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At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

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Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#331

Post by tchaffee »

yahna wrote: post #325
tchaffee wrote: post #64

I think employees could use some training on how liberals and conservatives think very differently. When I became familiar with Jonathan Haidt and his moral foundations theory, I was able to better understand where conservatives are coming from, and even became a lot better at persuading. For example, when talking about confederate statues coming down, a conservative will respond to arguments around why it's traditio…

Why would I listen to a Ted talk buy a guy who is calling me disrespectful, disloyal, and impure?

You shouldn't. Since that's nothing close to what he says, you might just learn something by listening. Haidt is pretty fair and non-judgmental. If anything one could use his talk to say conservatives are using a more balanced consideration when making moral decisions. Using five factors instead of just two.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#332

Post by jazzyk »

t0mbstone wrote: post #286
djsumdog wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in university, I had a flatmate that was pro-Bush. He wasn't unintelligent. He was getting his masters. He was a good guy and generally progressive in his views. He actually had pretty well laid out arguments as far as what he saw as best for the country and policy with the continuation of the Bush administration over Kerry. Both myself and my other housemates didn't understand it at the time, but I didn't lose…

I'm sorry, but you are dead wrong. There IS a difference between the political parties. All you have to do is look at their voting records on key issue. Here's a comprehensive breakdown, for proof: https://np.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/6pc5qu/democrats...

Yes, each party has their sponsors that they need to keep happy. Hence the differences. The sponsors are... not you and I. OK, sometimes they pander to voters regarding their pet issues (transgender bathrooms, etc)

Neither party ever even tried to do anything about:

- term limits, limits on money in politics

- getting rid of lobbyists (their own sponsors)

- punishing Wall Street criminals

- reforming business law to give shareholders more control over executive compensation

- stopping the runaway train of national debt - etc.

Both parties were/are mostly:

- anti-privacy (anti-Snowden, anti-Wikileaks, etc)

- pro-war, the military budget is untouchable, whether it is McCain or Hillary

- ever-increasing spending (despite Reps rhetoric)

- happy (Dems) or uninterested (Reps) in lowering healthcare costs

- corrupt, with "foundations" and "speaking fees" flowing freely

There is much more, but this thread is off-topic, so I will stop here.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#333

Post by twoquestions »

feedjoelpie wrote: post #18

"At conservative oil companies, those who disagree on politics say they're isolated" Okay, see how utterly useless this "controversy" is now?

Can confirm, I'm on the Left in an oil company and luckily I don't have to talk to many people in informal situations day-to-day. It doesn't help that the company is Authoritarian, so I made a mistake talking about the sad state of the 4th Amendment here.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#334

Post by twoquestions »

chrisabrams wrote: post #2

I grew up in Texas but worked in Silicon Valley for a few years. One of the toughest adjustments was going from a small conservative town to a major liberal populace. It was astonishing the number of people who got angry _at me_ for having a different opinion then they did. At one workplace I saw two coworkers get into a fist fight because the liberal was "offended" that the conservative differed on a viewpoint. Go t…

In these instances, context matters a lot.

Coworker: "My younger brother was killed in Iraq in 2007."

You: "I voted for Bush."

I'm sure you can see why Coworker wouldn't be pleased by your statement in this instance. I'm on the Left working at an oil company, so I feel your pain. It helps if you want to talk about these things to shift their Overton window slowly, not to expect tolerance for unthinkable actions right out of the gate (it's not right, but that's how it is).

Liberals and Left-wingers are people too, and thus are vulnerable to the same tribal bullshit that some (luckily few) people on the Right and (luckily) fewer people on the Left are proud of. Despite all effort, you (general and specific) and they can't stop from feeling these tribal in-group feelings any more than they can just stop feeling thirsty after a day of not drinking any water.

EDIT: One of these days I should write a post, How to Talk About Politics with People Who Disagree With You.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#335

Post by notyourday »

cr0sh wrote: post #312
sharemywin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comparing 8 years to 6 months and legislative agenda that's so right wing they can't even get anything passed by their own party.

> so right wing they can't even get anything passed by their own party. I do have to say this part has amused me the most, as a registered independent who leans heavily socially liberal (I'm more conservative when it comes to economic issues - but more in the sense that I want money going to things that advance the species, rather than destroy it). I certainly expected after the last election to see a steamroller of…

> Not that I like it, mind you.

