statements above on a Debian mailing
list. It is hate speech, pure and simple—and should be grounds for
expulsion from the project.
Kind regards
Felix Lechner
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
[2] Sixth paragraph,
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/korach/how-not-to-argue/
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