9 ms·

As a non-American, I find it truly bizarre (and sad) that's it's now controversial to publicly state that you're not taking sides.

krapp 6y ago
It isn't possible to not take sides. It's only possible to support the status quo, either explicitly or implicitly, or else oppose it.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  I don't understand this "us against them" mentality because it leaves no room for nuance. I strongly believe in PG's top of mind theory [1], and I don't see how you can achieve anything if you're constantly fighting for or against the status quo. Don't you believe it's possible to agree with certain viewpoints but not act on them? You also don't have to parade around your support during every waking moment, which is basically what Brian asked his employees not to do. [1] http://paulgraham.com/top.html http://paulgraham.com/top.html
  - darkwater 6y ago
    > Don't you believe it's possible to agree with certain viewpoints but not act on them? Obviously you can choose to agree on something is not good and at the same time to not collaborate in changing it. But then you should acknowledge that you are helping the status quo with your attitude, and helping the status quo is also a political action (like most human actions, since we are a society).
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. This seems to basically be this meme: "We should improve society somewhat" "Yet you participate in society" https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
      - krapp 6y ago
        > In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. Yes, if you want to be pedantic, there exist possible states of being in which a person may have little to no effect on their environment by virtue of being physically isolated from it. Someone stranded on a desert island, or someone in a coma. A literal brain in a jar screaming into the void. But that's not what this discussion is about. "Inaction" in the context of this discussion refers to expressing a stance of political neutrality, not to literal physical inaction. The (apparently controversial) question is whether political neutrality is truly neutral.
        unishark 6y ago
        Neutral is still neutral by the definition of the word. Your logical conflict comes from your metaphorical misuse of the word "support", which literally means to apply force to hold something in place. There an important distinction between someone applying such force and someone not doing so, just as between that person and someone applying force to topple the status quo. A person refusing to take sides is not applying force either way. I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. The fight remains only between you and the ropes.
        krapp 6y ago
        > I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. Except that, in the case of society and politics, you and I are both the worker and the scaffold. You support my cutting down the scaffold by choosing to fall with it.
        meheleventyone 6y ago
        It's just the trolley problem. Inaction often carries consequence. You're not supporting the scaffold but you are not concerned about the consequences of it remaining in place. And if we're talking about systems the difference between supporting the system and ignoring the consequences of the system are so small as to not be apparent.
    - humanrebar 6y ago
      I can think the status quo sucks and that proposed attitudes and alternatives suck too. Seeing a lack of acceptable options doesn't mean I am supporting any of them. That is a false choice. And, besides, maybe I am addressing the same problems in another way, it's just not apparent given the false choice framing. For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. And maybe it's none of your business how that's going so far.
      - krapp 6y ago
        > For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. ... that would mean you found an acceptable option. Whereas if you were against racism, but never bothered to do anything about it, then you would be implicitly supporting the status quo. Support goes beyond simple ideology. It includes social pressure, enforcing or reinforcing cultural norms and systems of privilege, even where and how you spend your money.
      - jacobr1 6y ago
        I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about the empirical evidence of a few (important) policies or disagree about about a few key moral values (or tradeoffs between values) it is that we are no working from the same moral frameworks. We are finally seeing the legacy of postmodernism becoming mainstream and it doesn't operate from the same assumptions that were crafted in the enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment values still dominate background presumptions for meta-ethical discussions, but this is why you see references to religion in this thread, the aesthetics of the discourse have many similarities.
  - samastur 6y ago
    No, what he said is that no issue is big enough to distract him and Coinbase from making as much money as possible (setting aside how truthful he was). It's also not a question of us against them. What we decide to do or not do all has a meaning, even just standing on the side. It is certainly possible to agree with viewpoints without acting on them, but it's not possible to support them.
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      > No, what he said is that no issue is big enough to distract him and Coinbase from making as much money as possible (setting aside how truthful he was) Even if we take his words cynically, is this the wrong thing to do if that is the path he's chosen? Context switching is very hard for an individual let alone an organization, and no one will ever agree what the most important issue(s) is/are (Racism, poverty, climate change, etc). The way I see it is that it's about picking your battles. It's impossible to support and act on every good cause out there. I don't understand what you expect people to do.
