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Comment by virgilp | Hacker News Reader

Was it wrong on DHH's part, though? Here's how I read it:

DHH: "Making fun of names is wrong and clearly a failure on our part that we didn't stop it. Please don't take extreme views though, it is not genocide, we'd like to believe we'd fire genocide-inclined employees

Employee: continues to argue that making fun of names leads to genocide

DHH: points to employee making fun of names

Employee: surprised pikachu face

What was DHH supposed to do? Acknowledge said employee, and fire them?

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Maybe not post his response for the whole company to see? It's the first thing you learn about managing people.

Perhaps you imagine DHH's response was different than his actual response? Read it (link below) - do you still consider it wrong?

https://world.hey.com/dhh/let-it-all-out-78485e8e

Are people who formerly did shitty things not allowed to ever criticize those things point out their consequences? If said employee learned to behave better, why publicly shame them?

Unless you only care about shutting them up and "winning" the argument in front of your staff, DHH didn't help himself or the company at all. He actually behaved like a spoiled chikd.

Well isn't that convenient: make your own mistakes against social propriety and have your "come to Jesus" moment, then apply your normal code only going forward, despite people losing their careers over 10 plus year old tweets? Doesn't work that way when you are not the king. If they cannot find a moral code that seeks a common denominator when other moral agents disagree, then they should not complain about being hoisted by their own petard. Maybe a little more nuance and forgiveness is in order here, and if they are not capable of that, then shutting down controversial political talk makes a lot of sense.

Could you restate that? I wasn't able to make something coherent out of it.

Sure: what you say makes sense, don't get me wrong, it's just highly morally conceited for employees to think they have any standing to have made certain jokes at a time when it was tolerated, and now they they have changed their own attitudes about what should or shouldn't be off limits in the workplace, that everyone else should find these jokes beyond the pale as well, and be talked down to about what is or is not offensive. A blanket "no politics" rule is fair because it doesn't privilege any particular person's sensibilities about what is or is not acceptable at work. Obviously there is a gray area, but employees who demand these issues be dealt at work and then don't want to face censure for their participation in it in the past are just hypocrites.

You would shame them because they haven’t suffered any consequences for their actions and the very least they can do is not be hypocritical.

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