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A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

blog.coinbase.com

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

#671

Post by tupputuppu »

jariel wrote: post #436
yokaze wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bare…

What's funny is that traditional media has just as much issues with misinformation and bias, yet the whole discussion around how content related to the election might not be straight and honest revolves completely around tech companies.

For some reason it's just the west coast tech companies where information or search is political, but with traditional media it's not?

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

#672

Post by tupputuppu »

vkou wrote: post #470
jariel wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" (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 bare…

> Google search is barely political. In 2020, the answer that google search gives to the query "Do masks protect you from COVID" is political. Whether or not google search even works in, say, Russia... Or Australia is political.

Don't newspapers report on masks? Are they political as well? Doesn't TV? Why is all the politics revolving around these west coast tech companies?

Could it be that it's actually not that political, it's just that these companies are filled by extremely left wing west coast people who want to make it political?

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

#673

Post by Barrin92 »

etangent wrote: post #629
Barrin92 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't need to be actively aware of gravity to not float off the ground. You can act politically without being aware of that fact, that just means you're not conscious of what's driving your decision making. Most politics and also culture expresses itself tacitly. By requiring some sort of conscious intent you're actually ignoring what is arguably the vast majority of political interaction. For example casual sexi…

You are taking a "consequentialist" stance implying that if something has political consequences, then it is political. There are several problems with this. First, literally anything could have political consequences, from a solar flare to a fly landing in someone's hair. This logic easily devolves into absurdity. Famously, Chinese government under Mao declared sparrows "public animals of capitalism" https://en.wiki…

>This logic easily devolves into absurdity

The solar flare isn't political obviously, but the response to it is. human disaster usually is the consequence of bad responses to catastrophes which have been declared inevitable. (see the current American covid response). Something that actually is in the realm of politics is shoved into the category of thoughts and prayers.

>Third, raising everything to the status of political is an example of politicization. This is typical of totalitarian regimes

Politicisation isn't bad and the only thing your post is any evidence of is the typical midbrow "no politics or gulag" logic that every conservative American who is afraid of engaging in political conflict has been repeating ad nauseam. You may think you appear smarter if you complain about tribalism every five minutes and act like you're above the fray, but you are not. It's just a silly straw-man made by people who are afraid of political change.

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

#674

Post by tupputuppu »

ketzo wrote: post #152
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.

> ...your work, which occupies a large portion of your life, should not be divisive. I get that desire, I really do, but I think it's so important to recognize that your work is not apolitical. It doesn't matter what you're building. What you build does not exist in a vacuum, and the decisions you make around politics at work are themselves political decisions.

If you want to have such a broad definition of political, then why restrict the whole fight to tech companies? Why aren't on the barricades about the fashion industry or traditional media?

Are you sure this isn't just an excuse to make things political in these west coast companies that are full of young, hot-headed, extremely left wing people?

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

#675

Post by tshaddox »

scottlocklin wrote: post #666
tshaddox wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say “putting everything up for grabs for state control.”

Saying "everything is political" is putting everything up for grabs for state (or mob) control whether you said it aloud or not. Doesn't matter if it's a tyranny by some generalissimo or amorphous mob of twitter gibbering nitwits or tiki torch bearing numskulls. If "everything is political" there is no room for private life, which is the only life that matters.

No, as I said, the statement "the government should not be involved in your private life" is very clearly a political statement, because it relates (directly!) to the policies and actions of the government. And that is, of course, the opposite of totalitarianism.

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

#676

Post by randmeerkat »

nitrogen wrote: post #571
randmeerkat wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll take a shot at responding: I would argue that the board wouldn’t exist without the people that make up the company. I would also argue that with monied interests and lobbyists in Washington, one of the last places that people can really effect societal change is at the work place. Companies have become the power center in American politics, so of course activism is going to rise up there. As far as compelled act…

It's the framing of everything in good vs evil, monochromatic terms that actually increases divisiveness and prevents deescalation of conflict. Forcing people to take one's side or else "be on the wrong side" in a multifaceted environment is not appropriate for a workplace, where people expect to be able to set aside differences to work together on work itself.

