Please don't change Beastie to another crap logo suchasNetBSD!!!

Louis LeBlanc FreeBSD at keyslapper.net
Fri Feb 11 07:12:21 PST 2005


On 02/10/05 10:30 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt sat at the `puter and typed:
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Louis LeBlanc
> > Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 7:59 AM
> > To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: Please don't change Beastie to another crap logo
> > suchasNetBSD!!!
> >
> 
> >
> > Those technical criteria were NOT drawn out in community fashion.
> > They forgot one very important thing:
> > The logo must be historically significant.
> >
> > That bit about not offending anyone is bullshit plain and simple.  I
> > for one think this whole PC movement is bull.  Don't get me wrong, I'm
> > all for peoples right to live their lives, but the PC movement should
> > have died exactly two days after it started.
> >
> 
> Louis,
> 
>   There is a difference between deliberately making people feel bad and
> offending people.  The PC movement originally started with the noble
> idea that people should not try to deliberately make other people
> unhappy.  This idea works very well with young children, and I must
> admit that I agree with it.

I disagree.  That's just good education.  The PC movement was a social
requirement to analyze every thing you say lest someone find a way to
be offended by it.  It did masquerad as a formalization of the idea,
but the idea that you shouldn't deliberately make other people feel
bad was certainly around 37 years ago when Mr. and Mrs. LeBlanc
brought their son home from the hospital.  I suspect it was around
long before then.

My 5 year old never needed to be told or taught not to hurt others'
feelings.  That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  She, however, becomes
quite upset when she's told - however gently - that she's just done or
said something offensive.  That's the way children are when their
parents take a real interest early on.  All we did is make her aware
of her own natural empathy.  She'd probably be a doormat if we really
tried to bring that out.

>   The problem is that when certain individuals get older, they start
> to believe that when someone does something that they don't approve of,
> that has no effect on their lives in any way, shape or form,
> that somehow it hurts them.  For example Ashcroft was certain that when
> 2 gays somewhere got married, that he suffered personal injury.  It is
> these people who have perverted the PC doctorine into something along
> the lines of "well you 2 fags are getting married only to get me
> so upset that I cannot ever get an erection again, so I'm justified
> in taking a club to you and beating your brains in"

I couldn't possibly agree more.  PC became into the new
fundamentalism; it was used primarily as a social weapon instead of a
teaching paradigm.  Zero Tolerance is the new one.

> Beastie became the FreeBSD Project's logo for many reasons, liking
> it was only one of them.  However never at any time did this happen
> just to spite fundies.  Nor does use of this logo affect fundies on
> a personal level, they aren't required to look at it if they run
> FreeBSD, nor are they required to talk about it.  Therefore it is a
> perversion of the politically correct doctorine for fundies to claim
> that use of Beastie isn't politically correct.
> 
> It is just like the breastfeeding in public debate.  It is a sad state of
> affairs in this country today when states have had to pass laws
> (like NY did) that specifically permit a woman to flop out her tit to
> feed a hungry child, because the fundies think that seeing a tit
> somehow harms them.

Agreed.  It's just hard to see people understanding how the backlash
from these societal errors could translate into a fervent wish to keep
a little red dude with horns and a tail on your computer.  Other than
these, I have to admit that the best reason I have for keeping him is
that I like him and he's too ingrained to ever really be removed
anyway.  The "business" reasons in favor of changing him just don't
make sense, but I have seen companies do better after a logo change.
The social reasons just piss me off - possibly for no good reason.

So, do you draw the line in the sand here, or just step back?  I've
drawn my lines before, and most of the time I'm *made* to step back.
Every time you draw another line, you get more fanatical or more
tired.  If you rankle over the lines you've drawn in the past, you get
more fanatical.  Otherwise those lines start to make less sense and
you just get tired and start accepting the ideals you drew lines
against.

Lou
-- 
Louis LeBlanc                          FreeBSD-at-keyslapper-DOT-net
Fully Funded Hobbyist,                   KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
Please send off-list email to:         leblanc at keyslapper d.t net
Key fingerprint = C5E7 4762 F071 CE3B ED51  4FB8 AF85 A2FE 80C8 D9A2

One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
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