[jupo]

Ha! Sincere. I am one of those leftist SJWs you guys are railing about, after all. 

Like I said, I have no particular love of GNOME in general, and have not paid much attention to what they've been up to for well over a decade. But I don't have a problem when a group of people want to foster a community of respect.

I'm failing to imagine how a normal person would have to make "major changes" in their life in order to participate in the GNOME community under those rules.

Speaking of being divisive, this thread has an awful lot of "they"s. Unfortunately, everyone is guilty of needless division. It's a part of human nature. That doesn't make it right; it means that we all have to act with intention to avoid it.

Courts are fine for some situations, but not everything that is legal is ethically right, and courts can't solve all of society's problems. I'm certain there's a lot of things I refrain from doing that you do every day, because I find them morally reprehensible. Sometimes we have to push to change social norms directly.

Also - I do believe that everyone should be open to criticism, including myself, and anyone with social power. I've changed a lot of my views because I listened to people and their experiences. I have seen people who have tried to lead movements who behave in bad faith, or with bad intention. They usually get called out fairly quickly - but not always. It just reinforces that we shouldn't blindly follow anyone or anything and need to learn as much as we can and make our own best judgments.

[Raion]

Hey I appreciate you being honest. I'm just terrible at understanding if there's actual sarcasm being said or not. For the record, I defend people's right to speak freely, so I appreciate you being honest, and I'm not going to call you an SJW since you are actually having a civil conversation.

Fostering respect and professionalism are goals I can agree with, but I approach it from a far different angle. My view is that nobody should receive special treatment. Just like someone would call out a white person calling a black person an N word or any of the countless terms that exist, which I won't write here, a black person in a professional working environment shouldn't be pulling the race card or blaming "whitey" for his/her own deficiencies or incompetence. Treat a mailing list like you would a corporate setting, which has a far different level of conduct from say, an informal forum like this. I have a sense of humor, and I get a lot of "ching-chong" memes thrown my way because of the name I picked for myself, which doesn't bother me; or when people make fun of Spanish culture by throwing out stereotypes like bullfighting or flamenco, or misattributing things, like with mariachi, mexican sombreros, mexican food etc. (I do enjoy some good mexican food, but to them I'm as much of a "gringo" as a person of Anglo or Germanic descent - spanish food is incredibly mild and even described as "bland" by comparison)

The term you're looking for is tribalism, I think. Us vs them. It's a classic paradigm, older than humanity itself. You can find theological examples, or examples in chimps and other apes (Chimps go to war and will kill opposing clans brutally)

As far as everything else goes, I can agree with the intent of your words and thank you for being civil once again. It's an awfully nice change from reading the craziness on resetera.

[jupo]

I appreciate your reply. I'm comfortable with my labels and don't get offended by what others call me. I'm more concerned with how others are being treated than I am about myself. I'll be fine.

Also, I want to apologize for how I phrased part of my message. I sounded like I was criticizing you morally while discussing law vs morality and that wasn't my intent. For better context, an example of "things you surely do that I find wrong" is my being vegan -- and to be clear, even my wife and kids are happy to continue to consume animal products despite my objections. Both law and social norms say that's okay, too. (This particular fight towards broader justice is not one I expect to be won in my lifetime...)

[Raion]

No apology necessary I didn't take any offense. The only things that I really take offense to are people who insult my ethnicity or my religion. Those are two lines that people should avoid crossing with me but I'm otherwise able to take a joke and laugh it off.

I certainly have situations where I object to the laws in place. I won't get into all of them but you can only imagine how there are ethical things that are derived from my religious beliefs or my cultural upbringing that clash with modern day views on things. the main difference is that I just try to abstain from those things myself and keep those in my immediate presence encouraged to do the same by example. Thankfully I have an incredibly supportive girlfriend at the moment, and a lot of people in my life who are of excellent moral calibre.