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Response to cease and desist letter from John A. De Goes, CEO of Ziverge
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response-de-goes.md

The current version of this document is here.

This document contains additional supporting material for the claims in this post (published 1 September 2019), in response to a cease and desist letter from John De Goes that I received on 6 July 2020.

Please see also this post for more information about De Goes deleting the FCoP repository on GitHub shortly before sending the cease and desist letter.

Table of contents

The complaints

  1. "Our client has never defended any white supremacists or misogynists."
  2. "Our client does not single out women and accuses [sic] them of lying"
  3. "Our client has never engaged in any targeted harassment."
  4. "The FCoP is clearly not designed to protect white supremacists."

Response to complaint 1

"Our client has never defended any white supremacists or misogynists. Our client does not believe in false concepts like white supremacy."

The following sections focus on three individuals, providing evidence that John De Goes defended them, and that they are widely considered to be white supremacists or misogynists:

  • Curtis Yarvin, who often writes under the name Mencius Moldbug, and who spoke at LambdaConf 2016, a conference organized by John De Goes.
  • ClarkHat, the pseudonym of an individual who wrote for Status 451, a blog that sponsored and raised funds for LambdaConf 2016.
  • Ed Latimore, a retired boxer associated with the Red Pill movement who was invited by De Goes to speak at LambdaConf 2017.

Note that the post does not make any claims about whether or not De Goes "believes in" white supremacy; it only argues that he has helped to create an environment that is friendly to white supremacists by defending individuals like Yarvin and ClarkHat.

De Goes defending Curtis Yarvin, ClarkHat, and the Neoreactionary movement

  • In communication with LambdaConf speakers in 2016, in reference to Yarvin: "He has never written any hate speech or resorted to insulting or vulgar language (except as a literary device)…"
  • In communication with Typelevel: "In the specific case of Curtis, a staff member reviewed nearly all of his writings and videos and could find no evidence he advocates violence toward any group. …we have no reason to think Curtis poses a safety threat for anyone…"
  • On GitHub (archived): "Moreover, there is no even remotely plausible of 'Nazi' in which, say, Curtis Yarvin is a Nazi. So if you ban Nazis, you'll still end up with lots of people like Curtis Yarvin, who believe that, while individual differences trump everything else, the mean of IQ test scores differs by 'race'."
  • On GitHub (archived): "Second, if you were to create a COC that banned 'white supremacists', it would have to allow [Yarvin] to participate, since he is not a white supremacist"
  • On Twitter (archived): "When you conflate NRx [the Neoreactionary movement] with white supremacy, it discredits you."
  • In response to a woman who had criticized ClarkHat: "I believe people lie all the time; you know it when you have evidence. I still have no evidence Clark is alt-right."
  • Also on ClarkHat: "OK, I won't tag them (though they're not dangerous). You provide me one quote proving Clark is alt-right. Just one."
  • In series of blog posts (see here, here, and here) about the decision to keep Yarvin on the program: "In addition, we could not find any evidence the speaker would engage in verbal abuse. … Some people have claimed that a policy which allows a neo-reactionary to speak at the conference will produce a conference dominated by neo-reactionaries. However, I believe this is incoherent…"
  • Amar Shah wrote the following about private communication from De Goes in 2016: "What I found unsettling was how generous this appraisal felt – as if to convince us that Yarvin isn't a bad guy, just somehow misunderstood. The entire letter reads this way."

De Goes made similar comments about Yarvin in other discussion threads in the FCoP repository on GitHub, but he deleted the entire project shortly before sending the cease and desist letter (see this post for details), and so far I've only been able to recover 18 of over 100 threads (including the two quoted above).

De Goes defending Ed Latimore

  • De Goes in a long thread on Twitter: "In 2017, @edlatimore delivered a heartfelt, vulnerable, and inspiring keynote on facing fear (a major impediment to learning). He was unpaid, & freely volunteered his time. 2/22"
  • De Goes quoted in Breitbart: "I don't agree with Ed on everything, but he's a source of endless insight and inspiration, and I'm upset at the way people are lying about him and trying to smear his reputation."
  • Allum Bokhari in Breitbart, about De Goes: "John De Goes, the principal organizer of LambaConf, has publicly defended Latimore."
  • De Goes on Twitter: "People will regret lying about him."
  • De Goes on Reddit: "It's a mistake to call Latimer a misogynist (sexist would be more accurate, since he believes in sex-based differences between men and women)."

