It's surreal to see how far a lack of self awareness can go, reading all the comments either implying or outright stating, "yes, I agree, and it's the fault of the left/right". Attitudes like that are exactly why I don't share political thoughts in real life.
Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
211–220 of 294 posts
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment belies pretty repressive, judgmental, arrogant and close-minded attributes on your part. This attitude reminds me of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” repression policy against gay service members. People should feel they don’t have to unnaturally switch off core important parts of their identity at work. They need to have psychological safety to outwardly “be themselves” - without burden to exert e…
Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth. Throughout history, work hasn't been a social club, because everybody has a different preferred social environment and if you add in a social club then the thing people are getting paid for (work) is much harder to focus on. Your comment itself shows how passionate you are about political or social issues, which i…
> “ Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth.”
No, this is a deeply arrogant and harmful thing to say. When it comes to beliefs, nearly anything that tries to generalize to “most humans” is at best arrogant ignorance and at worst actively repressive.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
The truck is at fault by being there at all. This is not acceptable behavior. They created the situation with the intent to provoke. It’s classic bullying.
That's not how traffic laws work. It's a campaign bus, not voters at a polling station. Drivers supporting another party are absolutely allowed to drive next to them.
Texas law is quite open to interpretation. Reckless driving is defined as "a person commits an offense if the person drives a vehicle in wilful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." [1]
Driving at that distance is wanton disregard for the safety of the persons in the bus, but that's open to interpretation of the officer at the scene.
[1] https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/transportation-code/transp-sect...
I'm just serving your point by quibbling about the law. The driver's intent is quite clear. Intimidating people because you disagree with them is unacceptable behavior. In this case, I suspect it's also illegal.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth. Throughout history, work hasn't been a social club, because everybody has a different preferred social environment and if you add in a social club then the thing people are getting paid for (work) is much harder to focus on. Your comment itself shows how passionate you are about political or social issues, which i…
> “ Most humans can't discuss those topics rationally. It's not arrogant to say this, it's just basic truth.” No, this is a deeply arrogant and harmful thing to say. When it comes to beliefs, nearly anything that tries to generalize to “most humans” is at best arrogant ignorance and at worst actively repressive.
Trying to redefine work from something it has been for all of human history (a place where you do work) into some sort of personal self expression is what is arrogant and harmful. Things are the way they are for reasons. Don't remove a fence until you know why it's there, and we know why the fence of no politics or religion is there (most humans aren't good at compartmentalizing their personal feelings on subjective social issues once those personal feelings are out in the open in an environment where you aren't around people who all share your personal feelings)
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you act like an adult and reject them. Are you afraid that if you hear hate speech, you will learn to hate?
of course not, but a requirement to be civil to uncivil people just allows the brownshirts to take over
Being civil to uncivil people does not somehow make their hate speech more appealing to normal people.
What it does is preserve the integrity of our open democratic system.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've been around here long enough to know that personal attacks aren't permitted on HN.
That’s why it was critical to respond. The comment I responded to is overtly and unequivocally expressing arrogant repression (“no politics” and “no religion” discussed at work because “most people” can’t rationally talk about it). If you think my comment is a personal attack, that’s wildly unreasonable. The parent comment is the one behaving that way and it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their o…
> That’s why it was critical to respond. The comment I responded to is overtly and unequivocally expressing arrogant repression
No, it isn't: It wasn't critical for you to respond (particularly with insults) nor was the comment "repression".
> If you think my comment is a personal attack
Your first comment is a personal attack, and so is this one. You continue calling the first commenter you replied to a "thug". There's really no room for opinions or different thoughts; that you insulted that person is undeniable.
> The parent comment is the one behaving that way
The parent comment didn't insult anyone here, it's really odd that you're trying to say otherwise when we all can read the comment and can see that there's no insult to anyone here in it.
> it is absolutely fair and uncontroversial to point out their own words demonstrating thuggish repression.
It isn't.
> In fact, not challenging their comment on these reprehensible points would be the far worse action.
