How Basecamp Blew Up • Hacker News Board

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#561

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #336

dsnr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Third, they secretly deleted over a decade's worth of company chat history shortly before making the disastrous blog post. Why? I can think of a reason. To protect employees who are not part of the woke mob from being “canceled” by the woke mob.

any time I find someone like you complaining about “getting cancelled” or “cancel culture”, I just replace “cancel” with “consequences”, since that’s what it really is. They wanted to protect employees from the consequences of their words and actions.

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#562

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #336

dsnr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Third, they secretly deleted over a decade's worth of company chat history shortly before making the disastrous blog post. Why? I can think of a reason. To protect employees who are not part of the woke mob from being “canceled” by the woke mob.

any time I find someone like you complaining about “getting cancelled” or “cancel culture”, I just replace “cancel” with “consequences”, since that’s what it really is. They wanted to protect employees from the consequences of their words and actions.

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#563

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #553

otde wrote: post #463

Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work — like a fish trying to avoid water in the ocean. The ways companies are built and maintained, the relationship between employers and employees, workplace requirements and benefits — all of these are shaped by and and built from political systems, to say nothing of how politics surrounding a person’s identity might affect their worldview. You’re never going to…

> You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life. Sure, as a poc I can empathize with this but to then escalate it beyond "hey this sucks, let's stop, let's be better humans" to godwinning it with real atrocities in the outside world is toxic to the workplace. I would not want to work at a place where a POC of my own color was constantly making everything out to be a ra…

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#564

Post by kisstheblade » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

Threeve303 wrote: post #13

This story is so strange. First of all, it has been considered unprofessional to talk about politics at work for as long as I can remember. It's odd how you would need a rule implemented about that. Is this just a generational thing? On the other hand, when did racial equality become an inherently political topic? Especially racial equality inside the workplace. This also doesn't mean that the Basecamp founders are r…

"On the other hand, when did racial equality become an inherently political topic? Especially racial equality inside the workplace."

When you have "Black employees" who are racist, that's when. You know, "bend the knee" etc. Everybody white "does X" and are white supremacists.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#565

Post by MisterBastahrd » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #469

jjeaff wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about trying not to say things that are hurtful, but surely you understand the difference in making a defamatory remark about a minority or oppressed group vs a similar remark about a majority group that holds most of the wealth and power?

I think this entire mindset is wrong. I have no wealth nor power, I'm just a bloke trying to get by and struggling in life just like everyone else, not always equally successful I might add. Groups of people are comprised individuals, with large degrees of variation in any group. Using averages can be important for some things, but context and nuance matters a lot. Not every white person "holds most of the wealth and…

> I think this entire mindset is wrong. I have no wealth nor power, I'm just a bloke trying to get by and struggling in life just like everyone else, not always equally successful I might add.

Yet if you drove through my hometown, the chances of whether you'd have an encounter with a police officer would depend on the color of your skin and the type of car you drive. And store surveillance watches people closer depending on the shade of their skin. And local jobs are gotten depending on who you know, which is a fun way of saying "operators hire the children of friends, and white folks hang out with white folks."

So you say you aren't privileged, but there sure does seem to be a hell of a lot white privilege floating around despite your protest to the contrary.

Oh, but you say "what about the inbred cousin fuckers?"

Racial minorities get discriminated against before you know where they're from. It's why prejudice is a problem, but racism is systemic by default.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#566

Post by philosopher1234 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

sol_invictus wrote: post #537

newacct583 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know the context, but as to your second item... when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial? I know what you're really saying, which is that people on the right feel persecuted by being implicitly accused of being racists. And... y'know, that's fair. Probably 90% of the time in arguments like this that's an unfounded accusation made in bad faith just to score points. But still... the t…

The hordes going around asking you to "denouce white supremacism" isn't anything to do with white supremacy, it's a power play to subvert. Again, it helps to reverse the roles here to see how idiotic this is: imagine someone going into a black neighbourhood asking regular people to denounce gang violence.

you think they would resist denouncing it, despite the racism in that question?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#567

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #336

dsnr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Third, they secretly deleted over a decade's worth of company chat history shortly before making the disastrous blog post. Why? I can think of a reason. To protect employees who are not part of the woke mob from being “canceled” by the woke mob.

any time I find someone like you complaining about “getting cancelled” or “cancel culture”, I just replace “cancel” with “consequences”, since that’s what it really is. They wanted to protect employees from the consequences of their words and actions.

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#568

Post by antoniuschan99 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #404

cbsmith wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's always funny to me is this phenomenon generally has nothing to do with the actual people involved. It's just a story telling phenomenon. None of the people who know these thought leaders imbue them with qualities they don't have.

That does not seem correct to me. It’s not a “story telling phenomenon” that DHH and Jason Fried are perceived as industry thought leaders, it’s the result of both repeated actions on their part, plus some luck. Those two didn’t accidentally end up in the public conversation, they wrote five books about working, plus god knows how many blog posts, talks, and more. That is explicitly attention seeking behavior, and it…

It’s also content marketing (both the blog and books)

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#569

Post by MisterBastahrd » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #437

JPKab wrote: post #209

"But Fried and his co-founder, David Heinemeier Hansson, had been taken aback by an employee post which argued that mocking customer names laid the foundation for racially-motivated violence, and closed the thread." Children understand that calling people names isn't the same as violence. At some point can we all admit that the most narcissistic, dramatic people are overly-indulged by this garbage? I'm at a startup n…

Matt Yglesias has a good theory on this. "My suspicion is that this is a weird tic of campus politics that has followed graduates into the professional arena where they unconsciously started deploying it in less appropriate contexts. If you’re in a dorm at a fancy college and you can convince an administrator that something is racist, the administrator will probably put a stop to it. At the same time, “this is bad fo…

Matt Yglesias believes that the average college student cares about the inner workings of university donors, because Matt Yglesias' one talent is self-promotion, not thinking or research. The average college student is about as disengaged from the inner workings of the campus as one can possibly be. They are primarily there to take classes, socialize, and get the hell out of school.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#570

Post by philosopher1234 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

sol_invictus wrote: post #534

otde wrote: post #463

Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work — like a fish trying to avoid water in the ocean. The ways companies are built and maintained, the relationship between employers and employees, workplace requirements and benefits — all of these are shaped by and and built from political systems, to say nothing of how politics surrounding a person’s identity might affect their worldview. You’re never going to…

It's quite the opposite - it's a fool's errand harboring fragile employees who are willing to make such a show about a email containing juvenile name calling. You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue. This will hurt Basecamp in the immediate term but over time they will be better off.

This comes off as though you didn't even read the comment you're replying to. I don't see how you can, in good faith, frame their point as "the most miniscule issue".