Racist or misogynistic statements by Yarvin and ClarkHat

  • Yarvin in 2007 on white nationalism: "I am not a white nationalist, but I do read white-nationalist blogs, and I'm not afraid to link to them. … It should be obvious that, although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff."
  • Yarvin in 2008: "Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide. That is: the ideal solution achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society), but without any of the moral stigma. Perfection cannot be achieved on both these counts, but we can get closer than most might think."
  • Yarvin in 2009 on race and slavery: "Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For others, it is more suited to slavery. … Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not."
  • Yarvin in 2010 on racial privilege: "It's a reality of modern American life that race confers privilege. As a reactionary, how can I possibly object? A society without hereditary privilege is like a cheeseburger without cheese."
  • Yarvin in 2010 on Hitler: "Cannot we marvel at what the Third Reich achieved, with the knowledge that it was run by a maniac? In the hands of a non-maniac, what might it have done? In the hands of an Augustus, for instance? Well, somewhere in Germany in 1933, there might have been an Augustus or two. Or even three. But Germany in 1933 was a democracy."
  • Yarvin in 2011: "If you ask me to condemn Anders Breivik, but adore Nelson Mandela, perhaps you have a mother you’d like to fuck…"
  • ClarkHat in 2015 on Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian far-right terrorist: "I wonder how long until the first statues of Breivik go up? 30 years? 20? 10?"
  • ClarkHat in 2015 to Neil deGrasse Tyson, a prominent Black American scientist: "Blacks have lower average IQs. Your move."
  • ClarkHat in January 2016 on Breivik: "Breivik was guilty of poor timing."
  • ClarkHat in April 2016 on women "I don't have anything against felons. It's just that - like non-property owners, and also women - they make bad decisions when voting."
  • ClarkHat on Islam: "Islam is filth. It's a disgusting totalitarian ideology that punishes the weak. And it needs to be destroyed. … yeah, I'm about THIS FAR (holds fingers 1 nanometer apart) from endorsing a targeted plague. Kill all 1B of them."

Other perspectives on Yarvin, ClarkHat, and the Neoreactionary movement

Many people have described Curtis Yarvin, ClarkHat, and the Neoreactionary movement as racist, bigoted, and white supremacist:

