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Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

nytimes.com

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Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#231

Post by zapita »

aluren wrote: post #170
_8j50 wrote: post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

I don't mean any offense, but it has been my experience that people who can afford to "put politics aside", so to speak, are people from demographics who didn't have politics "happen" to them. When you are gay or trans and a significant chunk of people find your mere existence revolting, when you are black and a significant chunk of people believe you are innately less intelligent and more prone to violence, when you…

I can’t agree enough with your comment.

The act of defining what and isn’t “political” - is itself a political act. It used to be unacceptably “political” in the majority of Anerican businesses to be against racial segregation. Now it’s the other way around. Whether you agree with that change or not, you can’t deny that the boundaries of what is or isn’t acceptable discourse at work have changed over time. When you’re bringing up a topic or opinion at work that makes others uncomfortable, you’re trying to move that boundary, which is a political. When you’re complaining that the topic is “too political” and doesn’t belong in the workplace, you’re trying to keep the boundary where it is, which is also a political act.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#232

Post by askafriend »

_8j50 wrote: post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

Your mistake is in thinking that you can separate out politics from "work" or any other concept.

What you fail to realize is that everything is political. Everything. Politics isn't some concrete, easily identifiable thing you can point at. You can't separate out things into a "Politics" bucket and a "Not Politics" bucket.

No, politics pervades every single human interaction. Politics is in everything and everything is inherently political.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#233

Post by haberman »

aluren wrote: post #170
_8j50 wrote: post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

I don't mean any offense, but it has been my experience that people who can afford to "put politics aside", so to speak, are people from demographics who didn't have politics "happen" to them. When you are gay or trans and a significant chunk of people find your mere existence revolting, when you are black and a significant chunk of people believe you are innately less intelligent and more prone to violence, when you…

I understand your position. But too often people who have legitimate gripes with society (like you say) are quick to classify legitimate disagreement with an attack on their identity. Disagreement over a company's diversity policies (for example) is not inherently an attack on anyone's personhood, but it is frequently interpreted as one, and with great rancor.

One definition of power that is sometimes given: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." If the climate around things such as diversity policies effectively suppresses dissent, then the advocates of such policies have real power, whether or not they psychologically perceive it.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#234

Post by spicymaki »

I find it ironic that conservative employees are arguing about increasing diversity (specifically political diversity). Usually conservatives support culture fit as a concept to bolster opposition to hiring more underrepresented minorities and women. They usually claim that diversity is antithetical to efficiency and having shared cultural values (usually the dominant culture's values) is the key to successful teams. Sadly for the conservatives they are in the out-group at Facebook. Perhaps this struggle will help cultivate some empathy to others who are in out-groups. Alas, I am not holding my breath.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#235

Post by ralusek »

And it has been my experience that people who have politics "happen" to them from "the moment [they] wake up to the moment [they] sleep" in large part simply perceive that to be their existence.

I have read countless articles and posts at this point claiming that "America doesn't care about black bodies" and that black people in America should "fear for their lives every day," all in regards to the perceived danger of police shootings. In that example, despite this perception by not only those populations themselves, but a large majority of the population at large, the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black. No person has a statistically relevant chance of being killed by police, and yet it is not uncommon to hear it stated that this is simply this segment of the population's "lived reality." It isn't, and that's the problem.

I actually think that this is a central theme to many of these discussions, where one population is claiming that there is a substantial disadvantage to having a certain characteristic, whereas the counter states that there is either no such disadvantage, or its magnitude is misrepresented.

In any event, I think that there is often merit to both cases, and I think what you're seeing with the Facebook group here is simply a response to the growing perception that the conversation has become increasingly one-sided in the large SV corporations. Stating, as James Damore did, that the lack of female representation in tech is not appropriately attributable to workplace bias was a fireable offense. That's not okay.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#236

Post by charlesism »

manfredo wrote: post #75
brainkim wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first three are deeply problematic and rooted in deep-seated white supremacist beliefs and absent mitigating circumstances I’d consider firing people who held them. Sorry, that’s just how I have to feel given everything that’s been going on these days.

