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Anil Dash's analysis of Sam Altman's free speach essay

• rhapsodic 9y ago
  I'm with Altman on this. [Edit: This has received net 4 downvotes in 18 minutes.]
  • GuiA 9y ago
    If your post is being downvoted it is not because of its content, but because it brings absolutely nothing of substance to the conversation, breaking HN’s posting guidelines.
• panarky 9y ago
  We're thinkers and makers. We move fast and break things. We break laws and social conventions to disrupt entire industries. We dictate how billions of people interact and transact. But don't dare criticize us, we're so fragile we can't take it.
  • solipsism 9y ago
    Surely there's room for people to vehemently disagree without being called fragile and "unable to take it".
    • nl 9y ago
      He said that they are literally leaving because people couldn't take arguments against life extension. I think life extension is great, but I think leaving because people disagree with that is close to the definition of "unable to take it".
      • bthornbury 9y ago
        Arguments against? Or the social consequences of being on the "wrong" side of a controversial argument? I'd assert the latter...
        • nl 9y ago
          I’m not sure that matters? Or rather, the specifics of the controversial argument matter a lot. If someone is unable to find people who agree that helping people live longer then perhaps there is something else going on, because that doesn’t seem a hard argument to make. OTOH, if they are making the argument that Hitler was correct, then yes I would unashamedly hope there are social consequences.
  • nv-vn 9y ago
    It's not about criticism. It's about harassment and smear campaigns. The thing is, most people want criticism because they want to have conversations. Sama is saying that when you have a controversial opinion, you shouldn't feel so threatened and alienated from society that you must relocate. I'm sure he'd like to hear true arguments against his positions, but that's different than labeling him as evil and trying to enrage people so that he can no longer be respected at all.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • kajecounterhack 9y ago
      What if your "controversial opinion" harasses and alienates other people? According to his logic that pain is collateral damage. And any innovation from the people who would have been productive except for that collateral alienation / harassment is now lost -- and this is a story as old as time in the valley particularly from women and PoC. But his writing indicates that he's only thought from the perspective of some innovator he's perceived to have been unfairly branded a heretic.
      • bthornbury 9y ago
        Perhaps those other people can share their opinion that they feel harrassed and alienated and we can have a discussion on the matter (in some other form than branding the opposing party as a heretic)?
        • kajecounterhack 9y ago
          The way you've formulated this makes it seem like people who think political correctness is important also must espouse branding people as heretics for no reason. That is not true, and obviously valid opinions deserve discussion. Sam's essay takes your comment's tack and extrapolates, saying in order for us to never accidentally brand people as heretics we should live in a society that has a higher level of tolerance for shitty things like "gay people are evil." That we should have a higher tolerance for all ideas so we can "discuss" them. But the consequences of "higher tolerance" for harassing and alienating speech is a chilling effect on another section of the population (people who get harassed and alienated). More "freedom" for one group comes at the cost of depriving another.
• QAPereo 9y ago
  It’s the same old nonsense, with people conflating their right to expression with their right to expression free from judgement, or censure. The latter has never and will never exist at the level of billions of different people.
  • marcoperaza 9y ago
    But could it be that tolerance of different opinions is a virtue for a free people? One that can't flow from the power of the state but from the strength of our individual characters. How are we to solve our problems if we replace the reason of thoughtful discussion with the power of social censure?
    • dnsco 9y ago
      The TL;DR on The Paradox of Tolerance, a much discussed philosophy intro topic, is that for tolerance to exist society must be intolerant of intolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
      • marcoperaza 9y ago
        You're falsely presenting that as the only solution to the philosophical problem. In fact, when it comes to government regulation of speech, the philosophical approach taken by the First Amendment, and the very thoughtful jurists who have interpreted it, is the opposite: that we must tolerate intolerance. And as for the social sphere, where legal freedom of speech does not apply of course, the problem with too liberally being intolerant of "intolerance" is that the definition of "intolerance" is itself a political thing, inevitably expanded and wielded as a weapon against dissent. For example, opposition to more immigration becomes branded as inherently intolerant.
        • dnsco 9y ago
          I certainly err on the side of agreeing with the thesis that we shouldn't tolerate intolerance, which is Anil's point as well, that said the source material I linked to (wikipedia), gives attention to both the argument and its counterpoints. I do find it interesting and relevant to this conversation that we have both been downvoted for our points.
