Eric S. Raymond: SJW Hordes Attack Meritocracy, Civilization Itself

I have known of Eric S. Raymond for many years, and appreciated his many contributions to open source software; yet dearer to my heart is his maintenance of the Jargon File, a dictionary of hacker terms that eventually saw print in The New Hacker's Dictionary. I recently encountered an essay on his blog from late last year detailing a rumor (one he felt delivered by someone "both well-informed and completely trustworthy in the past") that various "women in tech" organizations had set repeated traps to accuse ranking figures in open source software of sexual assault, in order to bring such people (and the movement they represent) to heel.

“They have made multiple runs at [Linus Torvalds].” Just let the implications of that sink in for a bit. If my source is to be believed (and I have found him both well-informed and completely trustworthy in the past) this was not a series of misunderstandings, it was a deliberately planned and persistent campaign to frame Linus and feed him to an outrage mob.

This activity is a natural outgrowth of commercial feminism. It serves no other purpose than eliminating meritocracy, as defined by people actually writing code and making it work in the real world, and replacing it with credentialism and endless political infighting.

We dare not give less than our best. If we fall away from meritocracy – if we allow the SJWs to remake us as they wish, into a hell-pit of competitive grievance-mongering and political favoritism for the designated victim group of the week – we will betray not only what is best in our own traditions but the entire civilization that we serve.

The SJWs behind this madness must be fought as Charles Martel fought the Umayyads at Tours, or else that civilization will collapse. This is no small threat: "What’s there", Raymond continues, "is totalitarianism in miniature: ideology is everything, merit counts for nothing against the suppression of thoughtcrime, and politics is conducted by naked intimidation against any who refuse to conform." With open source software backing everything from servers to supercomputers to routers to phones, the stakes are enormous. The collateral damage, sadly, will be women seeking to gain counsel in open source circles from high-ranking men, a perverse incentive created by people who do not understand second-order effects.

Those behind this can go to hell.