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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#791
post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry, but no. The holocaust absolutely happened because the German people turned a blind eye to what was going on. Because whatever their private feelings might have been, they kept them private because they weren't appropriate to express in public. The German people, in aggregate, were clearly able to stop the holocaust. And it happened anyway.

Also let me just note that your casual attempt to accuse me of antisemitism in a thread LITERALLY ABOUT people being casually and unjustly accused of white supremacy is just "chef's kiss" level hypocrisy. Well done.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#792
post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm oppressed more so it's okay for me to say horrible things!" Who wins with this? No one wins, no one has anything to gain. It's just venting and only breeds resentment. People turn this in to a "I'm oppressed more! No I'm oppressed more!" contest. That leads to nothing good. Accepting that racism exists, is bad, and should be addressed _and_ opposing this kind of stuff are not mutually exclusive. I think it's ent…

You tried to play the "treat people as individuals" card, followed it up with the "poor white person is gonna resent you" card, and finished off with the "I want decency" trope. Congratulations, you hit the white supremacy apologia trifecta. You could have scored bonus points if you had also included "not all white people" in your reply. Did it ever occur to you that the reason that we have civil rights movements in…

Whoa, please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar, and please don't attack other users aggressively like this. It only contributes to destroying this place.

You crossed several circles deeper into hell with this comment. We're trying to go the other way, for what should be obvious reasons, and you don't need any of this to make your substantive points. Nor is it in your interests, because it only discredits your argument, which is particularly bad to the extent that your argument is true.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”?

Donald Trump attacked an American-born judge and said he couldn’t be impartial because he had Mexican ancestry https://time.com/4356045/donald-trump-judge-gonzalo-curiel/

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”?

I've seen this trope as well. The "Donald Trump refuses to condemn white supremacy" line, despite repeatedly and publicly doing so.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Donald Trump attacked an American-born judge and said he couldn’t be impartial because he had Mexican ancestry https://time.com/4356045/donald-trump-judge-gonzalo-curiel/

Biden said "poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-says-po...

Everyone says something they immediately regret.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#796

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…

Ultimately, no, they're not "bad guys" in the sense that they're irredeemably evil. Unfortunately, the current situation certainly paints them in the "extremely foolish or downright spiteful" territory Once a harmful set of actions comes to light, it's your job as the leadership team to: 1. Apologize 2. Correct the wrong 3. Allow your employees the space to process and heal a. Note: People are messy. Especially hurt…

The problem is no amount of space will ever placate, they will never reach catharsis until they burn down every transgressor, every windmill they view as a monster, etc. Activists will never sleep, and will take every single inch of space until they've rid the company of its "white supremacy culture."

You have to hold the line somewhere, and anywhere they hold the line, the activist employees will interpret it as the worst possible place.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#797
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…

Would you please stop posting ideological flamewar comments? Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27052375 in this thread. We've had to ask you this multiple times in the past, also. That's not cool.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27044726.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#798
post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Blacks aren’t a “real people”? Is your actual argument that African-Americans don’t exist as a distinct ethnic group? If that’s your argument you should say so.

You are misrepresenting my position. My comment was to the effect that they are real people and that you are trying to reduce and dismiss their ethnicities.

I’m not reducing anyone’s ethnicity because Black one ethnicity and Igbo is another.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#799
post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

No you really don't get it. At my company that I was formally employed at before moving on to my current startup, we had a minority of employees very aggressively and vocally demanding that the CEO issue an anti-racism statement after the George Floyd murder. A statement was issue condemning what happened and racism. They were not satisfied with this and demanded that the exact words black lives matter be used and al…

> I rarely see talented developers doing this because they're too busy working.

I love the privilege on display here. You can ignore racial inequality issues because "they are too distracting," meanwhile I have to wake up each morning, read yet another one of my brothers and sisters has been killed by police, and I still have to run my business. Your mediocrity exist in your complacently to the status-quo. On a daily basis we innovate, build, ship, and push tech more than you could ever hope -- and we don't need to ban "political discussions" at work.

If a business chooses to condemn something without backing up that solidarity with meaningful resources and capital, they should be criticized.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you need to label someone by their ethnicity in daily life? This stuff really only comes up in two situations:

1. Forms where the person in question just fills it in themselves (generally the option is Black/African anyway)

2. Discussions about groups of people in which case the labels are descriptive and fairly easy to navigate.

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