Your post is a bit inaccurate.

Biggar tweeted about his unhappiness about the behavior of a person in the private group.

He received a public response fromt he person in question with a dismissive meme.

He in turn responded to that.

So, one could argue that the line-jumping-advocate relinquished his privacy in the first place.

I'm under the impression that any public commentary about what goes on inside that forum is generally discouraged, but that's just what I've seen. Although this is an interesting point, for sure.

You are correct. YC emphasizes regularly that the forums are private and otherwise the people wouldn’t share as much or give blunter truth.

Having seen screenshots of the post in question, it was bad, but it also would have been strange to kick someone out for that. The poster is an asshole and proud of it, but the community seems to have responded directly.

> I'm under the impression that any public commentary about what goes on inside that forum is generally discouraged

When private organizations in their internal culture and functioning deviate too far away from common social norms, you kinda hope that a whistleblower or the press calls them out for it.

That wouldn't surprise me. Don't worry about the downvotes, it's not unusual for votes on a post to oscillate wildly in any sort of hot topic because people often revert to tribalism as they first scan the thread.

And it’s why YC doesn’t have the reputation it once did. Letting Sam bro up the institution wasn’t the best decision in hindsight as this incident demonstrates.

pg believes the Civil War wasn't actually about slavery (http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html), so I'm not sure that Sam actually made the place worse.

That's a really disingenuous take from a single line in an essay that is not about the subject.

If we could say "The Civil War was about slavery" and be done with the subject, I'm pretty sure so many books, studies, and histories about the subject would not have been made.

I mean, we can say that and be done with the subject. For instance, just look at the seceding states' articles of secession: they quite plainly spell out that they are seceding because of slavery and to join the other slaveholding states.

But there are a whole lot of Americans who wish to believe that the South had a noble cause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy), and they are more than happy to buy books and watch TV shows explaining what that cause is, so such books and TV shows get written.

The Civil War was just a couple of generations ago, and involved a huge chunk of the country. The various organizations attempting to rehabilitate their legacy (e.g., the Daughters of the Confederacy) are younger still, and active today. It's not actually surprising that there are a large number of Americans who for whatever reason wish to believe that there was a better reason for the Confederacy to do what it did than slavery - the Daughters, for instance, are quite literally descended from Confederate soldiers, so there is a natural desire to believe that they fought for a worthy cause. But the number of people who believe it is hardly evidence that it's true.

What is noteworthy that Paul Graham (who wasn't even born in the US!) is one of those people, and moreover doesn't simply believe (as you're claiming) that there's a legitimate debate about what the Civil War was about - he believes that the possibility that the Civil War was about slavery is a "cartoon version" which can't possibly be true.

And yes, it's a throwaway line in an unrelated talk. But he still said it as if he believed it, and the alternative interpretation - that he doesn't really believe it and said it anyway because he thought it would please his audience - is that he is a man of poor judgment and a loud mouth in things he should judge less and speak less on, which goes to my point that Sam did not "bro up" YC, it was already rotten.

I think you are attributing a lot of things to Graham that he didn't say.

He did not say that it was not about slavery. Again, if it was an issue that could be expressed in a single sentence, it would not have inspired the many studies that it has. That is not to deny that the Civil War was about slavery, which I am certainly not. As to what Graham believes, a single sentence means only that. And does not mean he thinks its opposite is true. Not everything is an either/or proposition. Quite often things are more a both/and situation.

> I think you are attributing a lot of things to Graham that he didn't say. He did not say that it was not about slavery.

What you are saying is just simply quite literally not true. He said exactly that:

> "Better stick to the standard cartoon version that the Civil War was about slavery"

-- http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html

> If we could say "The Civil War was about slavery" and be done with the subject, I'm pretty sure so many books, studies, and histories about the subject would not have been made.

"We" can. Apparently some people can't. There's a difference.

ugh.

> 2. Publicly talking about matters inside the private group is against ToS

So never mind their high-falutin' ideas of Founders being A Better Class Of People; in the end it's just frickin' Fight Club after all.