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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#791

Post by imwillofficial »

csa wrote: post #738
imwillofficial wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this has been covered extensively in large schools discriminating against Asians. Go google it if you’re interested. Big scandal recently.

I am very aware of the details of the accusations. My personal belief, backed with some actual detailed real life knowledge, is that most people who think that discrimination is going on don’t understand one of two related things: 1. How elite school applicants are rated. Most folks seem to think it’s just test scores and maybe grades. It’s not. 2. What successful applicants at elite schools look like on paper. Most…

I think you’re making a lot of assumptions of the average readers’ views on the admissions policies of elite schools. I’d say I have a pretty solid view of how the admissions process works.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#792

Post by henryaj »

UncleMeat wrote: post #657
DiNovi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, love to ban "censorious" social justice activism.

Yeah. Notice how the free speech absolutists are nowhere to be found here.

Pretty sure the free speech absolutists would say that private companies can have whatever rules they like on their platform.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#793

Post by tomlockwood »

imwillofficial wrote: post #759
tomlockwood wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it incredibly funny that you'd find an innocuous question about someone's post to be some kind of sinister rhetorical strategy. Its also very funny that anyone would consider the contents of a question about a post to be "putting words in their mouth". I am absolutely authentically curious about why someone would take the extremely funny step of appearing to rail against politics being discussed at work - by c…

I find it incredibly funny that you deceptively try to put words in people’s mouths by “asking questions” Then are dumb enough to keep trying your failed “ask questions” trick. Also your sense of humor is highly underdeveloped. Go watch some Curb your enthusiasm or something.

Curb your enthusiasm theme starts playing

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#794

Post by azemetre »

lovegoblin wrote: post #67
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grass lawns are also just flat-out bad. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-...

Which is a perfect example of how nothing is truly apolitical.

I'm extremely late to the thread, but why is pointing out that manicured lawns may have negative environment effects now political? I'm genuinely curious because after reading this thread you get the impression that you shouldn't be allowed to exist because to do so would be a political act.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#795

Post by sidlls »

angry_octet wrote: post #787
tomjen3 wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume that hiring a black person to an all white team, gives much thought diversity. My argument is that it does not, if that person had a middle class background and similar upbringing. If you hire a former gang-banger who is a wiz with eletronics, then you will have some real diversity.

You don't think that hiring a black guy will provide some useful perspective? (Or an immigrant?) I don't get why you contend that class is the only fundamental distinction here. Tech is often focused on the minutiae of our machines, but even then information and learning is not evenly distributed. I've worked with various minority engineers and also Indian/Chinese/Persian/etc and they've all had really different view…

"does not give much diversity" isn't the same as "will not provide some useful perspective."

This is the issue I have when discussing these matters with certain people. When everything is presented in such stark black-and-white terms there's little room for discussion.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#796

Post by deanCommie »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #758
deanCommie wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted, but I upvoted you. That sounds pretty shitty, I'm sorry. What you're describing is not acceptable, and frankly reeks of classism. Lack of education for large parts of the US is not a matter of choice, but a complete lack of access. Eugenics was super popular amongst the liberal elite in the first half of the 20th century until Hitler took things too far. I'm not going to pretend that I haven…

Thank you for the upvote and supportive response! I presume the downvote is from someone who similarly sees this as just a group of like-minded people making jokes. But this same kind of talk would be considered unacceptable if made about anyone other than a political orientation. And while you've had a very measured and respectful response, even your response is accompanied with labels of "anti-intellectualism" and…

I definitely didn't mean to accuse you of anti-intellectualism or science denialism, you've given me no reason to think either of those traits.

But I do have to paint "conservatives" for lack of a better word with that brush based on specifically mask and COVID vaccination responses.

I don't ascribe all anti-intellectualism to the right. Essential Oils, Vaccinations causing Autism, Healing Crystals, and Chakras are all anti-intellectualist science-denialism with a profoundly leftist tint.

