8 ms·

From the tweet: > pronouns, whether someone can identify as a different race and be allowed to use the N-word Perhaps his argument is that no one should be ab

From the tweet: > pronouns, whether someone can identify as a different race and be allowed to use the N-word Perhaps his argument is that no one should be able to use it at work? I'm not convinced your take is the correct one.

bergenty 4y ago
babypuncher 4y ago
So he's not saying the N-word himself, but instead arguing that opressed minorities should not be allowed to reclaim slurs formerly used against them? I really do not see how that is much better. The entire statement reeks of privilege.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  No. He’s making the troll argument that if people born men can identify as women (and therefore be treated as such) then why can’t white people identify as black and say the n-word. Not as superficially bad as saying the word, but bad in the sense it is a two-for-one: trivializing the experience of black people and trans people.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    For some reason I find this even worse. What an ass. It's a shittier version of the "trans apache attack helicopter" meme from forever ago.
  - basch 4y ago
    Maybe I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I read it as the exact opposite. I read it as him saying: the argument that "why can’t white people identify as black and say the n-word" is a troll argument, made in bad faith, and is disruptive to work culture and productivity, and people making that argument have no place in their culture. I arrive at that conclusion because the heading starts "What are they upset about?" They are upset "whether someone can identify as a different race and be allowed to use the N-word." I dont really think someone parading against wokism would in good faith argue that somebody can identify as a different race. They would only do so facetiously. Three tweets above it, his SYN flood DoS analogy makes its pretty clear he is against people derailing good conversation with in bad faith arguments. As an aside, I'm honestly a little concerned that basically every other commenter arrived at a different conclusion. We are all all over the place. Is our ability to connectively parse tribal language, in a consensual way, really this broken? Is what he wrote really that cryptic or unclear? EDIT: I guess he is the facetious bad actor.
    - RC_ITR 4y ago
      No, we are just reading a very charged statement and revealing our biases. One only needs to look at the history of biblical textualism to see that this is nothing new. Edit: my interpretation of “they” btw is that “woke” people are upset someone made that argument, which ceo is arguing is a way to shut down good faith argument.
      - basch 4y ago
        Your interpretation is the other way I read it. Either the pronoun people and the n-word people are the same people, or they are two different groups of opposite upset people. Given your interpretation, is he saying "engaging troll arguments further is a form of disruption"? It's also possible the n-word people are prowokism but making a twisted not in bad faith argument that everybody saying the word is more inclusive. And meaning it earnestly. This reading seems the least likely. His more egregious transgression, to me, is going from "If nobody is ever offended, we either don't have enough diversity of thought or we don't have enough transparency in communication" to 'let's sever ties with our 20 most outraged, so there isnt so many offended here.' There's some contradiction between words and actions. If he wants to build a offense-inclusive environment, it needs to include all outrage. These 20 people should be encouraged to continue as an anti-culture team, as a counterfource and check & balance counter to their culture, albeit in a way that doesnt monopolize internal attention.
      - basch 4y ago
        Update: The NYT says he's the one who made the troll argument. So maybe he is the disruption that doesnt fit his own culture. Extending someone the benefit of the doubt only goes as far as until they prove otherwise. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-...
    - bertil 4y ago
