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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#311

Post by prepend »

threeseed wrote: post #215
prepend wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to say it isn’t denying it exists. Those are different things. If I’m trying to count to 100 and someone says “Prepend, please say that white supremacy exists.” And I respond “I’m busy counting to 100 and will not comply with your wishes.” That doesn’t mean I’m denying that white supremacy exists. It’s odd you would interpret it that way as it’s illogical.

You are just arguing semantics. If you do not acknowledge white supremacy exists and needs to be eliminated then you can't expect people to trust you on this issue. And trust is a critical part of being a leader.

I think we disagree on this. I have worked with and for many great leaders who never “acknowledged white supremacy” so it is definitely possible for me, and others to trust such people.

I’m not arguing semantics as my point is that there are many things more important than acknowledging white supremacy exists. This may not be true for others as it seems it’s super important for some.

But if I’m in the business of counting to 100 (or anything) I can be quite successful without including taking about eliminating white supremacy.

Note, I think that systematic racial inequity is bad and must be eliminated. But I don’t think the most effective way to do that is by talking about it all the time. And I think that I can not have any portion of my workday talking about it. This doesn’t mean I am for white supremacy.

I think, at it’s most basic, I don’t think silence is the same as endorsement. The world isn’t black and white (no pun intended) and everyone isn’t forced to choose sides. And it’s certainly not important to state one’s position over and over and over.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#312

Post by prepend »

thrownaway564 wrote: post #199
prepend wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hacker?

their explanation: it's "gendered and not inclusive"

That seems like they don’t understand the word. I can’t think of many more communities more inclusive than hackers. It’s certainly not gendered either.

Are all gendered words banned?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#314

Post by anon7725 »

tomlockwood wrote: post #108
anon7725 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has hints of "reverse racism" and tends to dismiss that racism is an issue...and if it is an issue, racism against white people is the actual and bigger issue. That's closer to the camp of "white supremacist" or at the very least, a common defense used by white supremacist. This is the problem with cultural Marxism / “wokeness”. It’s a sanctified, totalizing ideology that admits zero daylight between “100% agree…

I don't know, reading the quote you've included in this comment - it seems a lot less "totalizing" than you're saying, considering the quote itself uses the loose terms "closer to the camp of" or "a common defense used by". There's already nuance and wiggle room there, so, I'm not sure how you're immediately launching into a pretty sanctimonious and totalizing statement that "cultural Marxism" admits zero daylight be…

> Could you help me understand why you feel "cultural Marxism" is so, totally, totalizing?

It simply means that the ideology won’t stop until it has transformed all of culture. The progress thus far has been academia -> journalism -> tech companies. It’s coming for the rest of society. There is no area of life or society that this ideology does not claim to address.

You missed “sanctified” - the ideology resists criticism. Do you not see that this is the way religion used to be?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#315

Post by arp242 »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #99
mfer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, the executives absolutely clamped down hard on a discussion about workplace behavior. The current state of politics bled into this. There is a fair amount already written on it but the insinuation that laughing a names leads to genocide ended up in the picture. It wasn't about what was appropriate or not and then handling it. The discussion went far beyond that. > Second, they did an end run around the emplo…

Laughing at names did not lead to genocide and no one implied that. What someone did was share why it was important to treat this seriously and not let it slide... lest the offending behaviors continue to escalate. An example was shared from social science on a pyramid of normalization where such behavior eventually gets normalized. Classic and indisputable example might be Germany in WW2. It wasn’t like citizens wok…

People did equate the names list to some mass shooting of Asians though.

A name like, say, "Fuk Yo" is accidentally similar to the English "Fuck you". It's kinda funny in a childish way, but I don't think that making fun of it automatically implies that they think these people are of lesser value. i.e. I don't think it's automatically racism in the first place.

It's inappropriate because making fun of your customers is never a good idea, and it's also inconsiderate and impolite. But that's not the same thing as racism, or evidence of white supremacy.

And maybe some employees who worked on that list were racist; there is no way for us to know. I like to opt for a more good-faith interpretation, which seems very uncommon these days.

The idea that this would "escalate" from a simple list to actual racism seems unlikely. Everyone knows the difference.

