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How Basecamp Blew Up

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Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#941

Post by SvenMarquardt »

nicbou wrote: post #896
JPKab wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What is the playbook for a situation like this?

Don’t hire woke folk.

How? 95% of the employees that left Basecamp have pronouns in their Twitter bios. There’s your signal.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#942

Post by asabjorn »

dexterous wrote: post #250
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…

https://twitter.com/thejoshtorres/status/1389623426688569345 Relevant excerpt from It doesn't have to be Crazy at Work.

Yes, and Basecamp has with this improved their organization in this aspect.

Social justice activism divides individuals by unchosen group identities into "oppressors" and "oppressed" which is in direct opposition to acknowledging a persons feelings as well as listening to their viewpoints. Social justice activism has due to this predictably lead to resentment and unnecessary conflict in the workplace.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#943

Post by notSupplied »

newacct583 wrote: post #520
duxup wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand being hurt and more about the funny names list. But I think things have gotten out of hand when at an all hands meeting people are debating topics like: "we live in a white supremacist culture" Or demands from one employee to another at all hands meetings to denounce white supremacy. I doubt many companies could handle that right... and I'm sure many people would come away more hurt.

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 most typical reason people don't like to answer that question is because they believe it is as setup for a followup:

"Then why aren't you doing X?!" where X in this case could be "Fire this person", "Setup a committee overseeing all hires", "Commit to quotas", "Donate money to this cause."

Also reminds me of this "Yes Prime Minister" skit about leading questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#944

Post by comte7092 »

asabjorn wrote: post #938
comte7092 wrote: post #928

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim not to know their true motivation, yet your entire argument relies on the assumption that they had malicious intent. You also note that “the act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist” and yet it is clear that you have assumed that it is not throughout your post. And this is the crux of the issue. Ones entire interpretation of these issues relies on whether or not one believes racism exists as a s…

> You claim not to know their true motivation, yet your entire argument relies on the assumption that they had malicious intent. You also note that “the act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist” and yet it is clear that you have assumed that it is not throughout your post. The person(s) that attacked Singer used social justice activist techniques, claim of and demand for denouncing "white supremacy" in or…

Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups?

If you agree with both of those statements, do you believe white peoples are still given a higher place in society? Do you believe that to no longer be the case?

I’ll limit this to the United States.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#945

Post by [deleted] »

SantalBlush wrote: post #844
JPKab wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea how much software I ship, but like your ideology, you make assertions without data. You act as if the only people who are killed by police are "one of my brothers and sisters". Let's unpack that, shall we? https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ Roughly 3/4 of people killed by police in the US are not one of your "brothers and sisters" if by "brothers and sisters" you are referring to humans who share you…

From the first website you link: >Black people were 28% of those killed by police in 2020 despite being only 13% of the population. You basically just proved the point you were replying to, that racial inequality exists in policing.

[deleted]

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#946

Post by asabjorn »

comte7092 wrote: post #944
asabjorn wrote: post #938

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You claim not to know their true motivation, yet your entire argument relies on the assumption that they had malicious intent. You also note that “the act they claim to be racist may or may not be racist” and yet it is clear that you have assumed that it is not throughout your post. The person(s) that attacked Singer used social justice activist techniques, claim of and demand for denouncing "white supremacy" in or…

Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups? If you agree with both of those statements, do you believe white peoples are still given a higher place in society? Do you believe that t…

> Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups?

You are asking a question positioned using very low-fidelity and poorly scoped social justice dogma.

With Nigerians topping educaction and income stats clearly low-fidelity race characteristics is not a sufficient predictor of outcome. Likewise, asian americans have the highest median income so being majority does not predict the best outcome.

In addition to this, official identity based government and company policies create asymmetry in official hiring as well as promotion policies that favor BIPOC and women.

