Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#321

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #289

chii wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t truly be apolitical; that's one of those "you're either with us or against us" type of deal - which is not the right way to deal with anything imho. You _can_ be apolitical - as in, you do not let your political views affect what you do. You keep your political views private. You do not try to change anyone else's political views as part of your job.

The view you just described is active support for the status quo. One fairly non-controversial part of the status quo right now is our dependence on fossil fuels and co2 emissions to keep our economy running. Saying "I'll keep my views private" means I'm giving an okay to what's happening now. If every individual shares the thinking at every company then it is impossible to even imagine how the most catastrophic clim…

I don't agree. Opponents of the status quo can get an advantage by defecting from an apolitical equilibrium, by bringing politics into spaces where people who disagree with them aren't willing to. But when everyone starts being political, opponents of the status quo lose, because almost by definition their views are less popular.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#322

Post by nemo44x » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

md_ wrote: post #161

nemo44x wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes very much so. They found the moral high ground and were able to persuade people on our shared humanity. No one “had” to do anything. People were compelled to as they were persuaded that we had immoral systems in terms of individuals civil rights. A universal appeal to shared humanity is an approach that works. Shaming people into a type of morality will only invite pushback.

For some historical context, contemporaneously, the Civil Rights movement was highly controversial and, among white Americans, fairly unpopular; it's exactly the kind of thing that would have been described as politics best left out of the workplace. "In 1964, in a poll taken nine months after the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, 74 percent of Americans said such mas…

I think we're conflating certain actions with certain messages. The words of that speech struck a nerve with people because of its universal appeal to humanity. It's oft quoted line of "...judged by content of their character, not the color of their skin" is still universally praised because of that.

Compare this to today's thoughtless and abrasive slogans or the writings of today's favored thought leaders on this and how divisive now only are the ideas but the tactics being used to coerce people into compliance.

So yeah, people at the time may have had a distaste for some of the tactics but the messaging was very popular. The riots that took place later on in the decade were a disaster and led to a new, mainstream form of conservatism led by Nixon.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#323

Post by geofft » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #274

wwright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics (and generally one that supports the status quo). Politics is ultimately about how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society, not just which “party” you like. The very act of being a company is very relative to the laws and regulations your country has, which are of course determined b…

> I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics This seems like a fallacy. X may be undesirable, but it's impossible to completely rid ourselves of X. Therefore it's pointless to even worry about reducing X. Thermodynamics tells us that we can't ever reach absolute zero. Therefore I don't have to put the groceries away in the refrigerator. No…

I think the analogy works the other way. Thermodynamics, like politics, is a thing we can't be rid of. Therefore, even if you don't care about the exact temperature of your groceries, put them in the fridge. If you have a bag of fresh bread, milk, and frozen meat, it's a lot better to stick the whole bag in the fridge than leave the whole bag in the counter. Obviously it would be even better to put them away properly, but if you want to not care as much as possible, you still have to care a little bit. There's no way to avoid it completely, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away and is certainly not meritorious.

The NRA is "more political" in the sense of their daily activities, of course, but I think you could construct a great argument that the IETF has more impact on world politics (or, let's say, the governments of the world) than the NRA. Everyone knows the NRA is taking an absolutist give-everyone-an-AR-15 stance; they work very hard on it, but at this point they're almost an anchor. Some parts of the US give easy access to guns, and they're going to do so regardless. Other parts (NYC, where I live) make it very hard to access guns, and the NRA isn't able to do much more. And the rest of the world doesn't care. Meanwhile, the IETF, in how it chooses to distribute power to network operators vs. service providers vs. end users, which protocols it facilitates standardization work on, who is in the room, what sorts of threats cryptographic protocols protect against, etc., has a lot of influence on who has power over digital communications.

I think I'd even argue that it's more important for someone at the IETF to be aware of the political implications of their work than someone at the NRA. The NRA has an obviously political mission; whether you choose to pay attention to it in how you do your job and what you prioritize or not, you're going to further that mission. (Imagine, for instance, being a gun-control advocate at the NRA and see how much impact you'll have.) The IETF's mission is more open-ended, which means you can develop protocols to facilitate government surveillance or to subvert it, depending on what you think is more important.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#324

Post by mountainb » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #279

mountainb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true that "LGBT Rights" are value-free. Promoting LGBT rights also alienates members of the largest religious groups in the world, including those that are majority-non-European like Islam and Catholicism. Being a practicing L, G, B, or T or pro any of them is against sharia, the Catechism, and against the rules of many major Protestant sects like Mormons. Gay marriage is expressly against the rules of most…

So many of these major companies are extremely vocal about LGBT+ rights but it's all just lip service, the second it comes down to money the whole thing goes out the window. Look at Apple they were very proud to tell us about their pride themed watch face and emoji, yet some developer within Apple had to write the if statement to disable these graphics if the device is in Russia [1]. By choosing to take a stance on t…

A 'principled stand' in Russia would be to accept all the legal punishments that would come from flouting Russian law and the moral conventions of the dominant religion in Russia. That would be consistent with the principles of 'civil disobedience.'

