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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#531

Post by motoxpro »

koonsolo wrote: post #515
ck425 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a position of privilege. Only people who aren't discriminated against can afford to take a position of indifference.

I am not indifferent towards people who discriminate, whether that is positive or negative discrimination. But thankfully those people are a minority.

I mean, I think this is like saying it's O.K. to not care about climate change because we have done enough and it's not a problem anymore. i.e. It's way better than it was and it doesn't effect me so I can live my life however I want, I am not worried about the future generations that may have that problem because of my actions.

In this situation, you are saying it doesn't effect you so you have the privelege of not caring.

Totally fair! Wish everyone were in that position.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#532

Post by marbletiles »

thu2111 wrote: post #513
krainboltgreene wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are hired to build product, not obsess over the diversity of the employee base, unless you are hired in a DEI role specifically. pssst those two things are connected > Discrimination happens against an individual. This is just weirdly wrong? > If you see discrimination happen against an individual, and you privately and discreetly address it with the appropriate people (could be with those directly involved, wi…

It's hard not to escape the conclusion that the goal of Basecamp's new policy is to quietly suppress or ultimately evict people who think like you. There is no connection whatsoever between diversity and building product. Note: you haven't tried to explain your claim there is, just implied it's obvious, probably because you can't. I've seen people try to honestly intellectually defend a connection between employee di…

There is an absolute wealth of connection between more diversity and better products: it’s not that a monoculture can’t make products for everyone, it’s that it’s easier for a team that has wider representation to do so: it’s a competitive advantage for them.

Want examples beyond hand driers? Apple missed menstrual cycle tracking in the Health app. NASA offered to send 1,000 tampons with the first woman in space - and had to abandon its first all-woman spacewalk for bad planning in kit availability. Google Photos tagged black people as gorillas. (Regardless of the cause, it shipped). SnapChat shipped a yellowface filter. Google Translate delivers highly gendered results when translating from gendered languages into English. Google Home is 70% more likely to recognise male voices because of training set bias. Women are 49% more likely to be injured in car accidents because the seating position for crash testing is designed for men. And - yes! - Pinterest has struggled to reach men as users apparently because of its SEO strategy.

Want more examples? Ask any passing woman what app she uses that clearly didn’t think about women.

Diverse teams make better products. The stats are out there.

Trying to argue this highly political. We wouldn’t even be able to talk about your point at Basecamp. Does that not worry you? Don’t assume they will always agree with your politics just because they’ve done this.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#533

Post by ZephyrBlu »

chii wrote: post #452
zorpner wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who do the work that produces the value.

> do the work that produces the value. who then got paid for said value.

People who say things like that generally consider profit to be stealing because there would be no profit if everyone was paid for their value.

The way I see it is that profit occurs because the value of the end product is greater than the sum of its parts.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#534

Post by klelatti »

mimikatz wrote: post #107
klelatti wrote: post #66

"Employees are free to...speak out on whatever horrible injustices are being perpetrated on this group or that . But that's their business, not ours." So BaseCamp as a company has no view on any horrible injustices as long as they don't hit their bottom line. Really surprised that a firm that is supposed to be great at marketing seems to have taken no account of how a sizeable subset of their customers would react to…

I don't care if the chip maker who runs this computer thinks Global warming is real or not. I don't care if my orange juice company has spoken out about human trafficking. I don't want those companies to take part in those things, but outside that companies should be in general apathetic soulless beings who only care about things that impact them and act in a legal and ethical matter to provide goods I want or don't…

Who mentioned lying? You pick out a few examples that you personally don't like - fair enough you're entitled to do that.

But Basecamp are saying that they will never have a view on anything in the environment in which they operate no matter how it affects their employees - as long as their profits are not affected - that is just bizarre and for many disappointing.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#535

Post by atonse »

randomsearch wrote: post #492
kiawe_fire wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. It’s made quite clear tha…

> Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. As someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum from you, I want to say - I respect your opinions, I can…

I agree here. I miss having loud good faith arguments with conservative coworkers (and ones more liberal than me) at lunch time and strongly disagreeing on some issues, and then just getting back to work talking about how much we hated Oracle databases. Mind you these were coworkers from all backgrounds.

I just miss high quality political debate. What we have how is just name calling and tribalism.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#536

Post by madeofpalk »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

> To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that?

This is just so alien to me. Maybe it's an American thing but I've never been in a workplace where this has been a thing. I've never seen these "quickly turning unpleasant" conversations in the workplace.

> 'm giving Basecamp the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're trying to stave off the former. But it's not that easy to do that without also affecting the latter

In 2021, I think we've moved past the point of benefit of the doubt. DHH and Jason Fried and (supposed) to be smart switched on people who recognise their own privilege. They (should) know that you cannot ban the former without impacting the latter and genuinely hurting people.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#537

Post by madeofpalk »

junon wrote: post #432
SNosTrAnDbLe wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many woman engineers are in your team as a percent of total?

How much does being a woman affect your ability to engineer? Should a woman only be hired because they're a woman, even if they're a poor engineer? That seems way more sexist than the alternative.

I would say reasonably. Products benefit from broad points of view. Companies should avoid making soap dispensers that don't work on black skin because they didn't hire black people.

The cliche is that tech companies are aiming to change the world. Software has real impacts on humans. Maybe the group of people "changing the world" should be a bit more diverse than just Dudes.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#538

Post by madeofpalk »

caffeine wrote: post #451
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

Your latter example is also expressly undesirable in the workplace. You are hired to build product, not obsess over the diversity of the employee base, unless you are hired in a DEI role specifically. Asking the questions you are asking is political. Discussing people’s membership in groups like cis or Native American or whatever else IS an unwanted political act. Those group identities are fundamentally political to…

> You are hired to build product

When making a product, have you ever given your feedback on it? Or are you just a "warm chair" churning out code that was instructed to you?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#539

Post by madeofpalk »

bitcharmer wrote: post #474
zorpner wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discussing people’s membership in groups like cis or Native American or whatever else IS an unwanted political act. Unwanted by whom?

By most people. You know, non-activists. We just want to come to work, do our jobs, hang out with other people passionate about what they do. Just enjoy this time and not engage in political activism. Is this too much to ask?

Tell me you're a white dude without telling me you're a white dude

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#540

Post by madeofpalk »

tarsinge wrote: post #523
SNosTrAnDbLe wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many woman engineers are in your team as a percent of total?

How many women are engineers as a percent of total engineers? Given the current ratio in my generation (mid thirties) we are at least decades away of having a significant ratio of senior engineers candidates, so I'm not sure your question is relevant to assess anything.

strong female engineers exist, so i would ask why you're not seeing them as candidates.
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