What does seem like a great predictor is being born into a family-focused culture where kids education is extremely important. This is a commonality between sub-cultures that do well, and skin color is no great predictor for culture. Some of the sub-cultures that does the worst have high rates of single parenting, including sub-cultures of white culture, and single parenting is also a great predictor of lower household income.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#947

Post by tha0xa3 »

banannaise wrote: post #905
JPKab wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea how much software I ship, but like your ideology, you make assertions without data. You act as if the only people who are killed by police are "one of my brothers and sisters". Let's unpack that, shall we? https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ Roughly 3/4 of people killed by police in the US are not one of your "brothers and sisters" if by "brothers and sisters" you are referring to humans who share you…

> See Daniel Shaver, who was recorded on camera being executed, unarmed in his underwear, begging for his life, by a psycho cop. Literally the only substantial voice that stood up and went to bat for Daniel Shaver was BLM. You're right, police violence is far from isolated to Black people. Most BLM activists would agree that stopping police violence has multi-racial benefits!

>Literally the only substantial voice that stood up and went to bat for Daniel Shaver was BLM.

I don't believe this is true. Can you like anything on BlackLivesMatter.com that touches on Daniel Shaver's death?

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#948

Post by JPKab »

majani wrote: post #940
andrewmd5 wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, all you have to do is push people who claim to want an apolitical workspace just a little to get their real views to surface. Enjoy your sad, weird life https://andrew.im/

Maybe address the fair points raised rather than demonizing the other side?

He seems like a good kid, and very smart. Homeless as a teen, white mom kicked out as a teen due to dating a black man, clearly unstable upbringing which is brutal for any kid.

Taught himself how to code at the library.

He was a recipient of the Thiel Fellowship. You get $100,000 for 2 years of living expenses and you get to work on whatever.

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to blog about that and instead focuses on the time a cop forced his head into a steering wheel because he reached in his pocket.

The human mind gravitates towards the negative, probably due to evolutionary pressures.

The US is such a racist place that a white dude who is a well-known Republican gave him $100,000 to do whatever for 2 years but he ignores that and focuses on the negative experiences in his life with the minority of whites who are bigots, ignoring the kindness he clearly must have come across.

I can relate because I had a similar background to him in the sense where I had a very poor and also drug addicted mother who was in and out of homeless shelters. Eventually when my father was able to locate me I got to have a somewhat normal life compared to that, although we were technically below poverty line income wise.

I don't think he ever got that lucky and I can't imagine what he's been through. He seems to have done great things already. I wish him well, and hope he learns to recognize how fortunate he has been in other ways. If being given 100 grand to do whatever for 2 years isn't privilege, then I don't know what is.

Edit:

Importantly, I forgot to add that he CLEARLY capitalized on that fellowship. He's created a pretty badass startup that leverage video/data streaming to allow playing of console/pc games on iOS/Android/etc. Personally of note for me, his startup created a grpc-like serialization format (bebop) that I looked at months ago for a project I was working on. The lesson/reminder for me is that behind every post on the internet is a human being who I probably have a ton in common with. Plus, anyone who buys an old Camaro and fixes it up themselves is automatically relegated to a higher status in my embarrassingly country boy worldview, lol.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#949

Post by sagichmal »

dang wrote: post #820
sagichmal wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(laughs) "Politicians and activists" obviously didn't politicize masks. No coherent reading of the last 2 years supports that conclusion. It was the screeching Republican base, who decided on day one that the masks were a symbol of government overreach and I guess got Covid to own the libs.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. The GP contained a provocation but the thing to do with those is ignore them, not single them out and then blow on them until they flare into war. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In no way did I do what you're claiming. Please unflag my post.

Re: How Basecamp Blew Up

#950

Post by comte7092 »

asabjorn wrote: post #946
comte7092 wrote: post #944

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups? If you agree with both of those statements, do you believe white peoples are still given a higher place in society? Do you believe that t…

> Just to clear things up, do you agree or disagree with my previous statement that “ people are treated differently by society as a whole, based on their race”? Further that white people have historically been placed at the top of a hierarchy by society at large, above other groups? You are asking a question positioned using very low-fidelity and poorly scoped social justice dogma. With Nigerians topping educaction…

I took it as a given that we could agree that there was an explicit system of racial hierarchy in the United States.

Call that social justice dogma if you want, but I’d consider it an objective fact.

Edit: because it seems to be unclear. The word “was” was in reference to the past. It’s an objective fact that there _was_ an explicit system of racial hierarchy in the United States.

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