The dark side of open source conferences

thought experiment, here: if you came across a new programming language or a new startup process or a new desktop environment and it used some terms you weren't familiar with, would you:

a) immediately decide that it was some kind of politically-correct conspiracy theory and the new terms were just silly jargon

b) look up the terms and figure out what they meant

Hmm, tricky one, there. Areas of interest tend to generate their own vocabulary. We talk about 'shared libraries' because we don't want to rewrite 'compilations of common functions that can be used by multiple external pieces of code' too often. To someone outside the field, 'shared library' is either a meaningless piece of jargon or a place you can go and get books. Are we muddle-headed politically correct conspiracies nuts? No, we're a special interest group with its own vocabulary. Why is it such a problem when the interest in question is prejudice against minority genders?

I did spend some time looking through this stuff after I made my original comment that was the first time I hit these terms. My bewilderment was of course treated as some kind of calculated insult rather than understood by the people who directly responded to me.

I learnt a few things, along those the primary understanding that there is nothing I could possibly say that would not be attacked on this topic, because I fundamentally do not use language the same way that people do who care about this topic. It's easier just to let it slide.