A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company • Hacker News Board

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#431

Post by mtalantikite » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #294

mtalantikite wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I personally am afraid to associate myself too publicly with a political stance, lest I be wrong and/or the environment changes.” I can understand this fear, but generally if you choose a stance based on compassion for all beings you’ll be in the right in the long run. This particular issue was sparked by Coinbase not taking a stance on Black Lives Matter, which they are wrong about. Standing for dismantling racism…

> but generally if you choose a stance based on compassion for all beings you’ll be in the right in the long run I like capitalism and the free market because I think it's the best system to give most prosperity to a broad spectrum of society. I believe that I take this stance based on compassion but I can assure you that this view is not popular among other people who are in the compassion camp.

You can disagree about the methods to achieve the thing while still agreeing about what the compassionate stance is. We would likely agree that moving people out of poverty is a compassionate thing, even if we disagree about what the best way to do that is.

No one is asking Coinbase to take a stance and say that the police must be abolished, or that the way forward for Black liberation is X policy. They were simply asking them to acknowledge that racism exists and Black lives do in fact matter.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#432

Post by heimatau » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #430

heimatau wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My company is becoming increasingly political and it's terrible. IMHO, this is not the problem. The problem are the managers of the work. One doesn't need to micromanage to stop this from happening. Nor does one need to limit free speech to prevent this. Companies aren't working enough, that's the problem and managers aren't keeping people focused on the actual challenge at hand. P.S. I feel this is a white-collar…

No, the problem is really about politicization and more specifically the fact that in most US tech companies there is an enormous bias towards those on the political left, and a believe that those who lean left are more “scientifically educated” or intelligent or well-read, etc. As one example you can see it in the way you can make hostile comments about “straight white males” and nobody says anything, but if you wer…

> No

You're speaking from a personal experience. I'm not minimizing your experience with my comments.

But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#433

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

heimatau wrote: post #432

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is really about politicization and more specifically the fact that in most US tech companies there is an enormous bias towards those on the political left, and a believe that those who lean left are more “scientifically educated” or intelligent or well-read, etc. As one example you can see it in the way you can make hostile comments about “straight white males” and nobody says anything, but if you wer…

> No You're speaking from a personal experience. I'm not minimizing your experience with my comments. But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop.

> But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop.

What you describe is a sweat shop, not knowledge work. You can have downtime while still getting your work done and acting like an adult with colleagues. If you don’t have this skill set, make the effort to cultivate some tact and decorum.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#434

Post by jariel » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

monoideism wrote: post #377

wahnfrieden wrote: post #369

Let me guess that you are referring to “reverse racism” here

Why use a special term? Just "racism" works very well. The idea that only certain races can "qualify" for racism is Orwellian.

The intersectional view is that 'real racism' requires a power imbalance - which is actually a fair point.

It would be unfair not to recognize that some groups have considerably more power than others.

That said - it's still racism one way or another, discriminatory etc. and in 2020 it's getting really hard to talk about individuals as being a function of their race.

So while it's worth reminding ourselves of the intersectional issue ... it doesn't really justify bad behaviour one way or another.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#435

Post by rrook » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

sergefaguet wrote: post #423

My observation is that people outside the US either are confused or laugh at Americans for giving in to all this social justice nonsense, the “let’s be racist to white people” the “biological sex does not exist” etc. And people inside the US who trust me enough to express their honest opinion also think it’s nonsense but are too scared to speak up. Best comment I’ve heard on this was “it’s like the USSR - everyone kn…

This outlook strikes me as narrow.

The behavior you're describing is amplified in technology corporations, and while I do agree that there is nonsense, there are also real social issues that are worth solving for.

The most polarizing and extreme voices will often be the loudest or most visible, but rarely will they be representative of a group at large.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#436

Post by jariel » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

yokaze wrote: post #188

redm wrote: post #82

I feel like this is the start of a rising tide. I think Brian's stance is great, companies have missions, they should focus on those missions. Everything has become so political that your work, which occupies a large portion of your life, should not be divisive.