  • John Chandler Burnham, who co-founded the Tlon Corporation with Yarvin: "Yarvin is a white supremacist and Nazi admirer: he believes people of color are subhuman, that they pose a 'dire problem' to be solved by what he describes as a 'humane alternative to genocide'."
  • Tess Townsend, Staff Reporter, Inc.co, in an article about LambdaConf 2016 on Inc.com: "Yarvin's online writings, many under his pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, convey blatantly racist views."
  • Tess Townsend in another Inc.com article: "After a backlash against a speaker's racist views cost LamdbaConf several sponsors, allies responded with a surge of crowdfunding support. … Neoreactionism is an ultra-conservative authoritarian anti-democratic movement associated with white supremacy. Media reports describe Yarvin as a central figure among neoreactionaries."
  • Tess Townsend on ClarkHat: "ClarkHat responded to a request for confirmation they had written the Status:451 post and a question about their real name with a series of tweets insulting the reporter."
  • Rosie Gray in The Atlantic: "Yarvin's ideas, along with those of the English philosopher Nick Land, have provided a structure of political theory for parts of the white-nationalist movement calling itself the alt-right."
  • Dylan Matthews in a Vox article that focuses on Yarvin: "The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It's that, but way way weirder."
  • The CATO Institute on Curtis Yarvin (a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug): "But it would be a mistake to dismiss the views advanced by Mencius Moldbug and his followers as inconsequential, if quirky."
  • Corey Pein in The Baffler magazine: "By so doing, Moldbug [Curtis Yarvin] has been able to an attract an audience that welcomes the usual teeth-gnashing white supremacists who haunt the web while also leaving room for a more socially acceptable assortment of “men’s rights” advocates, gun nuts, transhumanist libertarians, disillusioned Occupiers and well-credentialed Silicon Valley entrepreneurs."
  • RationalWiki on the alt-right, in an article on the Neoreactionary movement that discusses Yarvin in detail: "The term has come to be more generally be used for Trump supporters who think swastikas are good; in this context, it's just a hip name for white supremacists."
  • Hundreds of signatories to a statement on LambdaConf 2016: "Yarvin's selection as a speaker says to marginalized people that their humanity is considered merely another matter for debate."
  • The organizers of a LambdaConf 2016 workshop, in a public statement: "Yarvin is an unapologetic proponent of bigotry."
  • Moishe Lettvin on De Goes's reaction to criticism of Yarvin: "…watching the justification/rationalization of the organization for inviting this guy has filled me with sadness and a sense of shame… I would like to contrast this with the rationalizations — because they are simply rationalizations, without nuance, without depth — used by LambdaConf. The organizers claim to be acting amorally and apolitically. They equate racist writing with 'opinions'."
  • Jon Sterling, PrlConf program chair, on De Goes, LambdaConf, and Yarvin: "It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that PrlConf 2016 is cancelled, in light of LambdaConf's decision to include an outspoken advocate for slavery as a technical speaker. The program committee feel that we cannot possibly organize a workshop under the umbrella of a conference that values the free expression of racist and fascist views over the physical and emotional safety of its attendees and speakers. Our first priority is to act in solidarity with the many people who have been negatively affected by this decision."
  • Gabriel Gonzalez on De Goes, LambdaConf, and Yarvin: "Neoreactionaries like Curtis are not underdogs; they (unfortunately) have a loud and influential voice in our society… However, his presence is driving away underrepresented people…"
  • Andi McClure on De Goes, LambdaConf, and white supremacy: "@jdegoes: You must understand. You are working with white supremacists. You invited a leader in an organized movement. @lambda_conf"
  • Harry Garrood on De Goes, LambdaConf, and white supremacy: "I wish people would just say, look, you used MLK quotes to moralise to people who complained about you welcoming a white supremacist…"
  • Erica Baker on De Goes, LambdaConf, and white supremacy, quoted in Inc.: "There are many people with a vested interest in ensuring there is space in our culture (not just tech, but beyond) to continuing debating white supremacy and to continue coddling white supremacists, I fully expect LambdaConf to continue getting money, not because they need it, but because white supremacists want to reward them for their decision to include a white supremacist in their space."

Misogynistic statements by Ed Latimore

  • From Twitter: “The female seems crazy, mostly because it's not male. Every man has a range for sanity, but if you want logic and reason you want a boyfriend"
  • "Women are like fire. How they're used in your life decides whether you have a warm cozy home or one that's burned to the ground."
  • "Humans get together to mate. For guys, most of the information used to make a mating decision is displayed in a girl's physical appearance. It's why we really don't care about a girl's personality. It has no bearing on her reproductive abilities. Girls and looking for security because not only are they physically weaker, but that pregnancy thing makes a girl unable to fend off attacks."
  • "Have always went out of my way to avoid crazy women. But then again I barely like hanging around sane girls to start"
  • Latimore has made several videos supporting the "Red Pill" movement, a misogynistic collection of ideas that e.g. Business Insider calls "The Weird New Cult For Men Who Don’t Understand Women".

Response to complaint 2

"Our client does not single out women and accuses them of lying"

Note that the post does not claim that De Goes "singles out women". It does observe that there seems to be more evidence of De Goes accusing women (in particular Sonia Gupta, Christie Koehler, and Adrienne Leigh) of lying than others.

