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Comment by darkwizard42 | Hacker News Reader

Laughing at names did not lead to genocide and no one implied that. What someone did was share why it was important to treat this seriously and not let it slide... lest the offending behaviors continue to escalate. An example was shared from social science on a pyramid of normalization where such behavior eventually gets normalized.

Classic and indisputable example might be Germany in WW2. It wasn’t like citizens woke up and immediately decided that genocide was okay; they slowly were worked into finding it acceptable and palatable as a measure to endorse.

It is only meant to illustrate the classic slippery slope.

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People did equate the names list to some mass shooting of Asians though.

A name like, say, "Fuk Yo" is accidentally similar to the English "Fuck you". It's kinda funny in a childish way, but I don't think that making fun of it automatically implies that they think these people are of lesser value. i.e. I don't think it's automatically racism in the first place.

It's inappropriate because making fun of your customers is never a good idea, and it's also inconsiderate and impolite. But that's not the same thing as racism, or evidence of white supremacy.

And maybe some employees who worked on that list were racist; there is no way for us to know. I like to opt for a more good-faith interpretation, which seems very uncommon these days.

The idea that this would "escalate" from a simple list to actual racism seems unlikely. Everyone knows the difference.

Also, the holocaust was a lot more complicated than this "pyramid" lets on. The Nazis took power by force, in some exceptional circumstances, and the Holocaust wasn't widely known among the German people. It's overly simplistic at best.

> It is only meant to illustrate the classic slippery slope.

I have never seen a single "slippery slope" argument that I found convincing, including this one. In every single case I've seen everyone is acutely aware of the difference between A and B. I don't consider it an argument, I consider it a fallacy.

>And maybe some employees who worked on that list were racist; there is no way for us to know. I like to opt for a more good-faith interpretation, which seems very uncommon these days.

Racism is the air we breathe. I grew up around mostly white kids, and there is undeniably more fear amongst those kids (myself included) when interacting with black people than with white people. It seems similarly undeniable that affluent white people are more afraid of african american people when its dark out than they are of other white people. When a black person applies to a job, their blackness is not neutral. It seems to me that most people have underlying feeling about blackness, and that people of color have to contend with that when they're going through their lives.

I think this is mostly correct; although I personally wouldn't go as far to say that "racism is the air we breathe", but that's an unimportant detail.

I'm not saying there aren't problems; I just don't see the connection between something like this list and the actual problems, and I certainly don't see a good reason for some of the strong and bold claims that are made about it.

It is hard to argue that showing the pyramid of hate doesn't imply that laughing at names leads to genocide. That's very much the overt message - it's not even an implication.

Saying E comes after B doesn't mean inevitably B leads to E. And it seems likely the employee wanted to make a point about the level the company was at or the next level up. Not the top of the pyramid.

The employee putting up that pyramid didn't appear to have the outcome they wanted. It turned into much more. This should be a lesson learned.

I've read a fair number of books on helping things through change. The pyramid being put where it was seemed like a bad idea the moment I read it. The way it was responded to is something I would have expected.

There is a lesson here. If you want to bring about change in others it's about leading them rather than saying what you want to say.

It depends. Did Hansson read what the employee wrote? Or did he glance at the diagram and react to 1 word? Hansson's reputation and how he handled this situation make me think something would have set him off inevitably.

It says you're at the first step along the path to genocide. Whether or not it is inevitable is irrelevant to where the path leads.

No. It's saying that allowing any lower level of the pyramid to exist and pervade allows for further levels to be built up. Whereas if that lower level doesn't exist, it's less likely that other forms of hate will develop and subvert society. It's the frog boiling in the water. It's a cautionary tale to know when the water is heating up and how to stop it.

I agree with your assessment. That is exactly why I stated that the overt message of the Pyramid of Hate is that laughing at funny names leads to genocide, because "allowing any lower levels of the pyramid to exist and pervade allows for further levels to be built up". Not sure what the disagreement is tbh.

> It is hard to argue that showing the pyramid of hate doesn't imply that laughing at names leads to genocide.

I don't find it challenging to make that argument at all.

"Laughing at names leads to genocide" to me implies that laughing at names is a necessary and sufficient condition to a genocide.

The pyramid of hate, to me, implies that laughing at names is a necessary but not sufficient condition of genocide.

Therefore showing the pyramid of hate does not imply that laughing at names leads to genocide, as it lacks the sufficiency condition.

Not so hard to argue.

That would be a good argument if the statement was that "laughing at names leads inevitably to genocide."

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