      - samastur 6y ago
        I think it is the wrong thing to choose, but he is obviously free to take it as we all are. I don't expect him to do anything though and I don't think my take was cynical either. If problems we are facing in 2020 are not big enough to distract him from his focus, then it is difficult to imagine what would. I agree that you can't support every good cause you agree with, but choices we make do say something about our priorities. What none of us has a right to is that others will not judge us for them.
  - anwalters 6y ago
    I agree with the basic premise: productive people do not have time to engage in petty fights. On the other hand, there are many situations where there is a silent majority of productive people who would literally need to speak up only once to topple an unfair system. The unfair system can be an open source project that has been hijacked by a small group of ideologists, it can be bad working conditions in ware houses. Certainly in the case of the open source project it would require just on mail per silent majority member to express dissent and shut down the bureaucrats. Yet, even in the simplest case it does not happen. So there seem to be more powerful forces at play than just lack of time: Lethargy, craving irrational authority, prisoner's dilemma (who speaks up first).
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      I have a theory that for worse or for better, the silent majority of productive people are more inclined to work with what they've got than attempt to change the system because attempting to change the system is generally unproductive.
      - vendiddy 6y ago
        I feel this way. I would like to change the system, but if I get pulled into every cause I'll never get anything done. It doesn't mean I won't speak up about anything, but I am picking my battles.
      - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
        Some are also wary of unintended consequences .. complex systems almost never respond to changes as you imagine they would.
  - zajio1am 6y ago
    > I don't understand this "us against them" mentality because it leaves no room for nuance. IMO it is just a rhetorical trick / social manipulation tool. On a landscape of political positions, there is a status quo area X. Who is against status quo is in non-X (complement to X). There is a side who wants to change status quo to position Y, which is a small and specific subset of non-X (which is necessary, because 'away from X' is not consistent position / direction). The fair approach would be to negotiate with other members of non-X (and perhaps some border members of X) for political support and get some compromise position with majority support. The "us against them" is just a way to manipulate (by guilt trip or other ways) members of non-X to support position Y, without giving any consessions for them and their positions. It may help for that goal if position Y is not explicitly stated, and the side is just marked / marketed as non-X.
    - humanrebar 6y ago
      You just described an (plausivly) emergent formulation of a motte-and-bailey. Very interesting. "Y" is the bailey and "not X" is the motte.
- username90 6y ago
  Supporting the status quo would mean that you actively oppose those who try to change it. Being neutral means that you help neither those who try to change it nor those who try to keep it the same as before. They are not the same. Example: A person is being murdered near you. You flee. Did you support the persons murder by not engaging, and therefore letting it play out? No, you did not.
  - eulenteufel 6y ago
    I think inconvenience of activism plays a role here. I don't have to endanger my life by stopping a murderer. I should however at least call an ambulance if I see somebody bleeding to death on the street. Of course I didn't support the bleeding by not taking action to stop it, but I did have a responsibility to act. I think this responsibility to act is the issue here. If I was supporting anything or staying neutral are semantics that I don't see central to this issue.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  Even if you're right, it's the "I'm remaining apolitical/status quo" types who are at least permitting you to hold opposing viewpoints even if they personally disagree. It's the activists who are trying to remove all dissent.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >it's the "I'm remaining apolitical/status quo" types who are at least permitting you to hold opposing viewpoints even if they personally disagree. It's the activists who are trying to remove all dissent. No, that's just partisan hyperbole. No one is "permitting" me to hold an opposing viewpoint, nor is anyone trying to "remove all dissent."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
danielheath 6y ago
I'm unaware of any point in history where 'not taking sides' in a war was viewed favorably by either side. I'm fairly confident that there will be a civil war shortly after the election.
- doublesCs 6y ago
  I'll bet you $100 there won't.
  - adamisom 6y ago
    Heck I'll raise that, and offer 20:1 odds to danielheath, I pay $400 if there's a civil war, he pays $20 if there's not.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      How did the value of US dollar compared to other currencies change during the US civil war?
      - adamisom 6y ago
        Fair question. I guess I was thinking that a civil war would be heralded (e.g. by all major news outlets) before long-term effects started happening (like currency changes), but who knows.
sneak 6y ago
Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  If you're trying to demonstrate just how ridiculous political polarization in the US has become, you're doing a pretty great job.
  - sneak 6y ago
