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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#761

Post by SantalBlush »

Huggernaut wrote: post #673
vxNsr wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is of course the worst take. When I was in 4th grade we had to read a short story about a society that enforced sameness, it wasn’t the giver where they did it genetically, rather if you were smart they’d fix headphones to your ears that played a loud obnoxious noise so you couldn’t think, if you were tall or athletic they crippled you, basically they brought everyone down to the same bad level... That’s the soc…

I imagine the downvotes are mainly because the comparison seems pretty off base, regardless of whether one agrees with the good or bad of the original post. Comparing "you are now in a situation where you may have an opportunity to empathise with difficulties others have had" to "you are trying to build a society where more fortunate people are harmed in the name of sameness" doesn't resonate at all.

You are exactly right. The funny thing is that the short story in question, Harrison Bergeron, was meant as a satire of right-wing fears of slippery slopes toward sameness. It's no coincidence that the comparison is made here; the comparison is exactly what Kurt Vonnegut was making fun of when he wrote the story.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#762

Post by luxuryballs »

Poiesis wrote: post #573
gustavo-fring wrote: post #526

I'm Jewish Colombian among other things. I'm a mutt. I can pass as white. Where my dad came from (Scary Gary) you voted Republican because up until about the 1960s, they were the party that cared about immigrants and wanted them to succeed. So, when he moved to a similarly Republican state in the 80s, he remained a Republican. The Republican is not a werewolf boogeyman around here. I made the mistake once of saying t…

I don't exactly how old your anecdote is, but I think it's pretty well established that Donald Trump is a racist, as are many of the people he chooses to work with. When Trump was president, there was little if any pushback to his racism in the Republican Party, and they chose instead to "close ranks" and support him. Under those circumstances, I can understand why people would say they're a Democrat because they're…

I’ve never seen any indication that Donald Trump is racist, how can it be “well established”?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#763

Post by marshmellman »

wyclif wrote: post #669
charlesu wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black is an overloaded term. It’s a race and an ethnicity. If you were to write about black people in Africa, it would be nonsensical to capitalize it because black doesn’t communicate any shared identity in that context. The right granularity is national, ethnic, or tribal. But Black is a cultural identity in the context of the United States. Blacks, or African-Americans, are ethnically distinct and have shared hist…

I disagree fundamentally with your take because I approach this subject academically instead of in pop culture terms. Both blacks and whites have distinct ethnic groups that are more granular. Just as whites are ethnically English, Irish, German, Scandinavian, Italian, etc., blacks are ethnically Akan, Cuban, Caribbean, Abyssian, Fulani, Zulu, Oromo, and more.

I believe Black (when capitalized) is meant to refer to American descendants of slavery.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#764

Post by mumblemumble »

dnissley wrote: post #753
mumblemumble wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 argu…

The problem is the definitional issue is the foundation of many of their arguments. If you give in here, then it's much easier for them to convince you that something must be done. "There's not much we can do as a company to confront the white supremacist society we live in" sounds downright dismissive compared to "there's not much we can do as a company to support police accountability or any of the other myriad way…

I guess? Though I'm not sure that arguing about the name of the ocean is actually the easiest way to convince people not to get hung up on trying to boil it. Even when fuzzy language is directly responsible for sucking people into a boil-the-ocean mindset, I've never seen anyone actually succeed by choosing that plan of attack. Usually it just results in people talking past each other.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#765

Post by luxuryballs »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #663
ryandrake wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how white supremacy even comes up as a topic at a company that makes business collaboration software. Maybe I’m lucky but I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years, and it’s never come up as a topic of work discussion. Vi vs emacs? Yup. Debugging techniques? Sure. Linux vs Windows? Many times. White supremacy??? I can’t think of a single moment where that would have been on-topic for any tech job…

It probably came up because of the "funny" internal names they were giving to customers, some of them being in Asia and Africa. While some may view that as harmless fun, others might see it as mocking/insulting. Maybe it's a valid question whether the names came from wanting to feel superior. If my wife told me the neighbors got a BMW, I could reply that "Huh, their bank is going to lose all their money", mocking the…

I would be shocked if anyone was being racist or thinking themselves superior by making a list of funny sounding names that made them laugh. It’s just a coincidence that the funny names would possibly be a specific race. This seems obvious given the fact that the names were chosen for being funny not because they were names belonging to specific races. Any name that didn’t sound funny yet was a person of another race didn’t likely make it to the list… unless they specifically had a list of “non-white people using white sounding names”, etc.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#766

Post by luxuryballs »

Poiesis wrote: post #587
wvenable wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial? I'm old and never in my life have I ever been asked to denounce white supremacy. If someone asked me to denounce it, I'd be insulted that they asked. There's some serious implications behind asking someone that question that I hope would never apply to me.

I think people's defensiveness can get in the way of empathy. I would be somewhat dismayed if someone asked me to denounce white supremacy, because I would hope that it would be obvious that I abhor white supremacy. I don't think I'd be insulted, though--and certainly not to the level of refusing to do any denouncing. Of course it's wrong! Hope to live in a world where it goes without saying. Until then, happy to rep…

and if someone is being defensive it’s extremely likely that they were approached or engaged with an equal lack of empathy, the obvious one being starting out with any assumption based on their skin color, it then risks becoming a Kafka trap, which is when you claim someone denying something is evidence of it actually being true

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#767

Post by luxuryballs »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #668
philosopher1234 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Read some of his other comments. It's not a coincidence that he pops up whenever there is a thread involving race on this site.

if true perhaps it’s just something he has a strong opinion about, doesn’t indicate anything bad

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#768

Post by commandlinefan »

JPKab wrote: post #232

Do what I did in February: Quit. Life's too short to waste time at a company that's forgotten it's purpose. This ideology borders on cult like. A good sign that you are dealing with an irrational ideology is non-sensical, illogical and inconsisten rules. For example, in this article, "Black" is capitalized everywhere its mentioned, and "white" isn't. There's nothing logically consistent about this, because it's a bor…

> Do what I did in February: > Quit.

But go where? Where can you go to escape this insanity? It seems to have taken hold everywhere (except, I guess Basecamp?)

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#769

Post by SantalBlush »

vxNsr wrote: post #745
SantalBlush wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>many people in this discussion

No they don't; we're talking about verbal disagreements and resignations in the workplace. None of these things deprive anyone of their First Amendment rights. If someone verbally disagrees with you, they are not infringing on your right to free speech; by insinuating that they are, you are taking an anti-free-speech position.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#770

Post by KittenInABox »

JPKab wrote: post #541
etchalon wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a replacement for the term "African American", which is the best way to think of it and why it's capitalized. A good number of major publications have posted explanations for the editorial change: https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-cultures-race-and-e... https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black...

Respectfully, I view these explanations as a retcon. Race is a social construct and the reason these newspapers chose not to capitalize white was because it's historically been capitalized by white nationalists. It's also historically been capitalized by black nationalists. That's what ethno-fascists do. They reduce reality down to singular dimensions and obsess about them as they tell everyone to blame their problem…

I'm confused by this logic, because by this logic capitalizing "German Jews" is ethno-fascist, or "Asian". Am I missing something? Are Asian-Americans ethno-fascist?
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