De Goes accusing women of lying

  • De Goes to Adrienne Leigh on Twitter (8 March 2017): "Which @Status451Blog blogger is "openly alt-right"? Quote or you're lying."
  • De Goes to Adrienne Leigh on Twitter in a different thread (8 March 2017): "I believe people lie all the time; you know it when you have evidence. I still have no evidence Clark is alt-right."
  • De Goes responding to Sonia Gupta's criticism of Ed Latimore on Twitter: "People will regret lying about him."
  • De Goes to Sonia Gupta on Twitter: "Quote or you're lying. I think we both know which one it is."
  • De Goes in a thread about Sonia Gupta's complaint: "Don't become bitter just because you disagree, & spread lies and misinformation, since that only discredits you when the truth comes to light—& it always comes to light. 21/22"
  • Sonia Gupta, in a public article about LambdaConf 2017: "Mr. De Goes has called me a liar."
  • De Goes on Twitter, screenshotting discussion of a blog post by Christie Koehler: "After you read it, please take the time to correct the misperceptions or lies of your colleagues that put this smear campaign in motion."
  • Christie Koehler in a blog post, referring to now-deleted comments by John De Goes: "One of the primary authors of the FCOP is going around asserting I am a liar".
  • De Goes's brother Matthew T. De Goes, in response to Christie Koehler: "Maybe if you asked us about FCOP you wouldn't have to lie about it? Just a suggestion."
  • From the "Drupal Confessions" Twitter account, which De Goes helped to run, about Christie Koehler: "In this illiberal authoritarian rant, @christi3k, who has done severe harm to Drupal, implies Crell is an abuser and master manipulator. She later admitted she based her accusations purely on 'gut feeling', which she argues is enough because 'this is not a court'."

De Goes accusing others of lying

I was able to find one example of De Goes accusing a man of lying, while not using that word, and with reference to a blog post by a woman (Christie Koehler):

  • To Damien McKenna on Twitter: "So fess up, you & your friends launch a coordinated smear attack with blatant disregard for facts? … Your statement is false…"

Response to complaint 3

"Our client has never engaged in any targeted harassment. Harassing other persons would be illegal. Our client conducts himself professionally and treats other people with respect."

The following three sections below outline several cases in which John De Goes participated in behavior that was described by many people as "harassment", "abuse", "aggressive", "combative", and "trolling". Note that the post makes no claims about whether De Goes's actions were illegal, and that the word "harassment" is often used to refer to behavior that may not be illegal in some places.

Drupal Confessions

In April 2017 John De Goes publicly stated that he had helped to organize an activist effort named "Drupal Confessions" (which included the Twitter account @druconfessions):

Many have access to the Twitter. We (cordially) parted ways over disagreements about next steps. DC wants healing. I want truth.

He also repeatedly made it clear (archived) that he was one of the more combative members of the effort:

If I can't help with reform (and I hope I can), I can at least help ensure the crater scares other communities away from the same decisions.

And:

Oh, if it were up to me, the letter would never come down. Not until there was a commitment to real reform. DC took the easy way out.

De Goes was also quoted commenting on the controversy in similar terms in an article in Inc.:

De Goes added, "There will be more, and it will probably get a lot worse before it gets better."

Some people in the Drupal community believed that De Goes could be operating the Drupal Confessions Twitter account alone, including Helena McCabe:

I don't think your multiple personalities count as 'many people', John. … I do believe that there could be others, but I think it's a smaller group than he's presenting.

The activities of the Drupal Confessions account were widely considered to be harassment. For example, the Drupal Diversity and Inclusion working group wrote the following:

Like the rest of the #Drupal community, we (leaders of the Drupal Diversity & Inclusion) are disgusted by the “Drupal Confessions” nonsense. … Regardless of one’s position on LG & the DA’s actions, Drupal Confessions is toxic and dangerous for the #drupal community. … Drupal Confessions divides community members and pollutes public ideas about what the #drupal community is. … We can’t simply dismiss Drupal Leaks as insane nonsense - they are attacking and doxxing community members.