Millions of Americans are unemployed, hundreds of thousands are dying from a pandemic, tens of thousands are in lines at food banks, there are children in cages, women being given forced hysterectomies, and there are literally neo-Nazis that the President refuses to disavow.

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you?

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

#677

Post by DatBear »

tupputuppu wrote: post #660
bennysonething wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't worked anywhere that ordinary politics was discussed. I'm in uk though. I'd find it rude for someone to shove their political views in my face. It's fine for friends to discuss as I choose my friends not my colleagues. What kinda of things are people talking about?

That's the difference. For a lot of Californian tech companies, the whole company meetings revolve less around strategy and mission and more about racial inequality and Trump. As an outsider, I can't understand how strong the bubble is and how lacking in context these people are.

This seems a little farfetched, no?

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

#678

Post by vkou »

tupputuppu wrote: post #672
vkou wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google search is barely political. In 2020, the answer that google search gives to the query "Do masks protect you from COVID" is political. Whether or not google search even works in, say, Russia... Or Australia is political.

Don't newspapers report on masks? Are they political as well? Doesn't TV? Why is all the politics revolving around these west coast tech companies? Could it be that it's actually not that political, it's just that these companies are filled by extremely left wing west coast people who want to make it political?

Of course newspapers are political. I don't understand how this is even a point you're confused about, unless you believe in a truly extreme form of cultural relativism.

You obviously have an axe to grind against a particular political spectrum, so I will pose a more direct example that does not involve it.

Is Russia Today political? Is choosing to display it prominently in a search result political? Is choosing to display a 'this is state sponsored news' tag on it political? Is not choosing to display that tag on a link to the CBC, or NPR not a political decision?

If you don't think RT is political, I can go down the list until we find something that is. Zero hedge? QAnon? The International Council of Communism? The newsletter published by your local KKK chapter? BLM?

The reason the work of tech companies is political is because they've installed themselves as gatekeepers of political information. If they were dumb pipes, this wouldn't be an issue. They aren't, though.

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

#679

Post by throwaway777888 »

davorak wrote: post #628
throwaway894345 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political , but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial .

The phases I use in my response above explicitly often explicitly use the word politics. The people saying that are not being narrow with their definitions like you are here. So if people live their life having people around them using the word politics like in my phrases above they will also start using the word that way. A way that does not match up with your definitions. > You’re confusing “controversial” with “po…

>Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics.

And you can research and discuss those topics outside of work.

You're not being paid to show up to work and form PACs. You're not being paid to show up to work to virtue signal about the most fashionable wedge issue of the day. You're not being paid to show up to work and sow discord by assuming moral high ground and vilifying the other side. etc., etc.

>In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial.

The political culture status quo at Bay Area companies is that this is an alt-right talking point.

>If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences.

Conversation at work absolutely should not be a large mechanism for political discussion. It's work. If there are political consequences because workers are no longer allow to virtue signal all day, then that speaks more about their weak mental state than it does about politics.

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

#680

Post by throwaway98777 »

davorak wrote: post #628
throwaway894345 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political , but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial .

The phases I use in my response above explicitly often explicitly use the word politics. The people saying that are not being narrow with their definitions like you are here. So if people live their life having people around them using the word politics like in my phrases above they will also start using the word that way. A way that does not match up with your definitions. > You’re confusing “controversial” with “po…

>Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics.

And you can research and discuss those topics outside of work.

You're not being paid to show up to work and form PACs. You're not being paid to show up to work to virtue signal about the most fashionable wedge issue of the day. You're not being paid to show up to work and sow discord by assuming moral high ground and vilifying the other side. etc., etc.

>In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial.

The political culture status quo at Bay Area companies is that this is an alt-right talking point.

>If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences.

Conversation at work absolutely should not be a large mechanism for political discussion. It's work. If there are political consequences because workers are no longer allow to virtue signal all day, then that speaks more about their weak mental state than it does about politics.

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