But you have to admit that the people downplaying COVID, effectiveness of masks, and saying they are unlikely to take a vaccine are generally conservatives. And when this is the most prevalent subject of news in the world today, it ends up influencing people's perspectives.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#797

Post by thu2111 »

marbletiles wrote: post #755
thu2111 wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a woman on that team it says even less good things about Apple that they shipped without it. So you admit it's nothing to do with diversity, then, just an ambient assumption that the needs of women should automatically trump the needs of men and women combined? The simplest explanation for Apple's decision is not that they're all raging sexists who need to be forced to hire more women by activists, but r…

Periods are relevant to a "small handful" of women? Have you discussed your thinking with any women? Is it a "pretty grotesque" sense of entitlement at work when a man looks for a urinal in a public building? Or when a disabled person looks for the wheelchair ramp? These things have half utility at best by your "obvious metric". Take this further: imagine architecture firms were staffed mostly (80%+) by women. They k…

I feel like you're deliberately mis-interpreting me. It's a small number of women who kick up a big fuss on Twitter about the choices of Apple's PM team.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#798

Post by adamlett »

thu2111 wrote: post #511
SNosTrAnDbLe wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More importantly: who cares? The point of classical equal rights is the MLK, "my children won't be judged by the colour of their skin". The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. It's not. It's an entirely expected statistical outcome given the demographics of people who study the profe…

More importantly: who cares?

There are many good reasons to care. Off the top of my head:

* Having a diverse work force makes it less likely that you will be blind to problems caused by unintended side effects of your product that only affect certain groups.

* Having no women (or people of color, or people with disabilities, or...) on the workforce, will make you less attractive as an employer to talented people in these groups. Ultimately, you get to hire from a larger talent pool, if you make an effort to cultivate diversity.

* Making an effort to attract a diversity of people will make you uncover barriers of entry, that you might not have been aware of, and removing those has the potential to benefit everyone.

And finally, even if you believe strongly that your hiring practices are not the cause of the lack of diversity, and that the real problem is elsewhere (in the education system for instance), you can still choose to be part of the solution by providing proof that there is a desirable future to be had for a woman who chooses to go in to a STEM field.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#799

Post by tomp »

rakoo wrote: post #576
madeofpalk wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not giving a fuck about differences" is 100% the goal. But there are differences, so ignoring them is just sticking your head in the sand.

It's not about ignoring differences, it's about making sure our differences aren't important. It's a subtle difference but it's what makes the ideology work. The best example is that it is forbidden to have public statistics based on religion. Not because religion doesn't matter (it does), not because religion is irrelevant (it isn't), but because pointing out our different beliefs is the best way to pit people again…

> The best example is that it is forbidden to have public statistics based on religion. Not because religion doesn't matter (it does), not because religion is irrelevant (it isn't), but because pointing out our different beliefs is the best way to pit people against each other

Not sure that’s such a good example. When something is painfully obvious to everyone, the suppressing statistics only leads to more resentment, conspiracy theories and political unrest (or support for far-something groups).

A good example is terrorism in Europe. You can be pretty sure that if the race/religion isn’t mentioned, it’s not white & atheist/christian.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#800

Post by garrison »

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…

> I'm giving Basecamp the benefit of the doubt

It's not clear that they deserve the benefit of the doubt, if we are to believe Casey Newton's article, "What really happened at BaseCamp":

> Employees say the founders’ memos unfairly depicted their workplace as being riven by partisan politics, when in fact the main source of the discussion had always been Basecamp itself.

> “At least in my experience, it has always been centered on what is happening at Basecamp,” said one employee — who, like most of those I spoke with today, requested anonymity so as to freely discuss internal deliberations. “What is being done at Basecamp? What is being said at Basecamp? And how it is affecting individuals? It has never been big political discussions, like ‘the postal service should be disbanded,’ or ‘I don’t like Amy Klobuchar.’

> Interviews with a half-dozen Basecamp employees over the past day paint a portrait of a company where workers sought to advance Basecamp’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by having sensitive discussions about the company’s own failures. After months of fraught conversations, Fried and his co-founder, David Heinemeier Hansson moved to shut those conversations down.

https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec...

EDIT: formatting

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