
Anonymous messages from founders and VCs about the Away culture controversy - cjbest
https://vcstarterkit.substack.com/p/getting-carried-away
======
mrandish
That reasonable people feel the need for anonymity to even comment on such a
topic is an example of 'vicarious outrage culture' becoming destructive
through second and even third-order effects.

Another example is how some people expressing their opinion about Joi Ito
engaging with Jeffrey Epstein were lambasted for not criticizing Ito enough
(second-order effect). Even if we ignore what happens to Richard Stallman when
he bumbles in with a comment suggesting Ito may not be that bad of a guy, look
at what happens to those who condemn Stallman and Ito but in so doing point
out that Stallman is an uber-nerd, well-known to have no human interface and
possibly on the spectrum (third-order effect). Some of those folks are roasted
online and even doxxed for the sin of not condemning Stallman enough and for
even suggesting facts which might serve to put some context around Stallman's
behavior.

The blast radius of vicarious outrage reaches from "Epstein --> Ito -->
Stallman --> Commenters about Stallman" which is getting ridiculous. BTW, I'm
giving even money odds that someone here on HN responds negatively about me
for not criticizing someone (or everyone) in that chain enough, thus adding
myself as another link to the chain for making a meta-meta-(meta?) observation
about the situation.

~~~
ananonresponder
I am one of the anonymous responders quoted in that post.

Please do not speak for me. You are guessing about my reasons, and you are
wrong.

~~~
yellowapple
Do you speak for all the rest of the anonymous responders, too? How do you
know that the person to whom you responded wasn't also one of those anonymous
responders (and thus would be speaking for oneself)?

------
DerekL
Title has a mistake. The abbreviation of “venture capitalists” is “VCs” or
“VC's”, not “VCS”.

I see this same mistake often on Hacker News. Does the site automatically make
this “correction”?

~~~
cjbest
No that's my fault, and you're quite right. Sorry about that.

~~~
dang
It wasn't your fault. It was a bug in our title-correcting software. Fixed
now!

~~~
cjbest
Oh cool!

I hope it will now work for both Venture Capitalists and Version Control
Systems

