The Coq mailing list

[Christine Rizkallah <c.rizkallah AT unsw.edu.au>]

Hi,

I feel the need to thank Tadeusz and whatever the anonymous poster’s real 
name is for replying to this post. If it weren’t for the replies, I would 
have probably missed it and I wouldn’t want to miss an event promoting for 
diversity in our research community (even if it occurs at a very odd time 
where I am living — @Talia: I’ll do my best to catch some of it). 

Regarding "share enough basic assumptions”: 

The basic assumption here is that in PL we acknowledge that this field is 
predominantly white (*).  Another assumption is that some of us care about 
creating a diverse and inclusive atmosphere in our community and as such may 
be interested in such events (**).  

(*) it would be a joke to deny that, far more ridiculous than denying the 
role of lambda calculus in creating a foundation for modern computing!
(**) consider me a witness!


Cheers,
Christine

PS: "not in my name, please” No one is speaking on your behalf. This was 
already clarified. 

> On Jun 10, 2020, at 8:33 AM, Tadeusz Litak <tadeusz.litak AT gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.
>

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