• olivermarks 9y ago
  Isn't Altman's argument ultimately about free speech? Surely my right to criticize Altman or Dash is the point Altman is making, and which Dash is exercising in his rebuttal?
  • tunesmith 9y ago
    If that's the correct interpretation, then Sam is complaining that there is too much free speech, not too little.
    • olivermarks 9y ago
      @tunesmith How so? Quoting Altman http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove 'It is bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is a sphere, that evolution is real, or that the sun is at the center of the solar system.' It is therefore equally bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is flat, question evolution, or argue the sun isn't at the center of the solar system...
      • rhizome 9y ago
        He has a problem with the concept of backlash. However, not all speech receives it.
      • mcny 9y ago
        Because we can't pick and choose. Some ideas are obviously wrong. Imagine people saying prison rape is part and parcel of the person sentence. Imagine people saying Holocaust denial never happened. Of course, we can't stop people from saying stupid things but to say that we can't criticize careless or even dangerous ideas is a violation of my free speech.
  • kenforthewin 9y ago
    free speech is much different if you're talking about a human vs a corporation.
  • mandevil 9y ago
• aestetix 9y ago
  'First, the rhetoric of some of the most wealthy & powerful people in the history of the world being "unable to say" things is ridiculous.' I read this first line and already knew I disagreed with this essay. Speech is the one thing that can equalize rich and poor, and has the ability to evaporate decades of work and reputation. I generally don't like much coming out of the Bay Area right now, and have an especial distate for YC's contributions to this mess, but I am impressed with Sam Altman's essay. He's going to get a lot of backlash for it, but I believe he is correct.
  • fossuser 9y ago
    This article is basically case in point for me. "why it's dangerous and wrong" "most awful example" "become actually dangerous, in ways he is unwilling or unable to understand" The author intentionally (mis)interprets sama's writing in the least charitable way and then spends the rest of it arguing a strawman (with insults sprinkled throughout) ending with a comparison to nazis. If I wasn't sure I agreed with Sama before, I'm definitely more inclined to now.
  • rtpg 9y ago
    > Speech is the one thing that can equalize rich and poor, and has the ability to evaporate decades of work and reputation. I feel like this is a bit of a passive way of saying this. If someone says something, _they said it_. It evaporates their reputation because _they did something_. And when saying things, it's to communicate the idea to others. I don't really think that speech exists in a vacuum. If you know saying something to somebody could offend them, you're kinda signing up to the criticism. It feels like a lot of the essay is trying to say "we should listen to other people with controversial opinions." We were doing this in another domain for a while, with sexism. A lot of us have just nodded and grimaced when our coworkers would make "those comments". When we'd see the berating of female colleagues. Even the words already had such an obvious effect. I'm not saying "ban bad speech", but I do think as society we should be reinforcing the fact that words _are_ important, especially in this political climate. And that people are responsible for what they say. And... you can always apologize and change! And the world will be better for it.
    • 9y ago
• vonseel 9y ago
  Speach?
  • Cyphase 9y ago
    There's a typo in the title, in case anyone is confused.
• pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Anil Dash’s main point appears to be that allowing hate speech will embolden racists/bigots to commit violence against minorities. My question to him is: what if a proper study was done and it found that suppression of hate speech actually emboldened racists and bigots to commit more violence against minorities? Would he advocate then Altman’s proposal? It appears that his entire thesis is based on his own conjecture. I would love to know if there are any studies that support his theory.
  • nl 9y ago
    There are plenty of natural experiments showing how hate speech leads to violence. Look up the history of the Rwanda genocide for one of the clearest studies.
    • mr_spothawk 9y ago
      hmmm... wikipedia doesn't support your claim, tho [1]. it seems like a lot of folks were encouraged to go out and kill, given machetes and told to kill, and in the end there's one study that suggests 10% of the violence could be attributed to the radio station (which was created to broadcast racist propaganda and obscene jokes). specifically, I take issue with the notion that "hate speech" is a meaningful descriptor of a way of talking. racism, bigotry, etc... are more specific. tangentially, I did find this: > On March 20, 2017, Pope Francis acknowledged that while some Catholic nuns and priests in the country were killed during the genocide, others were complicit with it and took part in preparing and executing the genocide. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Preparation_for_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Preparation_f...
