81–90 of 1001 posts
I agreed with what Brian Armstrong said in his blog post and thought it was admirable to publicly take that position, but now I have even more respect for his dedication. I don't know if the severance package is good or not, but it seems generous and it gives employees who aren't aligned with the company an easy way out.
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Companies do not merely advertise or lobby for specific regulations that affect their industry: they spend money to elect specific politicians who take positions on laws that affect that company's employees, in and out of the workplace.
No, companies spend money to elect politicians who will favor them, and the fact that those politicians have to have positions on social issues as well is (for companies) an unavoidable negative. Hobby Lobby type companies with an active social agenda are a tiny minority.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies do not merely advertise or lobby for specific regulations that affect their industry: they spend money to elect specific politicians who take positions on laws that affect that company's employees, in and out of the workplace.
No, companies spend money to elect politicians who will favor them, and the fact that those politicians have to have positions on social issues as well is (for companies) an unavoidable negative. Hobby Lobby type companies with an active social agenda are a tiny minority.
As a non-American, I find it truly bizarre (and sad) that's it's now controversial to publicly state that you're not taking sides.
I think this 'My cause is "the" cause' has arisen as an escalation in the fight for attention. And I think it's a big element in peoples view that not taking sides is controversial - "if you're not choosing to focus all your attention on my pet cause, you don't care about X"
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It isn't possible to not take sides. It's only possible to support the status quo, either explicitly or implicitly, or else oppose it.
I don't understand this "us against them" mentality because it leaves no room for nuance. I strongly believe in PG's top of mind theory [1], and I don't see how you can achieve anything if you're constantly fighting for or against the status quo. Don't you believe it's possible to agree with certain viewpoints but not act on them? You also don't have to parade around your support during every waking moment, which is…
IMO it is just a rhetorical trick / social manipulation tool. On a landscape of political positions, there is a status quo area X. Who is against status quo is in non-X (complement to X). There is a side who wants to change status quo to position Y, which is a small and specific subset of non-X (which is necessary, because 'away from X' is not consistent position / direction).
The fair approach would be to negotiate with other members of non-X (and perhaps some border members of X) for political support and get some compromise position with majority support.
The "us against them" is just a way to manipulate (by guilt trip or other ways) members of non-X to support position Y, without giving any consessions for them and their positions. It may help for that goal if position Y is not explicitly stated, and the side is just marked / marketed as non-X.
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Does the country in which you live have a status quo of the regular imprisonment, enslavement, and public executions of a specific race of people? That's the issue in the USA, and "not taking sides" on that matter is, well, an issue, because it means you don't care about human rights.
If you're trying to demonstrate just how ridiculous political polarization in the US has become, you're doing a pretty great job.
The blog post he made, which was a whole lot of words to say "We're not going to say Black Lives Matter, so stop asking", was really something else. I see a lot of people praising the "not taking sides" thing. This presumes a false two-parties dichotomy that is endemic in the discussion of US social issues. Really though, you can choose the status quo of widespread human rights abuses in the US, or you can choose to…
That said, I don't think Armstrong's blog post made a strong argument against these kinds of mantras.
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It's kinda interesting to see because the cryptocurrency space is surely one of the more political tech developments at the core - replacing fiat money, new financial instruments, self-governing contracts, ...?
The CEO is declaring the focus political issue is cryptocurrency. The focus is not whales, forests, ice caps, malaria. Why is this controversial?
What happens when your area of political focus crosses tracks with another area of political focus and you're faced with a trolley problem? Do you simply steam ahead regardless of the overall impact or do you consider the overall impact?
"That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen" [1] applies to all policies, not simply those undertaken by states.
I wonder if this is a way for Coinbase to push politically engaged employees out of the company in order to reduce the possibility of anyone pushing for internal change like people who want worker's rights groups or unionization. Operating with a workforce who only want to turn up and write code and never discuss anything that affects them as a group puts Coinbase in a very strong negotiating position because there's…
In the blog post in which he explained Coinbase's mission, he specifically mentioned that: > Of course, employees should always feel free to advocate around issues of pay, conditions of employment, or violations of law, for instance. Now, if he really is trying to diminsh the possibility of that happening, I don't know.
So generous of him, he could have run it like a drug cartel.
Brian Armstrong wants to have it both ways. He wants employees to focus “on the mission”, and not bring societal politics and activism into the workplace. Fair enough. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist system, and companies are not first and foremost social justice organisations. I am not unsympathetic to the problems he is trying to solve. But he also wants to influence politics and laws to benefit hi…
And so for better or worse we're actually in some socialist capitalist system. Blaming capitalism for problems that are often rooted in bad government is often just wrong.