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What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

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Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#61

Post by cinquemb »

Cookingboy wrote: post #29
bdamm wrote: post #8

"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring your political views into the workplace. Everyone has met the very passionate on both the left and the right, and having someone stand outside your cube or in the lunch line trying to "win" you over to their view just isn't conducive to getting your work done and making money.

>"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring your political views into the workplace. In theory, yes, but in practice it's only considered "rude" when you bring unpopular political views into the workplace. In a partisan locale such as SV people openly talk about the popular political view at work, all the time. A Googler can go to TGIF Q&A and openly bash Trump/GOP and he'd get sympa…

I used to work for a start up in Boston (co-lo'd with a bunch of other startups) a couple years ago, and people would openly talk about politics of the left-wing establishment variety and go around patting each other on the back for it.

The stuff rude awakenings are made of…

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#62

Post by backpropaganda »

kazagistar wrote: post #32
temp wrote: post #2

Are you allowed to discuss income equality for male porn actors? Or is that taboo?

Just debate the real issue you care about, instead of fighting passive-aggressive proxy wars or whatever.

And why is proxy wars a bad idea? A lot about war is symbolism. Hell, the whole reason armies march to a battlefield is because it's a proxy of a real battle where civilians would die.

Well-accepted movements like feminism also engage with proxy wars, such as "free the nipples", "a day without women", etc. All these are pretty much symbolism, with some actual tangible value. Male porn star income equality is not only a symbol for striving for true quality, it also serves to demonstrate that as a society we seem to be fine with tolerating inequality at some places, and that feminism is not as much about equality as about identity politics (not that identity politics is inherently wrong).

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#64

Post by gaius »

spiznnx wrote: post #27
ggg9990 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why something becomes "unacceptable to society" just because it "poses a threat to feminist aims." What's the first principles reason why it should be unacceptable?

It's not really something that can be well summarized in a hn comment, but basically, it re-enforces the idea that men and women are actually so different that you have to be a certain gender just to do something you want to do (gender essentialism). My main point is, if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to.

if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to

Not to deny your lived experience or anything but (purely for the sake of providing a reference for discussion and not taking a position either way) TERF content is widely available on the Interwebs.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#66

Post by spiznnx »

pjc50 wrote: post #59
spiznnx wrote: post #22

My S.O. thinks that transgender thought poses a threat to feminist aims and should not be acceptable to society, and has some really good arguments. I'm starting to be convinced, but I really can't discuss it with anyone else. edit: goodnight as its getting late.

> should not be acceptable to society So .. what level of violence against transgender people does this justify? Or is the hope that they can be bullied into suicide so you can pretend it's their fault?

None. I don't mean current transgender people should be outcast, but we should begin to understand its external effects.

They too are victims of stereotype. They chose (perhaps felt forced to chose) to change their body to fit the stereotype. But the problem with being unable to discuss this is that people who are beginning to question their cis identity may not see the other option: being yourself in your own body, and not conforming to what society thinks a man or a woman is.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#67

Post by backpropaganda »

olavk wrote: post #49

As someone living far away from SV, this is fascinating reading. But I think the survey could be more precise about what "can't say" really means. Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog, or will you get fired for bringing it up in the workplace? I personally believe some viewpoints really are inappropriate to bring up in a professional working environment. If I genuinely b…

If your company is spending a significant fraction of its capital on increasing the number of red-headed employees, and purports to be a place where you can voice your opinions about anything that's going wrong, etc., then you might consider discussing whether we as a company are spending too much much money and effort to hire more red-headed people, and that the net effect is bad whether your goal is diversity or performance.

Almost anything can be thought of as indirectly questioning colleague's competence. Suppose I saw, "U. Waterloo is a great school, let's hire more people from there.", this is indirectly questioning the competence of anyone who's not from U. Waterloo. Suppose HR decides to offer employees free LASIK surgery, then they are questioning the competence of people who choose to wear glasses instead. Encouraging employees to use desk in stand-up mode questions the competence of people who prefer to work while sitting. The list is endless.

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#68

Post by johnny22 »

briandear wrote: post #17
Aloha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is key. In the south (and other places) you're more apt to spot people who have deep bias against people for intrinsic things - in the North (including CA, and Northwest) those ideas are so completely unacceptable, that those people never get called out on them.

Citation needed. Are you going to argue that there is more racism in a Texas company than a California company? You are really going to have to prove that. Have you ever actually lived in a city such as Houston? One of the most diverse cities in the country. Look how segregated Silicon Valley is. Cupertino and Saratoga Schools are —- about 80% Asian and 2% black. How is that possible given that racism is a “completel…

not touching the actual issue of racists in the south, but do most people consider Texas the south? I never have. I never think of Florida either (although north Florida is a lot closer to what i think of when I think of the south).

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#69

Post by spiznnx »

gaius wrote: post #64
spiznnx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really something that can be well summarized in a hn comment, but basically, it re-enforces the idea that men and women are actually so different that you have to be a certain gender just to do something you want to do (gender essentialism). My main point is, if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to.

if it were acceptable, my s.o. would have a blog post about it that I could just link you to Not to deny your lived experience or anything but (purely for the sake of providing a reference for discussion and not taking a position either way) TERF content is widely available on the Interwebs.

I can't find any because I don't know what TERFs call themselves (the term appears to be solely used by their detractors). Maybe my google-fu is lacking, but it seems to be hard to find. When I google things like "transgender and gender existentialism" I get only (unsatisfying) rebuttals and some poorly-thought-out complaints about trans people.

I think my s.o.'s viewpoint is a little more nuanced than "trans women aren't real women"

Re: What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley

#70

Post by gjjrfcbugxbhf »

spiznnx wrote: post #22

My S.O. thinks that transgender thought poses a threat to feminist aims and should not be acceptable to society, and has some really good arguments. I'm starting to be convinced, but I really can't discuss it with anyone else. edit: goodnight as its getting late.

Your S.O. seems like a bigot.

I would certainly like to promote such peoples' freedom of speech - so that I know who they are and so that I can exercise my freedom of association to not have to interact with them.

Edit wow advocacy for free speech, freedom of association, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and peoples's right to be themselves is very unpopular of hacker news today... Weird.

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