Also, the holocaust was a lot more complicated than this "pyramid" lets on. The Nazis took power by force, in some exceptional circumstances, and the Holocaust wasn't widely known among the German people. It's overly simplistic at best.

> It is only meant to illustrate the classic slippery slope.

I have never seen a single "slippery slope" argument that I found convincing, including this one. In every single case I've seen everyone is acutely aware of the difference between A and B. I don't consider it an argument, I consider it a fallacy.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#316

Post by bhupy »

michaericalribo wrote: post #212
seriousquestion wrote: post #148

white su·prem·a·cy; the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society de·fund; prevent from continuing to receive funds Courtesy of the dictionary. This is not hard. Stop entertaining people who redefine words.

Your comment strikes me as disingenuous and willfully obstinate. disingenuous (adj) giving a false appearance of simple frankness obstinate (adj) pertinaciously adhering to an opinion pertinacious (adj) marked by an unyieldingly persistent fixedness (as of opinion, purpose, action) that is often annoyingly perverse in fact or in appearance It looks like you simply googled those words and copy-pasted the definitions.…

> This isn’t a helpful approach. Prescriptivist appeals to the dictionary and dismissal of others’ viewpoints are not ways of listening to the perspectives of others or empathizing with different experiences, and seem to be actively preventing constructive discussion in this case.

Agreed. On the flip side, I think it’s just as unhelpful an approach to co-opt a generally understood word (or phrase) and then (unbeknownst to the majority of peers) expand its definition to capture even mainstream behavior that might be construed as undesirable even if not obviously unacceptable, and then beat the same peers in the head with it when they express confusion at the changed meaning of words (or phrases). It’s a cheap rhetorical trick, and gets us further away from collaboratively solving very real and important problems in a pluralistic society.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#317

Post by MattRix »

thrownaway564 wrote: post #281
cleandreams wrote: post #273

I am a member of a discriminated against minority in tech and I find this level of wokeness appalling. We will sometimes politically disagree with our co-workers and I don't want to have to argue with them. It's dreary and demoralizing. Most of the time there is no change in views as a result and frankly, it's not worth my time. That said, it's very problematic to go into this controversy because one of the senior ma…

You - "one of the senior management team said white supremacy does not exist" article - "he questioned the existence of white supremacy at the company" Not the same

The article contains multiple interpretations of what was said, including the one the parent comment used.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#318

Post by sithlord »

arp242 wrote: post #259
thrownaway564 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their explanation: it's "gendered and not inclusive"

And what's wrong with husband? Or housekeeping? How am I supposed to talk about my husband doing the housekeeping?

you say

"My Man Spouse is doing the domestic science"

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#319

Post by prawn »

threeseed wrote: post #285
prawn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible that they were doing exactly that in trying to focus the staff on work itself? I'd guess I lean politically with the founders and their departing staff, and I don't love the "silent majority" that gets spoken of, but DHH talked about having people approach him who were uncomfortable with having a workplace they felt was politicised. As a personal example, I work in a shared office space. If a vocal ten…

You don't seem to be completely across the issue. If it was purely about talking about politics at work then everyone wouldn't have resigned.

Perhaps not - asking honestly, What did I miss? Other than people saying they didn't love working for the founders (and that seems to predate this issue). I said that in another comment, that it seemed the internet beat up is at cross-purposes: employees not loving the employers and founders asserting control (with repercussions) are both reasonable positions.

I read the first third-party piece about this and nothing sounded outrageous. Read Jason and DHH's pieces, and then DHH's follow-up entry. I read Jane Yang's bit. And I read some Twitter threads from employees.

Obviously employees are well within their rights to want a workplace where they form HR policy and the founders can want another scenario if they think it's to the detriment of their product. Former can move on to another workplace. Founders can wear the blowback of their decision.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#320

Post by jiofih »

moduspol wrote: post #192
ashtonkem wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that, no matter your political views, if a situation gets out of hand that bad over matters that aren't even really directly related to workplace concerns, something must have gone fundamentally wrong much earlier. Remember, the proximate cause here was something that directly related to what happened at work.

No, it was just claimed to be. It's not the case that forming a committee that's over 1/3 the size of the company to do unprompted evaluation of vendor relationships for DE&I and approval of guest speakers follows logically from, "there used to be a list of funny sounding names and management didn't handle it well."

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