Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A follow up to Coinbase being a mission focused company

blog.coinbase.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 774 posts

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

#691

Post by winston_smith »

ardy42 wrote: post #655
winston_smith wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite strategy is to talk about politics constantly, so that it's painfully obvious who's in the minority. Which is better for a gay man in Saudi Arabia? A company where people only talk about work, or a company where everybody is expected to take a stance on homosexuality?

> The opposite strategy is to talk about politics constantly, so that it's painfully obvious who's in the minority. > Which is better for a gay man in Saudi Arabia? A company where people only talk about work, or a company where everybody is expected to take a stance on homosexuality? You're talking about something completely different. What I'm talking about is basically falsely depoliticizing a political decision,…

The objection you and others are making to TFA is that you can't choose to be apolitical, because everything is political. Your contribution is to propose that people might claim things are apolitical to prevent people from realizing the truth about how political they actually are.

Your appeal to newspeak is pretty pointless, as it applies only inasmuch as it does to anyone who might claim that something is its opposite, for example the slogans "the personal is political" and "silence is violence".

Sure, if you accept lies like that, you may lose the ability to think about the true nature of those things.

But you haven't really contributed anything to the conversation. You're just saying "ah, but what if they're /lying/! To /trick us/!"

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

#692

Post by Pfhreak »

christophilus wrote: post #437
Pfhreak wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying all politics belong at work, but that all work involves politics.

I, likewise, am not interested in discussing presidential candidates with my coworkers. But every employer makes decisions about wages, benefits, donations, access to their products and services, energy consumption, their local communities, support of political candidates, etc.

No workplace is an island, and if a workplace is going to engage in those things, I want to be able to discuss how my particular workplace interacts with them. (E.g. if I worked in a factory, maybe I'd want to talk about how the factory sourced energy.)

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

#693

Post by Pfhreak »

BurningFrog wrote: post #180
Pfhreak wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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."

Being apolitical in the workplace is a way of making it possible to work together for a common goal with people who are very different than you and have very different opinions. You can still be very politically active on your own time.

You've misunderstood. Not all politics belong in work, but all work is political.

You cannot escape politics in work, because every workplace is making decisions about benefits, wages, their use of energy, who they hire, who they donate to, how accessible their products are, etc. All of which have a political component.

An aluminum smelter, for instance, uses lots of electricity. How they choose to source that electricity is absolutely a politically linked decision.

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

#694

Post by Pfhreak »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #204
Pfhreak wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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."

You, I, and Coinbase are all doing nothing to promote Joe Danna's campaign for sheriff of Harris County, Texas. Does that mean that we're effectively endorsing the status quo and the incumbent Ed Gonzalez? Or does it just mean that the Harris County sheriff's office has nothing to do with us?

You've made a strawman. I didn't say that all politics must exist in the workplace.

Work is inherently political. There's no escaping that your workplace is making decisions about wages, benefits, access to their products, how they spend their donation dollars, if they support candidates, who they employ, etc. etc. etc. All of these are political decisions that (I believe) are inescapable and also that workers should have input into.

A web design shop could be a co-op or it could be a standard llc with a founder on top. It might make price services to be accessible to everyone or exclusively focus on enterprise software. They might donate to a local politician. Or rent in a particular area of town. Or purchase carbon offsets for their energy use. Etc. etc.

All of these are inherently political decisions. There's no such thing as an Apolitical workplace.

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

#695

Post by titanomachy »

gnicholas wrote: post #372
titanomachy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do companies have an obligation to be democratic? Are democratic companies common? Protected classes aside, if I start a company I can choose to hire or exclude whomever I choose. I could start a company that only hires registered Republicans, or only people who can't stand the taste of bananas. If this turns out to be a bad business decision (which it probably is), the market will punish me and I'll eventually lose…

> I could start a company that only hires registered Republicans This might be illegal in California, which considers political activity to be a protected class.

I didn't realize that, you are likely correct! I could start such a company in my state, but I'd have to be very careful with jurisdictions. In practice most companies I'm familiar with have official policies banning political discrimination across the board, which makes sense considering the importance of California in tech.

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

#696

Post by ponker »

webmaven wrote: post #685
ponker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are definitely people who don’t want her to exist but there are also ones like me, who get called Nazis for it, but whose perspective is largely 1) OK 2) please pay for your own costs related to your choices and 3) I’m not being an asshole to you because you’re a black trans woman, I’m being an asshole to you because I am an asshole and my white male friends say “oh Xxx is such as asshole.” So don’t tak…

> 3) I’m not being an asshole to you because you’re a black trans woman, I’m being an asshole to you because I am an asshole and my white male friends say “oh Xxx is such as asshole.” So don’t take it personally I thought this deserved to be broken out to a separate reply. I actually used to be in that camp. In my case I used to say some extremely heteronormative patriarchal objectifying bullshit ironically (typical…

No idea what you’re talking about. Someone comes to me with a dumb idea. I tell them it’s a dumb idea and am not nice about it. If they are a minority group they could feel that I am acting this way to them because I’m a x-ist. But it’s actually because I’m an asshole.

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

#697

Post by titanomachy »

TedShiller wrote: post #370
titanomachy wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do companies have an obligation to be democratic? Are democratic companies common? Protected classes aside, if I start a company I can choose to hire or exclude whomever I choose. I could start a company that only hires registered Republicans, or only people who can't stand the taste of bananas. If this turns out to be a bad business decision (which it probably is), the market will punish me and I'll eventually lose…

They do not have an obligation. However, employees will feel it is unfair if their side is not heard as much as the other side.

Agreed, being democratic seems to be generally a good practice for employers. Especially those that need to compete for talent.

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

#698

Post by nitrogen »

randmeerkat wrote: post #676
nitrogen wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

When I'm not at work.

When and where I stand is my business, but "when" is definitely not when I am at work and nobody is bullying anyone.

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

#699

Post by jcims »

xyzzyz wrote: post #688
d1zzy wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate discussions can't be kept over ideas and policies instead of veering towards persons. While I believe Trump is the worst president the US has had in recent history that doesn't mean I'd be unwilling to entertain a discussion of anything he may have done that people think it was a good thing. I suspect in most cases we'll end up with "we agree to disagree" which is fine. That said, one thing we have t…

> It's unfortunate discussions can't be kept over ideas and policies instead of veering towards persons. I don't think it's a matter of ideas vs persons. Already I hear that speech and ideas are violence, and violence requires fighting back (by complaining to HR that you made them feel unsafe). Of course, you cannot keep quiet either, because "silence is violence" too. > It's unfortunate discussions can't be kept ove…

>"silence is violence"

To me this might be the best example of a 'meme', in Dawkins' sense of the word, that I'm aware of.

- It's short

- It rhymes

- It gives new territory to a powerful word

- It creates an in-group signal

- It's self-amplifying, and most importantly

- It's ridiculous

It's absolutely destined to go far beyond it's own merit by outcompeting everything in its domain on 3+ metrics.

It also helped me understand one possible reason why so many broken slogans are rising to the top. There are many factors in totality of course, but the ones that are ridiculous drive engagement from everyone, the proponents to echo and the opponents to mock.

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

#700

Post by randmeerkat »

nitrogen wrote: post #698
randmeerkat wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you’re not going to take a stand now, when will you? When I'm not at work. When and where I stand is my business, but "when" is definitely not when I am at work and nobody is bullying anyone.

So what about Twitter flagging Trump’s tweets? Do you think that happened without a politicised workplace discussion? With the amount of power that tech wields over society these discussions _have_ to happen.
Post reply on HN