#PRINCIPLES

[classycookiexo]

[photomatt]

My Beliefs and Principles

A number of people are trying to brand me as transphobic, so I thought I would list out a number of my personal beliefs so folks coming across this in the future can judge for themselves.

I believe love is love, and consenting adults should be able to have whatever form of relationship they want or don't want. I believe governments should recognize all these unions with the same rights.

I believe people should be able to change their name, gender identity, and preferred pronouns whenever they want and however many times they want. I personally endeavor to follow all these preferences that are known to me.

I support adults making any modifications to their body they like.

I support people choosing to share or keep private the above.

This is not meant to be comprehensive, and in researching this post to make sure I was using the right language to express my beliefs I read through the Yogyakarta Principles and agree with everything in that document, which is much more comprehensive.

A few other points I'll include for context and history:

Both Automattic and WordPress.org, founded or co-founded by me in 2005 and 2003 respectively, have consistently supported LGBT+ organizations, contributors, and employees.

Automattic's open time off benefit includes full pay for medical time off has supported a number of people transitioning. We've invested considerable development time in updating or working around legacy HR systems to recognize the principles above, and will continue to as best practices evolve or we find mistakes.

When we remodeled Automattic's NYC office before moving in we made the bathrooms gender neutral. Same for a commercial warehouse I've recently remodeled.

I've personally donated to LGBT+ organizations as far back as 2016, and more recently have donated mid five figures to Human Rights organizations.

I have dedicated my life since the age of 19 to open source software, which I believe to be radically inclusive, and democratizing publishing, commerce, and messaging. My hope is this work contributes, even if in a small domain-specific way, to a more fair and just society.

[undead-knick-knack]

[imaanovernafs]

MUSLIM PRINCIPLES

To build your life around prayers

To seek tha blessings (barakah) of early morning

To understand you dont get to choose your family

To understand that forgiving can be difficult but to try anyway

To work for the Hereafter Life (akhirah) even when you cant feel the benefit now

To seek the halal when society makes haram easy and halal difficult

To follow the Sunnah when the whole world is going against it

[ilikeit-art]

Putting out fire using Bernoulli's principle.

[minsungincorrectquotes]

Jisung: If a pretty man disagrees with me, I will immediately change my views. I have no principles Minho: Maybe you should have some principles Jisung: You're right, maybe I should

[p3rysh1ng3mma]

i thought the resemblance was funny

[thewordfortheday]

But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command; therefore the king was furious, and his anger burned within him.” (Esther 1:12) Although a pagan queen, Vashti had principles she refused to compromise. When Ahasuerus called for her to present herself before his guests, she refused to display herself to the leers of other men and thus refused the king's command and therefore was removed from her position as queen. Whether at work, in social or in the political arena, Christians face tremendous pressure to participate in activities and attitudes contrary to God's will and command. It's important, however, that we take an uncompromising position when it comes to our principles. May the Lord strengthen each one of us to stand for our principles.

[quotelr]

Middle age has been defined as what happens when a person's broad mind and narrow waist change places.

A.C. Grayling, The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century

[philosophybits]

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause.

Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State

[dk-thrive]

They say you don’t know your principles until they become inconvenient to you.

— Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters: A Novel (Ballantine Books, September 3, 2024)

[unwelcome-ozian]

[entheognosis]

[sjw-irritant]

[elisabethbabarci]

"One must always remain loyal and true to their ethics and principles."

Elisabeth Babarci

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The task is endless, it’s true. But we are here to pursue it. I do not have enough faith in reason to subscribe to a belief in progress or to any philosophy of history. I do believe at least that man’s awareness of his destiny has never ceased to advance. We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as men is to find the few principles that will calm the anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks men take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.

C’est une tâche, il est vrai, qui n’a pas de fin. Mais nous sommes là pour la continuer. Je ne crois pas assez à la raison pour souscrire au progrès, ni à aucune philosophie de l’Histoire. Je crois du moins que les hommes n’ont jamais cessé d’avancer dans la conscience qu’ils prenaient de leur destin. Nous n’avons pas surmonté notre condition, et cependant nous la connaissons mieux. Nous savons que nous sommes dans la contradiction, mais que nous devons refuser la contradiction et faire ce qu’il faut pour la réduire. Notre tâche d’homme est de trouver les quelques formules qui apaiseront l’angoisse infinie des âmes libres. Nous avons à résoudre ce qui est déchiré, à rendre la justice imaginable dans un monde si évidemment injuste, le bonheur significatif pour des peuples empoisonnés par le malheur du siècle. Naturellement, c’est une tâche surhumaine. Mais on appelle surhumaines les tâches que les hommes mettent longtemps à accomplir, voilà tout.

—Albert Camus, Les amandiers (1940), first published in L'Été (1954)