[pygame] Do you support The #Python Software Foundation making a statement in support of peace?

[René Dudfield]

hey hey,

Do you support The Python Software Foundation making a statement in support of peace?

Vote here:

https://twitter.com/pygame_org/status/1502989885296238593

cheerio,

[herve]

nope...

i could if the python software would have done such statements for all the war on earth for decades... but it did'nt

such statements are not for peace but for political reason. when us invde irak, no statement, when saudians bombs yemen, no statement, when ukies kill 13000 civilians, no statement, when otan bombs kosovo, no statement...

[Al Sweigart]

To quote Glyph, "I think it would be more helpful to make a statement in support of Ukraine specifically. To say “peace” might suggest that Ukraine should surrender or both sides are at fault. It is important particularly for Russians who believe state media to know that Russia must withdraw."

[herve]

soooo... why not for irak ?

[David]

Statements are just words no one will really care it'll do nothing except with the people who made those words think that they actually did something forget it just stick to python talk.

[Michael Lutynski]

I wanted to vote on this but Twitter said, "You’re unable to view this Tweet because this account owner limits who can view their Tweets."

So... what's the point of having a poll?

Anyway, my feeling is "no" toward the "PSF making a statement in support of peace".

As Herve said, there's a lot of hypocrisy toward the PSF suddenly making a statement right now. As if the PSF has suddenly become ethical.

If we go down this path of making statements about matters that are outside of software, then I have a passionate list of things that I'd like the PSF to come out and make statements for. Please, just ask.

 

 

~ Michael

> > <https://twitter.com/pygame_org/status/1502989885296238593>

> >

> >

> > cheerio,

>

>

>

[herve]

+1 Michael ... spit a list ;-)

[Al Sweigart]

I don't think "well that's how we've always done it" is ever a good reason for anything. Let's debate on the issue itself. If we want to argue that we shouldn't make statements on things outside of software, then argue for that.

And anyway, it's factually inaccurate: the PSF has commented on political affairs. Let me quote https://twitter.com/ThePSF/status/1267591714925133825

> The time for silence is long past. The Python Software Foundation stands in solidarity with the Black community. #BlackLivesMatter

The silence on the Iraq war is indeed regrettable and in the past. So the PSF changed. I would not like to see a new phase of silence in the PSF start.

[BW]

Don't presume to speak for me. Ever. Period. :)

[herve]

ok...

so if a stas should be done, let's begin from the beginning of whayt is happening : 13 000 civilians killed in ukraine by neo-nazzies (government) for 8 years... a statement today MUST quote this. else it wouls be a bullshit thing.

[Charlie Hayden]

> so if a stas should be done, let's begin from the beginning of whayt is happening : 13 000 civilians killed in ukraine by neo-nazzies (government) for 8 years... a statement today MUST quote this. else it wouls be a bullshit thing.

The 13,000 figure that I believe you’re referencing is from a statement by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. This is an estimate from 2019 of the total casualties of the conflict in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine.

This estimate is not for civilian casualties, it is for total casualties. Broken down by group, the figure is

3300 civilian deaths

4000 Ukrainian armed forces dead

5500 “Other armed groups” members dead

Attributing all casualties of a war with two sides— the (Russian-backed) separatist republics and Ukraine— specifically to Ukraine seems unfair. Is Ukraine not allowed to fight a civil war? Should we discount the Russian government because they killed 7-12 million in their civil war, or the US government because 600-700 thousand soldiers were killed in their civil war?

Anyways I don’t want to be drawn into debate, I just wanted to clear up the origin of a statistic.

Here’s the source for what I said: 

https://www.rferl.org/a/death-toll-up-to-13-000-in-ukraine-conflict-says-un-rights-office/29791647.html

And a word of friendly advice: statements are more convincing when they are free of obvious grammar or spelling issues. :)

Wow, my first post to the pygame mailing list is about politics… great.

Y’all should try out the new transform.scale_by function, available in a pygame 2.1.3.dev4 release near you!

