[squeeze]

The way you make the unfavorable comparisons worse is by taking them seriously. I wouldn't suggest taking those co-workers too seriously either - it probably won't help.

Ellen Pao wasn't awful, but all-in-all, it's probably a good thing she stepped down. Hopefully, next time there's a huge community changeover or staff change in reddit, everyone will talk through it and about it reasonably, and everyone will be able to bat away the easily-led and the gleeful and/or bored shit-stirrers.

[geofft]

What takeaway should we have about those drunken coworkers? I see roughly three possibilities:

* Their comments were funny / reasonable / etc.; there was nothing wrong with them. GP was wrong to find it disgusting.

* Their comments were bad, but there's nothing we can do about them. Our society involves it being socially acceptable to tell jokes about how people should die because of their inability to articulate clear moderation policies on a popular website, and that's unfortunate, but there's no way that we'll be able to change that social norm. (Or, alternatively, changing that social norm carries unavoidable downsides.)

* Their comments were bad, it's possible to make it no longer socially acceptable to make those jokes, and it should happen.

This doesn't really have anything to do with how seriously we take them.

[axlprose]

The 4th option would be to just not assign a moral value to their comments, and chose for yourself as an individual to not let yourself be offended by them. It doesn't mean the co-workers were right, but it doesn't penalize them if the didn't intend to be bad (because doing so would be a slippery slope to thought policing). Unless OP thinks his/her co-workers would face Pao in person and tell her those things, or worse, act on them, then is there any reason to let their silly actions cause you any distress?