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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#821

Post by hellomyguys »

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…

The idea that MLK would think 100% male working environments in tech is ok and also the embodiment of one of his most famous quotes seems slightly off to me...

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#822

Post by Rapzid »

educaysean wrote: post #723
ryandrake wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand what "privilege" means anymore. I used to, but it now just seems to be a word that gets thrown down to try to end the conversation, whenever someone's arguing with a white guy. How did we get to this point where you can't even have a valid opinion about something if you're coming from some position of privilege?

Your opinion is valid regardless of your privilege. When it comes to discussing specific experiences that minorities face, however, you should defer to the experts in the area who have lived their entire lives being in the seat of discrimination. Hope that made sense.

It's possible for person to be more of an expert on issues "minorities" face than a single member of a minority. If it's their area of expertise and they have information from and exposure to wide swaths of those minorities. A third generation Asian American graduate from Sandford working at a startup in SF isn't having the same experience as a Vietnamese immigrant chicken farmer..

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#823

Post by cbnotfromthere »

DoctorOW wrote: post #730
throwawayboise wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?) How about Jodie says, "No thanks" "Aw, why not?" "Not really my thing" "What, do you have a problem with gay people?" I mean I see that as likely as any outcome from that conversation starter.

See that to me is the strawman... "No thanks" > "Aw, why not?" > "Not really my thing" and then the next line would be something like "It's a lot of fun" or "Straight/Cis allies are totally welcome" and if Jodie was like me the response is "I'm sure, but I just don't want to" and that's the end of it. There is an oft-repeated idea that non-queer people are getting in any way harassed to alter their lifestyle by threa…

> See that to me is the strawman...

> "No thanks"

That's where anything that NOT harassment should actually stop.

>> "Aw, why not?"

>> "Not really my thing"

> and then the next line would be something like "It's a > lot of fun" or "Straight/Cis allies are totally welcome"

So now they are indirectly asked if they are allies or not. Amazing!

> > and if Jodie was like me the response is "I'm sure, > > but I just don't want to" and that's the end of it.

> There is an oft-repeated idea that non-queer people > are getting in any way harassed to alter their > lifestyle by threat of accusations of homophobia, > despite being unfounded.

You are LITERALLY describing harassment while, at the same time, claiming this kind of harassment does not exist.

Let's see if your claim is falsifiable or not. Let's imagine a few similar scenarios:

1) a Muslim coworker inviting a Trans to a community Iftar at his local mosque.

2) a meat lover inviting a "vegan ally" to his family barbeque.

3) a 62-yo coworker inviting an 18-yo intern to his AA meeting.

Hope you get the point.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#824

Post by ErikVandeWater »

hellomyguys wrote: post #821
thu2111 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The idea that MLK would think 100% male working environments in tech is ok and also the embodiment of one of his most famous quotes seems slightly off to me...

People often don't like the implications of their principles.

For example, although MLK Jr. espoused being a good Christian, he did not follow the principles of being a good Christian when he cheated on his wife with multiple different women.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#825

Post by chewbacha »

yerwhat01010 wrote: post #645
smt88 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but you can't separate them when making donations. If I donate to Candidate X, I'm taking her economic and her social policies at the same time. In practice, this means that many large companies have to choose between issues they support. Microsoft may want lower taxes from Republicans, but they also want easier immigration and gay rights from Democrats. If a company takes only an economic perspective, t…

> Microsoft may want lower taxes from Republicans, but they also want easier immigration and gay rights from Democrats. That's probably why they donate to both parties: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/recipients?i...

Many times I see people cite these statistics as if they are the actions of the company. However. 90% of those donations are from individuals that work for Microsoft and list Microsoft as an employer. It’s cited towards the bottom of the page. I think that this mostly tells us that there exists a decent number of politically active employees and that a large majority of those donate to democrats. The remaining 9% of the donations are PACs which would have their own disclosures. I couldn’t find reference on that page for which PACs Microsoft is donating too though and which party those PACs are donating to.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#826

Post by asabjorn »

DiNovi wrote: post #89
baggy_trough wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the more toxic and censorious forms of social justice activism.

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

Discourse can only be had when one is open to listening to individuals different viewpoints and accepting differences. Unlike individualistic ideologies social justice define a person by a constantly expanding set of politically motivated unchosen groups organized as “oppressor” and “oppressed”, and it is actively opposed to discourse as it sees that as a mechanism for the powerful/dominant group to assert power over the less powerful group in a zero sum game.

I think its pretty clear at this point that social justice in the workplace lead to more conflict and resentment than its worth. It also makes excellent people doubt if they were hired due to a quota or because of expertise (or the reverse for other groups).

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#827

Post by asabjorn »

adamlett wrote: post #798
thu2111 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Generally talented people enjoy working with other talented people, and prefer to be hired and rewarded only for that reason.

The social justice diversity, equity and inclusion is a political stance that instead of seeing individuals see groups of "oppressed" and "oppressors" which is a recipe for a less productive work environment. These unchosen group identities are political tools and not descriptive of an individual.

Moreover, social justice uses activism to take over the organization to the point where it use as many resources as possible for activism. It is not unusual at this point for activist employees to ask a company to make bad business decisions for political reasons, so a policy putting political activism into the private sphere makes it clear that you are at work to create a long-term sustainable and healthy business.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#829

Post by jmadsen »

I'm curious to see how many of these people who make SF level salaries while living in the Midwest stand up for their beliefs and refuse the 6 months severance

Not that most of them wouldn't be able to afford to

"Read all about how I refused Basecamp's buyout and spend a year snorkeling in Belize to make myself feel better"

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#830

Post by pete_b »

I hope it works out for Basecamp. It is simply not ok to allow anxious or bitter people to be wearing each other out with political beliefs when they are being paid well to do a job. The twitter parade of martyr complexes is predictable but it is disappointing that so much talent has lost perspective on what professional conduct looks like in a workplace.
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