Hacker News Reader

I disagree. DHH said no politics at work. I thought that was great. A sensible moderate position at a time where people were getting polarised.

Then he started a blog, built on his companies software, where he constantly shares extreme political opinions. When you are the public face of a company (and framework) and you are publishing your political opinions using your companies platform, you are now bringing politics to work. He’s a hypocrite.

right, that's exactly what he did. "politics for me but not for thee"

That's not the case at all. His blog is his personal blog, not 37Signals, and he has never said employees were not allowed to share political opinions outside of work.

When you're the public face of a company you don't get to separate your personal political blogs from your work life. Your employees shouldn't know your political opinions and when you're that much in the public eye that means keeping them to yourself.

I genuinely don't understand why you believe this. Were you holding Bill Gates to the same standard when he still ran Microsoft? A charitable foundation is inherently political (it asserts the importance of the causes it financially supports, and holds them to represent matters of significant moral weight); should he not have put his and his wife's name on it?

this is in the same category as "the law in its majestic equality forbids both beggars and rich men to sleep under bridges".

DHH advocates "no politics at work" because as a powerful guy that's organized politics potentially directed at him. He advocates blogging because he knows perfectly well that he has a large audience and his employees or critics don't. That's why the rich tech bro class loves getting politics out of the workplace and getting it onto the platforms they own.

That is the point though, his hand was forced. He was very politically attacked in a very public manner and has spoken out nonstop ever since.

> When you are the public face of a company (and framework) and you are publishing your political opinions using your companies platform, you are now bringing politics to work.

So Tim Cook would be "bringing politics to work" by posting politics on Twitter from an iPhone? Plenty of prominent Python community members, including core devs, have politics on their blogs and also use Python-powered technology (dedicated SSGs like Nikola, but also even Sphinx which is really meant for documentation) to generate and publish pages; is that "bringing politics to work"?

I don't know how this fits into the narrative you just posted, but DHH was a keynote speaker at RailsConf this year. I was there and heard him speak. He didn't speak about anything "political"; just his usual ranting and raving, this time about how long it takes to test and deploy things.

He was brought back for the last RailsConf since DHH started RailsWorld after he was removed as a speaker for previous conferences.

Good summary. Also the ask for politics to be kept out of company chats is often what I find cited as the _core_ reason for why "DHH is a Nazi" in online discussions. It's _weird_.

I think the real root of peoples' disagreement over what happened there is that rank-and-file employees wanted to assert a lot more control over what their company does than they actually could and they were informed that that wouldn't be acceptable. The six month severance was generous.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45622861

I more or less agree with the "no politics at work" stance

but you've omitted his recent "contributions", where he went completely off the rails

have a read of this https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

it's completely unacceptable, and he's promoting a self proclaimed fascist white nationalist (Tommy Robinson)

That's not quite accurate. Quoting chatGPT, since it may have more credible neutrality than my own opinion:

""" Does Tommy Robinson call himself a "fascist" or "white nationalist"?

No — Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) does not call himself a fascist or white nationalist. He consistently rejects those labels, describing himself instead as a patriot, free-speech activist, or anti-Islamist campaigner. To summarize the record:

* Public statements:

Robinson has said things like “I’m not a racist, I’m not a fascist — I’m a working-class lad from Luton who’s standing up for my country.” In interviews (e.g., BBC Panorama, ITV, and various YouTube appearances), he has explicitly denied being a fascist or white nationalist.

* Affiliations:

He co-founded the English Defence League (EDL), which has been widely described by journalists and researchers as far-right and anti-Muslim.

However, he left the EDL in 2013 saying it had become associated with racism and extremist elements he could no longer control. """

Maybe TR is a fascist or white nationalist, but he isn't a self-proclaimed one.

I don't know why you were downvoted for this. The term "self-proclaimed" does actually mean something in English and is not just an intensifier.

I mean, even if you grant that the EDL is not a fascist organisation (I don't) he was a member of the BNP which is an explicitly fascist organisation, so at best he is a former fascist or a reformed fascist.

(political opinion incoming)

Other than his mention of Tommy Robinson, it is not radical or unacceptable to say "Wow, my city has changed radically in the past 20 years and is losing its identity".

If the center and the left completely reject the validity of national identity and the expectation of immigrant integration to British identity, then you leave people with those sentiments running into the only open arms left: the far-right and the rest of their agenda.

As a liberal, even a progressive in my own mind, I still recognize that completely open borders are a problem and that we should expect all people coming to a country to want to learn the language and integrate with the native community and customs. This concept is compatible with respecting cultural diversity and immigrant populations and their civil rights.

And the UK really seems to have a free speech problem. Support Palestine too much? Jail. Support immigration controls too much? Believe or not, jail.

