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I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “

I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignoring it or refusing to call it out.

Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
[flagged]
- qarl 9mo ago
  Maybe. Or maybe people are just REALLY fed-up with assholes. Hard to say.
GOD2026 9mo ago
[flagged]
estimator7292 9mo ago
You're ignoring the family metaphor. GP is painting Adams as the old racist uncle everyone tolerates at family dinners. It's excusing Adams' racist behavior, in the same way you excuse your racist uncle to a partner the first time they come to dinner. It's not okay, and it's not okay to pretend it's okay.
- relaxing 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- rexpop 9mo ago
  There are a lot of racist uncles in tech.
singingbard 9mo ago
This took me a long time to work through: 1. People’s beliefs are strongly shaped by upbringing and social environment. 2. A belief feeling “natural” or common does not make it correct or benign. 3. What’s most commendable is the effort to examine and revise inherited beliefs, especially when they cause harm. 4. This framework lets me understand how any individual arrived at their views without endorsing those views. I think this is why responses often split: some treat explanation as endorsement, others don’t. Both reactions are understandable, but the tension disappears once you treat explanation and moral evaluation as separate and compatible steps.
- gvedem 9mo ago
  this is a great way of articulating it; something I've felt for a long time as a transplant from the Bible Belt who occasionally has to listen to New Englanders sweepingly denigrate the South or Midwest.
  - throwaway2037 9mo ago
    What do you say/think/feel when you hear people from the Bible Belt denigrate New Englanders?
- 8jef 9mo ago
  Great thinking framework. And there are many roads leading to some very similar realizations. I guess it's all about what truly really works.
michaelt 9mo ago
Generally the idiom "like family" implies very close and durable bonds of friendship and loyalty. That you'd drive several hours to help them bury a body, if they asked. The idiomatic use is a much higher standard than literal family - members of the same family can hate each other. As jchallis used the idiomatic term in the latter, more literal sense, I can understand people getting confused.
- beastcoast 9mo ago
  My therapist frames this as "family of origin" (FOO) vs "family of choice" (FOC).
  - celticninja 9mo ago
    This is like the saying blood is thicker than water, but the the full version: The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Sometimes you relationship with your FOC is stronger and better, because it is not built on genetic predisposition but rather it is a bond that you intentionally create.
    - cvcount 9mo ago
      Somewhat tangential, but from what I can see, the idea that "the blood of the covenant..." is the full version of the saying is a fairly modern invention.
      - immibis 9mo ago
        As is "the customer is always right in matters of taste"
    - sharkmerry 9mo ago
      Apparently there isnt much to back that up. Writing in the 1990s and 2000s, author Albert Jack[18] and Messianic minister Richard Pustelniak,[19] claim that the original meaning of the expression was that the ties between people who have made a blood covenant (or have shed blood together in battle) were stronger than ties formed by "the water of the womb", thus "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Neither of the authors cites any sources to support his claim.[18][19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_is_thicker_than_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_is_thicker_than_water
_carbyau_ 9mo ago
Ironically, a whole bunch of people have spent their formative years in a cancel-culture world and this now shapes their actions. But at an art gallery, Picasso is near worshipped despite his torrid misogyny and abuse in his personal life which was terrible even by the standards of his day. The views on his art were formed at a time before cancel-culture was a thing. Realising: - everyone has performed good and bad actions - having performed a good action doesn't "make up for or cancel out" a bad action. You can save thousands of people, but murdering someone still should mean a life sentence. - you can be appreciated for your good actions while your bad actions still stand. : all these take some life experience and perhaps significant thought on the concepts.
- hexer292 9mo ago
  > You can save thousands of people, but murdering someone still should mean a life sentence. I've struggled with this point of view since my early teens, and possibly even earlier. There is no amount of good one can do to compensate for even the slightest misdeed. As much as I may agree, however, it's probably the most damaging and destructive moral framework you can possibly have, because it just consumes anything positive.
  - empthought 9mo ago
    This sounds more like scrupulosity than a moral framework. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity
    - hexer292 9mo ago
      People have always told me I'm too hard on myself. Then again, I've made mistakes to know I wasn't hard enough on myself. If you're worried about causing a negative effect on someone and then you do, the solution isn't to not worry about that.
      - watercolorblind 9mo ago
        As someone who has been quite hard on myself too: To err is to be human. If you minimize your life to minimize negative impacts on others, you are hurting yourself (and your friends and family). If you make a mistake, learn from it and try to be better. None of us are born with the skill and knowledge to do the right thing all the time, and sometimes there is no right thing, just different tradeoffs with different costs.
raxxorraxor 9mo ago
> the importance of calling out bigotry. There is a thin line here. People need people like Adams to be a racist to justify themselves. If you look for flaws in everyone overstepping conventional dogmata, you would rate higher on a scale that approximates authoritarian personalities. My case here is exactly such a case as well. It is only an approximation, but it would be a delusion to ignore these tendencies in online or media discussions. Perhaps he was racist, I didn't know him personally. He certainly was controversial and he wanted to provoke. That comes with a price. But statements with inverted skin colors are simply treated differently.

