this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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I'm just confused. Like, how would someone even connect Linux software to those topics?
I totally believe you that they do, and I'm not actually interested in hearing messed up shit, I'm just...
If you asked me which topics were unlikely to have bizarre vile messaging I would have listed window managers and init systems pretty high in the list.
You need to think of the kind of people that are interested in nerdy computing topics. Regular people that just want to make something nice to share with the world, sure, but also incels, toxic masculinity proponents, etc.
They're mostly able to hide, because like you point out, computer science and related topics are mostly apolitical; when you make scary changes, however, those same latter people can't help themselves but to blame the villainous "They."
Ugh. people can suck sometimes. I can comprehend the concept of bigotry and all that, but it just deeply does not make sense to me. And I think I'm ultimately okay with not being able to empathize with actual hatred.
It makes me sad that some of the "nerdy" people in these spaces would join with the very people that would gladly throw them under the bus or use them as minority fodder, but as I've seen with experts in science, high intelligence in one area doesn't mean you are capable of critical thinking.
ETA: to be clear, I'm not saying we should ignore scientists and experts, just that specialized expertise ≠ general expertise.
The two people I trust least on matters of science are some person who reckons it's common sense and someone with a doctorate in something vaguely similar.
The third and fourth are every engineer and every physician that isn't actually an expert on the thing, but that's because we think we know everything.