    Human rights aren't a partisan issue.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >Human rights aren't a partisan issue. Guns and fetuses beg to differ. (Though at least in US politics both issues seem to be trending slowly toward majority agreement and becoming non-partisan issues.)
    - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
      Very few people are against "human rights". There is, however, very real controversy about whether and the extent to which various rights are included in the bundle of human rights; and some of those divide along US partisan lines.
      - jimbobimbo 6y ago
        It's not the amount of rights that's the issue, it's what is the source of rights. Conservatives (and US declaration of independence) posit that rights are from God (i.e. preexist government, if you don't want to bring God into discussion), while democrats view government as the source of the same. Depending which side you are on, your view on the role of government is very different (protect the rights vs. create the rights). I think this perspective explains why e.g. Supreme Court Justice position is so highly contested. If your position is that government's role is to protect rights, then judge is just a person who reads the law or the case and tells you if it's aligned with the Constitution or not. If you're on the opposite side, judicial system is just another vehicle to create new rights and laws, bypassing less predictable (due to its representation model) Congress.
michaelt 6y ago
I have a theory this is a consequence of tech companies wanting to move things online and become 'platform owners', leasing and ad-supporting everything rather than selling it. After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart. But many tech companies have realised how profitable it is to be Facebook or Github. They own the domain, their name's in the banner at the top of the page and the name of the native app, they pay all the hosting costs and make all the ad money, and they've put themselves in the situation where they can censor users. When we in tech moved away from "we just sell the stuff, none of our business what you do with it" and made "what you do with it" the core of our businesses, we were walking into the realm of politics whether we realised it at the time or not.
- eyeball 6y ago
  > After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart. Oh yes they would. Selling to the KKK would make Microsoft and Walmart KKK supporters.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Wal-mart doesn't know if that shopper is on their way to the KKK cook-out. If you've heard someone proposing wal-mart should start IDing shoppers to check them against a blacklist of undesirables, they were trolling you.
    - eyeball 6y ago
      By not verifying that every customer is in lock step with the party line, Walmart is actively supporting racism.
      - iso8859-1 6y ago
        How can it be "active" if they are doing less work?
mdifrgechd 6y ago
Something I've found about recent "activism" (not sure if that's the best word) is that the supporters act like it's not enough to acknowledge and agree with the activists aims, but that these aims must in fact be the most important issue the world faces, and if you're not 100% committed you are against them. I think this 'My cause is "the" cause' has arisen as an escalation in the fight for attention. And I think it's a big element in peoples view that not taking sides is controversial - "if you're not choosing to focus all your attention on my pet cause, you don't care about X"
- rattray 6y ago
  Thanks – this explanation ("the attention economy causes aggressive activism") resonates and somehow makes me feel better about the situation. It can be disheartening to see friends and movements I agree with turn to aggressive rhetoric and evangelism. But the fact that it's yet another symptom of a broken (social) media environment is a nice reminder that it's not their fault so much as it is an expected result of a bad system. Of course, it's equally sad/disheartening that our modes of societal discourse and decision-making have gotten this bad, but it's a theoretically solvable problem (eg; legislation and a good facebook competitor) and it doesn't involve me feeling bad about people I like.
  - anticristi 6y ago
    "If you don't forward this email to at least 5 friends or family, something horrible will happen to you."
- vowelless 6y ago
  It’s a very evangelical phenomenon. These “activists” are no different than religious proselytizers. Maybe this is a very American thing due to the strong historical presence of the evangelical church.
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    Religious groups did this forever, it's thinkable other serious people watched the resulting loyalty and borrowed the tools. Peer pressure is literally how indoctrination worked since prehistoric time, it's simply generalized to any idea now.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
It's only controversial among the people who think that not wanting to fight whatever particular battle is in question that minute is an endorsement of the status quo.
doitLP 6y ago
So do many Americans. It is a vocal and proselytizing minority getting outsized coverage that makes it seem like “everyone feels this way”.
anticristi 6y ago
I think it's worse. If you don't spray every single corner with an anti-racist message, you are automatically a racist: https://kubernetes.io/ https://kubernetes.io/
ryanobjc 6y ago
You gotta realize that millions, tens of millions, of Americans are white supremicists, look at black people getting shot by the police and think “they must be criminals they got what they deserved.” We are having an (ongoing) argument in America as to who deserves what kinds of civil rights. Rights like marriage (which confers extensive legal rights), protection from being fired, fair treatment by the cops and legal system, and much more.
x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
That's because it's now a religious fervor rather than politics.

