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CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

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Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#231

Post by battery_cowboy »

kstrauser wrote: post #138
iamleppert wrote: post #118

Once a nazi, always a nazi.

That's an incredibly dangerous mentality, as it tells people currently in those situations that all is lost and that they can never participate in the rest of society again, so why bother? I think it's important to give sincere people a path to redemption, not because I have any sympathy for nazis, but because I want to have fewer of them around. Really, you could say the same about criminals, drug dealers, gang memb…

Or, we reject them from society and younger folks learn it's not okay to be a Nazi.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#232

Post by michaelcampbell »

rvp-x wrote: post #123
koheripbal wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He joined the navy at 18, in 1991 - immediately after getting off the street and out of the gang. Did you expect his transformation to be instantaneous?

A bigger question is how is one allowed to join the navy after taking part in a racially motivated drive-by shooting?

Wasn't it fairly common in the US' past that military service was an option if you didn't want to go to jail? I don't know for which crimes this applied, but it was definitely a thing.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#233

Post by koheripbal »

fortran77 wrote: post #144
koheripbal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also don't know it's not true. That's why we require evidence before we reject someone's claims.

But this was a claim about someone else. Let's hear from his mother. If I said something about you should the claim be believed until proven false?

This was a person's claim about themselves. If you have no evidence to the contrary, you obviously cannot accuse them of guilty of being dishonest.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#234

Post by pyuser583 »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #232
rvp-x wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bigger question is how is one allowed to join the navy after taking part in a racially motivated drive-by shooting?

Wasn't it fairly common in the US' past that military service was an option if you didn't want to go to jail? I don't know for which crimes this applied, but it was definitely a thing.

During the Vietnam era. Not 32 years ago.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#235

Post by koheripbal »

cultus wrote: post #170
koheripbal wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of hate in this anti-hate post.

Anything critical of the far-right tends to wind up flagged on HN. It's reflective of the overall industry.

It's amazing how anything that disagrees with far-left seems to get painted as far-right.

This guy literally worked with the FBI to bust skinheads.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#236

Post by koheripbal »

bravoetch wrote: post #129
koheripbal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... so you expect people to walk around with a giant billboard on their chest reading "I used to be in the KKK"? It's one thing for a person to atone for their mistakes. ...it's another more sinister thing to demand that they apologize to everyone perpetually . I find these demands for public apologies disgusting in their own right. All these social media types demanding that they deserve an apology for someone e…

He's been lying. He practically wrote a book about it and lied about that part. You invented the part about forced apologies - I didn't say that.

...and what any of this have to do with you? Why do you think you deserve to be apologized to?

...for a crime you were not a party to. ...at a time you likely weren't even born.

Ask yourself what emotional chasm are you trying to fill to get people you've never met to apologize to you.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#237

Post by koheripbal »

teachrdan wrote: post #180
koheripbal wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority... are not racist... ...and... > more than half of minority service members say they have personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism... These do not contradict. It only takes one person in one hundred to expose half the group to their racist ideas. It's also not surprising that the most racist people are also the loudest.

The narrative in this thread is that, not only will serving in the military make you un-racist, but that those who continue to be racist will be expelled. The fact that most respondents who are people of color have personally witnessed racism in recent months indicates otherwise. The burden of proof is on you to show that it's only "one person in a hundred" who exposes people to their racist ideas--and to explain why…

This is an impossible bar you're setting. People of color face racism in society in general. Where is your evidence that the military is so much worse that reforming a skinhead would be impossible?

Maybe you should stop looking for narratives, and start looking for truth.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#238

Post by koheripbal »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #157
dx87 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been in the military? From my time in the USMC, it was a meritocratic institution where your race was irrelevant, and overt racists wouldn't last long. Do you have any sources to back up the "strong ties to white nationalism" and plenty of likeminded KKK type racists?

This is a good starting point outlining some of the major incidents https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/military-white-nationa... I don't expect the commanders still preach a racist creed like they did for the first ~150 years, but they still tend to just ignore soldier's ties to white supremacy. For example, the USMC finally outlawed the public display of the Confederate flag this month. And white supremacy groups…

Is any of this worse than the rate of racism in society in general? How does this make it impossible that he reformed in the Navy?

30% of women and 17% of men in the US military are black. If there was rampant racism, I think we'd see a lot more trouble than the sources you've listed.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#239

Post by erdos4d »

asdff wrote: post #186
erdos4d wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small-government libertarians in my experience are really ok with big-defense. They are the sort who fund NSA and it's incessant attempts to vacuum up all internet data, spy on all people, etc. They rarely understand that those same powers might be turned against us all as easily as flipping a switch. It is a blindness that has always baffled me, especially since we have more proof everyday that that switch has alrea…

Because what small government really means is eliminating social safety nets and publicly beneficial programs, and focusing on protecting corporate profits above all else.

This exactly.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#240

Post by altruistic_swe »

throwawaybanjo1 wrote: post #210
davebots wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm a reporter on the team that broke this story, if you don't mind passing along my email to those people: dave@medium.com. much appreciated, and sorry to barge in on your comment.

Check this out dave https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14783521

You're absolutely correct about the info both of your friends shared.

I know because I was a Banjo employee myself (3+ years), before Damien step foot in Utah (during a company party, he told us while casually chatting that he gave his wife a budget of $3m to find a new house - they lived in Vegas at the time).

During my time there, Banjo was building a team in Vegas, NV and Redwood City, CA.

He is a workaholic. This would not be a problem, if he did not identify with Banjo (literally) and expect everyone else to work on his schedule (most weekends included, since he has no life).

If you are a high performer and take pride in your work, be sure that you'll be asked to put your life on hold, work weekends (a lot of weekends), and work toward the "greater good": Saving lives and reducing human suffering - what a joke! I wish I can say that during my tenure there we actually saved lives. But that would be a lie. A lie that everyone I worked with knows too well.

I've read several of his statements that the "life saving" technology was born in Utah. This is not true. We worked on the algorithms long before, and we did not remove users info for a long time. Only after the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal emerged in 2018, he mandated the engineers to remove all user identifiable information before posting it on our platform.

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