An open letter to Jason and David
janeyang.org
janeyang.org
As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I would be frankly terrified of hiring a woke SJW who wanted our business and all of our employees to become wholly dedicated to solving their pet causes.
Solving large scale societal injustice would be great, but it’s a long way down my list of priorities when logging on in the morning.
It’s even worse with the ever present threat they would then breach NDAs and bring the raging Twitter mob to the door when they don’t get their own way.
There are a million injustices in the world, but engaging and supporting them should be a personal decision. Keep that stuff away from the office.
Also Basecamp is a rather open company. Their employee handbook is on Github: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook
You're missing the point, people who are marginalized don't have the luxury of putting it down the list of their priorities. That's why they're marginalized. Please don't use rude and emotionally loaded terms like "woke SJW" to label people and dismiss their concerns about the work environment. This is not the way to run an inclusive business, and using those words in that way suggests that you think it's somehow wrong of your employees to desire justice or to care about the experiences of marginalized individuals.
Yes they do. High income tech worker are not oppressed in any meaningful way. It’s just a coincidence that they look similar to people who have real problems.
Not wanting to deal with SJWs has nothing to do with dismissing concerns about the work environment and expressing concerns about the work environment does not render someone an SJW.
And a business is, as the name implies, about the business. Not about inclusivity.
I'll be blunt -- if it's harmful to your business when activists on twitter discuss potential HR violations that your company might have committed, then your business has issues and you are not qualified to be running that business in that way. Please, hire a qualified HR professional who knows how to deal with this stuff, and let them handle the hiring and personnel issues, that's what they're there for. In my experience technical founders are notoriously bad at noticing when conflict is growing overboard and they need to expand HR, I know because I made the same mistake!
Employment laws don't exist because business is about inclusivity, they exist because we as society don't want businesses to do what they want to do. Employment laws work against business interests, not in favor of them.
Regarding that dismissing concerns line, some concerns are not relevant for some people: If you are a doctor and you wish to save the lifes of your patients and to do that you use some sort of specialized software the interfaces with your medical equipment, concerns about the energy of efficiency of the x86 processor it runs on can be dismissed by "I don't care whether this computer draws 100 or 45 Watts, I need it to save lives". Many business people do the same thing but with their goals: "I don't care about inclusivity, I need employees who work for the business and not against it".
And I'll be blunt aswell -- If you allow SJWs to disrupt your workforce with irrelevant junk, and thereby harm your business, then you are not qualified to be running that business.
And regard HR professionals, yes they are there to keep the workforce productive, not to be inclusive for political activists.
I've read the posts again and I think there is still a misunderstanding regarding the term SJW: I'm not using SJW as a term to dismiss something, as I already stated I use it to describe troublemaker/activist-types not normal-acting people who have concerns. That's a huge difference.
It really doesn't make much of a difference, you're still shaming activists as being "not normal acting" and for not doing activism in a way that explicitly benefits your business. Please don't do this, you're an observant individual, you know this is not the point of activism and it's pointless to look at it that way.
I don't have much more to say to you when you're saying that employment laws don't help business and that activists advocating for workplace fairness are "disrupting with irrelevant junk." This is completely wrong, the point of employment laws is to make sure your workers are treated fairly and are able to continue doing their jobs. When you say "keep the workforce productive" that's exactly what it means. If you're saying this is irrelevant junk, well, that's a really great way to get a bad reputation and to get sued for violating employment laws, which would then harm the business. The point of being inclusive is that you're making an effort to avoid pushing people out who DO want to help the business.
no, for explicitly damaging a business. politics and drama don't contribute to a productive work environment.
I'm indeed shaming activists who promote violence or similar b/s (ie. punch a nazi, or BLM rioters, ...) for not being normal acting. Would you describe them as normal acting?
> when you're saying that employment laws don't help business
if they would help business, they wouldn't be needed because businesses would implement them as corporate policy on their own.
> that activists advocating for workplace fairness..
Again I'm not talking about people advocating for fairness. SJWs are troublemakes, not advocates. If you don't get the difference compare extreme examples like trigglypuff to your average every-day feminist. This makes indeed a huge difference. If you where in HR and in charge of a hiring decision who do you pick trigglypuff[SJW] or Ms. Average Feminist[not SJW]? See the difference and why it's important?
> the point of employment laws is to make sure your workers are treated fairly and are able to continue doing their jobs.
