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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#741

Post by tanseydavid »

emrah wrote: post #690
jarek83 wrote: post #675

I'm among those with mixed feelings. - list of funny names that is kept in some persistent form and circulates the company with full acknowledgment of the head people: Childish and extremely unprofessional, but still a typical mistake rather than a colossal disaster; - politics and racism issue: looks like typical misunderstanding but on a very fragile subjects. Very easy to get into drama scenarios with this mix. Ve…

I agree with you too. Jason and DHH draw a lot of attention, especially DHH, and some of it is not favorable. This incident just gave fodder to those who already had a pet peeve with them.

Having and acting on "Pet Peeves" in the workplace is about as unprofessional as one can get.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#742

Post by mumblemumble »

dnissley wrote: post #734
ramraj07 wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re missing a crucial bit that changes everything: one of the earliest employees is ostensibly a very, very right leaning person who made super questionable comments unprompted in the townhall, and refused to acknowledge racism as a concept could exist in companies. And one of the founders just couldn’t say anything that would have helped in that moment.

I'm a pretty left leaning person and I mostly agree with the things he's quoted as saying in this article. I hugely disagree with the way that white supremacism has had it's definition widened within certain circles and how those circles are now attempting to push that definition into wider usage through the type of bullying that's on display in this very article. For most people white supremacism conjures up images…

It's a fair point, and I too have a tendency to get annoyed at politically motivated language drift. But it's a thing that happens, and it's been happening since the dawn of time, and I'm personally pessimistic that there's much that can be done about it. Might as well curse a puddle for being muddy.

There's a lesson to be learned here. I wasn't there, of course, but, based on reading this article, it seems that arguing semantics was possibly Singer's single biggest tactical error in that meeting. There were much more pressing issues at play, and choosing such a banal hill to die on sent a strong message to at least some portion of the staff. Perhaps not one that he would have wanted to send if he had taken the time to count to ten before opening his mouth.

It's like in that Hacker News commenting guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#743

Post by SantalBlush »

vxNsr wrote: post #737
SantalBlush wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am on the other side of this debate, and I have plenty of downvotes from my comments in this thread without counter arguments. That's HN in a nutshell. My advice to you is to get over it.

I’m not complaining about the downvotes, but I’d like to understand what the disagreement is. I’m sorry that people do that. I generally will respond if I disagree instead of downvoting. I’ll take a look at your comment history and see if I have time to address it. ETA: I’ve looked over your comments, aside from one that appears to be sarcastic everything you say has a response to it. I added my own comment to one of…

It's not your fault, and besides, I received a more recent reply to one. These are heated topics that likely won't be resolved on HN comments sections.

Edit: I read your edit. It appears that in your mind, comments that disagree with you resemble a Twitter flame war, and comments agreeing with you are well articulated and thoughtful. In reality, your comments are just as negative and one-sided as the others you disparage.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#744

Post by vxNsr »

SantalBlush wrote: post #482
throwaway789256 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This dynamic is playing out in thousands of companies and startups across the US. Many people in the US, the woke, have redefined "white supremacy" and "racism" to mean most inequalities and behavior that they don't like: They do not accept non-racist environments, only anti-racist ones. They do not accept that businesses be politically neutral. Businesses must take political stances internally and publicly. To do an…

>They do not accept non-racist environments, only anti-racist ones. They do not accept that businesses be politically neutral. Perhaps they are the ones working toward a politically neutral, non-racist environment, and it is you who won't accept it. In truth, I don't believe either they or you could properly identify what a politically neutral environment really looks like, and you're probably all unreliable and serv…

The fact that you start here by assuming the OP has a nefarious plan simply bec you disagree with him politically is the entire issue. You’re willing to believe him when he says what he believes but you won’t believe for the part that you find distasteful. That’s some major mental gymnastics.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#745

Post by vxNsr »

SantalBlush wrote: post #702
s__s wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech by necessity requires tolerance. If there are extreme consequences to what you say you’re obviously not free to speak what you believe. Losing your livelihood, being bullied, death threats, mob harassment etc are not acceptable responses to ideas or opinions you don’t like.

>being bullied, death threats, mob harassment etc are not acceptable responses to ideas or opinions you don’t like. This is obvious, but I'm not sure how it pertains to this discussion.

Because many people in this discussion, on the internet and in our country do see it as an acceptable response.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#746

Post by tanseydavid »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #325
mpyne wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children understand that calling people names isn't the same as violence. This isn't the argument actually being made here, so if that's what DHH thought when he shut the thread down then that might explain part of the outcry. The argument is simply that the behavior everyone claims to decry (e.g. racial violence) starts somewhere , far below violence. "Funny names" turn into off-color jokes. Off-color jokes turn i…

> The argument is simply that the behavior everyone claims to decry (e.g. racial violence) starts somewhere , far below violence. Funny. That's the same thing the right-wingers are saying. > Just like we avoid pest infestation Well that's a nice phrase for a discussion of genocide.

>> Funny. That's the same thing the right-wingers are saying.

Your wording seems to have an unstated but implied meaning to it, but I am not getting what it is.

Could you explain the implied meaning if you intended one?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#747

Post by kingsuper20 »

ceres wrote: post #428
Tagbert wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ugandan violence started by efforts to make one group feel like the other group was foreign and illegitimate. that then progresses to dehumanizing talk. When the violence started people were already considering the other side to be less than human. I’m not saying that that is where Basecamp was headed but this kind of disrespectful treatment of people does warp people attitudes. It’s also painful when you find it…

> The Ugandan Surely you mean Rwanda?

Perhaps both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Asians_from_Ugand...

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#748

Post by notacoward »

Tainnor wrote: post #124

Honestly, in this story everyone looks like a big child. I would maybe be more sympathetic to DHH if it wasn't the guy who was so opinionated he pushed through Rails features that everyone else disliked or co-wrote several books on company culture that are glorified ads for basecamp (although "it doesn't have to be crazy at work" is still a thought-provoking read, at least in part). I can only imagine that he might b…

> Honestly, in this story everyone looks like a big child.

I don't know about "child" but there is a similar vibe here. This also comes through in blog posts and Twitter threads I've seen from some of the people involved. A certain assumption that their own account or opinion should automatically be accepted as default. Arrogance? Petulance? Entitlement? Somewhere in that space.

It shouldn't even be a surprise, really. Even if they were able to overlook political differences, DHH and JF were overwhelmingly likely to hire people who were like themselves in some ways. It's what founders and CEOs have always done, and has often been remarked upon since before they were born. "A fish rots from the head" is one of the less charitable forms. People's high self-image and approach to disagreement or confrontation seems to have been one of the (quite likely unconscious) selection criteria here. After that, a blowup of some sort was only a matter of time.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#749

Post by tshaddox »

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 actual quote from the article:

> “I strongly disagree we live in a white supremacist culture,” Singer said. “I don't believe in a lot of the framing around implicit bias. I think a lot of this is actually racist.”

That looks much closer to "one of the senior management team said white supremacy does not exist" than "he questioned the existence of white supremacy at the company."

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#750

Post by etchalon »

wyclif wrote: post #727
etchalon wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you approached the subject academically, you’d have an informed take on it.

My take is informed. Which one of those ethnicities do you believe I made up? Those are real people and real ethnic categories.

Your take isn't informed, as the reasoning behind the change, as explained by the editorial teams I linked above, and which has been debated academically, is an explicit counter to your primary argument.

Your take is "I have an opinion!"

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