I see it the other way around. (Almost) everything is political. The mission of the company is not disjoint from the society it is embedded in. Things have become divisive by being able to ignore and blend out the opposing views. By not talking and listening to one another. This is just one more step in that direction. Funnily enough, I think it has been extrapolated by Neal Stephenson in Diamond Age. We will end up…

" (Almost) everything is political. "

Serving coffee is not political. Planning the network installation is not political. Code reviews, cleaning your office, optimizing the VM, getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish, figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill, picking a guy to fix the fence ...

It's 99% not political.

Google search is barely political, ads are a little bit.

Social Media is political and not that-that much more.

It's 100% fine for you to 'work on something consistent with your political views' but at the same time just 'pick the place' instead of 'making the place' inherently political.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#437

Post by christophilus » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #145

krzyk wrote: post #123

Is "apolitical" stance a bad thing? Isn't it the default, safe? I lived in country where you had to be "political" to be in management, it didn't end up well (East Europe, Soviet Union), I always (naively?) thought that West countries were wiser. So I prefer companies to not mess with politics.

"Apolitical" is the default. It's another way of saying, "The way things are is fine". The problem is that this is, in itself, a political stance. An example could be climate change. If Coinbase is doing nothing to make energy more green (even if that's just writing amicus briefs or blog posts), then they are effectively saying, "The way things are is fine."

Nope. It means: I came here to program, not to listen to you drone on and on about why Trump is the greatest candidate ever. (I quit a job partly because of someone doing this constantly.) I also quit a subsequent job because of a leftist guy who was simply unbearable. I get paid to write software. When I go to work, that’s what I want to do. If you want to annoy me with unrelated trivia, work is not the place.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#438

Post by thundergolfer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:07 AM UTC

mattparcens wrote: post #378

thundergolfer wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s political because a number of hugely important issues call us all to action (child poverty, climate change, homelessness) and those issues are and will continue to put vulnerable people in danger of death and suffering. Staying in your comfort zone is likely an expression of indifference to them as vanishingly few people are comfortable when tackling these problems. You might adopt a political position that your…

So who gets to decide which issues to get involved in? Does everyone have to get involved in every issue?

No, they don't have to get involved in every issue, the point is merely that inaction, or excluding yourself from politics, is itself political.

That doesn't make inaction immoral. It just means that it's not apolitical.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#439

Post by jariel » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #145

krzyk wrote: post #123

Is "apolitical" stance a bad thing? Isn't it the default, safe? I lived in country where you had to be "political" to be in management, it didn't end up well (East Europe, Soviet Union), I always (naively?) thought that West countries were wiser. So I prefer companies to not mess with politics.

"Apolitical" is the default. It's another way of saying, "The way things are is fine". The problem is that this is, in itself, a political stance. An example could be climate change. If Coinbase is doing nothing to make energy more green (even if that's just writing amicus briefs or blog posts), then they are effectively saying, "The way things are is fine."

So no, this is definitely not true within this context.

You have life outside of work where you can be political.

I believe it's the job of companies to be 'good citizens' and only to be active politically if it's either really part of the mission statement - or - unavoidable, perhaps in the case of NFL, they had a huge communications issue.

Beyond that, protest at your hearts content, just not at the office.

Finally - you can make a political choice in your work if you want merely by choosing disciplines/companies. If you really want to 'push green' then getting into that industry might be a good personal choice.

Re: A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

#440

Post by thundergolfer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

gpm wrote: post #422

thundergolfer wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work you do together is political. It of course isn’t necessarily directly engaged with USA national politics, but it’s directly engaged in politics. Politics is a very broad and encompassing concept. It isn’t synonymous with some nation’s representative political system.

Right, so we can say "we both think that better backup software primarily targeting the enterprise and government market is good for society" (and as you say that is a statement with political ramifications) and still disagree on just about everything else. For instance we don't have to agree on whether or not abortion should be legal, the president should be impeached, taxes should be raised on rich people, or how g…

Yes, you can do that. That's how things work in a pluralistic society. The only point being made though is that that "we" it not acting 'outside of politics' or 'avoiding politics' or being apolitical.

When I go to work I focus on things to the exclusion of other things. That's fine, but we shouldn't think that on entering the office of my employer corporation I am somehow exiting the political realm. That would be engaging in a blindness to the politics of my employer's business practices, and the politics of my office workplace.