The fist thing is correct, employment laws are there to protect people from unfair treatment. But think about the second claim. If a lack of employment laws would prevent employees from doing their job, what would employers do to keep the company in business? They would implement an equivalent to said employment laws internally, because they want their employees to keep working.
> When you say "keep the workforce productive" that's exactly what it means.
I don't see how inviting troublemakers helps productivity in any way.
I mean, that's the point of inclusivity, marginalized people just want to be able to do their jobs and avoid politics and drama. But it's hard to do that when they're being marginalized.
>if they would help business, they wouldn't be needed because businesses would implement them as corporate policy on their own.
A lot of them do. Small companies don't have resources to come up with extensive policies so that's where the laws become helpful.
>I'm indeed shaming activists who promote violence or similar b/s (ie. punch a nazi, or BLM rioters, ...) for not being normal acting. Would you describe them as normal acting? [...] Again I'm not talking about people advocating for fairness. SJWs are troublemakes, not advocates.
These comments are exactly why I say the term is emotionally loaded and you should avoid using that term, please don't draw false equivalences to attack stereotypes and claim that everyone who advocates for justice is troublemaking and promoting violence. You might not mean to do that but that's what you're doing when you use those derogatory terms in that way. This is getting really close to flamewar territory again and I don't want to continue this conversation.
I'm not the one drawing flase equivalencies. You keep conflating SJWs with advocates and people who have concerns not me.
> please don't [...] claim that everyone who advocates for justice is troublemaking and promoting violence.
I never did and I don't. Read my comments again I explaind exactly this distinction like three times already.
At least that's what I'm getting from the Silicon Valley type folks I follow on twitter. I think it's a mistake, they'll end up eating themselves in the long run. You may be a woke-leader now, but let's see what the next generation thinks of you in a decade.
Why do you want to "out" your coworkers? Force compliant thought control of the people you have to see every-day. Seems like it's destined for huge amounts of resentment. Fearing for employment because of your opinions, yikes.
Otherwise to be more geographically diverse implies becoming more ideologically diverse. Asking staff to largely separate politics from work is a rational reaction to that, a kind of social grease. A more diverse workforce needs more grease.
I remember having political discussions in the past and I can still have conversations with dissenting people over a certain age; younger people seems to have lost the capacity to discuss.
I think it's a generational issue, it's just that people who have been failed by the education system and by society (in the shape of psychologists' 10 parenting tips, divorces, working parents with 3 jobs, unstable families, being left out of the housing ladder), are reaching the age when they talk politics.
I agree with your point about people being failed by society and the education system, but do not agree that this has become an issue with younger people specifically. Anecdotally, I have spoken with younger people and older people who lose control of their emotions when something they hold close and identity with is challenged. Even if the topics are brought up in a civil manner, I've seen people completely lose their cool.
I would prefer people in society to be able to handle a political discussion without freaking out, calling each other names, involving HR or burning buildings down.
Most people can. What we're starting to hear out of Basecamp is that the people who couldn't handle it were DHH and Jason, not the employees: https://twitter.com/conormuirhead/status/1386890595902267394
This is classical us vs them rhetoric, and I don't like to be dragged into this trap, especially at a company level.
I strongly agree with Basecamp here.
Gauging from votes, most people in this thread seem to see themselves more as mercenaries with no personal investment in their workplace (or they are not negatively affected by their lacking work culture, uh, privilege) than anything else, and that's fine, but don't assume someone wouldn't find personal fulfillment in making their workplace better.
This is discrimination and this is obviously illegal, but this is a side effect of talking politics at work.
"Alice, pick up the ticket for Bob." "No, Bob voted for X!" Then, sometime later, Alice is fined and/or sent to jail.
The short answer is that I pick my workplace based on culture. I have to. I am a very obvious queer looking person, so about half to a third of my interviews go at least slightly sour as soon as they start. It's a good filter in a way.
The job I had while coming out turned out not to be so great, lots of rumors and hot takes and bad jokes about me going around. I don't need that sort of constant negativity in my life.
(Also, I'm not exactly sure how I'd define "the other side", since I'm not in the US. It's more subtle here.)
That does sound like it, to be honest. Some people seek fulfillment by changing their workplaces after their ideals, other people want to get stuff done.