      I admire your effort to try to parse it, but I don't really think we should, or can: it's not a topic that can be explained in 280 characters, one can only fit so many layers of implicit ironic quotation in a tweet, so… Don’t make convoluted points about discrimination on twitter. It's not suited for such points. If you need to, draft something deliberate, long-form and edit it several times. Have a close friend review it, edit some more, and link to it from a tweet, but everything about this thread tells me no one gained much by being exposed to it. As a CEO, he should have known better, learn to communicate clearly and in the right forum, and not force you & others in a futile exercise on exegesis.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Just as a curiosity what is the counter to this troll argument? Philosophically speaking why is one obvious and the other unthinkable?
    - ketzo 4y ago
      If you want a simple appeal to medical science, gender dysphoria is recognized in the DSM-5 [1], and gender-affirming care and identification have been shown to result in measurable improvements in transgender people’s health outcomes [2]. Neither of those things are true for “trans-racialism.” Beyond that: I struggle to find almost any good-faith examples of people claiming that they genuinely believe themselves to be “trans-racial.” [1] https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/wh... [2] https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2013/examining-health-outcomes-people-who-are-transgender https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2013/examining-health...
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        The issue there philosophically is that prior to it's recognition in the DSM-5 transgender people would then not have existed. That is more of an appeal to authority than an explanation why one accident of birth is a social construct and one is not.
        ketzo 4y ago
        Yeah, that’s fair as an argument from first principles. But speaking from a more practical standpoint: we know, empirically, that there are a lot of transgender people out in the world. We know that many of them feel much healthier when they are able to transition, in various different ways. It’s not just an appeal to authority, it’s an appeal to a fairly significant consensus in medical science. Which feels better to me. We just don’t have any meaningful evidence for “I identify as black so I can say the N-word” being anything other than an annoying troll argument. Or at least, I certainly haven’t seen any. But if you want to talk about race/gender as social constructs, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation — one very worth having!
  - Reubachi 4y ago
    No pony in this race, but no. He is saying the exact opposite. To prevent this confusion, should have said nothing at all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- KwisatzHaderack 4y ago
  Well said, babypuncher.
sharken 4y ago
Not allowing the N-word at all would be the best option. Never really understood how the word can be positive at all, but it seems it can be.
- smcl 4y ago
  I think it's (deliberately) been left vague who is saying has been using that language. But if you look at the tweet itself, it looks like he's got a problem with people who he deems as overly sensitive about some contemporary issues like respecting someone's pronouns and having diversity policies
phillipcarter 4y ago
Nah, it just seems that he wants to be an edgelord ceo in his little kingdom. > That same day, he invited employees to join him in a Slack channel called “debate-pronouns” where he suggested that people use pronouns based not on their gender identity but their sex at birth, according to conversations seen by The Times. He shut down replies to the thread after it became contentious. > Mr. Powell reopened discussion on Slack the next day to ask why people couldn’t choose their race or ethnicity. He later said the conversation was about who could use the N-word, which he noted wasn’t a slur when used affectionately. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-...
- the_gipsy 4y ago
  > it just seems that he wants to be an edgelord ceo in his little kingdom. What's the point of being a CEO then /s