      • nl 9y ago
        one study that suggests 10% of the violence could be attributed to the radio station I’m not sure what you are expecting here. Social sciences aren’t clean, you can’t go back in time and setup control groups etc, and being able to clearly show a causal link like that is pretty decisive. Put it another way: 10% of the violence is at least 60,000 deaths.
• mr_spothawk 9y ago
  Dash doesn't address the content of Altman's post. Dash falsely equates the "lives" of gay people, with "disparaging things" about them. Link is a wonderful example of exactly the type of conversation suppressing blowharding that the Bay Area is encumbered by.
  • tedivm 9y ago
    Do you see the irony of calling someone a blowhard just because you don't agree with their opinion? You're literally engaging in the exact same behavior you're attempting to call him out over.
  • Avshalom 9y ago
    not equates. connects.
  • evanlivingston 9y ago
    Be very careful equating a blogpost with suppression of speech.
    • mr_spothawk 9y ago
      > "conversation suppressing" it's literally that. if you live in the Bay Area, and find that you can express countervailing opinions without encountering blowhardism, then I challenge you to make the case (in public) that nazi-punching is a bad idea.
      • tedivm 9y ago
        I live in the bay area and I have heard many people debate these issues without issue. To be honest I'm wondering if Sam Altman just needs to expand his social and professional circle a bit and get out of his own bubble. There's 7.5 million people in the bay area, and it's a joke to think they are all alike.
      • evanlivingston 9y ago
        You're asking the wrong person to make an argument sympathetic for nazis.
• tedivm 9y ago
  I had a lot of issues with Sam Altman's post- * He really doesn't seem to understand the difference between free speech and being free of consequences, and as a result he's in danger of suppressing free speech. He wants people to be able to say controversial things without there being blowback, but the only possible way to accomplish that is by suppressing the free speech of people who disagree. You're either for free speech- which includes the right to criticize ideas- or he's arguing that specific people's speech (the person with the "novel physics idea" for example) are more important than others. * His example of China, one of the worst human rights violators who has been known for violently suppressing free speech, is just a continuation of that. He's happy because as a privileged person with money China is super excited to hear his ideas, but he's also ignoring the fact that China literally jails and kills people who speak out with ideas that their government doesn't like. * He completely ignores the damage done by hate speech. Just completely ignores it. If you were to read this blog as is it seems like he thinks people being driven out of companies, schools, education programs, and development communities by bigotry and sexism were never going to contribute or that their losses aren't as important as the ideas being lost to people uncomfortable being called out for bigotry. * The blog seems to put a higher value on innovation and corporations than it does people.
  • mr_spothawk 9y ago
    do you have the impression that Sama's essay has anything to do with government? why bring up china's government?
    • mikeyouse 9y ago
      Because Sam brought it up in the first paragraph of his essay? > Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco. It's entirely relevant that stating the wrong 'controversial ideas' in Beijing can get you killed or imprisoned.
      • mr_spothawk 9y ago
        he's talking about speaking directly with Chinese individuals in China. the original post is about discussing these topics in person-to-person situations... not about posting politically motivated speech online, not about challenging the government.
• solidsnack9000 9y ago
  It seems weird to turn over responsibility for policing hate speech and intolerance to VCs. They are not public servants by any stretch of the imagination.
• bthornbury 9y ago
  Disagree with Anil. (Writing this with an expectation of backlash) (irony?) Everyone expects the judgement of their peers for their controversial opinions, which is one reason why people tend to have like-minded friends (as much as possible). Or at least friends open to a discussion. The issue is judgements on controversial opinions turn into all-too-public smears on a person's character and that character is conflated with (over-the-top) negativity, which misrepresents the original context (sliding). Naming any such example bears the risk of the same thing happening to yourself (you know what I mean). Anil is guilty of it himself, calling Sam's position "actually dangerous". When in fact, that labeling is the exact thing Sam is arguing against. Perhaps Sam isn't dangerous, but just opinionated? TLDR: Controversial opinions lead to ad hominem attacks that use conflation with extremely negative topics to attack even the possibility that the position is debatable.
• haberman 9y ago
  I don't think Altman is afraid of hearing criticism of his ideas. I think he objects to orthodoxy: political positions that are so sacred that people react with slurs and rhetoric instead of rational rebuttal when they are called into question. Especially pernicious is the idea that even entertaining rational discussion on these topics is harmful. When some things are too sacred to even discuss rationally, we are really lost in our ability to discern the truth about the world.