Many community members agreed:

  • Ruby Sinreich on Medium: "John De Goes was also one of the founders of an effort called “Drupal Confessions” which called to reinstate a white male community member who had been removed from leadership positions for unprofessional conduct at Drupal events. That’s why De Goes and LambdaConf were already on the radar for some of us. DrupalConfessions then renamed itself DrupalLeaks and morphed into an alt-right attack organ which has attempted to intimidate diversity advocates in the Drupal community."
  • Ruby Sinreich on Twitter: "DC promoted conspiracy theories, cultivated anonymous attacks, welcomed alt-right & GG types, then gave them the keys to yr account."
  • Manning Peterson: "DC also provided the alt-right people with videos, personal info (names of family members, ??) and continues to protect these abusers' IDs"
  • Laura S: "So now we get threats? How does this help anything? https://twitter.com/druconfessions/status/855030372538691585 … I would add that behavior that constitutes harassment can all too often be dismissed by (frankly mostly) men as overstated or nonexistent 6/"

The account targeted in particular Christie Koehler, who De Goes also frequently criticized from his personal account. For example, Drupal Confessions wrote the following (archived):

Psychotic intersectionalist Marxist @christi3k rants on how trawling through 10 years of someone's life to build a political dossier is 👌

And (archived):

Extremist @christi3k hates Gor, wants to expel all wrongthink. … In this illiberal authoritarian rant, @christi3k, who has done severe harm to Drupal, implies Crell is an abuser and master manipulator.

Christie Koehler responded to De Goes and Drupal Confessions in several instances:

  • Koehler characterized De Goes's behavior as follows: "Ah, I see Mr de Goes is defending his conference (LambdaConf) and his code of conduct (FCOP) again and implying that those who disagree with him are liars. Tell me again how that's professional conduct?"
  • Koehler also repeatedly asked De Goes to stop contacting her on Twitter, over the course of over a month: "Get out of my mentions. … I have zero desire to interact with you about this or anything else. Don't @ me. (Second request.)",
  • Koehler also repeatedly asked De Goes to remove a statement he had published that implied that she had voluntarily contributed to the writing of the FCoP (as of 10 July 2020 he has not removed it): "Take my name off the 'special thanks' in your post. You do not have my permission to intimate I have collaborated with you in any capacity whatsoever on the FCOP."

Typelevel ban

In September 2019, the Typelevel organization banned John De Goes from participation in all Typelevel projects, project channels, and events, citing his "aggressive" behavior:

The cause is John’s combative style of interaction in Typelevel channels. His interactions when in agreement are always cordial, but when he disagrees with something or someone, the results are inevitably drawn out, intensely aggressive, and stressful. We have tried for the past three years, via one-on-one discussions and multiple warnings, to arrive at a style of respectful collaboration that we can all live with. These attempts have consistently failed, despite considerable time-consuming effort.

A more detailed explanation of the situation was later published by one of the ten members of the Typelevel Steering Committee who had decided on the ban:

In an attempt to adjust for this bias, several third-parties (non-programmers, entirely outside the Scala and even broader tech ecosystems) were consulted. … Each such individual came back with the same conclusion: John should be banned. In some cases, the judgments were even harsher; "he's a troll", was a common refrain, as was "he's just thriving on the attention". The fact that third parties, having no prior knowledge of the history or individuals involved, came to this kind of unambiguous and blunt conclusion, is very telling.

Other cases

There are many other cases where people in the community have discussed being targeted with harassment by De Goes or as a direct result of his actions:

  • When asked about the description of De Goes as "an abuser", Julie Moronuki wrote "i think it's an accurate enough description of my experience of him, and i believe it of the experiences some women Travis mentions by name have had, as well as the experience of a woman i am acquainted with in the Drupal community."
  • De Goes on Twitter in response to Adrienne Leigh, who had been targeted by ClarkHat and had asked De Goes not to attract his attention to her: "Umm, let's just ask. Hey @clarkhat, are you alt-right?" In response Leigh wrote, "i have previously asked you not to retweet that dangerous person who has previously harassed me into my mentions. PLEASE DO NOT".
  • From Andi McClure: "However, I criticized @lambda_conf in public, and now I am targeted for harassment by white supremacists. This is real harm. … @jdegoes Groups aligned w/this wiki hve run successful smear campaigns to get women fired recently,so this is a credible threat. @lambda_conf @jdegoes … If white supremacist harassment groups are investigating me, the harm done on @lambda_conf's behalf could even be harm to my person. … .@jdegoes: You must understand. You are working with white supremacists. You invited a leader in an organized movement. … .@jdegoes: You have created a situation where @lambda_conf is a safe space for those comfortable with white supremacy&unsafe for all others."
  • From Sonia Gupta: "I had already received considerable harassment on Twitter due to my speaking up about the event, but shortly before I was due to publish my response, Breitbart picked up the story, and the harassment became worse. I was afraid for my safety and I chose not to share my response with the world."
  • From The Daily Camera, a newspaper in Boulder, Colorado: "A lawyer-turned-software-developer new to the field says she has been the subject of online harassment after she confronted organizers of Boulder’s LambdaConf programming conference for hosting a keynote speaker that she says is a misogynist."
  • From Kelly Ellis: ".@jdegoes @tangled_zans You know... The blog that lambdaconf.us is driving traffic to? It calls for harassment. So. … Wrong. Thinly veiled call to harass someone's employer for employee tweets. … John, their blog does have posts calling for harassment of women in tech."