krapp 6y ago

It isn't possible to not take sides. It's only possible to support the status quo, either explicitly or implicitly, or else oppose it.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
I don't understand this "us against them" mentality because it leaves no room for nuance. I strongly believe in PG's top of mind theory [1], and I don't see how you can achieve anything if you're constantly fighting for or against the status quo. Don't you believe it's possible to agree with certain viewpoints but not act on them? You also don't have to parade around your support during every waking moment, which is basically what Brian asked his employees not to do. [1] http://paulgraham.com/top.html http://paulgraham.com/top.html
- darkwater 6y ago
  > Don't you believe it's possible to agree with certain viewpoints but not act on them? Obviously you can choose to agree on something is not good and at the same time to not collaborate in changing it. But then you should acknowledge that you are helping the status quo with your attitude, and helping the status quo is also a political action (like most human actions, since we are a society).
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. This seems to basically be this meme: "We should improve society somewhat" "Yet you participate in society" https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
    - krapp 6y ago
      > In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. Yes, if you want to be pedantic, there exist possible states of being in which a person may have little to no effect on their environment by virtue of being physically isolated from it. Someone stranded on a desert island, or someone in a coma. A literal brain in a jar screaming into the void. But that's not what this discussion is about. "Inaction" in the context of this discussion refers to expressing a stance of political neutrality, not to literal physical inaction. The (apparently controversial) question is whether political neutrality is truly neutral.
      - unishark 6y ago
        Neutral is still neutral by the definition of the word. Your logical conflict comes from your metaphorical misuse of the word "support", which literally means to apply force to hold something in place. There an important distinction between someone applying such force and someone not doing so, just as between that person and someone applying force to topple the status quo. A person refusing to take sides is not applying force either way. I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. The fight remains only between you and the ropes.
        krapp 6y ago
        > I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. Except that, in the case of society and politics, you and I are both the worker and the scaffold. You support my cutting down the scaffold by choosing to fall with it.
        meheleventyone 6y ago
        It's just the trolley problem. Inaction often carries consequence. You're not supporting the scaffold but you are not concerned about the consequences of it remaining in place. And if we're talking about systems the difference between supporting the system and ignoring the consequences of the system are so small as to not be apparent.
  - humanrebar 6y ago
    I can think the status quo sucks and that proposed attitudes and alternatives suck too. Seeing a lack of acceptable options doesn't mean I am supporting any of them. That is a false choice. And, besides, maybe I am addressing the same problems in another way, it's just not apparent given the false choice framing. For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. And maybe it's none of your business how that's going so far.
    - krapp 6y ago
      > For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. ... that would mean you found an acceptable option. Whereas if you were against racism, but never bothered to do anything about it, then you would be implicitly supporting the status quo. Support goes beyond simple ideology. It includes social pressure, enforcing or reinforcing cultural norms and systems of privilege, even where and how you spend your money.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about the empirical evidence of a few (important) policies or disagree about about a few key moral values (or tradeoffs between values) it is that we are no working from the same moral frameworks. We are finally seeing the legacy of postmodernism becoming mainstream and it doesn't operate from the same assumptions that were crafted in the enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment values still dominate background presumptions for meta-ethical discussions, but this is why you see references to religion in this thread, the aesthetics of the discourse have many similarities.
- samastur 6y ago