[geneb]

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022, herve wrote:

> ok...
>
>
> so if a stas should be done, let's begin from the beginning of whayt is
> happening : 13 000 civilians killed in ukraine by neo-nazzies (government)
> for 8 years... a statement today MUST quote this. else it wouls be a bullshit
> thing.

Speaking of "bullshit"....

g.

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[Rick van der Meiden]

So, to get back to the original question:  it would seem not everyone is in support of  a statement by the PSF in support for peace.  Imho this mailing list is not the right place to discuss it further. It I'll just turn into a flame war. 

[herve]

 UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

the thing that point deaths by others and never deaths by us ? that thing ?

[Michael]

Yes I agree, "making a statement for peace" is ambiguous. Which peace? Who's peace? "Peace" is meaningless without a context and so the main question in my mind is who gets to decide the context? Who gets to frame it? And by extension willfully ignore other contexts?

Because we're open source kind of people, do we make a decentralized polling system so we can all chip in our ideas of which peace contexts to "make a statement for"? I mean, that could be cool. Maybe irrelevant to the individuals we're supporting. But *we all* get to decide and vote on *which peace contexts* to "make a statement for". We could do this continuously and forever, and that way no one's pet peace context can be ignored by the PSF's platform.

Then we have to ask ourselves: if we make statements for peace, should we expand it to make statements for the environment, for the animals, for the marginalized?

~ Michael

[Ian Mallett]

Hi,

As technologists, we hold a great deal of de-facto power, and therefore I think it is reasonable, if not morally obligatory, to be careful and conscientious, as well as promulgating kindness and respect for human life and our world.

Therefore, I do not oppose any "statement for peace" (even besides the very one-sided situation with Russia/Ukraine it obviously alludes to, I think everyone sane agrees that mechanized mass death is generally bad). However, I do feel like a "statement" is nothing but virtue-signaling (and rather vacuous virtue-signaling, at that).

If one truly supports peace, hand-wringy futzing about on mailing lists will accomplish nothing; the least one could do to make their word meaningful is to, for example, contribute to humanitarian efforts relieving human suffering in the region. Furthermore, the tools of computer science, together with the general privilege afforded by the technology jobs I and most of you have, give us opportunity to make real positive change beyond this. I hope that everyone thinking about ways to help will consider such more-meaningful efforts.

I regret I could not comment any of this on Twitter. I have been blocked pre-emptively from the account, and actively refused explanation as to why.

Ian

[Al Sweigart]

I didn't want to dominate this thread, so I've held off the last few days to give others a chance to reply.

Herve, I assumed that your "why not for Iraq?" question was a deflection rather than a sincere question, and your later emails seem to confirm that. The pro-Putin side never wants to come out and directly say they favor Russia in this conflict, for obvious reasons. Instead they engage in whataboutism or "just asking questions" or "now is not the right time" etc.

But to answer your "why not for Iraq?" question: because it was quite "controversial" to be against the Iraq war. Today, after two decades of waste, death, Abu Ghraib, and WMDs that never materialized, it's easy to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake. But twenty years ago we were calling our potatoes "freedom fries" and the Dixie Chicks lost their careers for saying they were ashamed of Bush. I'm sure twenty years from now history will show Ukraine to be the just side in this war and everyone will claim they supported Ukraine (whether that's true or not). But for now, making a statement in support of Ukraine seems to be...

...well, it seems to be simultaneously easy and of no impact ("what real good is a statement of support?") and yet at the same time, so controversial that it'll likely not happen if this thread is any indicator. And that is why the PSF did not make a statement against the Iraq invasion.

I'm against a generic "statement for peace" because it is cowardice; an attempt to compromise between the pro-Ukraine and pro-Putin sides and appeasing neither. As Desmond Tutu once said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

The PSF should make a statement supporting Ukraine. To make another quote, this one from MLK, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

-Al

[Nicholas H.Tollervey]

Al,

Really well put. Thank you for taking the time to share this thoughtful
reply, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

N.