Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickthegreek | Hacker News Reader

that’s a bold statement, and my googling has not returned results that verify this claim. can you provide any context?

Here's a fun example https://archive.is/ZtQpj

Another funny moment from this guy https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814#issuecommen...

That fun example does not provide evidence of what you accused the developer of. Not even close. I think if you’re going to accuse someone of what amounts to racist paranoia, you’d better have clear evidence of it. The fragment you linked to simply shows Kling being uncomfortable with racial discrimination in hiring, which is a mainstream, probably majority, attitude.

no, the fragment shows kling is completely blinded by his own privileges as a cisgender white guy and completely missing the point of diversity by instead making it all about himself and other cisgender white dudes

its unfortunately very common for privileged people to not realize how good they have it compared to people with less privileges. you have to live it to really know what its like

diversity efforts being seen as "discrimination against [privileged group]" is exactly how we don't fix the problem

None of this has anything to do with "white replacement", or being "blind to privilege". You're stretching a totally reasonable viewpoint into "evil racism" because you don't agree with his point of view.

So you try to slander and discredit anyone who thinks differently than you. Same playbook every time, so boring.

You might think differently, but I think hiring someone based on their race to meet arbitrary racial quotas is insulting.

In the 2020's, this is just another genre of petty hatred. As time goes on, one "type" of person's historical privilege becomes less and less valid as a reason to reduce them in any way, as compared to anybody else (giving the benefit of the doubt that it ever was "valid"). Similarly, "diversity efforts" are laudable in theory, but in practice they are frequently just discrimination in the opposite direction of what is typical.

Once people start saying things like “his own privileges as a cisgender white guy”, that’s a red flag in my book—someone who writes like that, in my experience, doesn’t have real empathy for others, and uses “privilege” as an excuse to not have empathy or caring towards someone because of their gender or the color of their skin.

Sorry everyone on "hacker" "news" I cannot provably see into a strangers heart of hearts in a way that would satisfy you

I don't follow, especially since this is a reply to your own post. Can you clarify?

It’s an expression of frustration at being expected to supply evidence after accusing someone of racism.

Here at HN, we regularly expect evidence of lesser known claims. It’s actually a pretty cool way to form understanding based on reality. My original post was openminded, and stated that I tried to learn more about what your post on my own to not waste your time. When I could bot find discourse or articles about your statement, I asked for a source. That is a natural and valid thing to have happen. If there is basically no validation of your strong statements, maybe think about what you post and what it’s adding to the discourse.

You are not responding to the same commenter.

These both look within the realm of reason. Not that you must agree with them, only that they are not some kind of hideous evil.

The dismissal of gendered language as politics is arguably “defensible” in a “I wrote this in a way that allows me to hide behind it” sort of way. It was wrong and needlessly dismissive in a way that clearly communicates he disagrees to anyone who understands typical internet discourse tactics.

If he really did not want “political drama” or whatever there are far more effective ways to handle it that don't allow you to also signal your disapproval/disagreement with the content.

TL;DR: he handled it in a way that expressed his disagreement while staying plausibly deniable.

I completely agree that he was unnecessarily prickly/political in his response. I only disagree that it validates xgulfie's implication that he is in the "so bad we should disparage whatever he does" category.

Thank you

I think it would had been better for Andreas Kling to simply stay “our style guidelines use the masculine form when describing an unspecified person, even though the person may be masculine, feminine, or non-binary”. But I also understand his frustration: Someone who prefers using an indefinite male is not someone who, as per the now-dead slanderous parent post, “a white replacement theory type”.

Nor is someone who prefers the indefinite masculine grammatical form someone who, as per another dead post, “is completely blinded by his own privileges as a cisgender white guy”.

This kind of hyperbolic overreaction is something Kasparov, someone whose Chess playing and politics I greatly respect, recently described as “Woke 1”:

https://www.thenextmove.org/p/2020-accountability-is-mia - https://archive.ph/20260827172149/https://www.thenextmove.or...

> People know that ICE is bad, that law enforcement has a troubled history in this country.

I’m sorry but is he joking? Does he have any idea how much the Republicans/MAGA love ICE? Look at the funding it is getting, look at all the red meat being flung around about immigration. This started well before 2020. Immigration is the burning issue for the GOP. It’s been a cornerstone of Trump’s reign.

And come on, you think the average American is particularly aware of the systemic abuse that law-enforcement uphold here? That is a clearly divisive opinion that falls along political lines.

I have no interest in reading past that. His understanding of the context for these debates is completely inaccurate and warped. He is hand waving away real problems and somehow pretending people are acknowledging them when the entire point is a massive percentage of the country thinks those aren’t actual issues and thus don’t need to be addressed.

These are the same kind of talking points we see when someone goes “we all know Trump is not a great guy.” Unfortunately, no, a huge part of the country not only thinks he isn’t a bad guy, but thinks he is a role model. Someone to aspire to. So that cannot be an assumption we make when discussing Trump.

Kasparov has no fingers on the pulse here.

Here’s that sentence in context:

>>>People know that ICE is bad, that law enforcement has a troubled history in this country. Yet when they see Democratic electeds treat riots with kid gloves, they’ll support an authoritarian right over the specter of anarchy and chaos.<<<

As per https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5699413/poll-trump-ice-... 60% of Americans don’t approve of ICE, so “people know that ICE is bad” is a reasonable summary of public opinion.

There is absolutely nothing constructive about removing "gendered language". He was absolutely right to shut that nonsense down.

You’re literally doing what I described. You’re not even attempting to understand the issue,

If I was dealing with the same type of "person" that's only "contribution" to every github repo is to just go and ask for language policing I would intentionally be as prickly as possibly to them while telling them no.

Then you’d be a bad steward.

All of this seems about right.

what is wrong about it? I have issue with diversity that it allows someone to game the whole system. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion looks very good on paper, but in real world implementation it fails abysmally. I can tell because some of my friend who don't know anything got into companies by the same diversity and highly talented friend were rejected.

Not talking about you. But a white supremacist would be ok with only white people formally employed because whoever is not white wouldn't get a job without gaming the system. Pick the lesser evil.

I share your concern about the effects of white supremacy, but in this case it looks like there is no lesser or greater "evil'. Just a guy who expresses his opinions without delicacy.

Meritocracy looks good on paper but the real world implementation fails abysmally. - see Pete Hegseth

If it's all imperfect failures, I personally prefer the failure that doesn't result in raising up white supremacists.

Probably "is flawed" is closer to reality than "fails abysmally", in contrast to most modern implementations of DEI.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com