Most if not all responses here appear to target Matthias, however, it seems to me that author is also blaming Racket community for witnessing first hand the bullying and doing nothing. Tolerating Matthias alleged behavior is in a way condoning his abusive streak.
Speaking as someone was bullied throughout their entire chilohood: the part where everyone knows someone is a bully, knows that the other is the asshole but just shrugs off your suffering and tells you to endure it instead of trying to intervene, especially if these are people in a position of power, that part is much, much more hurtful and corrosive to being able to trust other humans than the actions of the bullies themselves.
I still get disproportionally upset by people in authority positions not taking responsibility due to lacking the basic decency to take responsibility. Because at the end of the day that's all it is, and all talk of this being a "complex" problem is lazy justification after the fact by cowards quieting their own small consciences.
Although not the same thing as adult bullying, adolescent bullying generally occurs in the presence of an audience (known as bystanders), and youths tend to rate bullies as more socially desirable than the bullied; even those who are bullied may think that bullies are more desirable.
That's a wonderful bit of trivia, but it also doesn't in any way excuse the spineless teachers who rather tell victims to endure daily abuse than confront a group of ten-year-olds
Perhaps the author was speaking of not wanting to be one of the people who he thought were aware of abusive behavior but weren't confronting it?
Or do you think the author thought that the community in general was aware of abusive behavior, and implicitly condoning it?
This evening, on this HN post, was the first I recall hearing of abusive behavior from MF, so I was surprised. I'd guess that the community would also be surprised, though I suppose the community might've changed in the couple years since I mostly left, or something relevant might've happened publicly there that I'm unaware of. (I left, or went on hiatus, for other reasons, nothing due to MF.)
