【文章标题】：Authoritarianism of Code
【文章标题】：代码的威权主义
【文章正文】：
Authoritarianism of Code
代码的威权主义
Authoritarianism of Code
代码的威权主义
It’s my belief that authoritarianism is so ingrained in the fabric of software development that it has been internalized to such a degree that even the most anti-authoritarian people cannot avoid being authoritarian. This essay is an attempt to outline a framework for evaluating software development practices, organizations, and communities on the basis of authoritarian and totalitarian policies and behaviors.
我坚信，威权主义已深深植根于软件开发的肌理之中，并被内化到如此程度，以至于即使是最反威权的人也无法避免成为威权主义者。本文试图勾勒一个框架，用于根据威权主义和极权主义的政策与行为来评估软件开发实践、组织和社区。
My goal in writing this series of essays on authoritarianism is to give people in the software development world—and specifically in open source—the information they need to make a fully enthusiastic, informed, consensual decision to continue to be a part of an authoritarian system. What I want is for people who are currently involved in a project to avoid wasting their life working for leaders and a community that ultimately will simply exploit them as all authoritarian organizations do.
我撰写这一系列关于威权主义的文章，目标是让软件开发界——尤其是开源界——的人们获得所需的信息，以便能够做出完全热情、知情且自愿的决定，继续留在一个威权体系中。我想要的是，让目前参与某个项目的人避免浪费生命，为最终会像所有威权组织一样剥削他们的领导者和社区工作。
In short, I believe there is no such thing as a Benevolent Dictator for Life, and that by learning why that’s true you can better decide to for yourself how you want to spend your free time.
简而言之，我相信不存在所谓的“终身仁慈独裁者”，而通过了解为什么这是真的，你可以更好地为自己决定如何度过你的空闲时间。
Caveat Emptor
买者自负
Programmers have a propensity to use the Fallacy of False Equivalence to discredit or promote nearly anything. If you create a fantastic system for people to communicate, the people who hate it will says, “That’s just Twitter.” No matter how different your system is from Twitter, they will use False Equivalence to discredit your work by abstracting the definition of “Twitter” to be “Any system where people talk”. However, if this Twitter hater invents a new chat protocol that they want to 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 they want to mean anything else they want.
程序员有一种倾向，即利用“虚假等同谬误”来贬低或吹捧几乎任何事物。如果你创建了一个供人们交流的出色系统，讨厌它的人会说：“那不就是 Twitter 吗。”无论你的系统与 Twitter 有多不同，他们都会使用虚假等同来贬低你的工作，将“Twitter”的定义抽象为“任何人们交谈的系统”。然而，如果这个讨厌 Twitter 的人发明了一个他们想要推广的新聊天协议，他们就会宣称这是一个全新的、纯粹天才的发明，与以往任何东西都完全不同。这种随意的虚假等同让程序员能够利用抽象，将几乎任何他们想要的东西重新定义为他们想要的任何其他东西。
To prevent this fallacy of false equivalence I’m going to narrow the discussion to communities that do not gain Informed Consent for their authoritarianism. In fact, another essay will make the case that a defining criteria of authoritarianism is removing people’s right to informed consent, so if a project is honest about being authoritarian, then they are most likely not authoritarian, even though the community may be.
为了防止这种虚假等同谬误，我将把讨论范围缩小到那些没有就其威权主义获得知情同意的社区。事实上，另一篇文章将论证，威权主义的一个决定性标准就是剥夺人们的知情同意权，因此，如果一个项目诚实地表明自己是威权主义的，那么它很可能就不是威权主义的，尽管其社区可能是。
This means that if you’re reading this, and then you attempt to apply the false equivalence trick to make it seem like 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:
这意味着，如果你正在阅读本文，然后试图用虚假等同的把戏让一切看起来都是威权主义的，那你就错了。或者，也许你是对的，但我正在将讨论范围缩小到那些具有以下特征的特定社区和项目：
- Attracting people to join without enthusiastic informed consent.
- 在未获得热情、知情同意的情况下吸引人们加入。
- Utilizing this disparity in information to create, support, or promote authoritarian goals.
- 利用这种信息不对称来创造、支持或助长威权主义目标。
For example, if you want to say that all corporations are authoritarian, then while that may be true in an abstract sense, it wouldn’t be true for this discussion because people who join corporations definitely know that they’re authoritarian. Same would be true for an educational institution. People join universities and know that it is an authoritarian system by its nature. They’re clearly informed before joining, and enthusiastically pay to be there. This changes however if the organization doesn’t inform people of things that would have changed their consent.
例如，如果你想说所有公司都是威权主义的，那么虽然在抽象意义上这可能是真的，但在本次讨论中却并非如此，因为加入公司的人肯定知道它们是威权主义的。教育机构也是如此。人们进入大学，知道它本质上是一个威权体系。他们在加入前就清楚地被告知，并且热情地付费待在那里。然而，如果组织没有告知人们那些本会改变他们同意决定的事情，情况就会改变。
I will also separate analysis of authoritarian leaders from authoritarian communities. By separating the community from the leaders we can start to make a more distinct and accurate analysis of authoritarianism. We can have situations where the people in charge may be doing everything right, but the community is rampantly authoritarian. We could have the inverse where the leaders are completely authoritarian but the community is not behaving in any authoritarian way. It is frequently both, but there are a few instances where there’s a separation. Once we understand where the authoritarianism is coming from then we can start to make plans to change the situation, or simply leave now that we are more fully informed.
我还将把对威权领导者的分析与对威权社区的分析分开。通过将社区与领导者分开，我们可以开始对威权主义做出更清晰、更准确的分析。可能存在这样的情况：掌权者可能做的一切都是对的，但社区却极其威权。也可能出现相反的情况：领导者完全是威权的，但社区却没有表现出任何威权行为。通常两者兼有，但也有少数情况存在分离。一旦我们理解了威权主义来自何处，我们就可以开始制定计划来改变现状，或者在获得更充分信息后干脆离开。
Not Fascism
不是法西斯主义
You’ll notice that I deliberately use the word “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 also avoid the word fascism because it tends to allow authoritarians to dodge the substance of accusations against them with claims of conspiracy theory. The tactic is to wait for someone to scream “Nazi!” or “Fascist!” and then to say they are not a Nazi because they are not even remotely as bad as Hitler. They never killed anyone “you crazy conspiracy theorist!”
你会注意到，在这次讨论中，我特意使用了“威权主义”一词，而不是“法西斯主义”。从程序员的角度看，我认为法西斯主义是威权主义的一个子类，而我想在更普遍的意义上讨论威权主义。我也避免使用法西斯主义一词，因为它往往让威权主义者得以用“阴谋论”的指控来回避针对他们的实质指控。其策略是等待有人高喊“纳粹！”或“法西斯！”，然后说自己不是纳粹，因为他们远没有希特勒那么坏。他们从未杀过任何人，“你这个疯狂的阴谋论者！”
Accusations of mental instability are a favorite of fascist regimes, so if you see that you know immediately that person is definitely a fascist. But, not being as bad at Hitler is easily the lowest bar possible for ethical behavior of a leader. If someone’s only def
指责他人精神不稳定是法西斯政权的惯用伎俩，所以如果你看到这种情况，你立刻就知道那个人绝对是法西斯主义者。但是，没有希特勒那么坏，这显然是衡量一个领导者道德行为的最低标准。如果某人唯一的辩