The Coq mailing list

[Tadeusz Litak <tadeusz.litak AT gmail.com>]

Dear Derek,

On 09.06.20 23:46, Derek Dreyer wrote:
>   a broad claim was made that "We in
> the global programming languages community acknowledge that every
> institution in our society is built on a foundation of white
> supremacy—and our academic systems and research industry are no
> exception."  I agree with this claim, as I'm sure do many others on
> this list.  I guess perhaps you don't, in which case the announced
> event is probably not for you.  But I don't see how you can argue that
> there is anything unusual or unscientific or "political"

if you don't see what is unscientific or political about the claim you're quoting, or if you believe that this claim can 
be legitimately called "assumed knowledge" in any meaningful sense (especially comparable to the lambda calculus 
capturing the nature of computation!), we might not share enough basic assumptions (or axioms) to continue this 
particular discussion constructively. Which worries me given the respect I have for you otherwise, but c'est la vie.

It's one thing to have a political belief, no matter how outlandish, or how popular. It's another thing to present it as 
a self-evident claim that every reasonable person must agree with, in particular as an implicit view of the entire 
community. This is precisely the phenomenon described as "moral grandstanding" and you cannot blame people for saying 
"not in my name, please".

Whenever this happens, a conflict ensues.

That's all.

t.