bergenty 4y ago

babypuncher 4y ago

So he's not saying the N-word himself, but instead arguing that opressed minorities should not be allowed to reclaim slurs formerly used against them? I really do not see how that is much better. The entire statement reeks of privilege.

RC_ITR 4y ago
No. He’s making the troll argument that if people born men can identify as women (and therefore be treated as such) then why can’t white people identify as black and say the n-word. Not as superficially bad as saying the word, but bad in the sense it is a two-for-one: trivializing the experience of black people and trans people.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  For some reason I find this even worse. What an ass. It's a shittier version of the "trans apache attack helicopter" meme from forever ago.
- basch 4y ago
  Maybe I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I read it as the exact opposite. I read it as him saying: the argument that "why can’t white people identify as black and say the n-word" is a troll argument, made in bad faith, and is disruptive to work culture and productivity, and people making that argument have no place in their culture. I arrive at that conclusion because the heading starts "What are they upset about?" They are upset "whether someone can identify as a different race and be allowed to use the N-word." I dont really think someone parading against wokism would in good faith argue that somebody can identify as a different race. They would only do so facetiously. Three tweets above it, his SYN flood DoS analogy makes its pretty clear he is against people derailing good conversation with in bad faith arguments. As an aside, I'm honestly a little concerned that basically every other commenter arrived at a different conclusion. We are all all over the place. Is our ability to connectively parse tribal language, in a consensual way, really this broken? Is what he wrote really that cryptic or unclear? EDIT: I guess he is the facetious bad actor.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    No, we are just reading a very charged statement and revealing our biases. One only needs to look at the history of biblical textualism to see that this is nothing new. Edit: my interpretation of “they” btw is that “woke” people are upset someone made that argument, which ceo is arguing is a way to shut down good faith argument.
    - basch 4y ago
      Your interpretation is the other way I read it. Either the pronoun people and the n-word people are the same people, or they are two different groups of opposite upset people. Given your interpretation, is he saying "engaging troll arguments further is a form of disruption"? It's also possible the n-word people are prowokism but making a twisted not in bad faith argument that everybody saying the word is more inclusive. And meaning it earnestly. This reading seems the least likely. His more egregious transgression, to me, is going from "If nobody is ever offended, we either don't have enough diversity of thought or we don't have enough transparency in communication" to 'let's sever ties with our 20 most outraged, so there isnt so many offended here.' There's some contradiction between words and actions. If he wants to build a offense-inclusive environment, it needs to include all outrage. These 20 people should be encouraged to continue as an anti-culture team, as a counterfource and check & balance counter to their culture, albeit in a way that doesnt monopolize internal attention.
    - basch 4y ago
      Update: The NYT says he's the one who made the troll argument. So maybe he is the disruption that doesnt fit his own culture. Extending someone the benefit of the doubt only goes as far as until they prove otherwise. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-...
  - bertil 4y ago
    I admire your effort to try to parse it, but I don't really think we should, or can: it's not a topic that can be explained in 280 characters, one can only fit so many layers of implicit ironic quotation in a tweet, so… Don’t make convoluted points about discrimination on twitter. It's not suited for such points. If you need to, draft something deliberate, long-form and edit it several times. Have a close friend review it, edit some more, and link to it from a tweet, but everything about this thread tells me no one gained much by being exposed to it. As a CEO, he should have known better, learn to communicate clearly and in the right forum, and not force you & others in a futile exercise on exegesis.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Just as a curiosity what is the counter to this troll argument? Philosophically speaking why is one obvious and the other unthinkable?
  - ketzo 4y ago
    If you want a simple appeal to medical science, gender dysphoria is recognized in the DSM-5 [1], and gender-affirming care and identification have been shown to result in measurable improvements in transgender people’s health outcomes [2]. Neither of those things are true for “trans-racialism.” Beyond that: I struggle to find almost any good-faith examples of people claiming that they genuinely believe themselves to be “trans-racial.” [1] https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/wh... [2] https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2013/examining-health-outcomes-people-who-are-transgender https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2013/examining-health...
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      The issue there philosophically is that prior to it's recognition in the DSM-5 transgender people would then not have existed. That is more of an appeal to authority than an explanation why one accident of birth is a social construct and one is not.
      - ketzo 4y ago
        Yeah, that’s fair as an argument from first principles. But speaking from a more practical standpoint: we know, empirically, that there are a lot of transgender people out in the world. We know that many of them feel much healthier when they are able to transition, in various different ways. It’s not just an appeal to authority, it’s an appeal to a fairly significant consensus in medical science. Which feels better to me. We just don’t have any meaningful evidence for “I identify as black so I can say the N-word” being anything other than an annoying troll argument. Or at least, I certainly haven’t seen any. But if you want to talk about race/gender as social constructs, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation — one very worth having!
- Reubachi 4y ago
  No pony in this race, but no. He is saying the exact opposite. To prevent this confusion, should have said nothing at all.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
KwisatzHaderack 4y ago
Well said, babypuncher.

sharken 4y ago

Not allowing the N-word at all would be the best option. Never really understood how the word can be positive at all, but it seems it can be.

smcl 4y ago
I think it's (deliberately) been left vague who is saying has been using that language. But if you look at the tweet itself, it looks like he's got a problem with people who he deems as overly sensitive about some contemporary issues like respecting someone's pronouns and having diversity policies

phillipcarter 4y ago

Nah, it just seems that he wants to be an edgelord ceo in his little kingdom. > That same day, he invited employees to join him in a Slack channel called “debate-pronouns” where he suggested that people use pronouns based not on their gender identity but their sex at birth, according to conversations seen by The Times. He shut down replies to the thread after it became contentious. > Mr. Powell reopened discussion on Slack the next day to ask why people couldn’t choose their race or ethnicity. He later said the conversation was about who could use the N-word, which he noted wasn’t a slur when used affectionately. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-...

the_gipsy 4y ago
> it just seems that he wants to be an edgelord ceo in his little kingdom. What's the point of being a CEO then /s