However, globocorps do not do that. They are woke where the educated elite are aggressively secular and the laws support it, and they are profit focused and 'business-first' where it isn't. The US educated elite is under a mistaken impression that its secularism is 'tolerant' or 'universal' when it is actually rather parochial, particular, and incompatible with most of the largest global faith groups. The US outlook is also incompatible with Chinese political culture, and China will control the largest and most significant economic power bloc over the next 30 years -- no one else will be close, including the rapidly declining US.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#325

Post by langitbiru » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

dkdk8283 wrote: post #189

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #120

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial? I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission? I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm…

I worked at a media company with a reach of 400 million ADI. We had internal meetings more or less instructing employees how to vote. Our hand curated content intentionally catered to this same narrative. It was completely politically biased. I was hired when the company was neutral but over the years the extreme left narrative settled in and we tended to only hire people with the same ideologies. Executive discussio…

So what does the future hold? Will there be left-leaning companies and right-leaning companies? What if I am centrist? So when I apply for a job, do I have to make sure my political leaning fits with the employer? Brave, brave new world.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#326

Post by eeh » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

helen___keller wrote: post #277

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #120

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial? I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission? I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm…

My 2c: * Companies, like the rest of the world, are now hyperconnected. We have slack and email and so on. This makes it a lot easier for similar interests to connect across a massive organization, which is a boon for special interest groups, like anime, or magic the gathering. Or politics. * Companies muscle in on workers' identity. Workers respond to work over email/slack during their off hours. Workers pop open th…

> Companies muscle in on workers' identity.

Great point. Maybe this is it?

I have been skeptical of work activism, but maybe it makes given the size of the lever (vs alternative activism options).

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#327

Post by csixty4 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #199

wwright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics (and generally one that supports the status quo). Politics is ultimately about how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society, not just which “party” you like. The very act of being a company is very relative to the laws and regulations your country has, which are of course determined b…

> I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics (and generally one that supports the status quo). If someone just does their job with people no matter who they are then they are not political. Being gay is not political. Being trans is not political. Being black is not political. Saying that gays/trans/black people shouldn't exist or doesn't b…

> Being trans is not political.

Until that trans person needs to go to the bathroom.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#328

Post by dangerface » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

wwright wrote: post #127

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #120

Why is a company wanting to be apolitical is controversial? That should be the default, is this an American thing like how masks and healthcare are controversial? I would expect a government to have proper separation from church and state, so why is it weird to want a company to separate politics and mission? I can't see any good coming from being in a work environment where the company supports a political issue I'm…

I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics (and generally one that supports the status quo). Politics is ultimately about how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society, not just which “party” you like. The very act of being a company is very relative to the laws and regulations your country has, which are of course determined b…

> I (and many others) are of the opinion that you can’t truly be apolitical; claiming to be so is its own form of politics

This is a Kafka trap

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#329

Post by _fat_santa » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #300

It would be so ironic if every Coinbase employee took this exit. It's not like there isn't more work out there. The longer I work, the less I put up with dehumanizing actions from the top. You only live for so long. Why be told to your face that you're just a resource .

It's a bitter truth but it's true. Everyone at a company, except the founders, are essentially resources to help the company along with it's mission.

And I have no problem with this, when I decided to work for a company that relationship is you provide them your services for pay. If you like the company and feel you are treated well, stay. If you don't like it there, leave, it's that simple.

Re: Coinbase offers exit package for employees not comfortable with its mission

#330

Post by luckylion » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #239

chii wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t truly be apolitical; that's one of those "you're either with us or against us" type of deal - which is not the right way to deal with anything imho. You _can_ be apolitical - as in, you do not let your political views affect what you do. You keep your political views private. You do not try to change anyone else's political views as part of your job.

> that's one of those "you're either with us or against us" type of deal - which is not the right way to deal with anything imho. I think it's more like saying you can't truly be unbiased. Try as you might, it's arguably impossible to truly be unbiased when making decisions an interacting with people. Journalists try their best, by presenting "just the facts" but even that is tough as which facts you chase down and w…

> I think it's more like saying you can't truly be unbiased. Try as you might, it's arguably impossible to truly be unbiased when making decisions an interacting with people.

That's the point of blinding yourself to the people you interact with, isn't it? If you pick and choose who to do business with, I agree. If you have a website where people buy things that get mailed to them, there is no biased decision making.

> if highly trained journalists still have trouble with this, everyone else will as well

Not sure about this bit. Journalists today (at least for Europe) tend to be politically active first, journalists second. They view their role as educators of the masses, not information presenter, that is, to explain to their audience, why they should believe whatever the journalist believes, not provide facts to their audience and let them decide. I don't see a lot of evidence for individual journalists and even less so companies trying to be neutral.

I understand the argument to be more that, if you don't actively fighting for whatever you believe should be the way society operates, then you're implicitly actively fighting for whatever way it currently operates. I don't agree with that at all. It would include that a doctor who saves a person's life without checking whether they are for or against some issue would be considered putting their weight on one side of the issue. They're not, they are doing their job and saving a life.