  No, what he said is that no issue is big enough to distract him and Coinbase from making as much money as possible (setting aside how truthful he was). It's also not a question of us against them. What we decide to do or not do all has a meaning, even just standing on the side. It is certainly possible to agree with viewpoints without acting on them, but it's not possible to support them.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    > No, what he said is that no issue is big enough to distract him and Coinbase from making as much money as possible (setting aside how truthful he was) Even if we take his words cynically, is this the wrong thing to do if that is the path he's chosen? Context switching is very hard for an individual let alone an organization, and no one will ever agree what the most important issue(s) is/are (Racism, poverty, climate change, etc). The way I see it is that it's about picking your battles. It's impossible to support and act on every good cause out there. I don't understand what you expect people to do.
    - samastur 6y ago
      I think it is the wrong thing to choose, but he is obviously free to take it as we all are. I don't expect him to do anything though and I don't think my take was cynical either. If problems we are facing in 2020 are not big enough to distract him from his focus, then it is difficult to imagine what would. I agree that you can't support every good cause you agree with, but choices we make do say something about our priorities. What none of us has a right to is that others will not judge us for them.
- anwalters 6y ago
  I agree with the basic premise: productive people do not have time to engage in petty fights. On the other hand, there are many situations where there is a silent majority of productive people who would literally need to speak up only once to topple an unfair system. The unfair system can be an open source project that has been hijacked by a small group of ideologists, it can be bad working conditions in ware houses. Certainly in the case of the open source project it would require just on mail per silent majority member to express dissent and shut down the bureaucrats. Yet, even in the simplest case it does not happen. So there seem to be more powerful forces at play than just lack of time: Lethargy, craving irrational authority, prisoner's dilemma (who speaks up first).
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I have a theory that for worse or for better, the silent majority of productive people are more inclined to work with what they've got than attempt to change the system because attempting to change the system is generally unproductive.
    - vendiddy 6y ago
      I feel this way. I would like to change the system, but if I get pulled into every cause I'll never get anything done. It doesn't mean I won't speak up about anything, but I am picking my battles.
    - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
      Some are also wary of unintended consequences .. complex systems almost never respond to changes as you imagine they would.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  > I don't understand this "us against them" mentality because it leaves no room for nuance. IMO it is just a rhetorical trick / social manipulation tool. On a landscape of political positions, there is a status quo area X. Who is against status quo is in non-X (complement to X). There is a side who wants to change status quo to position Y, which is a small and specific subset of non-X (which is necessary, because 'away from X' is not consistent position / direction). The fair approach would be to negotiate with other members of non-X (and perhaps some border members of X) for political support and get some compromise position with majority support. The "us against them" is just a way to manipulate (by guilt trip or other ways) members of non-X to support position Y, without giving any consessions for them and their positions. It may help for that goal if position Y is not explicitly stated, and the side is just marked / marketed as non-X.
  - humanrebar 6y ago
    You just described an (plausivly) emergent formulation of a motte-and-bailey. Very interesting. "Y" is the bailey and "not X" is the motte.
username90 6y ago
Supporting the status quo would mean that you actively oppose those who try to change it. Being neutral means that you help neither those who try to change it nor those who try to keep it the same as before. They are not the same. Example: A person is being murdered near you. You flee. Did you support the persons murder by not engaging, and therefore letting it play out? No, you did not.
- eulenteufel 6y ago
  I think inconvenience of activism plays a role here. I don't have to endanger my life by stopping a murderer. I should however at least call an ambulance if I see somebody bleeding to death on the street. Of course I didn't support the bleeding by not taking action to stop it, but I did have a responsibility to act. I think this responsibility to act is the issue here. If I was supporting anything or staying neutral are semantics that I don't see central to this issue.
commandlinefan 6y ago
Even if you're right, it's the "I'm remaining apolitical/status quo" types who are at least permitting you to hold opposing viewpoints even if they personally disagree. It's the activists who are trying to remove all dissent.
- krapp 6y ago
  >it's the "I'm remaining apolitical/status quo" types who are at least permitting you to hold opposing viewpoints even if they personally disagree. It's the activists who are trying to remove all dissent. No, that's just partisan hyperbole. No one is "permitting" me to hold an opposing viewpoint, nor is anyone trying to "remove all dissent."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

