> I couldn't care less

You do care, otherwise you would not even have thought about it twice, let alone comment.

The most striking argument against this line of reasoning is that there is no possibility for you not to act politically. By ignoring the issue of systemic discrimination (“don’t care don’t personally discriminate”) you actively contribute to and participate in the systemic discrimination.

It’s a choice, and I find it important to leave you the choice, as I do not believe forcing anything on you will actually make you see, but it is true nonetheless that you cannot escape your responsibility: The ability to respond. “You can not not communicate.” Not responding and deciding to remain ignorant about it is also a response, and a highly privileged one.

It would be easy to at least passively support anyone’s attempt at trying to reduce systemic discrimination, but speaking out against it turns it even more into a political act supporting discrimination than doing nothing and by that delegating it to others.

Yeah I think it’s quite a leap to go from “html is successful because it’s fault tolerant” to “this applies to communities as well”.

There’s obviously a case to be made for both, but they’re independent and unrelated.

Two paths diverged in a wood. You took one and the Whole Point took the other here.

I didn't get a far as that because I just read through the massive list of enormous security problems caused by loose HTML parsing and that's the exact opposite of cultural accessibility. It requires arcane knowledge and rare skill then to be competent and safe. Tearing down those artificial barriers is how we let more people in!!

One of the interesting things about the internet is that almost anyone who runs a web browser on their phone is using a processor designed by Sophie Wilson, a trans woman, to run a language designed by Brendan Eich, a guy who donated money to oppose gay marriage and then lost the spot as head honcho of Mozilla because of it. I often think about this and wonder if the two of them ever met, or what would have happened if they did.

The internet doesn't run on "tolerance"; it runs on actual, real neutrality, which enforces tolerance by making anything else impossible. You cannot possibly stop gay people accessing your website any more than you can prevent homophobes or drug dealers or AI startups or North Koreans or fascists. You can ban behaviour but it's impossible to ban classes of people without real-life action.

>On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog!'

Unless you force people to acknowledge your are a dog.

Ah I knew it was about people when I saw the LGBT flag as a background.

I'll gladly take the opportunity to avoid directly supporting a racist/bigot, or anyone who seeks to silence/oppress/murder entire groups of people for simply existing. I don't care if they're selling me an application, or a laptop, or a car, or a cheeseburger. The internet, and the world, are a lot more interesting and exciting when you get a lot of different people from different backgrounds participating. Genius and innovation can come from anywhere. Morally and practically I think we're better off being inclusive.

I may not know who on the internet is a dog, but I'm glad those dogs are out there and if somebody is a proud supporter of puppy genocide I'd rather not encourage/enable their misguided crusade so that does factor into my choices.

It isn't something that can always be avoided, or even something that needs to be avoided entirely 100% of the time (I still read Lovecraft for example) but I do think it's worth some consideration.

Except there are people right on this forum who will happily talk about how dogs deserve fewer/no rights. Do you think that this makes the "dogs" feel welcome and do you think that these words have no effect?

Like, it's cool and great that you personally are in a position where most of the ideologies of hate aren't affecting you, right now, personally, but is it too much to ask that you spare a thought for the people it does affect?

> I couldn't care less about the race, gender, or sexual orientation of the person(s) who created the hardware or software that I use.

That's exactly the message that some people tried to push during the heyday of wokeism but the rest wouldn't listen.

Do you care, then, that people are driving away contributors specifically because of their race/gender/orientation? Because without them, we wouldn't have [the stuff in the article].

He talks about "throw[ing of] slurs" and "denying rights to others", "wishing violence on people because of their heritage", and that type of thing. Does not besetting people with slurs count as "diversity" now?

Do you think these people will be able to do good technical work if they're constantly beset by this kind of thing? Or do you think they will retreat to somewhere where they don't have to do with that?

And secretively hiding who you are is not a solution. No photographs. No video meets. No YouTube videos. Can never discus anything personal. No conferences.

>I couldn't care less about the race, gender, or sexual orientation of the person

But that makes you a bigot and you know what happens to bigots so put on the shirt, label in your bio and change your speech or HR will have a field day with you. Welcome to the "tolerant" side.