Response to complaint 4

"The FCoP is clearly not designed to protect white supremacists."

This section provides evidence that early discussions of the Fantasyland Code of Professionalism (abbreviated "FCOP" or "FCoP") focused on Curtis Yarvin, who is widely considered to be a white supremacist (see above), and that De Goes has explicitly and repeatedly compared the FCoP to the defense of white supremacists (specifically Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members) by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.

The FCoP was developed in 2017 after the controversy surrounding LambdaConf 2016 and Curtis Yarvin, and was summarized by De Goes's organization like this (archived): "FCOP protects professionals from being purged from tech communities for expressing beliefs in other communities." That it was designed with the Yarvin case in mind is unquestionable and widely acknowledged. See the analyses of Christie Koehler and Matthew Garrett for more detail about issues that many people have with the document. For example, Garrett described the FCoP in February 2017 as "an abuser's fantasy", and wrote the following:

The Fantasyland Institute of Learning is the organisation behind Lambdaconf, a functional programming conference perhaps best known for standing behind a racist they had invited as a speaker. The fallout of that has resulted in them trying to band together events in order to reduce disruption caused by sponsors or speakers declining to be associated with conferences that think inviting racists is more important than the comfort of non-racists, which is weird in all sorts of ways but not what I'm talking about here because they've also written a "Code of Professionalism" which is like a Code of Conduct except it protects abusers rather than minorities and no really it is genuinely as bad as it sounds.

The FCoP was developed and promoted by the Fantasyland Alliance of Technical Events (FATE), an organization founded by John De Goes. FATE's original statement of purpose explicitly referred to the controversy around Yarvin's talk at LambdaConf 2016 as the reason for its existence:

In April 2016, FIOL’s own LambdaConf event was attacked for refusing to ban a speaker with unpopular political views, whose anonymized proposal had been accepted by a blind committee. Activists attempted to shut down the conference by pressuring speakers and sponsors to withdraw, organizing protest petitions, and otherwise working behind the scenes to harm attendance.

Until the LambdaConf controversy, most conferences attacked for similar reasons were either destroyed (due to insufficient funds) or they caved to demands made on social media. LambdaConf staunchly refused to alter its position and was prepared to accept any consequences of this decision.

With the help of Status 451 (a free speech advocacy blog), a fundraiser was launched to support LambdaConf. LambdaConf ended up raising $40,000 with this campaign. Dozens of speakers volunteered to take the place of those who backed out, and new sponsors came in to help cover the costs for the event.

After successfully weathering the LambdaConf controversy, we at FIOL decided that we would use our experience to support other organizations who wish to take a stand in refusing to impose ideological purity tests on speakers and attendees. The result of this effort is FATE.

The GitHub repository for the FCoP project has been deleted (since May 2020, according to Google search results), but in early discussion threads, De Goes repeatedly made reference to Curtis Yarvin:

  • February 2017 (archived): "Second, if you were to create a COC that banned 'white supremacists', it would have to allow CY to participate, since he is not a white supremacist"
  • March 2017 (archived): "Moreover, there is no even remotely plausible of 'Nazi' in which, say, Curtis Yarvin is a Nazi. So if you ban Nazis, you'll still end up with lots of people like Curtis Yarvin, who believe that, while individual differences trump everything else, the mean of IQ test scores differs by 'race'."

