How Basecamp Blew Up

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by jgwil2 on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @10:04PM (#27045334)

> My favorite moment was sitting there, and having a coworker (US born, but of Arab descent) who grew up in an extremely wealthy neighborhood with immense privilege, lecturing a blind white male employee about how much privilege he had, and then going on to talk about how white people were uniquely tainted by the slave trade that some of their ancestors engaged in.

I find it pretty hard to believe this went down the way you say.

> Children understand that calling people names isn't the same as violence.

So in your ideal professional environment, name-calling would be fine?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by dang on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @12:50PM (#27052354)

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by JPKab on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @10:22PM (#27045454)

That's exactly how it went down in one of my companies HR "listening circles" in February.

The blind employee is married to a woman who immigrated to the US from Japan. He was being lectured by a young semi-useless data scientist who grew up in a wealthy suburb just outside of Dearborn. I'm totally making all of this up in your eyes because you don't like what you're hearing.

Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by jgwil2 on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @10:39PM (#27045560)

I think you have an agenda and you're shading the story to fit your narrative. I would bet that other people would describe it differently.

I notice you didn't reply about the name-calling.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by JPKab on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @02:44AM (#27046901)

I disagree with name calling. And I think you are arrogant and probably young. You form an opinion and cling to it. This ideology probably suits you.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by dang on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @12:51PM (#27052375)

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. You've done it repeatedly in this thread, unfortunately, and have even crossed into personal attack. That's not cool, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.

We've had to ask you several times in the past not to do these things. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of this site to heart? We'd appreciate it. We're trying to have an internet forum that doesn't suck, if possible, and using HN for these acrimonious battles contributes to destroying this place. The site guidelines are the way they are for good reason and they need to take precedence.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by jgwil2 on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @06:53AM (#27048354)

> ...white people were uniquely tainted by the slave trade that some of their ancestors engaged in.

Is that a quote? It sounds like you are paraphrasing your perception of someone's point in the least favorable possible way. If the guy really said "white people are tainted," then he might suck and I hope you pushed back.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How Basecamp Blew Up by prawn on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @11:14PM (#27045775)

My interpretation of that latter line was that you can end the names list, gently rebuke the creators who were most likely oblivious (and collecting names from all cultures), but without taking the discussion into "genocide is a potential extrapolation". And not that this person favours name-calling at the office.

[ Parent | on HN ]