What Happened
It's my belief that authoritarianism is so ingrained in the fabric of software development internalized to such a degree -authoritarian people cannot avoid being authoritarian. attempt to outline a framework for evaluating software development practices, organizations, and communities authoritarian and totalitarian policies and behaviors.
writing this series of essays on authoritarianism people in the software development world--and specifically in open source--the information a fully enthusiastic, informed, consensual decision to continue to be a authoritarian system. What I people who are currently involved in a project to avoid wasting their life working for leaders and a community that ultimately will simply exploit authoritarian organizations do.
In short, I believe a Benevolent Dictator for Life, learning why that's better decide to for yourself .
Programmers have a propensity Fallacy of False Equivalence to discredit or promote nearly anything. If you create a fantastic system for people to communicate, the people , "That's just Twitter." No matter how different your system is from Twitter, Equivalence to discredit abstracting the definition of "Twitter" to be "Any system where people talk". However, if this Twitter hater invents a new chat protocol promote they will declare it a completely new invention of pure genius that is nothing like anything before. This random false equivalence allows programmers to use abstraction to redefine nearly anything anything .
Why It Matters
To prevent this fallacy of false equivalence I'm going to narrow the discussion to communities Informed Consent for their authoritarianism. In fact, another a defining criteria of authoritarianism is removing people's right to informed consent, so if a project is honest about being authoritarian, likely not authoritarian, even though the community may be.
're reading this, attempt equivalence everything is authoritarian, then you're wrong. Or, maybe you're right, but I'm narrowing this discussion to specific communities and projects that are:
For example, corporations are authoritarian, abstract sense, it wouldn't discussion because people who join corporations definitely 're authoritarian. educational institution. People join universities authoritarian system by its nature. They're clearly informed before joining, and enthusiastically . This changes however if the organization doesn't inform people of things changed their consent.
I will also separate analysis of authoritarian leaders from authoritarian communities. By separating the community from the leaders a more distinct and accurate analysis of authoritarianism. situations where the people in charge everything right, but the community is rampantly authoritarian. inverse where the leaders are completely authoritarian but the community is not behaving in any authoritarian way. It is frequently both, a few instances where there's a separation. Once we understand where the authoritarianism is coming change the situation, or simply informed.
What Comes Next
You'll notice that I deliberately "authoritarianism" rather than "fascism" in this discussion. From a programmer's viewpoint I see fascism as a subclass of authoritarianism, and I want to discuss authoritarianism in a more universal sense. I fascism because authoritarians substance of accusations against them with claims of conspiracy theory. The tactic someone to scream "Nazi!" or "Fascist!" a Nazi because remotely Hitler. They never killed anyone "you crazy conspiracy theorist!"
Accusations of mental instability are a favorite of fascist regimes, immediately that person is definitely a fascist. But, Hitler is easily the lowest bar possible for ethical behavior of a leader. If someone's only defense for their authoritarian behavior 't slaughter millions of people then that's no defense at all. It's entirely possible for someone to use propaganda, coercion and manipulation to convince a large population of people to follow their authority without murdering anyone. Fascist Defense I'm going to boldly claim the following:
You're only a fascist if you killed people. Everyone else I'm discussing is an authoritarian.
With that covered I can now devise a straightforward definition of authoritarianism:
Any deference to authority without the enthusiastic informed consent of everyone involved.
Notice this definition doesn't focus completely on authoritarian leaders. It also covers authoritarian communities with the "" definition. 't specific behaviors such as propaganda, any patterns of authoritarianism , any political ideals, or any requirements genocide. It simply someone deference to authority, and they receive this authority without enthusiastic informed consent, then that's authoritarianism.
The existence of authority doesn't really create an authoritarian system of governance. What does create authoritarianism is not questioning authority, or more specifically giving deference to authority. Deference is easily defined as "humble submission and respect", and manifests itself in various ways:
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