by bitwize 8 hours ago
Maybe things like that wouldn't happen if Framework didn't sponsor fascists.
More specifically, sponsoring a white suprematist.
But are his opinions relevant here? Do you ask the political opinions of everyone you work with?
If someone at work was writing blog posts with white-supremacist code, then yes, I would probably go to HR and they would probably get in trouble. Maybe they wouldn't be fired, but they would be placed on another team. And then the people on that team would find the blog posts, and the same thing would happen, and they would probably be let go at some point.
Because people that do that type of thing usually cannot shut up about it.
Noam Chomsky: 'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.'
Also, your solution doesn't solve your problem: your colleague won't stop to hold ideas that you don't like, nor his blog will disappear. If it's just a blog, he didn't harmed anybody, whereas you got him fired.
There's multiple levels of freedom of expression. You could argue, and people do, that the company has it's own right to freedom of expression, and wants to portray itself in the way it wants, and that necessarily involves deciding who they work with.
For example, if I told you that you are forced to associate yourself publicly with someone you don't like and don't want to associate with, then you might say I'm hindering your freedom of expression.
And this is missing the elephant in the room: white supremacy is fundamentally anti-free-expression. That's one of it's core tenants. So we have a little bit of tolerance paradox here.
If we allow those who oppose free expression to freely express that, then they express it by limiting free expression, then by allowing free expression we've actually suppressed free expression. So, it's tricky.
>Do you ask the political opinions of everyone you work with
they are the HR of IT ofc they do a ideological sniff test on anybody they even so much as talk to. Can't have anybody disagreeing in this tolerant space.
Everyone does an ideological sniff test of everyone they interact with. You don't want to be friends with wackjobs or racists or whatever, because the odds those people suck in other ways is very, very high.
I also hate the framing of "disagreeing" in these discussions. It's perfectly valid to distance yourself from people because you disagree, and this is something you yourself practice on a daily basis. That is just being human.
Wow, didn't realize they were sponsoring white supremacists. I've bought a framework 13 in the past and believe in their mission, but I don't think I can continue being a customer. Oh well.
This is what the people who are against "cancel culture" are trying to say (although, a lot of those people are still wrong and suck for other reasons): you basically got brief, out of context second-hand information and immediately jumped to the conclusion to boycott this company.
I think it's worth reading what the CEO has to say about it: https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-righ...
Personally I don't get the impression that Framework is endorsing a particular view, nor are they directly sponsoring a specific individual or their views.
It becomes even more difficult when most of these open source projects aren't a one-person endeavor, even if they happen to have a single individual at the helm.
> Personally I don't get the impression that Framework is endorsing a particular view, nor are they directly sponsoring a specific individual or their views.
I agree. However, I do think that Framework is taking a particularly cowardly stance by refusing to acknowledge community concerns, and I think that kind of behavior is exactly how far-right groups gain power in tech spaces. When one group just wants to live in peace, and another group wants to make the first group disappear, organizations that don't distinguish between the two ultimately drive out the peaceful group.
I agree that your take is a very real thing.
At the same time, I think there's a somewhat valid space for the psychology of this response.
If I use Harry Potter as an example, I think Harry Potter fans fall in a handful of camps:
1. Agrees with JK Rowling on her anti-trans rhetoric
2. Grew up loving Harry Potter and detests JK Rowling's views, possibly to the point of a boycott
3. Has never heard of any of the controversy and is blissfully ignorant
4. Is aware of the controversy but never signed up for that discussion in the first place and is just here for wizard fiction, wishes the controversy never existed.
I think the CEO of Framework is essentially going for #4 here, and I am quite mixed on whether that standpoint is enabling of problematic people or not. I can understand arguments both ways. For the role of a CEO, in this day and age, taking a polarized position does have the possibility of alienating half of your customer base, essentially a no-win scenario.
#4 is also mixed with a sprinkle of "Sometimes saying too much and engaging too much in the argument is your own undoing and digging your own grave." Often CEOs that say nothing end up with better outcomes than those who take an active stance on issues.
I can totally recognize that #4 is objectively more cowardly and less principled than #2, but I also don't know that we can expect 100% of generally good people to be freedom fighters.
Yeah, that's a good breakdown. I mean, he definitely brought this on himself by leaning so hard into Omarchy in the first place, but maybe he was just ignorant of DHH's views and thought that was a "neutral" thing to do.
In any case, I think it's important for consumers to confront companies when they pull stunts like this. Also, I'm not certain that #4-type CEOs actually have better outcomes - maybe in the short term, but when the creeping technofascism becomes more obvious, that causes real problems (see e.g. NixOS, Tesla)
So they're not sponsoring Omarchy sure, but that the CEO doesn't really respond to the parts where they've advertised Omarchy repeatedly is enough for me to close my wallet going forward. For me, this is a cut and dry issue and you don't have to endorse white supremacy to make it clear you don't have many issues with engaging white supremacists.
DHH has said things beyond the pale, that go as far to say that people like me are not welcome in spaces he tours, not because of my actions but instead my skin color. Framework can flirt with his projects if they want to. I just won't buy their products going forward, and it sounds like they're fine with that. Idrc if it's seen as contributing to cancel culture.
I can appreciate that you informed yourself well on the issue and weren't just making a knee-jerk reaction like I originally suspected based on your first comment's brevity.