FINALLY - I don't see how this kind of hard-fork-over-politics maneuver helps change minds in the long run. It only generates bitterness.

> Other than his mention of Tommy Robinson, it is not radical or unacceptable to say "Wow, my city has changed radically in the past 20 years and is losing its identity".

what does DHH, a Dane, who as far as I'm aware has never lived in London (and certainly doesn't now), know about London/the UK?

absolutely fuck all

he should keep his trap shut, in the same way Elon Musk should stop attempting to stoke nationalist fires in a foreign nation

I am also a (British, not American) liberal, and I agree with your comments about integration

the UK has an integration problem that successive political leaders have attempted to brush under the carpet, whilst ignoring the electorate's desire for a reduced rate of immigration

but the sort of nativist crassness displayed in that blog post is not the answer

and leads down a very nasty road that we thought we had defeated forever 60 years ago

> And the UK really seems to have a free speech problem. Support Palestine too much? Jail. Support immigration controls too much? Believe or not, jail.

I'm afraid this type of authoritarianism always seems to come with a labour government

> If the center and the left completely reject the validity of national identity and the expectation of immigrant integration to British identity

He explicitly cited race, not "British identity" he quoted a Wikipedia page where he took stats excluding non-white British.

I don't think he was arguing the point you're attributing to him.

> I more or less agree with the "no politics at work" stance

> but you've omitted

I'm not that poster, but it was objectively correct to omit that, because it was as an objective matter of fact not "at work".

It does. Not. Matter. In this context what his beliefs are, or how they look to you through your lens.

In exactly the same way that, for example, the political views of GNOME and Xorg developers are not relevant to the development of those projects, and only become relevant when they get discussed in development spaces. (Or, you know, when they become the motivation for explicit interference in XLibre development.)

I am shocked, SHOCKED, to know that a person who loves to program and just wants to do it would be more productive than people bikeshedding about code of conduct and other matters ;)

he's definitely disingenuous, though. I think the "cancel" situation was cringe but the guy posts nativist musings about London and then acts apolitical. look, I get it. the first large generation of professional developers that came up in the web 2.0 era are getting older now so naturally many are becoming more conservative. but a lot of this comes across as some kind of backlash because these guys aren't "cool" anymore. there'd be a lot less drama in this situation in particular if DHH didn't act like he needs the approval of 26 year olds. they're never going to see eye to eye with him because he's an old man at this point so he should have some tact and be the bigger person if he cares about the dev community he was a part of. very similar situation to Musk who used to be adored around the world and now he's seen as a basket case.

DHH is at worst in the middle between left and right in the political spectrum.

Keeping politics out of work place is like an extremely mild stance.

For some reason, people label him as facist...

The label is meaningless now because it's been so over used. At this point a facist is anyone to the right of anarcho-communism. People still trying to use the term are labeling themselves more than anybody else.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45622861

Case in point

https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1979601199927083373?s=46

I don't think that's fair, I mostly thought that until I read his recent blog post[0] where he wished for fewer non-white people in London and praises a far-right fascist figure in England (Tommy Robinson, he was a member of the BNP[1] for while before he started the EDL which was more extreme).

When you're advocating for ethno-nationalism and praising fascists, I don't think you can get mad at people thinking maybe you're a little bit fascist, or can claim to be in the centre politically.

[0] https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party

I read it and I don't see it.

He praised one policy from Tommy Robinson. This doesn't mean he support every single action performed by Tommy Robinson for eternity.

He advocates for stricter immigration laws and is against mass immigration.

He then praises the stricter immigration laws in Denmark. Then, Denmark would be considered facist and ethno-nationalistic by your logic?

> I don't think you can get mad at people thinking maybe you're a little bit fascist, or can claim to be in the centre politically

I'm actually mad that the word fascist is losing its meaning.

Wanting a stricter immigration law is now fascist, and Denmark is basically considered fascist for all these years for having stricter immigration laws praised by DHH...

At worst, this view is centered.

I disagree, wanting stricter immigration is not fascist, and isn't the problem I have with the article.

He argues that non-White people aren't British[0], that's the bit where it gets a bit fascist for me.

There's a debate to be had about immigration, that I think is valid. I think there's nothing wrong with advocating to reduce immigration. I think saying non-White people (who were born here, just so we can get away from the immigration side of things) aren't British is a dick move and kinda fascist.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45358344

I also find it really frustrating:

> I'm actually mad that the word fascist is losing its meaning.

When someone espouses ethno-nationalist viewpoints (a core part of fascism), and praises a fascist, I don't think it's unreasonable to say "hey that guy sounds a bit fascist", and I think pushing back against that is what is making fascism lose its meaning.

Now, saying "I don't think it's fascist because X" is perfectly valid, but that's not what I'm seeing here. It feels like a knee-jerk reaction, which I don't think is fair in this case.