Mountain_Skies 9mo ago

[flagged]

qarl 9mo ago
Maybe. Or maybe people are just REALLY fed-up with assholes. Hard to say.

GOD2026 9mo ago

[flagged]

estimator7292 9mo ago

You're ignoring the family metaphor. GP is painting Adams as the old racist uncle everyone tolerates at family dinners. It's excusing Adams' racist behavior, in the same way you excuse your racist uncle to a partner the first time they come to dinner. It's not okay, and it's not okay to pretend it's okay.

relaxing 9mo ago
[flagged]
rexpop 9mo ago
There are a lot of racist uncles in tech.

singingbard 9mo ago

This took me a long time to work through: 1. People’s beliefs are strongly shaped by upbringing and social environment. 2. A belief feeling “natural” or common does not make it correct or benign. 3. What’s most commendable is the effort to examine and revise inherited beliefs, especially when they cause harm. 4. This framework lets me understand how any individual arrived at their views without endorsing those views. I think this is why responses often split: some treat explanation as endorsement, others don’t. Both reactions are understandable, but the tension disappears once you treat explanation and moral evaluation as separate and compatible steps.

gvedem 9mo ago
this is a great way of articulating it; something I've felt for a long time as a transplant from the Bible Belt who occasionally has to listen to New Englanders sweepingly denigrate the South or Midwest.
- throwaway2037 9mo ago
  What do you say/think/feel when you hear people from the Bible Belt denigrate New Englanders?
8jef 9mo ago
Great thinking framework. And there are many roads leading to some very similar realizations. I guess it's all about what truly really works.

michaelt 9mo ago

Generally the idiom "like family" implies very close and durable bonds of friendship and loyalty. That you'd drive several hours to help them bury a body, if they asked. The idiomatic use is a much higher standard than literal family - members of the same family can hate each other. As jchallis used the idiomatic term in the latter, more literal sense, I can understand people getting confused.

beastcoast 9mo ago
My therapist frames this as "family of origin" (FOO) vs "family of choice" (FOC).
- celticninja 9mo ago
  This is like the saying blood is thicker than water, but the the full version: The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Sometimes you relationship with your FOC is stronger and better, because it is not built on genetic predisposition but rather it is a bond that you intentionally create.
  - cvcount 9mo ago
    Somewhat tangential, but from what I can see, the idea that "the blood of the covenant..." is the full version of the saying is a fairly modern invention.
    - immibis 9mo ago
      As is "the customer is always right in matters of taste"
  - sharkmerry 9mo ago
    Apparently there isnt much to back that up. Writing in the 1990s and 2000s, author Albert Jack[18] and Messianic minister Richard Pustelniak,[19] claim that the original meaning of the expression was that the ties between people who have made a blood covenant (or have shed blood together in battle) were stronger than ties formed by "the water of the womb", thus "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Neither of the authors cites any sources to support his claim.[18][19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_is_thicker_than_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_is_thicker_than_water

_carbyau_ 9mo ago

Ironically, a whole bunch of people have spent their formative years in a cancel-culture world and this now shapes their actions. But at an art gallery, Picasso is near worshipped despite his torrid misogyny and abuse in his personal life which was terrible even by the standards of his day. The views on his art were formed at a time before cancel-culture was a thing. Realising: - everyone has performed good and bad actions - having performed a good action doesn't "make up for or cancel out" a bad action. You can save thousands of people, but murdering someone still should mean a life sentence. - you can be appreciated for your good actions while your bad actions still stand. : all these take some life experience and perhaps significant thought on the concepts.

hexer292 9mo ago
> You can save thousands of people, but murdering someone still should mean a life sentence. I've struggled with this point of view since my early teens, and possibly even earlier. There is no amount of good one can do to compensate for even the slightest misdeed. As much as I may agree, however, it's probably the most damaging and destructive moral framework you can possibly have, because it just consumes anything positive.
- empthought 9mo ago
  This sounds more like scrupulosity than a moral framework. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity
  - hexer292 9mo ago
    People have always told me I'm too hard on myself. Then again, I've made mistakes to know I wasn't hard enough on myself. If you're worried about causing a negative effect on someone and then you do, the solution isn't to not worry about that.
    - watercolorblind 9mo ago
      As someone who has been quite hard on myself too: To err is to be human. If you minimize your life to minimize negative impacts on others, you are hurting yourself (and your friends and family). If you make a mistake, learn from it and try to be better. None of us are born with the skill and knowledge to do the right thing all the time, and sometimes there is no right thing, just different tradeoffs with different costs.

raxxorraxor 9mo ago

> the importance of calling out bigotry. There is a thin line here. People need people like Adams to be a racist to justify themselves. If you look for flaws in everyone overstepping conventional dogmata, you would rate higher on a scale that approximates authoritarian personalities. My case here is exactly such a case as well. It is only an approximation, but it would be a delusion to ignore these tendencies in online or media discussions. Perhaps he was racist, I didn't know him personally. He certainly was controversial and he wanted to provoke. That comes with a price. But statements with inverted skin colors are simply treated differently.