4 ms·

I detest racism and sexism even when done by well meaning people. If this is a character flaw then I want more flaws. I am glad I got a chance to let you know

by yetanother1980 8y ago

I detest racism and sexism even when done by well meaning people. If this is a character flaw then I want more flaws. I am glad I got a chance to let you know that not everyone agrees with bigotry.

consz 8y ago
As a white male -- presumably the victim of the fund mentioned in the OP -- could you explain to me what is bad about the way this fund is set up? I don't mean ideologically, but empirically what you think are negative consequences of it.
- yetanother1980 8y ago
  It normalises racism and sexism. If it is OK to discriminate in one way on racial or gender grounds why not another? Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
  - jamescostian 8y ago
    I think you may have missed when GP explicitly said >> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically That said, I disagree with your base claim that > It normalizes racism and sexism Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality. Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - yetanother1980 8y ago
      I missed nothing. Racism is inherently wrong. By being racist you are empirically making the world a worse place. By being racist you are increasing the divide.
      - jamescostian 8y ago
        Can you tell me how you would decrease the divide? I assume that for starters, you would not give money to people just because they fall into any specific category. But how would you address the racism that already exists, and that has already led and is still leading to some groups having more money than others (to a significant degree)?
        yetanother1980 8y ago
        In this context a fund for poor founders would be a good start.
        jamescostian 8y ago
        Sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't address what I'm looking for. You said "Racism is inherently wrong" and currently what we have seems to be a mix of racism and systemic racism. The vast majority of VC funding goes towards white males, very little goes to females, and even less goes towards black females. Notice that 76% of venture capitalists are white males[0]. Unless you'd like to argue that there's some inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, I think we can all agree that clearly there is some artificially created imbalance at play. Sure, black women aren't the majority of the population, but they are 6%, and they are funded 0.2%[1] How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-venture-capitalists-ignoring-the-future-the-emerging-domestic-economy/#edfb05d64c38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v... [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-challenges-of-getting-funding-for-minority-owned-business https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
  - consz 8y ago
    I'm not sure where you got the impression I was speaking for other white males, as I don't think I was speaking about anything at all in my post. "It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
    - yetanother1980 8y ago
      > As a white male If these characteristics are not important to your argument why raise them.
      - consz 8y ago
        First, I have no argument. Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).
- stillsut 8y ago
  There's something of "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges" in your victimhood concept. Or updating the concept to current times, forbidding those who can couch surf indefinitely with friends in a dozen cities and the friendless from sleeping in their car. In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space. Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.
dang 8y ago
You did considerably more than anyone else to turn this thread into a wretched flamewar. Since it doesn't look like you've done it before with this account, I'm not going to ban it, but if you do this again we will. Ideological battle is not welcome here. All your comments in this thread were ideological battle. And that's just the start of the problems. It isn't necessary for people to agree on divisive topics. That's by definition impossible. But it is necessary for people to remain thoughtful and respectful. That's why the site guidelines say that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." You used name-calling in the sense the guidelines ask you not to do, for example weaponizing "racist" and "sexist" and "bigotry" in a way that you must know perfectly well is divisive and provocative. By "weaponizing" I mean using words not to communicate information, but to bash something or someone verbally. That's flamewar. You reacted everywhere in this reductionist way, breaking the guideline that asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That rule applies to articles and people in articles as well as to to people here. Why? Because discussion gets dumb without it. You crossed into personal attack and incvility in ways that can only inflame people and shut down meaningful conversation ("By being racist you are..."). You did that even when people responded to you gently and thoughtfully—which, amazingly, several did. You threw in things like the KKK for gratituous flamebait. And you extremely overposted to this thread, which spread the flames everywhere. There are still plenty of civil, substantive things people can say to each other when they have strongly different identifications about the issues touched on by a post like this. But that becomes impossible when even one person's reactions are so strong that they can't contain themselves, vandalize the thread, and degrade this community into a ruin that nobody would want to spend time in. On this occasion, you were that person. Please don't be that person again. Instead, please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yetanother1980 8y ago
  I will always call out discrimination in any context even by well meaning people. I do hope that arguing against racism and sexism is acceptable on this forum.

I detest racism and sexism even when done by well meaning people. If this is a character flaw then I want more flaws. I am glad I got a chance to let you know that not everyone agrees with bigotry.

consz 8y ago

As a white male -- presumably the victim of the fund mentioned in the OP -- could you explain to me what is bad about the way this fund is set up? I don't mean ideologically, but empirically what you think are negative consequences of it.