I think it is great. If we could stick the Senate and the House onto vacation for 364 days a year the country would be able to adjust quite quickly.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#336

Post by AmIFirstToThink »

threatofrain wrote: post #214
chrisabrams wrote: post #2

I grew up in Texas but worked in Silicon Valley for a few years. One of the toughest adjustments was going from a small conservative town to a major liberal populace. It was astonishing the number of people who got angry _at me_ for having a different opinion then they did. At one workplace I saw two coworkers get into a fist fight because the liberal was "offended" that the conservative differed on a viewpoint. Go t…

What does conservative mean? Some people say that conservatism includes things like gun rights, support for anti-immigration and lower taxes. As well as Christian values, which for a decade or two, has meant something around abortion, homosexuals, and recently transgenders. What are these viewpoints that are claimed to be conservative in nature? I have read the Texas GOP platform. Is that representative of conservati…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KHdhrNhh88

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#337

Post by notfromhere »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #159

A recent Joe Rogan Podcast had a really interesting discussion about this [1]. Basically one of the key points, especially in light of people being called Nazis (accurately or spuriously), is that one of the major social aspects of pre-war Germany was that there was radical polarization between fascist and anti-fascist groups similar to what we see now. However because the psychological makeup of someone who would su…

Given how many communist revolutions we've had in the past, it's not an issue of innate structure between the two groups

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#338

Post by notyourday »

dbingham wrote: post #89
staticelf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is harm? Lowering taxes could for example cause a lot of harm too indirectly if those taxes went to something important. I don't like religion for example and would like organized religion to be illegal in my country. If I went on TV and said this I bet this would be a very unpopular opinion and people would most likely send me tons of death threats. I think this mentality is stupid and if you are upset the corr…

Well, to offer one clear example of harm, we have Nazis openly marching in the streets and arguing for racial cleansing of the US. As someone of Jewish decent, I find that pretty directly threatening. Given where those arguments have lead before -- the holocaust -- is allowing people to advocate for those viewpoints truly harmless?

> Well, to offer one clear example of harm, we have Nazis openly marching in the streets and arguing for racial cleansing of the US. As someone of Jewish decent, I find that pretty directly threatening.

Could I maybe inquire why Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Che who wiped out a lot more people than Hitler and whose images ( especially Che ) show up quite prominently on T-shirts worn by people on the coasts do not trigger the same kind of hysteria?

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#339

Post by ythn »

plandis wrote: post #128
peoplewindow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing hatred towards people for arguing over correct levels of import taxes Sure you are. You see someone vote for Trump and immediately assume it must be because they're an evil, ethically flawed person who inexplicably hates love, sunshine and puppies, whereas perhaps they mostly care about taxes. You even did it in this post. Your thinking is knee jerk and shallow, and it's people like you that are causin…

How is it knee-jerk and shallow? If you voted for Trump you either directly support Trump's social policies or you don't think they were abhorrent enough to not vote for him.

I voted for Trump to raise the chances of getting a conservative supreme court justice assigned. They have more power than Trump anyway since they are in for life. Trump will be out in 3 years, but if we had voted Hillary we would have certainly gotten a liberal supreme court justice.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#340

Post by lern_too_spel »

ubertaco wrote: post #242
stult wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason this is all coming to a head now is that it's harder to hide your opinions, or rather it's easier to unintentionally air them to a broader audience than you might prefer. Social media makes it too easy to inadvertently make a political statement. See elsewhere in this thread where a commenter mentions being unfriended by people for congratulating his sister on her wedding to another woman. It's eas…

See also: Brendan Eich, who was booted from his job at Mozilla because someone went digging to find his personal voting record and found something they didn't like.

Nobody looked into Eich's voting record. Eich donated to a campaign against gay marriage, and donations above a certain threshold are public record. Gay people and people who support civil rights who are strong enough coders to work for Mozilla will easily find employment at any of a number of other Bay Area employers run by people who support them. Mozilla was losing developers[1], and Eich took the reasonable action of stepping down instead of destroying his organization. You can imagine a CEO spending money to bring back California's antimiscegenation laws and how Asian employees and their allies would react.

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3028664/lgbt-programmers-speak-o...

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