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Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by arp242 on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @09:58PM (#27045284)
People did equate the names list to some mass shooting of Asians though.

A name like, say, "Fuk Yo" is accidentally similar to the English "Fuck you". It's kinda funny in a childish way, but I don't think that making fun of it automatically implies that they think these people are of lesser value. i.e. I don't think it's automatically racism in the first place.

It's inappropriate because making fun of your customers is never a good idea, and it's also inconsiderate and impolite. But that's not the same thing as racism, or evidence of white supremacy.

And maybe some employees who worked on that list were racist; there is no way for us to know. I like to opt for a more good-faith interpretation, which seems very uncommon these days.

The idea that this would "escalate" from a simple list to actual racism seems unlikely. Everyone knows the difference.

Also, the holocaust was a lot more complicated than this "pyramid" lets on. The Nazis took power by force, in some exceptional circumstances, and the Holocaust wasn't widely known among the German people. It's overly simplistic at best.

> It is only meant to illustrate the classic slippery slope.

I have never seen a single "slippery slope" argument that I found convincing, including this one. In every single case I've seen everyone is acutely aware of the difference between A and B. I don't consider it an argument, I consider it a fallacy.

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by philosopher1234 on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @01:05AM (#27046395)
>And maybe some employees who worked on that list were racist; there is no way for us to know. I like to opt for a more good-faith interpretation, which seems very uncommon these days.

Racism is the air we breathe. I grew up around mostly white kids, and there is undeniably more fear amongst those kids (myself included) when interacting with black people than with white people. It seems similarly undeniable that affluent white people are more afraid of african american people when its dark out than they are of other white people. When a black person applies to a job, their blackness is not neutral. It seems to me that most people have underlying feeling about blackness, and that people of color have to contend with that when they're going through their lives.

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by arp242 on Thursday May 06, 2021 @02:47AM (#27059920)
I think this is mostly correct; although I personally wouldn't go as far to say that "racism is the air we breathe", but that's an unimportant detail.

I'm not saying there aren't problems; I just don't see the connection between something like this list and the actual problems, and I certainly don't see a good reason for some of the strong and bold claims that are made about it.