This is exactly the kind of intolerance this memo is advocating against. If you genuinely would fire all the 45% of people that voted for Trump, anyone who disapproves of the rhetoric of BLM, or considers Islam to have a poor human rights record then I would suggest you take a look in mirror before trying to find intolerance in your employees. Easily the majority of the US population would hold at least one of those…

    > Easily the majority of the US population 
    > would hold at least one of those views.
If the majority of the country holds a philosophy that favors the majority of the country, that doesn't automatically make it ethical. I won't insult you by bringing up obvious examples from American history. If you want to calibrate your moral compass, the right way to do it isn't always a show of hands.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#237

Post by bobdole12345 »

kronin wrote: post #181
jmeyer2k wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gay/LGBTQ rights and tolerance in the workplace is way different than donating to Trump. I understand if you don't think a company should support a political party, but LGBTQ/gay tolerance meetings don't fall into that category. If you put this into the context of some other progressive social movement such as giving women equal opportunity to men, it makes more sense. A company would not be out of line giving semina…

"tolerance" swings both ways. Unless you choose to be intolerant. The majority of people who spout tolerance and acceptance at me are the least tolerant and acceptant of other beliefs.

It doesn't tho.

If my co-worker is donating to Trump, and talking about kicking foreign workers out of America, they're literally talking about kicking ME out of the country. They're donating money to a politician who wants to make my life harder, and make my visa process less pleasant.

I can tolerate my co-worker all day, but if they're working to make my life less pleasant and workable, they're going to feel some chill.

Sorry you're eating alone conservatives, but you're working at a place with thousands of foreign co-workers, what did you think was going to happen?

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#238

Post by _8j50 »

jmeyer2k wrote: post #202
kronin wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"tolerance" swings both ways. Unless you choose to be intolerant. The majority of people who spout tolerance and acceptance at me are the least tolerant and acceptant of other beliefs.

That's an interesting point, however I disagree it's tolerance of one group that makes someone intolerant of another group. In other words, I don't think being tolerant of black people means I must be intolerant of white people. Karl Popper wrote about this idea called the paradox of tolerance [0] asking if you should be tolerant of intolerance. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Intolerance of anti-black people makes you intolerant,not tolerance of black people. That intolerance would be fine(I certainly don't tolerate anti-black people in my personal life) but I would want to make every effort to be professional and respectful towards a skinhead at work.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#239

Post by topspin »

_mhyx wrote: post #165
haha99 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enable "showdead" in your profile and you will see that anything that moves beyond the left is promptly flagged and, sometimes, the account gets banned for "starting flames".

But absolute freedom of speech IS A LEFT WING OPINION! Is no one here old enough to remember the fight over pornography or offensive language in art/music/movies? That was the right trying to shut down speech they disagreed with via corporate power! These people are _not_ liberals, they're something else that's new and terrifying

"But absolute freedom of speech IS A LEFT WING OPINION"

That only holds if you're willing to perform enough mental gymnastics to somehow transmogrify the gulags, mass graves, firing squads and famines that the USSR, Mao Zedong, Cuba, Pol Pot, etc. employed to deal with dissenters into features of right wing governance.

Or just pretend these things don't count...

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#240

Post by omot »

I think this issue is tricky, because some political ideology that the "right" expresses involve a statement of the identity of their coworkers. I find that in the valley, people express diverse set of political economic ideologies, but sensitive social issues are taboo. I think people probably shouldn't view it as lack of diversity of political opinions, it's more that statements and ideology expressed at work shouldn't unfairly be targeting a particular set of identities, and that goes both ways. Like if you're white, straight, male, and come from rural America you should never feel like you're being discriminated against from people's political ideologies that target your identity, for example statements like: "I believe that the government should deport white straight males to increase diversity." If you are and HR isn't taking any actions I believe that is grounds enough to blow the whistle for hateful speech coming from the left.
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