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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

#461

Post by colanderman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #434
colanderman wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no. When you are legally barred from say, having power of attorney when your loved one of decades is on their deathbed, or, say, unable to find a landlord that will rent to you, because some asshole politicians fought on behalf of their asshole constituents against your right to do so simply because you do not conform to the idea they project onto their god as holding as to what constitutes a "proper" family unit…

Is it not relevant that "the system" has already done what you wanted in this case and constitutionally recognized gay marriage? You're asking for something you already have.

You say that like LGBT individuals don't continue to face legal challenges at the state level [1], or the threat of reduced protections at the federal level [2].

Anyway, the answer is no, because the discussion is about the impact of denigrating political stances on individuals generally. My example is one of many illustrating the importance of a greater principle: a workplace that supports the parties that work to forward such legislation supports the dehumanization of individuals. That is intolerable.

When human dignity hangs in the balance, politics matter.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-acros...

[2] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-...

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

#462

Post by DonbunEf7 »

charmides wrote: post #250

When intelligent animals pay their lives for their presence on your plate, then your dinner choice is no longer an entirely personal decision.

To think that also other intelligent animals built everything you depend on, clearly shows you are just an entitled soyboy.

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

#463

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

stale2002 wrote: post #394
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that even mean? Of course your job has power over your employment that's tautological. And given how expensive hiring people is there's a market interest in making sure "free thinkers" don't drive entire groups away in their vain attempt to pretend it's the 19th century. If you feel you have a right to bull others and to deny that is to restrict your ability to "dissent"; if you feel that you have the right…

That's fine to believe this, but don't pretend like the person you are responding to is "privileged". That is what the person was arguing against. Yes, a company can fire you for basically any reason, even of it is because you wore a blue shirt or voted for the wrong person. But don't pretend that workers are "privileged" or the people in power in this situation.

What Im against is these morons that think they're entitled to a space to excercise their bigotry despite the obvious capital costs of it.

It's not a question of privilege it's a question of what is your value system. Do you believe in organizational power of free markets? If so you are by definition for these types of tolerance programs. Corporate social responsibility isn't charity; it's just good business sense. Unless you're a conman preying on fear, bigotry is categorically bad for business.

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

#464

Post by AnthonyMouse »

guiambros wrote: post #438
ralusek wrote: post #235

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 o…

> the facts are that 1000 people (0.000003% of the population) are killed by police annually. 24% of those killed are black Per 2016 US Census [1]: > Black or African American = 40,241,818 (12.6%) Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader... If you really believe that under-represented minorities are not at a major disadvantage in ou…

> Now compare with the number of people killed by the police in 2017 by race [2]. The math is left as an exercise for the reader...

Your point is obviously that the percentage is higher for black people. But the percentage is higher for black people for a wide variety of causes of death, like exposure to toxic substances (due to living in high risk areas), which actually kill more people. So why is this one in particular the subject of a national campaign?

> ignoring 50+ years of biases and stereotypes

The "tech industry" (meaning the likes of Google) wasn't possible before the internet was a thing used by the majority of the population. It hasn't even existed for 50+ years.

And the predecessor industries you would have to include to get back that far had a much less skewed gender balance.

Whatever this is, it doesn't have a 50+ year history.

> on top of open sexual and moral harassment that created a toxic environment for women

Studies have shown that the degree of sexual harassment in gender balanced industries like medicine is atrocious -- significantly worse than it is in tech. Attempting to use that as an explanation for the gender balance fails because the relative difference is in the opposite direction.

> then you're helping to increase the gender divide.

...unless you're wrong about the causes, in which case we need to understand the real ones in order to do something about it. And for that we need to be able to talk about them without slamming the door in the face of anyone who questions the prevailing narrative.

And Damore was clearly wrong about some things. But if you don't allow people to speak at the risk of being wrong then they'll say nothing even when they're right. When someone is wrong you don't eject them from the community, you explain why and have the debate.

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

#465

Post by woodruffw »

austhrow743 wrote: post #456
woodruffw wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my business because, should they have it their way, I wouldn't be alive. Asking people to be tolerant of ideologies that pose an existential threat is contradictory at best.

People have cooperated with existential threats for economic gain for a very long time. Trade today, kill each other tomorrow. It's not contradictory at all.

This assumes that the software engineering market is so strapped for hires that it needs neo-Nazis. I don't buy that.

But more to the point: the contradiction isn't economic, it's linguistic. See the comment thread below.

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

#466

Post by ikeyany »

yellowapple wrote: post #358
michaelmrose wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't have peace with people who want to kill and oppress a significant portion of the population.

Not with that attitude you can't. Racists aren't (usually) racists for the fun of it. Racists are racists because they feel threatened by or lack sufficient exposure to / understanding of other races. If your goal is to cure racism, then making racists feel even more threatened is probably the least productive way of going about it. Instead, the trick is to befriend them. Show them that there's nothing to fear. These…

No, the "trick" is not simply to befriend them. That is an incredibly simplistic and naive way to interpret hate, and it shows you haven't had to deal with racism strongly impacting your life. Not all bigotry is based in innocent misunderstanding. Sometimes it's intentionally strongly held convictions of derision and superiority.

The answer isn't to spew hate back at them, but it certainly isn't to make friends.

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

#467

Post by dang »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #321
haberman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lear…

What does that even mean? Of course your job has power over your employment that's tautological. And given how expensive hiring people is there's a market interest in making sure "free thinkers" don't drive entire groups away in their vain attempt to pretend it's the 19th century. If you feel you have a right to bull others and to deny that is to restrict your ability to "dissent"; if you feel that you have the right…

> What does that even mean? [...] Free market baby, get fucking used to it.

Please don't take HN threads further into the flamewar style. It's possible to disagree without doing that, and on this site, necessary.

You needn't look far for good examples: you replied to one, and it was replying to another. Please be like them and not like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#468

Post by UncleMeat »

yellowapple wrote: post #358
michaelmrose wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't have peace with people who want to kill and oppress a significant portion of the population.

Not with that attitude you can't. Racists aren't (usually) racists for the fun of it. Racists are racists because they feel threatened by or lack sufficient exposure to / understanding of other races. If your goal is to cure racism, then making racists feel even more threatened is probably the least productive way of going about it. Instead, the trick is to befriend them. Show them that there's nothing to fear. These…

When has this ever worked at scale? All major social change to end oppression has been associated with large scale disruption and unrest.

How nice it must be to be in a group with power, where even if you are an unrepentant asshole and deny the humanity of others, those other people are obligated to be nice to you.

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

#469

Post by dang »

ralusek wrote: post #235

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 o…

Since this subthread went into generic ideology, we've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17864539 and marked it off-topic.
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