I find it amazing that they launch new products despite having people who seem to be professional issue-seekers and problem-finders. I've worked along side similar people while working with unions and it was so unbelievably exhausting how slow they were in literally everything.
Really this whole controversy is asking for their political views to be the only ones discussed at work, what happens when someone from a more conservative background or country voices their views?
IMO really don’t want to talk politics at work it will just lead to problems. Also SJW is not a protected class.
I think all parties would be happier to part ways; no need to stay in a toxic relationship like that.
I think this is precisely the issue that guarantees we will forever have these discussions, whether or not a company bans political conversations. The software industry is simply much more left than the general population [1]. But rank and file employees ignore this, and assumes everyone else should hold the standard opinions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So they pressure their company leaders, but the company leaders are obviously running a business, rinse and repeat.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-show-the-political-bi...
The statement is framed in sarcasm, but if this is really the case, don't leave it up to the employer -- when the workplace gets toxic to you, find the door.
Sounds like she would be more fulfilled at a non-profit.
Sounds like she was spinning her wheels doing things that don’t necessarily make the company money, was bound to have conflict with management.
From https://janeyang.org/resisting/
> Racist capitalism is poison that has weakened every facet of society and been used to “justify” horrific crimes against humanity while destroying our planet. We need massive power and wealth distribution enshrined in national and international policies.
From https://janeyang.org/2021/04/13/im-getting-some-feedback/
> Guess who tends to beta spray? Men. White men, in particular.
From https://janeyang.org/2021/03/18/live-forward/
> If you are white or a man, especially a cis-gendered heterosexual able-bodied white man, do the fucking work. Learn about the characteristics of white supremacy, push through your discomfort, and reflect on how you show up in the spaces you have power. Be ready to apologize when you screw up (we all do!) and then do better. And whatever you do: do not demand that your friends or colleagues or employees or neighbors or acquaintances who belong to historically marginalized groups explain to you all the ways you perpetuate harm and how society got here. Pay an anti-oppression professional for training and coaching; don’t expect us to get you up to speed for free.
I understand why she's unhappy, but I bet most of her coworkers are thankful that Basecamp now discourages such discussions at work. I speak from experience when I say that dogmas (such as politics and religion) are poison for workplace productivity and happiness.
Even just mentioning banning politics in that letter brought tons of negative PR.
If you personally have a problem with the boundary between legal and illegal content, it seems that that should be taken up in your individual capacity with the existing democratic political process, not via pressure to your boss/manager/CEO.
Anyone happen to know what book?
> Keen followers will recall that when our Use Restrictions Policy was first officially rolled out, neither hate speech nor harassment were included. One of my colleagues (who comes from a marginalized background) and I (an Asian American woman child of immigrants who had grown up poor) had debated vigorously for their inclusion, with David in writing while Jason gazed from the sidelines, intellectually making our case before ultimately being told: no. We won’t include them yet. Let them stay in the grey area. Let us stay silent.
TL;DR: Basecamp decided not to explicitly include hate speech nor harassment in their use restrictions policy.
It's not clear if there were specific customers using Basecamp to (project manage?) hate speech or harassment, though I suspect any specific cases would be alluded to if they existed.
The author does suggest that they received customer questions asking if Basecamp supported "free speech":
> we began seeing more customer support cases asking about whether Basecamp “discriminated” against its customers. Whether it supported “free speech”. Another Moral Quandaries case came up, one that proved to be the most challenging professional experience of my life — and I’ve worked in refugee camps before!
The author managed to get hate speech and harassment added to the use restrictions policy eventually by sharing their personal experience of harassment:
> Over the course of that 10-day Moral Quandaries case investigation and discussion, it became clear to me that the only way to move you two was to prostrate myself. To violate my own sense of personal privacy and list out in excruciating detail example after example of how I have experienced hate and harassment. So I did, and at the end, hate speech and harassment were added to the list.
I have to say, after reading this rebuttal, I'm inclined to side with Basecamp. The amount of loathing this employee has for their employer is staggering, though it's not clear if the issues being debated actually related to real-world issues or were simply matters of principle. I can now see why Basecamp would take the steps they did.
