It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus that's why I keep this image handy, I believe it conveys the correct amount of respect.
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@0xabad1dea @plexus @bert_hubert
If I remember correctly, this was an important point in Daub’s book "Cancel Culture transfer" – yes, people get "canceled", but it happens inside of small activist(-ish) communities among community members.
@simulo @0xabad1dea @plexus @bert_hubert This resonates. Even liberals/lefties are quick to pounce. It’s #supremacy culture.sadly, no one or group is immune to it.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus we once had something beautiful, you start a project, people get interested, get involved, work together to make it work, or better, slowly, steady, an amazing project becomes real.
Now we have a bunch of people who just want to argue when the feature they want because reasons isn't in the project and hurl abuse.
Someone hit the reset button, we'll try again.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus I totally agree for the most part. People need to look at things in a bigger context, and contrast with what the companies do. Whether it’s talking about UI or security or project speed/scope etc
The one exception is for bigots and nazis. FOSS has a big problem with these guys, DHH is the current topic guy, but Stallman is still kicking around as well as other lower profile losers. And we’ve gotta stop supporting them as a community (whether that’s code or cash). Unfortunately if a foss project is okay working with (or under) a Nazi, then that project should wither and die.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that, especially since supporters of omarchy/dhh use similar arguments and wording (especially invoking the word ‘ethically’) to justify their support. Humans should always take precedence over code projects.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus This very much reminds me of that cartoon: Daughter: “daddy what where you doing in your days when everyone started to realise climate change was becoming a disaster?!”
Daddy: “Mainly pointing out to vegetarians that they were still wearing leather shoes.”
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@teq i cant see what this is responding to, so maybe doesn't' fully connect, but have you read this short piece by William C. Anderson? (came out yesterday) https://prismreports.org/2026/09/16/online-left-fascism-community/
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@plexus Similarly, saying "I'm vegan" is usually met with frothing vitriol about leather belts or consuming honey. Something about it makes people defensive and then they point out your flaws instead of acknowledging their own. https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/vegan-resistance
@tobyjaffey
This is true, never mind people raging about vegetarians, when there are actual billionaire owners of multinational abattoir companies in the world.
@plexus -
@plexus The same happens for things like choosing cycling or public transit over motordom, or trying your best to eat local/seasonal food, etc. "Greta Thunberg took a jet once so clearly everything she says is wrong."
@jfcaron
Don't get me started on climate action. To paraphrase George Monbiot; If climate activists live ordinary modest lives, they're told they're hypocrites for using any fossil fuels whatsoever. If they grow their own food and live in a yurt they get told their weirdos and don't understand the normal world.
And whatever you do, it's not enough, or far too ambitious.
#climate #ClimateCollapse #environment
@plexus -
@plexus I am entertained by how in comments to this there's a lot of support, but also just a hint of that very energy you called out.
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also to be clear, I posted this because I saw this happen (again) to someone else on Fedi, not because it happened to me. I have experienced this, but it doesn't happen too often. Partly because I'm very protective of that sort of thing, and immediately shut it down.
I will do a lot of open source and other volunteer work, it's always freely and joyfully given. But as soon as you come in with expectations or feel entitled to my time it's over in a heartbeat. I have zero fucks to give for that.
@plexus who was the person mistreating others? I have a behaviour improvement to give them.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus it's tangential only, but keeping people marginalized also has the effect of reducing the cost of bribery
the ai companies can throw around a billion dollars at this point like it's a joke, but dhh and company can completely overthrow the foss ecosystem to the tune of tens of millions
(a billion is basically that a hundred times over)
you gotta have solidarity, most of all, so that the enemy can't be the only means of survival anymore
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... or offer your selfhosted services to others and prepare being accused of ... well probably trying to spy on them.
