The best time to plant a tree was yesterday, the second best time to plant a tree is today. Being proactive is better than being reactive, but we shouldn't poohoo the value of being at least reactive now and maybe proactive in the future.

I think this is the most pragmatic approach. Quite frankly, these players' intent is irrelevant. It's the results of their actions that matter. However, it is useful to understand the incentives that they respond to, particularly when we have the ability to use those incentives to elicit further good acts in the future.

Many 'activists' seem to think that simply having good intentions and beliefs makes one a 'good' person (and many seem to stop at that point). But as it turns out, a starving person derives no nourishment from your internal happy feelings. I'm glad to see YCombinator understands this very basic fact and is taking action to better society, rather than just sitting around thinking lofty thoughts and feeling good about itself.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Or, in the alternate form: "Hell is full of good meanings, but Heaven is full of good works."

> The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. I can personally forgive them, but we need to hold these players accountable in the future. If marketing moves is what incentives them, we need to make it impossible to move us without extended action.

I feel like I hear that line on a daily basis but it doesn't factor in reality.

To stretch the metaphor further (for illustration), if the lot where you'll be planting the tree is being bulldozed today, yesterday is the worst day to plant a tree.

and applying that stretched metaphor back to its original context, we shouldn't support civil liberties if they're a lost cause. but what have we actually achieved with all this metaphor stretching?

The point was that yesterday and/or today isn't always the best choice. In the case of sama/YC, it feels like one knee jerk reaction after another without any connective thought:

"Hey the ACLU is suing Trump ... let's add them as a non-profit in the next batch!"

"Yah that'll show em'!"

I don't agree with most of sama's election related comments and am unabashedly pro-Trump, but I mean this objectively: If you're going to pick a battle at least put some thought into it first.

Otherwise this all just looks a silly excuse to demonstrate YC (and particularly sama's) political biases.

The best time to plant a tree was when they were dropping bombs on them.

The second best time is when it becomes hip and trendy to plant trees, apparently.