No, it wouldn't be, much less with insults.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. At the end of the day, who are we protecting when we silence hate speech? Are we suggesting that we ourselves cannot handle hearing and rejecting the speech, or are we suggesting that other adults should not even hear hate speech because they might be influenced? Either of those is a profound infantilization of the public. I am capable of hearing hate speech and rejecting it. I trust most other mature adults…
Umm, have you seen the public recently? If you don't need protection, great! But hate speech emboldens bigots. It has a chilling effect.
If it emboldens them to commit an illegal act, arrest them.
If "emboldens" just means that they are speaking in a venue you frequent, then that isn't a problem.
> "It has a chilling effect."
The irony is that you are using a term that is actually a consequence of the actions you propose.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a nice ideal, but once the views become too extreme, it's not practical. Not many people will maintain basic civility towards a person telling them they don't deserve basic rights for example.
A high profile executive working for a corporation in Iran will be fired and possibly arrested if they start talking about the government's stance on women's rights. Likewise in the USA if some executive talks about babies' rights they'll probably be fired and some smear campaign will be launched against them. Likewise in China vocal criticism of the CCP will probably lead to bad consequences. I would encourage Ameri…
Constructive conversations are good. A shouting match is not a conversation.
Obviously it's a lot harder to allow just one and not the other.
And again, it's exactly the nuance that's needed to separate these that are needed when one compares China, Iran, and the USA.
Executives ought to be able to express their views freely, also companies/shareholders ought to be able to freely replace executives they deem unfit (a bad fit for society).
Plus, there's a nuanced (even seemingly small) difference between state-supported oppression and "cancel culture".
Aaaand, finally, there's also a big difference between oppressing voices that call for more civil rights (eg. restrictions on what the state can do) versus voices that call for more state-supported restrictions.
Calling for more restrictions on women's rights in the name of babies is still supporting more rights for the state, whereas calling for more transparency, accountability, equality for citizens falls on the the exact opposite of this spectrum.
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The conversation about babies' rights is very hard because that it naturally pits two very special groups against each other, babies vs women. Where the former doesn't have the capacity to represent themselves in any meaningful way. So society at large with its myriad voices tries to stand in for them. Any "executive" that just start talking about babies' rights better be prepared to brandish some big guns of philosophy, because so far this issue is so murky that respectable philosophy stops at "well, it's hard", and all we are left with is the endless lowing and parroting of indoctrinated fundamentalist followers of various religions.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I applaud your ability to keep politics out of work. We created a hard rule at our company in 2016: No politics / No religion. Most humans are incapable of discussing these topics rationally, and it only serves to increase division at work. One person could not handle the idea of not being politically active at work, and we discovered after she quit that almost everyone was happier no having her toxic commentary omni…
How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker? What about a request to get time off to vote? What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / n…
Not the OP but:
> How would your company have dealt with a "Trump/Pence 2016" laptop sticker?
Presumably this would fall under the no politics rule. Remove it. It's a work laptop anyway.
>What about a request to get time off to vote?
Non-issue. Leaving to vote is not bringing your politics to work.
> What if someone came to HR and said they felt they were being treated differently by their boss because they posted a news article that mentioned politics and religion in the team's Slack channel, and they think their boss considered that a sneaky attempt to circumvent your strict "no politics / no religion" rule?
Nothing sneaky about it, posting in the teams Slack work be a clear violation of the rule. It's a work Slack channel.
Re: Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share
#220Absolutely. For example I like Trumps stance on H1B Visa reform. I cannot share even this one policy agreement with peers without immediate labeling of bigot, racist, etc. People appear to be so emotionally vested in this election at this point it’s better to stay quiet. IMO.
As with most political things, this cuts both ways with increasing polarity. Not just in the obvious way (left/right), but rather for every time I see someone not given the benefit of the doubt when supporting an arguably-not-hateful Trump policy, I also see someone respond to reasonable criticism by assuming a victim mentality, as though any criticism is a personal accusation of racism/sexism/etc.