  • insickness 9y ago
    Dash is equating rational argument with violence. On average, gay people are more creative. Is that hate speech? Obviously not. On average, gay men have more sex than straight men. Hate speech? On average, more sex is worse than less sex. Hate speech? Dash thinks he can draw the line where rational argument becomes unacceptable. It's his line but he gets to draw it for other people. This is not simply criticism. By equating a type of speech with violence, it implies legal consequences, whether those consequences are currently in place. It implies a physical enforcement.
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• wildermuthn 9y ago
  Unfortunately, I am so afraid of the professional and social repercussions of sharing my opinions, that I've decided not to express an opinion about Sam's essay. I hope this reckless act on non-expression doesn't come back to haunt me.
  • bthornbury 9y ago
    So many who agree with you will stay silent.
    • wildermuthn 9y ago
      Maybe the best response is not to stay silent, but rather to craft a non-opinion that looks like an opinion of agreement no matter who comes across it. But maybe not.
      • bthornbury 9y ago
        You've mistaken that I assume you agree or disagree with my own position. You've haven't stated such. The agreement I referred to was in that others are also scared of the consequences of sharing their opinion here.
      • prepend 9y ago
        You have to walk a fine line and post some material, but not offensive. No response at all can be judged poorly. I’ve been in multiple situations where “silence = supporting the perp” so statements must be made. If you’re completely off the grid it can be difficult to get jobs in tech.
    • creaghpatr 9y ago
      They will stay silent, and express their opinion in the voting booth
• jdoliner 9y ago
  It's amazing how quickly this goes from tolerating someone who says disparaging things about gay people, to emboldening those people, to actual violence to the conclusion that Sam's essay is DANGEROUS. It's the thinnest of arguments but this seems to be how a lot of people think about speech today. I find it to be very off kilter with reality, I don't think that anyone is preventing violence by branding someone a heretic, quite the opposite in fact.
  • bthornbury 9y ago
    > I don't think that anyone is preventing violence by branding someone a heretic, quite the opposite in fact. This is very interesting and I believe I tend to agree. When a person is branded as a "heretic" for their ideas, doesn't it increase the division between those two groups? The winning group (the one doing the branding) begins to dehumanize and rage towards the losing group. The losing group has to find other ways to fight back or remain in insolent silence.
• hi-im-mi-ih 9y ago
  Remember that a lead dev for Node was attacked not too long ago for discussing the potential downsides of CoC's. https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887652116524707841 https://twitter.com/rvagg/status/887652116524707841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15073022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15073022 This is the kind of thing Sam is talking about - we should be able to discuss things that are controversial without getting mobbed for it.
  • meowface 9y ago
    I agree with you and with the general thrust of Sam's essay. This kind of knee-jerk heretic-branding of anyone who questions the status quo is toxic. But Sam should've used something like the Node dev as an example, rather than the less salient one he provided: >This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics. [1] Of course we can and should say that ideas are mistaken, but we can’t just call the person a heretic. We need to debate the actual idea. >[1] I am less worried that letting some people on the internet say things like “gay people are evil” is going to convince reasonable people that such a statement is true than I fear losing the opposite—we needed people to be free to say "gay people are ok" to make the progress we've made, even though it was not a generally acceptable thought several decades ago. Of course Sam doesn't actually think it's acceptable for people to say these things (he's gay himself, but even if he weren't I'm sure he still wouldn't find it acceptable). But this leaves a lot of questions. If you're gay and in a work environment where your boss incessantly makes disparaging comments gay people and homosexuality - even if none of them are directed at you or anyone else there - you could still feel very uncomfortable and hurt. Does this boss really deserve a debate and an exchange of open ideas? If you tell them you disagree and they just continue mocking gay people, what are you supposed to say or do? In a scenario like this, it kind of makes sense to brand this boss as a heretic. This kind of situation is far away from your example (discussing potential downsides of CoC). There's a spectrum of hurtful speech and ideas, and while most Americans would agree these things should be legal to say, many would also agree that the worst of them should result in ostracization (in a very extreme example: self-identifying as a neo-Nazi). So should we really "allow" people to make disparaging remarks about gay people beyond physically letting them say it? Do we also need to allow them into our social circles and workplaces?
