Year after year, new people start running conferences. And year after year, people have to point out that running a conference while paying no attention to diversity will (a) ensure that your conference fails to represent whatever diversity already exists in your community, and (b) do nothing to encourage further diversity in your community. It's unsurprising that the people who've been making these arguments over that time get frustrated - they've had to keep on making them in the face of wave after wave of naive conference organiser.
Sometimes an emotional response is justified. Sometimes rational discussion gets you nowhere. Sometimes it really is just time for people to say that they are sick of this bullshit and they aren't going to take it any more. In this case, the conference organisers clearly weren't acting in bad faith - but nor had they put even the most cursory effort into making themselves aware of the issue. That shouldn't be considered acceptable behaviour these days, and if rational discourse hasn't led to it being considered unacceptable then maybe emotional responses will do.
I doubt that. The current US political system is (or at least appear to be) super devided and unable to get anything done. But does it lack emotional arguments? It doesn't seem so.
In addition you are arguing in front of a forum where people value rational speech and good arguments. Throwing a tantrum is not the way to get anything done here.
Finally you seem to assume that there is some way to convince your opponents. I agree that it seems likely, but how is it certain? And what gives you the right to go of the rails and decide what should be considered acceptable behaviour? That seems strongly opposed to the culture of freedom that has permated the hacker culture since it first escaped the wrath of the operators back in the early sixties.
I'm not disagreeing with your first paragraph -- that's what I was trying to acknowledge in my original post.
And I think there are many people who share the viewpoint of your second paragraph. Personally I don't think I do -- compromise is rarely made in the name of strong emotion. But I understand where these feelings come from. After all, for every MLK there is a Malcolm X. Maybe it's a combination of these forces that facilitates change. I have no idea, and can't speak about much else other than the fact that there are reasonable goals on both sides of this debate. We should be working towards them.
Oh, it's definitely a combination of the two that engenders change. If the calm, reasoned position is the only one expressed, the compromise position will never reach it. You need an extreme position in order to shift public perception to the point where the calm, reasoned position is the compromise position.
Sometimes an emotional response is justified. Sometimes rational discussion gets you nowhere. Sometimes it really is just time for people to say that they are sick of this bullshit and they aren't going to take it any more. In this case, the conference organisers clearly weren't acting in bad faith - but nor had they put even the most cursory effort into making themselves aware of the issue. That shouldn't be considered acceptable behaviour these days, and if rational discourse hasn't led to it being considered unacceptable then maybe emotional responses will do.