How Basecamp Blew Up • Hacker News Board

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#781

Post by dnissley » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #764

dnissley wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To awkwardly extend the metaphor:

If a group of people trying to boil the ocean are convinced that the basin of the ocean is just a really big pot and argue that anyone who argues otherwise is a BAD PERSON obviously it would be great if we could convince them that the part where they're accusing people of being BAD PEOPLE for thinking differently is the real problem and reassure them that they can continue to believe that the ocean is in a really big pot.

Except that these two things seem utterly tied up together in their minds -- they learned it because it's stated exactly that way in many books and other media (you haven't read the nytimes best seller Non-ocean-pot-thinking Fragility?). They think it's as true as 2+2=4 because the theory's origins are academic and we must believe science don't you know?

Attacking the definitional issue seems doomed to fail to me as well, but I can't think of any other way forward that isn't worse.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#782

Post by javagram » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

marshmellman wrote: post #763

wyclif wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Feels like it would be very weird to ask someone if they are a recent immigrant (there are millions of African Americans who immigrated to the USA post 1965 or are children of those immigrants) or an ADOS to decide whether you should label them “Black” or “black”.

I’ll say whatever someone prefers though. Capitalizing “w” in white is a bit creepy to me though and has echoes of promoting the idea that all “whites” are the same.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#783

Post by shkkmo » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #775

shkkmo wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That depends very heavily on the nature of the injustice, doesn't it? I mean, take Godwin's perspective here: that's literally the logic that gave us the holocaust! Um... I completely failed to follow this. Are you talking about Godwins law? What is the logic that literally gave us the Holocaust? > Isn't that an existence proof that your intuition is simply wrong here? I believe you have an error in your modal logi…

If you polled Germans in 1938 about whether it should be state policy to kill six million jews, you would have gotten a hard no. Yet it happened anyway, because (to borrow the upthread phrasing) while sure rounding them up might "suck", it was important to "compartmentalize" and not conflate the injustice suffered by the local jews being interned with the prosecution of the war. So the people prosecuting the war got…

Holocaust didn't happen because the people who opposed rounding up people demonstrated as part of their private lives but didn't bring up their objections at work.

Pretending that THIS is "literally" why the Holocaust happened borders on anti-semitism.

The Holocaust happened because enough peoole there were willing to accept bad things being done when they were done to unpopular groups. The lesson to be learned from it is that even if someone is unpopular, we need to be strive to treat them with humanity.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#784

Post by vxNsr » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

SantalBlush wrote: post #769

vxNsr wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not sure how you twisted it:

the OP said “harassment isn’t acceptable.”

you said “why is that in the discussion?”

I said “bec some ppl here think it is.”

you respond by quoting free speech case law.

We’re not arguing about the merits of how the SCOTUS rules on the 1st amendment. It’s a discussion of the appropriate response to encountering someone you disagree with.

You calling my employer now and telling them they should fire me is not an appropriate response no matter whether or not it’s protected by the first amd.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#785

Post by gustavo-fring » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #695

gustavo-fring wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, political parties use racism and the language of demagogues to win votes. We learned that 2000 years ago. The trick is getting that there's no "party" attribute that determines that. Do you believe that the Democratic party doesn't use racist rhetoric? I don't even want to make this an us vs them whataboutism.

I think the thing you need to content with is the fact that when someone says the Republican party uses racism to win votes what they're doing is linking you to a wiki page with long and detailed documentation of the specifics of what they're doing and how. Now, in response to that you sort of just wave around and claim all parties use racism. But that's not actually true is it, there is no similar concerted strategy…

Nobody linked to that here, they made a lot of vague assertions. But you could, yes, and I'm sure that wiki page would be much easier to source than with the Democrats, because there are more people (many more) using overt racism in the Republican party today.

That's still not an actual response to what I posted, it is what we all know to be whataboutism. Nobody wins by playing the "they do it, too, but better" card. It just makes the losing party look incompetent and a little evil.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#786

Post by dang » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

jgwil2 wrote: post #328

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…

> My favorite moment was sitting there, and having a coworker (US born, but of Arab descent) who grew up in an extremely wealthy neighborhood with immense privilege, lecturing a blind white male employee about how much privilege he had, and then going on to talk about how white people were uniquely tainted by the slave trade that some of their ancestors engaged in. I find it pretty hard to believe this went down the…

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#787

Post by dang » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #648

jgwil2 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have an agenda and you're shading the story to fit your narrative. I would bet that other people would describe it differently. I notice you didn't reply about the name-calling.

I disagree with name calling. And I think you are arrogant and probably young. You form an opinion and cling to it. This ideology probably suits you.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. You've done it repeatedly in this thread, unfortunately, and have even crossed into personal attack. That's not cool, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.

We've had to ask you several times in the past not to do these things. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of this site to heart? We'd appreciate it. We're trying to have an internet forum that doesn't suck, if possible, and using HN for these acrimonious battles contributes to destroying this place. The site guidelines are the way they are for good reason and they need to take precedence.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#788

Post by SantalBlush » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #784

SantalBlush wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I’m not sure how you twisted it: the OP said “harassment isn’t acceptable.” you said “why is that in the discussion?” I said “bec some ppl here think it is.” you respond by quoting free speech case law. We’re not arguing about the merits of how the SCOTUS rules on the 1st amendment. It’s a discussion of the appropriate response to encountering someone you disagree with. You calling my employer now and telling them th…

>you respond by quoting free speech case law.

No, I didn't. You are making this up to win an argument. There is no reference to case law or SCOTUS whatsoever in my comment. What a bizarre fabrication. I see there is clearly no point in continuing this if you're going to argue in such bad faith.

Moreover, a response you deem "inappropriate" is subjective. Either your free speech is being denied or it isn't. My boss can fire me for saying a lot of things they don't like; that doesn't infringe on my right to free speech. This is the way it has always been.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#789

Post by javagram » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #774

threeseed wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IMO Cutting benefits is more unacceptable than cutting politics talk (which IDC about). Replacing it with an equal amount of money doesn't necessarily shore up because I'll need to pay income tax on any direct payments, and if they only give me the money that they would pay (companies get bulk discounts on gym memberships and the like) then I will be given less money than the service was actually worth. eg. if Baseca…

Unless you qualified for each and every benefit, replacing them all with money might end up being a gain instead of a cut. Anyone who doesn’t have a gym membership or isn’t currently paying tuition would come out ahead this year at least on their new plan.

Fair enough that it might not work so well in subsequent years due to taxes.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#790

Post by dang » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #542

arp242 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 grew up middle class, rural, and southern. So I don't have all the privileges in the world. But at the same time, I know that the privilege I lack is not because I am white. That is why when someone makes a negative comment about white people, it has very little affect on me. But hearing offensive comments/jokes about rednecks when I moved out west, that hurt a little, because there is some history behind that and…

It's important to remember that this is an international forum with millions of readers all over the world. It's not a majority-U.S. community.

I mention this because it's another dimension of context which gets badly overlooked when people discuss divisive issues that are dependent on specific places and histories.