> Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?
There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.
> Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.
> Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?
I absolutely do ask that. But the disproportionate number of brilliant people we see being cancelled lately makes me think that "toxicity" is practically a requirement for brilliance.
> There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.
Ok. What do you have to back this up?
From my perspective, a PhD is defined by making a new contribution to the field, and we're graduating lots of PhDs. Part of Butterick's ire is directed at the many other prominent members of the Racket community who have passively enabled Matthias by ignoring his bad behaviour. If Matthias was hit by a bus, would Racket cease ongoing development? Of course not, there are many very smart people driving it forward in interesting ways. I would assert that Matthias isn't even necessary, now to the continuing advancement of the state of art with respect to Racket.
My perspective is that progress feels remarkably slow (despite minting an ever-increasing number of PhDs as you say), and Racket is one of a very small number of exceptions. I hope you're right that Matthias isn't necessary for Racket to keep advancing, because I fear we're about to find out.
As long as Matthias is alive, you're not going to find out. He's not going to be removed from Racket, as much as you and many others here seem to believe there's some huge problem of "cancel culture" coming for "everyone brilliant."
There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.
> Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.
> Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?
I absolutely do ask that. But the disproportionate number of brilliant people we see being cancelled lately makes me think that "toxicity" is practically a requirement for brilliance.