it's important to find ways to reject stuff without, like.... purity narratives

there's a lot of really bad stuff in the world, a lot of serious mistakes happening, which needs to be in some fashion, like... made better, or ignored, or fought, depending on the specifics

@ireneista Apologies if I'm reading too much into things, but is this about the slopware list?

@xgranade kind-of, but it's a train of thought we'd been chewing on all week. the list just made us realize it needed to come out, and helped us find a way to do that.

@xgranade we should mention that we don't know who made the list, and we're a bit scared to ask. none of the discussion around it that we've seen ever linked to it or gave us sufficient search terms. that may be for the best.

@xgranade we should add, as a personal choice we don't use dtolnay's stuff. fuck that guy. there are other situations where we support boycotts of various kinds. it's the ritual of exclusion that we take issue with, the step that seeks to turn it into an engine of destruction.

@ireneista @xgranade FWIW, I don't think "destruction" was ever the goal, but some folks decided it was a crusade against individuals because of (maybe?) vibes. I can't validate that feeling any further because the repo is gone now and the creator has sworn off open source because of it, but I do find it a bit ... frustrating?... that projects that use Generative AI proudly are not pleased about that being mentioned in a centralized place. It's like they want the information asymmetry

@cthos @ireneista My own goal with participation is, at least, a matter of record at this point.

But perhaps restating things, I think that both it's a useful resource to know *what* precisely to avoid when trying to avoid AI, *and* that it immediately undermines the political impact of open source software to adopt AI.

@cthos @ireneista The secondary, and perhaps less kind thing, is what I said yesterday: I've tried going about this the nice way, with talking to people and explaining my views, and advocating for doing things better.

It fucking sucks that there's no an asymmetry where using AI is just fine and dandy, but objecting to it is seen as problematic.

So like, yeah, making some noise can be a good thing, I think.

@cthos @ireneista With respect to the substantive criticisms that I saw:

• Kat's motivation in highlighting cargo-nextest. I didn't notice that the initial list had exactly one entry. That's on me. But I also tend to suspect the last-straw interpretation. I could be wrong, it's all second-guessing at this point.
• The word "taint.' Not the word I would have chosen, but I read it in the way of "license taints kernel" and didn't object further. That's also on me.

@cthos @ireneista What I believed before open-slopware was created, and what I continue to believe is that there should be some kind of resource for helping people to avoid AI-encumbered software, and that people who boost AI should be held accountable for doing so.

Perhaps my tactical error, then, was in thinking that these goals can be addressed in the same way. Having both goals in one list invites people to conflate them, and then all hell breaks loose.

@cthos @ireneista I also think that, in addition to the several valid and essential criticisms, including the two mentioned above, there was a whole huge fucking flood of AI boosters eager to make that conflation in bad goddamned faith.

I blame myself for my own mistakes, but I also blame them for using my mistakes as an opportunity to drive a wedge even further. Both can be true.

@xgranade @cthos yeah, absolutely. there's more than one important perspective here.

@ireneista @cthos I don't follow sports, not out of any disdain, just not my thing. But I do remember the whole Zidane-headbutt thing. How effective a strategy it was for them to keep throwing slurs at Zidane until he headbutted them back and got a red card. Even deservedly, but it's always one-sided, isn't it?

The AI boosters can fucking take everything, and spit on us while doing it, and we have to be better than them at every possible moment. It fucking sucks.