“What Did You Do?” | Hacker News Reader

“What Did You Do?”

alexisohanian.com

18 pointserickhill23 comments

Instead of everyone here nitpicking on how this action is too little, or not meaningful enough, or misguided, or whatever other criticism you can think of, just acknowledge that he is trying to do something. He is not seeking your approval or accolades. But actually doing something is more than posting comments on HN, so there's that.

As I write this, there are 12 comments here, and every single one other than yours is disgusting. It seems Reddit isn't the only collection of self-centered people lacking empathy or any drive at all to understand the world around them.

It is irrational to compensate a negative event now incoherently with positive discrimination.

It's like saying: Germany started World War 2, now Germany must send soldiers to stop Syrian war to compensate its bad karma.

"Irrational" is becoming something of a synonym for "I don't agree". Also, that's an awfully dramatic analogy.

> lacking empathy or any drive at all to understand the world around them.

I wish desperately I knew how to communicate a drive to understand the world around me. I wish desperately wish that I knew how to actually communicate that I don't know or understand things.

People refuse to believe me when I say "I don't know" or "I don't understand" or "I'm missing something".

People refuse to take as honest my questions -- to hear them as expressions of a drive to understand the world around me.

------------

Request for advice: What sorts of words do you use to communicate that you don't understand or something and wish to know it. How do you convey ignorance in a way that people don't think you're lying about it?

I have repeatedly observed both in life and in this thread that asking questions does not work.

I don't know you or your history of questions. In my experience, I'm taken more seriously when I don't ask questions in a way that implies an answer I expect. Open-ended questions seem more sincere every time.

"Where can I learn more about Black Lives Matter?" is far better than almost any variation, ranging from "Why do people say Black Lives Matter when such-and-such is true?" (which smells like disingenuous nonsense) to "Do protestors care about COVID-19 anymore?" (which is structured to allow only yes/no questions with zero nuance, and is clearly designed to result in "Apparently not" from people who already agree.

So if you often find yourself not being taken seriously, think about how your questions might be answered, and maybe ask more open-ended questions.

Also, people aren't required to answer questions because you ask them. Not everyone has the time or motivation to educate, especially on contentious topics at times of stress.

After writing the above, I clicked through to your comments. IMO, you started with an open-ended question that was literally answered in the link already, then followed up with a series of additional questions that suggested you disagreed with the stated reason.

Dude makes a sacrifice to move things in what he perceives to be a positive direction, and your response seemed to be to cast doubt on his motivation and imply his actions were foolish and misguided.

It sure didn't seem like any kind of honest questioning to me.

Really saddened to see the negativity in the comments surrounding this post.

This can't be overstated. The mockery and negativity is overwhelming and monstrous. My first instinct was to call it "cynicism", but cynicism isn't usually expressed as such an active attack on a person.

> I’m writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: “What did you do?”

The rationalisation here is crazy. Dude with a black wife and a black daughter espouses some sort of moral requirement to quit his board role? There is no sense there. If there is a perspective here that makes sense; it needs elaboration.

It seems more likely he is dropping off the board for a different, unmentioned, reason.

Why does it seem more likely?

Part of the problem of systemic racism is lack of representation. If you aren’t getting representation for your community then your issues are less likely to be addressed.

Why can’t he feel a sense of moral obligation to have members of our community be represented in seats of power?

Traditionally when someone invokes their family while stepping down from a board it means there was either a major screw up, a sex scandal or a health crisis. It is normal not to get a straightforward reason for why someone resigns a powerful position.

> Why can’t he feel a sense of moral obligation to have members of our community be represented in seats of power?

His family is blacker than something like 80% of American families. He is "urging" a black replacement rather than identifying "this is the black candidate we have decided to replace me with". His daughter is going to be one of the American elite - this "able to answer" business is a transparent emotional play. She will crush everyone in this HN thread with the opportunities and material comforts that she will enjoy.

The blog post doesn't quite mesh. Balance of probabilities; there is more to this story that is not obvious. It isn't a basic moral decision.

Wait, isn't exactly this discrimination? Selecting or not selecting someone based on his/her skin color?

> "I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate"

Wait I'm really missing something about the "why?" here.

- He didn't have an idea of how he could orient the organization he had built toward solving problems?

- He didn't have any black leaders within the organization he could think of to elevate who would both have a more keen lived-experience sense of the nature of the problem _and_ know reddit culture enough to apply that understanding?

Maybe not and we don't have the full story here.

But systemic racism isn't some bad-apples good-apples issue any more than the 787-MAX was brought down by a pair of bad pilots. It is not really an issue of replacing people if they are under the same pressures. It's an issue of _systems_.

What systems does this refactor or dismantle?

He is worth 10s (hundreds?) of millions of dollars. This costs him nothing. What he is suggesting reddit do is illegal.

> What he is suggesting reddit do is illegal.

Are board appointments considered hiring? Honest question. I have no idea how the law works here, but I just figured the shareholders could choose whoever they want.

Why is it just a black nothing as the picture?

From an Instagram thread where I asked my friend the same quesiton...

Me: "Hey there, you're latest post is all black. Is that a reference to the civil unrest & injustice in the USA at the moment? I'm a bit out of the loop being out of country."

My friend: "It is - in short, people are “muting” themselves on social media to stand in solidarity with our black peers and to amplify black voices right now"

It's a well intentioned, although poorly thought out, way of "muting" oneself online to show solidarity with the BLM movement and to let black voices share their experiences and vital info. Instead it actually drowns them out, obfuscates useful information and turns your various timelines into endless black nothingness. Although I can see the value in hijacking social media for a moment to amplify a single message, some BLM leaders would rather it not occur for the aforementioned reasons[0].

[0] - https://twitter.com/BlairImani/status/1267706347753213955

Too little, too late. Reddit had a chance to ban T_D and other hateful subreddits many years ago and didn't.

So T_D quit reddit and went over to theDonald.win not because of reddit's censorship?

I’m not sure I follow. Could you rephrase?

I think you’re trying to say: Reddit’s partial censorship has been effective. For example, T_D is abandoned.

"I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate"

Board positions are paid well, and racial discrimination in hiring is against the law. Ohanian should not be encouraging it.

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