- E04 - Leadership! Google, Guido van Rossum, PSF

[Anton Vredegoor]

Alex Martelli wrote:

> I just don't understand, always assuming you're in the Netherlands, how
> attending Europython in Belgium (as opposed to Pycon in the US) could
> have cost hundreds of euros.  Conference registration is free to
> speakers, bicycling NL->BE not costly (many were driving from NL, so
> bumming a ride was far from impossible either), many attendants arranged
> to "crash" for free thanks to the hospitality of others, food costs in
> Belgium aren't much different from those in NL.

Ah, I see. You're approaching this from a 'speaker' scenario. You
already have a lot of contacts, know where you can sleep, where to eat
and so on.
 
> I'm not saying a few hundred euros is 'cheap' -- it obviously isn't, if
> your income is low to nonexistent; rather, I'm wondering where that
> "hundreds" amount comes from.  You originally mentioned only pycon
> (where the need to fly to the US, for people living in Europe, can
> obviously account for "hundreds of euros" already); Europython is
> specifically held in Europe to be cheaper and more convenient to attend
> for Europeans, and I've always met many people there who fell in the
> "income low to nonexistent" bracket for one reason or another.

Now going back to my claim that elitism is bad, I think you are the
perfect proof of my point. You live in luxurious (with respect to
community, education and financial aspects of being a computer scientist
or programmer) conditions and can just not understand why some people
have problems entering that same environment and privileged conditions
as yourself. This attitude is very common and needs only some kind
Blair-alike kind of selfhypnosis in order to effectively not being aware
of lying.

What is shunned is any form selfanalysis, because it would immediately
reveal that you yourself are violently keeping all these people out of
opportunities (the backstabbing), in your case for example by requesting
certain degrees, without realizing that what you are selecting for is
not what you think it is. It is selection for socialization and
belonging to some kind of social group, not any mental ability really,
not even the likeliness of being able to grasp Haskell which you somehow
seem to link to having a mathematical education. 

Seriously, this is just a fraction of a unit above craniometry and you
would be wiser if you dropped this attitude.

Anton