In March 2017 De Goes also explicitly compared (archived) the FCoP to the American Civil Liberty Union's defense of the free speech rights of Nazis:

Do you understand why the ACLU defends the rights of Nazis to speak? It's not because they endorse the views of Nazis; rather, they find them repugnant. It's because if Nazis are denied the right to speak, then there will be another group which follows them (to say nothing of the warfare of disingenuously casting one's opponents as "literal Nazis", as has been done with Charles Murray and many others, for example); and so on, until what one is allowed to speak about and how one must speak about it is determined entirely by a fickle authoritarian government.

Similarly, FCOP allows participation by people you might find morally repugnant, so long as they behave themselves in the context of the community.

In this same thread, Matthew Garrett, a software developer at Google, asked De Goes the following question:

If community member A is a KKK leader, and community member B informs A's employers of this resulting in A being fired, this appears to meet the current definition of professional sabotage. Is this considered desirable?

De Goes responded:

This depends on whether or not being a "KKK leader" has implications on the performance of the professional duties of A, which it arguably could have depending on specifics.

This response indicates that the FCoP is designed to defend a Ku Klux Klan member against professional consequences for their involvement with a white supremacist organization, as long as it does not affect their professional duties.

In a proposal nominating the FCoP for Typelevel approval in May 2017, De Goes wrote that the FCoP was designed to protect e.g. advocates of scientific racism:

Things like vilification of Jews (use of the ((())) annonation on Twitter), nazi-ism, constant streams of rape threats to women on Twitter, etc...

As far as I am aware, there are exactly zero Scala programmers in the world who vilify Jews, promote national socialism, or engage in rape threats to women (all of which are illegal somewhere, and most of which are illegal everywhere, and are already extensively covered by FCOP).

Rather, all the real world cases are programmers being excluded for being conservative (including being banned from multiple tech communities), programmers being excluded for being Gorean, programmers being persecuted for questioning whether 4 year olds should transition, and similar.

These are the actual issues facing programmers, not the imaginary ones that you list.

I'm not saying FCOP is doing that, and maybe it can even be improved to address such exclusions.

Any community could layer on restrictions on participation in FCOP; they just have to be transparent about it, which is all that is being asked for by concerned parties. Want to ban nazis, slavery apologists, and so forth? Fine, then just be explicit about it, rather than hiding behind a vague COC.

These restrictions need to be clear on what they mean. Goreans have been accused of being "misogynists" and "slavery apologists", though everything in Gor culture is consensual. Neo-reactionaries have been accused of being "Nazis". People who have expressed concerns about the unbounded growth of gender pronouns have been accused of denying basic human rights to non-binary gendered individuals. People who believe there might be small differences in the distribution of IQ across sex or "race" have been labeled misogynists or racists.

Support for the post and its ideas

Statements specifically supporting or endorsing the post:

General criticism of John De Goes and LambdaConf on Twitter:

  • Gabriel Gonzalez: "I'd like to address some fallacies I see people make when defending the behavior of people like John De Goes Fallacy 1: "The accused person was nice to me, therefore they couldn't have treated others poorly" I believe this first fallacy is self-explanatory (1/4) … Fallacy 2: "The accused person has volunteered, donated, or otherwise helped people in noble ways, therefore these charges must be baseless" … This generalizes the previous fallacy. Evidence of good deeds or good intentions is not evidence of the absence of harm (2/4) … Fallacy 3: "You can't claim to promote tolerance while excluding people like the accused" This is addressed by the "Paradox of Tolerance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox" … Fallacy 4: "We can overlook people's political views and communities. All that matters are their technical contributions" This is the modern day version of: "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?" The communities we build around technology matter (4/4)"
  • Harry Garrood to John De Goes: "I wish people would just say, look, you used MLK quotes to moralise to people who complained about you welcoming a white supremacist, you have spent almost a year snarkily quote tweeting anyone who criticises fcop and generally just being a dick about it on twitter, You have said that you hope the 'crater' left by the drupal community 'scares others away from making the same decisions', Clearly our community has nothing to gain from listening to you, so go away. … tbh at this point, many people's reaction when they see an FCOP community is going to be 'these people side with racists'."
  • Justin Leitgeb: "This year's #lambdaconf has proven that by claiming to be neutral, it's easy to wind up reinforcing pre-existing systems of discrimination."
  • Sarah Mei: "WAR IS PEACE SLAVERY IS FREEDOM IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH A PRO-SLAVERY BIGOT SPEAKING AT YOUR CONFERENCE IS INCLUSION … tl;dr - @lambda_conf is allowing a man who believes white people should rule over brown people to give a talk, & calling that "diversity." Here's their tortured explanation, complete with bad survey design & selective data highlighting: http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-inclusion"
  • Sarah Jeong: "Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug, the center of the Lambdaconf shitstorm last year, is buds with both Milo and Thiel"
  • Sarah Jeong: "Wait, didn't the Lambdaconf from hell come and go? This is a new year, a new Lambdaconf right?"
  • Matthew Garrett: "Ha ha holy fuck the Lambdaconf keynote speaker is a literal Red Piller https://twitter.com/EdLatimore/status/867344731008839681"
  • Tatu Saloranta: "Thinking of attending LambdaConf? Read this first https://medium.com/@soniagupta504/bigotry-and-its-amplifiers-a-response-to-lambdaconf-e30577b396c"
  • Kyle Kingsbury: "Cool so the silver sponsor of Lambdaconf is Status451, which is written by folks like Clarkhat, seen here... fuck it"
  • Kyle Kingsbury: "Folks are getting mad that speakers have pulled out of LambdaConf as if there's some kind of moral obligation to speak alongside Yarvin."
  • Kyle Kingsbury: "You can say, like DeGoes has done in the annual LambdaConf fiasco: "well, we're amoral; if people who advocate slavery can conduct themselves professionally in the scope of this conference or project, they're allowed to stay". Or "we only care about code. Politics elsewhere". … But as @kf and @esten have pointed out, "apolitical" isn't a neutral stance. People talk about misogynistic behavior. They quietly move away from the community--or they speak up, and when they raise the issue, that conversation comes into conflict with the apolitical code."
  • David Nolen: "Wow LambdaConf is now on my list of conferences to NEVER attend http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-inclusion #moldbug"
  • @KirinDave: "Please stop making LambdaConf a friendly environment for harassment. https://twitter.com/mtdegoes/status/833830785551577090"
  • Zach Tellman: "I cancelled my talk at LambdaConf two years ago because of Yarvin's invitation. The only static I got was one guy asking if I was "virtue signaling." Stories like this are infuriating, but also prove how utterly wrong-minded the LambdaConf CoC is. https://twitter.com/soniagupta504/status/960501048388366336"

Evidence that De Goes read the post in September 2019

De Goes referred to the post three times on 3 and 4 September 2019 (indirectly but clearly; Skills Matter's decision was based at least in part on the post, and when De Goes writes "a defamatory hit piece", he is referring to the post):

  • 3 September 12:53 PM: "I have been no-platformed at Scala eXchange by people making baseless character smears. I respect the right of @skillsmatter to make the decision they feel is best. I respect the right of every potential speaker & attendee to respectfully write, tweet, & blog their response."
  • 4 September 4:09 AM: "No one who supports my ability to speak at tech conferences supports everything I've ever said or done. (Heck, not even I support everything I've ever said or done!) They're just saying that no-platforming me based on a defamatory smear campaign is unjustifiable."
  • 4 September 4:50 AM: "I am being no-platformed not for any of my (liberal) values, not for the way I treat people (with kindness), and not for my (positive) impact on people. But because of a defamatory hit piece by someone shunned from the Scala community for abuse and toxicity. Think about that."

There are also many people who specifically replied to his Twitter account with a link to the post, starting on 2 September 2019 (the day it was published). The following are just a few examples:

Note in particular that De Goes "liked" the first tweet above, indicating that he definitely saw the link.

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