• stanfordkid 9y ago
  I think the heart of the issue Sam is trying to address is that in today's society you can excel at one field and yet be hindered from success in it because you make a generalized statement that the majority of society disagrees with, in a field completely unrelated to the one you participate in. If a Nobel prize winning physicist speaks about the inferiority of gay people, he is not necessarily a "threat to their safety". You don't have to like him, you don't have to be friends with him -- hell I wouldn't. But he has a right to not be fired as a physics researcher, because he is good at it. If he was a student counselor you can bet he should be fired. If he actively discriminates against a gay physics student should he be fired? Absolutely. But I don't think he should be fired for simply holding the opinion. But he would be in todays world. That's the problem I have with the politics of today -- it's that people get fired or disregarded if they make even a statement that makes other people feel bad, and disaligns with the majority opinion.
  • bthornbury 9y ago
    > disaligns with the majority opinion It doesn't even have to be the majority opinion. Just the opinion of someone with a loud enough voice. > But I don't think he should be fired for simply holding the opinion. But he would be in todays world. Sadly, he would be fired, publicly smeared, and become unemployable.
  • CalChris 9y ago
    Such a physicist would hold tenure and would not summarily be fired for simply holding that opinion. From a random school somewhere on the web: > gross professional misconduct or serious failure of a faculty member to discharge his or her obligations
    • bthornbury 9y ago
      Replace "physicist" with "software engineer"? Or any occupation X where his/her statement holds true?
    • prepend 9y ago
      Tim Hunt, a Nobel winning biochemist with tenure, was fired for making sexist comments. It certainly happens. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/11/nobel-laureate-sir-tim-hunt-resigns-trouble-with-girls-comments https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/11/nobel-laur...
• evangelista 9y ago
  Sam Altman was headed in the right direction but his point is completely malformed. He shouldn’t have used the term “Political Correctness.” He also shouldn’t have provided the examples he used because they distracted from what he was trying to say. I am sad that he took an opportunity to have this conversation (finally) and gave the people who are actually ruining Silicon Valley more ammunition to push their agenda. What Sam is talking about is the insane level of unidirectional groupthink that has invaded Silicon Valley and turned everyone against one another under the guise of protecting minorities and other victims. Proponents of this approach - which, frankly, overwhelmingly demonizes and targets white men - will point to the endless list of infractions that keep surfacing in the media. They have a great point. There is abundant evidence that minorities and women are being unfairly treated in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, the constant warring against this unfairness has gutted Silicon Valley and now no one trusts one another. Everyone looks at white people as the enemy and the level of discourse has become so toxic that everyone is fleeing the state. I have experienced this myself in interacting with my Bay Area colleagues. I feel that every word I say is being policed for content, that I have to walk on eggshells constantly with certain people or risk getting drawn and quartered on Twitter the next day. So Liberals can have this version of safety. People focused on building things aren’t willing to live in a cultural police state. The biggest problem in attempting to argue against this trend is that it is an argument of degree. These are the hardest Arguments to have because your opppnent automatically rounds everything up to the “nearest Hitler.” Example: You: Hey we shouldn’t focus so much attention on gender diversity. Them: you hate women. You: Maybe your theories on diversity and privilege re not entirely true or accurate. Them: You hate minorities. You: Maybe we shouldn’t excommunicate this person because he tried to hit on someone at a company party while drunk, men do stupid things and are motivated by sex genetically. Them: You hate women. Don’t give bad men a pass, you are enabling rape culture. You: I am really sick of having 80% of conferences focus exclusively on diversity topics, I can’t stand being lectured to constantly. Them:You are Hitler. So I don’t see a resolution. It is impossible to push back on what has happened to Silicon Valley’s culture without being labeled a bigot. Arguments of degree are the hardest to have, and at this point I think only a severe economic downturn and reset is going to fix it. The culture of the Bay Area is dead, it was caused by having the culture of our educational institutes teach these ways of viewing the world. I have no hope that will change. We are living in the most privileged country in the world but we have taught all our kids that they are oppressed. It’s a lie.
• dnsco 9y ago
  I think it's interesting that this post was flagged by the mods but Sam's original essay was not.
  • sctb 9y ago
    This post wasn't touched by moderators, and it also wasn't flagged (that has a specific meaning on Hacker News). What makes you think that it was?
• andr 9y ago
  For me, the example of a physicist who dislikes gay people is particularly worrying, because it involves setting very arbitrary lines in the sand of what is acceptable and what is not. What if it was a biologist that dislikes gay people? Or a doctor? Or, say, the person in control of the CDC, as happened today? Those lines, moved once, are as good as gone. What if Trump was the same Muslim-hating, gay-hating person he is, but also a brilliant physicist? Would he than be OK in Sam's book?