For example - do you think children should not be allowed to consent to life-changing medical procedures without parental consent? Hate speech. Do you think borders should be secured to prevent illegal immigrants? Hate speech. What about requiring voter ID? Hate speech. On the other hand do you think "All Cops Are Bastards" (ACAB)? Allowed. Do you think we should "eat the rich"? Allowed. What about adopting Marxist philosophies, which caused more than 100 million deaths in the 20th Century? Allowed. These examples paint an absurd picture but it's the reality of how digital platforms have been policing speech and shaping our society's opinions artificially, under the guise of these misguided content policies. Just because a US company is doing it, instead of a foreign state, doesn't lessen its impact - these actions amount to propaganda.
As for Basecamp - given their promising letter and stance, I will be taking a look at their products and figuring out how to start using them to show my support for their pragmatism and rational sanity in an otherwise hostile world.
I mean the obv. answer is just not engage or placate. But I've found doing so is intellectually dishonest and the implied feedback given to the activist (left or right) that their opinion is the prevailing opinion. I try to challenge their opinions logically and on their possible emotional biases; but as politics (along with sex and religion) is the third-rail of American polite conversations, I find it hit-or-miss. Would love to hear everybody else's $0.02! (And if you disagree with me if you a wokist or magaist, I'd love to hear your takes too!)
Eventually I realized no one around me wanted to talk about it. Did some introspection and realized a lot of these issues are more complex than most people believe and most people didn't want to discuss them.
So now whenever anyone tries to drag me into politics I respond with the most crazy and incoherent position I can think of and play it off for the laughs. Good ones include
1) Nuke the rainforest
2) Invade Canada
3) Elect the Pope as Hegemon of the world
I find people usually laugh and stop talking about politics at that point. If those don't work start saying things like George Bush did 7/11 and Mark Zuckerberg is the Lizard illuminati but there is a secret society that controls the Illuminati as well call then Alluminati.
So that's what I do.
>Responding to you and the OP. I've found that in life, if you get conflicting strong positive and negative reactions, then you must be expressing or doing something true-to-the-heart! My Sunday school pastor once told me "Jesus care more that you either love or hate him intensely than ever in your walk of faith with him… than you have no feelings for him at all". The worst reception you can hope for in life is a milk-toast approval imho.
Since antiracism has essentially become a religion, I won't bother trying to persuade anyone who is obviously a true believer. You mostly can't convince someone out of their religion, since that's not what got them into the religion.
Others are more on the fence, and still have some semblance of sanity, and for them I try to set an example of someone who stridently cares about many of the issues they bring up, while trying to convince them that the woke approach to societal change is not only ineffective, but has done real harm to both actual flesh and blood people and our ability to talk things out and make sense of the world. I try to point them to resources that set a similar example -- not the outright anti-woke stuff, which will put them right off, but things like these that tread a middle path with elements that disrupt their tidy narrative of us vs them:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-painful-path-to-unity
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/woke-vs-anti-woke-asex...
I tend to be a non-confrontationalist. There is no point in debating with some people - either because its not the right situation, I don't want to offend them (work/friends), or its clear they are hardliners that won't have a civil debate.
That's a huge red flag.
Author, you aren’t an indentured servant to Basecamp. If you don’t enjoy the environment then take a little personal responsibility and find a place that makes you happy.
Assuming she has skills and isn't a risk to companies, just walking away and offering her valuable skills to some other workplace that shares her believes and makes her happy, would not only reward workplaces that do what she wants, it would be better for herself and her cause.
She isn't a rational activist she's a bully. She doesn't want to take responsibility for herself.
This kind of reminds me of "victim blaming" issue of people advising woman to not walk unarmed and alone at night trough dark, dodgy paths: feminists tend to see this as an idealistic statement ("you, woman, are the bad one for not behaving correctly"). instead of an pragmatic one ("you, woman, should not do X because it is dangerous for you").
Understanding this as the 2nd interpretation and taking the advice would require taking personal responsibility. They don't do that, they think in terms of how the world should be (men should not rape women, therefor I should be able to walk this path without fearing for my safety, if I walk this path it's not my fault if something happens to me) instead of how the world is (men do rape women, therefor I am not able to walk this path safely, it is my responsibility to decide whether or not this is worth the risk to me).
Ps. don't conflate that is people who say this is how to world should be and women should be raped if walk trough the wrong street at the wrong time. That's a different thing.
> Basecamp should be a place where employees can come to work with colleagues of all backgrounds and political convictions without having to deal with heavy political or societal debates unconnected to that work.
I completely agree with this and it’s the kind of environment that I would prefer to work in.
/r/suspiciousquotes