Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#641

Post by ikeyany » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:24 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #546

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

I don't think it's been convincingly argued that ranking or recommendation algorithms necessarily represent any sort of editorial bias. The purpose of these algorithms is to rank content based either on a prediction of what the individual user would want to see based on their existing history or on which content is more broadly engaging in general. In other words, if YouTube decides I really like to watch Ben Shapiro…

These platforms (these meaning the ones with the most market cap) need to be advertiser-friendly in order to grow. They inherently require editorial bias.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#642

Post by Steven_Vellon » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #44

FYI: If you say you don't care about politics and you ban political speech in your workspace - that on its own is a political statement that you're fine with the status quo.

I disagree. There are a variety of reasons to prohibit political speech in the workplace even if one desires to change the status quo:

* A company might find that it's employees become toxic when political disagreements happen.

* A company might find itself alienating people with minority viewpoints.

* A company may find itself losing customers because political views discussed in the workplace is attributed to the company.

This mentality that lack of political discussion in the workplace implies agreement with the status quo has negative consequences, and makes employees feel pressured to voice support for things they don't actually support in order to avoid losing face with coworkers.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#643

Post by tomp » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #377

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

I don't understand how any of these conversations(besides the first one, in perhaps an HR meeting), could possibly be topical at work? The company isn't paying me to preach my political agenda. Have you also considered that while a "marginalized" person might be keenly aware, researched and emotionally invested in discussing these things, a "privileged" person may feel ambushed and distracted by these questions while…

Thanks, favorited! Especially this part:

> The in-your-face unapologetic advocacy, the constant motte-and-bailey argumentation, the extreme emotional reactions to any dissention, the preaching from a perceived moral high ground - these are not a conductive environment for changing minds.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#644

Post by Fr0styMatt88 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

Discussing politics at work has NEVER been a routine thing for me and as far as I know that's always been the cultural norm, at least where I live. It's handled very carefully. So I just assumed that this was the norm and discussing politics at work was the exception.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#645

Post by zarkov99 » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

Because tech culture has skewed so insanely towards the authoritarian left that any challenge to the orthodoxy your post suggests is immediately weaponized. There is simply no way to honestly discuss the points you bring up without putting one's reputation and eventually career in danger. The Damore memo is a perfect example of this. The only safe thing to do in our culture right now is virtue signal and nod along with the rest of the mob. Perhaps one day the madness will pass and we will be able to again ask hard questions in public and try, together, to get to the bottom of things. Until then, lets just not talk about these things, so that a great many of us are not forced to wallow in hypocrisy for the majority of our waking hours.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#646

Post by wpietri » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #129

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product. If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal mea…

"Don't discuss politics at work," is a political statement. It rules particular views in bounds and rules others out.

Similarly any business ends up making moral choices. It's unavoidable. To act in the world is to have impact. To consciously act is to intend particular impact. Commerce is inherently social; you choose to serve certain people in certain ways, with particular outcomes intended. These choices are inherently moral.

The notion that we should ignore that sometimes is of course a strongly political view. And when it pretends to be non-political, I think it's also incoherent.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#647

Post by busterarm » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:28 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #636

busterarm wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has an intentionally inflammatory title and is more opinion than journalism. It's not a good faith exploration of the topic. Dang's editorialized title is.

I believe you and your parent are saying the same thing. (You can see this same discussion playing out in this same thread.)

You're 100% right. Wasn't clear to me from the first read but we are. Going to leave my comment up just for the elaboration on the theme...

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#648

Post by ddxxdd » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #620

TeMPOraL wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others made good general and specific arguments for avoiding such discussions at a workplace, but I'd like to offer a thought experiment that can help understand it better. Imagine yourself noticing that people around you start to reveal themselves as strongly religious - and not in your religion, if you subscribe to any - and very much into proselytizing. Not a day goes by without someone approaching you to convince…

This is not a fair comparison. The OC was not talking about proselytizing, they were talking about how to create an inclusive environment at work. We cannot create an inclusive environment at work if we are not allowed to openly talk about groups who currently do not feel included and why that is.

Common sense states that it's okay to talk about politics insofar as it relates to workplace productivity.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#649

Post by wolco » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

Gunax wrote: post #512

anarchodev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use othe…

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use other services (or roll their own) and gitlab can't do anything about that. Neither would it be overreaching for the workers building that product to request a say in how it's used. I think this is the crux of the issue. Anyone is of course free to…

I didn't realize facebooi owned 90%. If you exclude twitter/reddit what's left snapchat?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#650

Post by unscrupulous_sw » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

wonnage wrote: post #602

unscrupulous_sw wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to chime in, I also unknowingly got myself labeled sexist when the topic came up during a random lunch with "friends" (company provided lunch so it had random people from HR and recruiting). Somehow or another the topic of whether going for 50/50 will "lower the bar". So I started thinking about the problem mathematically like any engineer would, with statistical distributions and estimates of the existing pipel…

You can't use statistics without a model. The problem is that you have a shitty model and it's annoying when you keep parroting it like you're so logical. Your model as inferred from this comment is that there's some way to quantify the current applicants, and that applicants below a certain value are always rejected. The remaining applicants are "above the bar" and could be hired. The current "above the bar" group i…

Yes! This is the kind of response I would like to have from my coworkers. Attack my models, my assumptions, my arguments. Don't just silently disagree and then label me a sexist afterwards.

Your presumption that I have some agenda and it wasn't social ignorance is a little offensive but whatever. "Ignorance of facts" should not be used as an insult but an opportunity to educate. The social fact that I am guilty of not knowing is that this a commonly parroted argument instead of the first logical model you come up with.

I do think you represented the argument I had at the time very well. The difference is that I used competitive programming as my example for something more controlled (plenty of stats going all the way back to high school level and on the internet no one knows if you're a man/woman/dog). Your counterargument that it isn't predictive is still valid.

Regardless, my current stance is that the question of "whether it lowers the bar or not" is not a relevant question to ask.

The only point I was trying to make with my story is that you can evoke very passionate attacks just for talking about the topic.