danielheath 6y ago

I'm unaware of any point in history where 'not taking sides' in a war was viewed favorably by either side. I'm fairly confident that there will be a civil war shortly after the election.

doublesCs 6y ago
I'll bet you $100 there won't.
- adamisom 6y ago
  Heck I'll raise that, and offer 20:1 odds to danielheath, I pay $400 if there's a civil war, he pays $20 if there's not.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    How did the value of US dollar compared to other currencies change during the US civil war?
    - adamisom 6y ago
      Fair question. I guess I was thinking that a civil war would be heralded (e.g. by all major news outlets) before long-term effects started happening (like currency changes), but who knows.

sneak 6y ago

Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.

howlgarnish 6y ago
If you're trying to demonstrate just how ridiculous political polarization in the US has become, you're doing a pretty great job.
- sneak 6y ago
  Human rights aren't a partisan issue.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >Human rights aren't a partisan issue. Guns and fetuses beg to differ. (Though at least in US politics both issues seem to be trending slowly toward majority agreement and becoming non-partisan issues.)
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    Very few people are against "human rights". There is, however, very real controversy about whether and the extent to which various rights are included in the bundle of human rights; and some of those divide along US partisan lines.
    - jimbobimbo 6y ago
      It's not the amount of rights that's the issue, it's what is the source of rights. Conservatives (and US declaration of independence) posit that rights are from God (i.e. preexist government, if you don't want to bring God into discussion), while democrats view government as the source of the same. Depending which side you are on, your view on the role of government is very different (protect the rights vs. create the rights). I think this perspective explains why e.g. Supreme Court Justice position is so highly contested. If your position is that government's role is to protect rights, then judge is just a person who reads the law or the case and tells you if it's aligned with the Constitution or not. If you're on the opposite side, judicial system is just another vehicle to create new rights and laws, bypassing less predictable (due to its representation model) Congress.

michaelt 6y ago

I have a theory this is a consequence of tech companies wanting to move things online and become 'platform owners', leasing and ad-supporting everything rather than selling it. After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart. But many tech companies have realised how profitable it is to be Facebook or Github. They own the domain, their name's in the banner at the top of the page and the name of the native app, they pay all the hosting costs and make all the ad money, and they've put themselves in the situation where they can censor users. When we in tech moved away from "we just sell the stuff, none of our business what you do with it" and made "what you do with it" the core of our businesses, we were walking into the realm of politics whether we realised it at the time or not.

eyeball 6y ago
> After all, nobody would complain if the KKK had brought Microsoft Office licenses, any more than they'd complain if the KKK had brought food at wal-mart. Oh yes they would. Selling to the KKK would make Microsoft and Walmart KKK supporters.
- michaelt 6y ago
  Wal-mart doesn't know if that shopper is on their way to the KKK cook-out. If you've heard someone proposing wal-mart should start IDing shoppers to check them against a blacklist of undesirables, they were trolling you.
  - eyeball 6y ago
    By not verifying that every customer is in lock step with the party line, Walmart is actively supporting racism.
    - iso8859-1 6y ago
      How can it be "active" if they are doing less work?

mdifrgechd 6y ago

Something I've found about recent "activism" (not sure if that's the best word) is that the supporters act like it's not enough to acknowledge and agree with the activists aims, but that these aims must in fact be the most important issue the world faces, and if you're not 100% committed you are against them. I think this 'My cause is "the" cause' has arisen as an escalation in the fight for attention. And I think it's a big element in peoples view that not taking sides is controversial - "if you're not choosing to focus all your attention on my pet cause, you don't care about X"

rattray 6y ago
Thanks – this explanation ("the attention economy causes aggressive activism") resonates and somehow makes me feel better about the situation. It can be disheartening to see friends and movements I agree with turn to aggressive rhetoric and evangelism. But the fact that it's yet another symptom of a broken (social) media environment is a nice reminder that it's not their fault so much as it is an expected result of a bad system. Of course, it's equally sad/disheartening that our modes of societal discourse and decision-making have gotten this bad, but it's a theoretically solvable problem (eg; legislation and a good facebook competitor) and it doesn't involve me feeling bad about people I like.
- anticristi 6y ago
  "If you don't forward this email to at least 5 friends or family, something horrible will happen to you."
vowelless 6y ago
It’s a very evangelical phenomenon. These “activists” are no different than religious proselytizers. Maybe this is a very American thing due to the strong historical presence of the evangelical church.
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  Religious groups did this forever, it's thinkable other serious people watched the resulting loyalty and borrowed the tools. Peer pressure is literally how indoctrination worked since prehistoric time, it's simply generalized to any idea now.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

It's only controversial among the people who think that not wanting to fight whatever particular battle is in question that minute is an endorsement of the status quo.

doitLP 6y ago

So do many Americans. It is a vocal and proselytizing minority getting outsized coverage that makes it seem like “everyone feels this way”.

anticristi 6y ago

I think it's worse. If you don't spray every single corner with an anti-racist message, you are automatically a racist: https://kubernetes.io/ https://kubernetes.io/

ryanobjc 6y ago

You gotta realize that millions, tens of millions, of Americans are white supremicists, look at black people getting shot by the police and think “they must be criminals they got what they deserved.” We are having an (ongoing) argument in America as to who deserves what kinds of civil rights. Rights like marriage (which confers extensive legal rights), protection from being fired, fair treatment by the cops and legal system, and much more.

x3n0ph3n3 6y ago

That's because it's now a religious fervor rather than politics.