yetanother1980 8y ago
It normalises racism and sexism. If it is OK to discriminate in one way on racial or gender grounds why not another? Let's get one thing clear. Just because you look like other people you don't get to speak for them. You don't represent all white males any more than the Grand Wizard of the KKK does. Your skin colour or gender have no bearing on this - and should have no bearing on your opinion on this.
- jamescostian 8y ago
  I think you may have missed when GP explicitly said >> I don't mean ideologically, but empirically That said, I disagree with your base claim that > It normalizes racism and sexism Those things are already normalized. The idea that everyone has the same opportunities and is treated the same is nice but not matched by reality. Pushing things in the direction they're already in makes the divide larger. Pushing things in the opposite direction will make the divide smaller - or at least, that's the hope here
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - yetanother1980 8y ago
    I missed nothing. Racism is inherently wrong. By being racist you are empirically making the world a worse place. By being racist you are increasing the divide.
    - jamescostian 8y ago
      Can you tell me how you would decrease the divide? I assume that for starters, you would not give money to people just because they fall into any specific category. But how would you address the racism that already exists, and that has already led and is still leading to some groups having more money than others (to a significant degree)?
      - yetanother1980 8y ago
        In this context a fund for poor founders would be a good start.
        jamescostian 8y ago
        Sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't address what I'm looking for. You said "Racism is inherently wrong" and currently what we have seems to be a mix of racism and systemic racism. The vast majority of VC funding goes towards white males, very little goes to females, and even less goes towards black females. Notice that 76% of venture capitalists are white males[0]. Unless you'd like to argue that there's some inherent reason why that's just how it is and always will be, I think we can all agree that clearly there is some artificially created imbalance at play. Sure, black women aren't the majority of the population, but they are 6%, and they are funded 0.2%[1] How do you fix this artificial imbalance? Because all I hear time and time again is either "Throw money at the problem to tip the scales in the other direction" or "Ignore the problem". If you're gonna say "ignore it" and not provide any reason beyond, then you're leaving the world in its already racist state. Even if nobody says anything racist, the scales are unbalanced and somehow they ought to get tipped a little to fix that. You can't tip those scales without doing something you'd call racist, but not doing anything leaves you in a racist society, so are you just saying that allowing racism is ok but adding racism to diminish other racism is not? Sounds like we'll never really improve with that mindset [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-venture-capitalists-ignoring-the-future-the-emerging-domestic-economy/#edfb05d64c38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-v... [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-challenges-of-getting-funding-for-minority-owned-business https://www.fastcompany.com/3060169/one-of-the-biggest-chall...
- consz 8y ago
  I'm not sure where you got the impression I was speaking for other white males, as I don't think I was speaking about anything at all in my post. "It normalises racism and sexism" still seems pretty deep in the territory of thought experiment, so I'm still having trouble seeing exactly what are the human consequences of this -- could you give me explicit examples of how this fund negatively impacts individual people (whether or not they are the targeted beneficiaries of the fund)?
  - yetanother1980 8y ago
    > As a white male If these characteristics are not important to your argument why raise them.
    - consz 8y ago
      First, I have no argument. Secondly, that detail was mentioned because, as I am neither a woman or a POC, my original question was less likely to be coming from a place of personal bias (“talking my book”, so to speak).
stillsut 8y ago
There's something of "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges" in your victimhood concept. Or updating the concept to current times, forbidding those who can couch surf indefinitely with friends in a dozen cities and the friendless from sleeping in their car. In aggregate, the white people I know do have more couch surfing opportunities than women of color. And more VC access. But individually, some do not, through no fault of their own, only the circumstances they were born into. To take an extreme example: Elizabeth Holmes, who is also a "victim" of this fund, is never actually going to need this fund; her father has a direct line of communication to Henry Kissinger and was able to raise 10x this funds entire capital. What I'm trying to say is this kind of concept actually doesn't victimize the most privileged like Holmes, and maybe you (?) but it does exclude some who exist on the margins of startup space. Empirically, what this could mean if this concept becomes a trend, is that people with good ideas and the ability to execute may be less likely to do a startup, considering it a rich person's game. A little like saying just move to Brooklyn and become an artist. We're still very far away from that but I don't think it's absurd to imagine us ending up there; if you talk to people outside the US, there's a strong belief that only the "right kind" of people can raise capital.

dang 8y ago

You did considerably more than anyone else to turn this thread into a wretched flamewar. Since it doesn't look like you've done it before with this account, I'm not going to ban it, but if you do this again we will. Ideological battle is not welcome here. All your comments in this thread were ideological battle. And that's just the start of the problems. It isn't necessary for people to agree on divisive topics. That's by definition impossible. But it is necessary for people to remain thoughtful and respectful. That's why the site guidelines say that "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." You used name-calling in the sense the guidelines ask you not to do, for example weaponizing "racist" and "sexist" and "bigotry" in a way that you must know perfectly well is divisive and provocative. By "weaponizing" I mean using words not to communicate information, but to bash something or someone verbally. That's flamewar. You reacted everywhere in this reductionist way, breaking the guideline that asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." That rule applies to articles and people in articles as well as to to people here. Why? Because discussion gets dumb without it. You crossed into personal attack and incvility in ways that can only inflame people and shut down meaningful conversation ("By being racist you are..."). You did that even when people responded to you gently and thoughtfully—which, amazingly, several did. You threw in things like the KKK for gratituous flamebait. And you extremely overposted to this thread, which spread the flames everywhere. There are still plenty of civil, substantive things people can say to each other when they have strongly different identifications about the issues touched on by a post like this. But that becomes impossible when even one person's reactions are so strong that they can't contain themselves, vandalize the thread, and degrade this community into a ruin that nobody would want to spend time in. On this occasion, you were that person. Please don't be that person again. Instead, please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use this site as intended from now on.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yetanother1980 8y ago
I will always call out discrimination in any context even by well meaning people. I do hope that arguing against racism and sexism is acceptable on this forum.