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That isn't what they said. What they said was: people who created the list went off on some weird tangent about the list being the first step towards genocide,

That isn't what they said. What they said was: people who created the list went off on some weird tangent about the list being the first step towards genocide, if you have a problem with the list, you shouldn't contribute to the list (the subtle point here is that people who tend to be most active about these things usually feel guilty, management said the list was bad, management said it shouldn't have happened...what more do you want? Are you really saying that suggesting the list was genocidal is a normal response?). Circulating a list like this would happen everywhere. Every person believes they are above other people when they see other people behaving badly...funnily enough, bad things still happen because people think they are different from everyone else (understanding this point is a big step is the difference between managing yourself and having to manage other people...things happen, people make mistakes, they do things that they wouldn't normally do...once you manage a large team, the probability of weird things happening goes to 1). Btw, just as an aside, this whole discussion is going nowhere. I can only see this from my own perspective but most people have literally no knowledge of history, they have no knowledge of debate, they have no idea how to engage with other people in good faith. The reason why so many organizations have rules about not talking about politics is because, once an organization reaches a certain size, these discussions become impossible because the average level of a discussion is just so terrible (and there will always be a minority who actually don't want to engage with anyone else, they just want to burn it down). Ironically, this is essential to improving diversity in large organizations...but, irregardless, this discussion is pointless and will go nowhere. We will never reach a point where the complaining stops because the complaining is not related to anything outside individuals...it is just nothing (and a huge part of this is people feeling guilty).

matteotom 5y ago
[1] is a useful overview. Somebody posted the ADL's "pyramid of hate"[2], which links biased views and actions as necessary (but not sufficient) preconditions to genocide. Some people saw this as going too far since "obviously" anyone who contributes to genocide should be fired, while the whole point of the pyramid is anybody can perpetuate these really early preconditions (and at the end of the day we should encourage people to learn from these smaller mistakes, and not punish them as harshly as firing). [1] https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basecamp https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec... [2] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  As a somewhat ironic illustration about how pyramids of behaviour work, in this case keeping a funny name list at work was a precondition for a third (or even more) of an already small company resigning. That doesn't mean that keeping such a list 100% inevitably leads to losing so much of your workforce or that someone who points out that it could escalate that far (given enough time and poor handling) is "accusing" you of not wanting to retain your employees. What it means is that you should nip such things in the bud and thus simply never have to play the guessing game of "will this go catastrophically badly or not?".
- hogFeast 5y ago
  Yes, and I am saying this is a weird thing for a human to do (the explanation here is that the person was the one contributing to the list, and is overcompensating). Making of lists of funny names is not the first step to genocide. Genocide is horrendous, but the reasons for genocide are complex and the notion of a pyramid to genocide based only on jokes or whatever...is just wrong (again, that is what I said earlier about people not understanding history, I think it isn't coincidental that history/politics education in the US is of very low quality). That view is based on an extremely narrow, individualistic notion of human action/events that has no correlation with reality (living in a society where everyone accuses everyone else of being a genocidaire is also not fun for anyone, it is not inclusive, it is not diverse...I am sure lawyers would love it, no-one else would). This is the kind of thing that you would hope people can appreciate through common sense...but, unfortunately, that isn't the case anymore. Also, the issue isn't about someone being fired for promoting genocide...again, this is one of the subtleties of argumentation that you should learn at school...DHH's point was only about why the person was posting the pyramid of hate, self-evidently he did not believe that anyone in the office was attempting to organise a genocide (why does this needs to be said). His view on the list was clear: the list shouldn't have happened, it was bad, people who made the list should have not made it (rather than making it, and then attempting to over-compensate by saying the list was the first step to genocide). ...the stuff that people argue about on here is truly amazing. Again, the US underinvests massively in history/politics/philosophy...these are problems that just don't happen in some societies.
croh 5y ago
> once an organization reaches a certain size, these discussions become impossible because the average level of a discussion is just so terrible (and there will always be a minority who actually don't want to engage with anyone else, they just want to burn it down) I can relate with this based on my experience. Setting proper goals and incentive solves not all but many problems. But with big enough and diverse crowd there will be always some issues.

matteotom 5y ago

[1] is a useful overview. Somebody posted the ADL's "pyramid of hate"[2], which links biased views and actions as necessary (but not sufficient) preconditions to genocide. Some people saw this as going too far since "obviously" anyone who contributes to genocide should be fired, while the whole point of the pyramid is anybody can perpetuate these really early preconditions (and at the end of the day we should encourage people to learn from these smaller mistakes, and not punish them as harshly as firing). [1] https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basecamp https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec... [2] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...

filleduchaos 5y ago
As a somewhat ironic illustration about how pyramids of behaviour work, in this case keeping a funny name list at work was a precondition for a third (or even more) of an already small company resigning. That doesn't mean that keeping such a list 100% inevitably leads to losing so much of your workforce or that someone who points out that it could escalate that far (given enough time and poor handling) is "accusing" you of not wanting to retain your employees. What it means is that you should nip such things in the bud and thus simply never have to play the guessing game of "will this go catastrophically badly or not?".
hogFeast 5y ago
Yes, and I am saying this is a weird thing for a human to do (the explanation here is that the person was the one contributing to the list, and is overcompensating). Making of lists of funny names is not the first step to genocide. Genocide is horrendous, but the reasons for genocide are complex and the notion of a pyramid to genocide based only on jokes or whatever...is just wrong (again, that is what I said earlier about people not understanding history, I think it isn't coincidental that history/politics education in the US is of very low quality). That view is based on an extremely narrow, individualistic notion of human action/events that has no correlation with reality (living in a society where everyone accuses everyone else of being a genocidaire is also not fun for anyone, it is not inclusive, it is not diverse...I am sure lawyers would love it, no-one else would). This is the kind of thing that you would hope people can appreciate through common sense...but, unfortunately, that isn't the case anymore. Also, the issue isn't about someone being fired for promoting genocide...again, this is one of the subtleties of argumentation that you should learn at school...DHH's point was only about why the person was posting the pyramid of hate, self-evidently he did not believe that anyone in the office was attempting to organise a genocide (why does this needs to be said). His view on the list was clear: the list shouldn't have happened, it was bad, people who made the list should have not made it (rather than making it, and then attempting to over-compensate by saying the list was the first step to genocide). ...the stuff that people argue about on here is truly amazing. Again, the US underinvests massively in history/politics/philosophy...these are problems that just don't happen in some societies.

croh 5y ago

> once an organization reaches a certain size, these discussions become impossible because the average level of a discussion is just so terrible (and there will always be a minority who actually don't want to engage with anyone else, they just want to burn it down) I can relate with this based on my experience. Setting proper goals and incentive solves not all but many problems. But with big enough and diverse crowd there will be always some issues.