Angelhack Founder Says He's Sorry | Hacker News Reader

Angelhack Founder Says He's Sorry

sfgate.com

12 pointsmelvinmt8 comments

Wow, this is textbook http://paulgraham.com/say.html, right down to being the prevailing opinion a couple of generations ago about full-time harassment of most every passerby.

Quite the narrow-minded scope that those thoughts come from -- not the apology, though if it was genuine he must of had someone he cares about shame him about it. People are homeless because of the systems that we have allowed to exist and perpetuate in our societies - and he's part of that system, whether he understands and realizes that or not. If he has a tech salary job then he's also part of the reason gentrification is happening in their city - perhaps why some of these people are homeless or selling drugs - because they can no longer afford to compete with the rent prices?

In my experience many homeless are mentally ill, but not to the level where they should be committed to an institution. This puts society in a bind: do you take away their freedoms because they are odd ducks (treatment is not yet possible), or do you let them do what they want, which typically results in their homelessness? Has there ever been a society without homeless?

I'm not sure which is worse: that he expressed an unacceptable, impermissible opinion, or that he spoke his mind apparently without first considering whether to do so would result in crowdsourced rightthink pushback -- though, from the sound of his apology, he seems to have learned his lesson on that score, at least; he'll think twice next time before uttering such commentary, which is of course exactly as it should be.

> unacceptable, impermissible opinion

> crowdsourced rightthink pushback

I can't tell what level of irony/sarcasm you're operating on here.

Sarcasm, Citizen?

So, let me see if I understand you:

* Angelhack dude either comparing software engineers to the 'working class' or insisting that said 'working class' should be kept away from software engineers, and in either case out and out saying that both should be kept away from 'degenerates': just a man expressing his right to free speech

* People going 'what the fuck' on the internet about it: Orwellian.

In other words, freedom of speech not only means you're allowed to say whatever you want, but nobody's allowed to criticize you about it. Do I have that right?

Well, sure, if you like. And I grant I should've left out that excess of cleverness in the Newspeak style; it confuses the point, and while Orwell has written many things worth referencing, Nineteen Eighty-four is almost never among them. Unfortunately, I found the meter too appealing to discard, and the description is accurate enough, however distasteful you find the formulation I chose.

Criticism is well and good. For example, one might usefully point out that his dialectical materialism is obviously rusty, and that he therefore mistakenly considers his obviously petit-bourgeoisie self to be a member of the working class -- a truly risible proposition.

There is, though, a material difference between mere criticism, and someone being caned in the public press for having spoken of the indigent in an insufficiently respectful fashion, to the extent that he feels the need to utter a belly-crawling public apology -- which, as always, only further inflames the piranha [1] infesting [2] what passes [3] for modern Internet discourse -- and that he's also disavowed [4] by the company which he, for the moment, leads.

Said disavowal is necessary, of course, for the same reason it was foolish of Gopman to utter his plaint in such a publicly attributable fashion, rather than, for example, over beers with a few trusted friends in a quiet, out-of-the-way bar, or better yet at home. But of course it would be entirely [5] unreasonable [6] to suggest that anyone intends to intimidate anyone. And the only hyperbole [7] in evidence [8] is entirely mine! How plainly ridiculous that I or anyone should describe Gopman's opinions as "unacceptable" and "impermissible", simply because there is a large bloc which does not accept them, will not permit them, and has the power to enforce these preferences without effective opposition.

(And there is nothing even slightly laughable in Valleywag, sort of a less intellectually hefty and more pretentious TMZ, calling [9] anything "about as weighty as telling the world's longest knock knock joke". Perhaps it takes one to know one.)

Getting back to the point, I'd actually have to say Gopman is getting off fairly lightly, so far at least. Were he a mere employee instead of a CEO, he might already be out of a job. Who was that fellow who rejected the "him" -> "them" commit on the Node.js Github? Noordhuis, that was his name -- an HN cause celebre, for two or three hours at least. He crossed the same sort of people, and look what happened to him! [10]

So, yes, I maintain there is a difference between anything which can fairly be termed "criticism", and the sort of low-calorie, uniquely West Coast-flavored struggle session we see here. Criticism, after all, has as its ultimate purpose the improvement of its recipient, while what we see here, as always when the Internet social justice piranha smell blood, is much more like -- if you'll forgive me going back to the well one more time -- a crowdsourced Two Minutes Hate, with Gopman, or whoever else has most recently had the temerity to express an unacceptable, impermissible opinion and the carelessness to be publicly caught so doing, in the starring role.

Perhaps you imagine this to be evidence of a healthy society. If so, I wish I shared your optimism.

[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/11/3050501/angelhac...

[2] https://twitter.com/Gopmania/status/410814090148212736

[3] http://sfist.com/2013/12/11/angelhack_startup_ceo_trashes_sf...

[4] https://twitter.com/sabeen_sabeen/status/411013749433053184 (note the retweets)

[5] http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Sta...

[6] http://sfist.com/2013/12/11/angelhack_startup_ceo_trashes_sf...

[7] http://sfist.com/2013/12/11/angelhack_startup_ceo_trashes_sf...

[8] https://www.google.com/search?q=techbro

[9] http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-compl...

[10] http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/

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