@gustl @kybernetes77 @plexus I think that might be preferable to everybody ignoring it. It means somebody noticed.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
This applies to non-profits and volunteer work in other fields, too.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
Sad to say, but this has been going on for ages. Way back in the Before Times, I used to do a little bit of ray-tracing with POV-Ray. I ran across something on Usenet, I think that they were going to release a new version that was a major upgrade Real Soon Now, and it was going to be available on Genie. And they were going to have the source code available too!
So I got a Genie subscription, got the new POV-Ray, did stupid things because I didn't understand, and sometimes got frustrated. My C knowledge at the time was pretty much non-existent.
So I went to the Genie forums to see if there were any discussions about how to do ""X", or anything neat I could try at home.
Sadly, there was very little, if any. Nearly every message was someone bitching about how it did "X" improperly, how "Y" was missing, and "Z" was stupid.
That blew my mind. IT'S FREE! THEY GAVE US THE SOURCE CODE! FIX IT AND CHANGE IT!
It got to the point where the POV-Ray team basically said something like "Peace out. We'll still be providing files, but we don't want to talk to you anymore." At least that's how I remember it. That was 30 years ago or so, parts of it are fuzzy now.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus There are people that do, and people who talk. People who act, and people who react. Just be the former. Why mar what you've done by responding to the criticism of those that haven't done anything? The doing is already the talking. And if doing the thing attracts naysayers, then that's just the work being done.
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@xenophyte @crazyeddie @plexus @tiefling
She was Genocide Joe's accomplice. Her opponent was thief and a liar. It was a Hobson's choice, even worse than the usual BS we are told is "democracy".
@LevZadov @crazyeddie @plexus @tiefling
Although n=2 is a small sample, both participants confirmed the initial thesis.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus Everything you've written here is spot on.
My feel is that they feel challenged in themselves that someone else is doing something good and they are not (whether or not that's actually true - it may just be overzealous self-criticism on their part) so they feel a need to diminish you to make that feeling go away: "See, you're not so superior after all." But it's very destructive and the more beneficial response for everyone involved is to say "This makes me feel something uncomfortable about myself. What can I learn from that?"
(None of this theory about the why changes that the pattern you describe is damaging and wrong, it's just the only way I've been able to make sense of it for myself.)
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@plexus
A friend of my husband likes to reply to these kinds of criticisms with “Thank you for volunteering.”The ones who are serious will, the others will usually shut up. Repeat as necessary.
@pomegranate_stew @plexus ^^ This. Responding to "spectator syndrome" with kindness and encouragement to get involved can sometimes be successful. It's gently putting the spectator on the spot to make a decision about themselves. It has worked for me in volunteering roles and as a parent and co-worker.
Be the change you want to see in the world (or go away!)
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus those critiques are usually shallow and worthy of a dry acknowledgement at best, or to be ignored in most cases. Whatever their motivation, they tend to be emotive, reactive takes often born out of lack of experience and totally disconnected from what the work is trying to achieve and the context it’s in. It’s hard to give a good critique—but those people have often not accomplished much, or critiqued intelligently either.
They can strike the heart of the person doing the work if they are not 100% confident in what their work is meant to do, and for whom. If one also has impostor syndrome, this kind of feedback can be a death knell for their energy and enthusiasm.
In big companies, if you have “well this isn’t perfect” type feedback you get the an immediate taste of the medicine: you’re put in charge of the next project so you can feel the heat of responsibility and expectation yourself. More communities could probably use this form of delegation if the feedback actually comes from someone they care about or whose opinion they respect.
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It's kind of infuriating how, as soon as you try to do good, you're held to impossible standards.
People are shit and companies are shit all the time and nobody bats an eye. But do volunteer work for your FOSS community, start a project that tries to do things more ethically, just be visibly not shit, and people left and right come out of the woodwork to point out all the ways in which you are not being absolutely flawless and perfect, and all the work that needs doing that you're not yet taking upon you.
The people actually doing the work are also the people who are being asked to do even more, and who are being critised the most. It's a really insiduous pattern and we all need to be better at recognising it and squashing it.
@plexus I saw that pattern in environmental activism too