  • prepend 9y ago
    Do you have a link for the CDC thing?
• nborwankar 9y ago
  It is ironic that we are complaining about how polarized our discourse has become, when we created the social networks and the dopamine-drip feedback loops that genrate mutually disjoint echo chambers.
• CalChris 9y ago
  If SpaceX started in San Francisco in 2017, I assume they would have been attacked for focusing on problems of the 1%, or for doing something the government had already decided was too hard. -- from Sam Altman's essay. First, SpaceX wasn't founded in SF because SF would have been a lousy place for it to start. It was founded in El Segundo because of the talent base there working for companies like TRW. Second, if the success or failure of SpaceX or any other company is dependent on the mean things people say when checking their iPhones at morning coffee then that's more a judgment of the weak backbone of the startup founders + employees. Blow it off and get back to work. I personally think the vast majority of BitCoin and Ethereum work ranges from crap to fraud. I doubt that anyone cares about that opinion and it's such an important opinion. Anil is wrong. That essay wasn't dangerous. It was drivel. If what you do has merit it will come out regardless of what people say. This isn't high school.
• apatters 9y ago
  Anil makes the classic mistake of this cloistered coastal elite which is to paint everyone on the other side as murderers, rapists, Nazis and misogynists -- his own take on Hillary's "basket of deplorables." If the world was everything Anil thinks it is then he would be right: we would be best off limiting speech because everyone is a violent maniac just waiting to be activated. In reality however, racist murderers rapists and Nazis are a minority, and the majority of people who hold views in opposition to Anil's are not criminals. They're people who support same-sex marriage but don't want any gays living on their block. They're people who don't go to Nazi rallies (yet) but think it's dangerous that no one's talking about how most crime is committed by blacks. The quickest way to turn these people into real extremists is to bar them from public discourse. Because they value their opinions as much as you value yours, and they're not going to stop talking about these things -- if they're not allowed to discuss their ideas in public, they're going to discuss them with a Nazi instead, which will lead to their radicalization. When they're part of the public sphere you have the opportunity to engage them, entertain their ideas, present counterpoints, and generally treat them like a human being with whom you merely have differences of opinion -- this is the path to changing hearts and minds, or at least getting them to peacefully coexist. When they're not their speech goes underground into an echo chamber and being cut off from the rest of society really does foment extremism. Unless Anil plans on running for governor of CA and seceding from the Union, he needs their hearts and minds -- otherwise they'll keep on voting for guys like Trump, who's President in no small part merely because he was willing to tell sanctimonious guys like Anil to go f*ck themselves. One of the original long reads on this matter is Federalist No. 10 and it's just as relevant today.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
  https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-not-being-told-9a36fb40530f https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-no... I believe Anil Dash is propagating hate speech when he accuses Asian men as a group of being responsible/complicit in the exclusion of minorities and women from tech. There are many dangerous stereotypes about Asians and he promotes harmful stereotypes. An Indian man was even murdered in Kansas because of Asian stereotypes. Because of his embracing of hate speech, I urge that he either step down as CEO of FogCreek or he be fired. We cannot tolerate such hate speech.
• rhapsodic 9y ago
  Wow, I just checked out Dash's twitter feed, and he has a deranged hatred for Trump supporters. I'm going to be calling Fog Creek Monday morning to find out if the company has as low an opinion of me as he obviously does.
• rhapsodic 9y ago
  Anil Dash thinks that "Trumpists" support terrorist violence against Muslims: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/942040324645572609 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/942040324645572609 As a Trump supporter, I feel that Anil Dash has placed my life in danger.
• rhapsodic 9y ago
  Here's a thought experiment: If someone makes a disparaging remark about Christians, as a monolithic group, it the workplace, should they be fired for it?
• rhapsodic 9y ago
  Quoting Anil Dash's tweet: "Maybe not today, but sometime we’re gonna have that conversation about Christian supremacy in this country, too." https://twitter.com/anildash/status/928800919810117632 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/928800919810117632 Kind of reminds me of a drunk in the neighborhood where I grew up who always wanted to have "that conversation" about Jewish control of the banking system. Anil Dash is the CEO of Fog Creek Software, BTW.