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Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

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Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#551

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I can describe it. I'm Brazilian, very white, green eyes, brown hair that was lighter when I was younger. About 30 years ago (wow!), in my late teens I organized a party on a house my aunt recently bought to become her medical practice. We had lots of drinks, some drugs, a DJ, live music and some guests walking over the roof of neighboring houses. Police got called. When they saw me, young and privileged, they wanted…

Is that "white privilege?" From personal experience, I don't think police treat upper middle class asian kids any differently than that. (But I bet it would be different for upper middle class Black people.) Statistically, and adjusted for age (which is really important because there is quite a big difference in median age between racial groups in the U.S.) asians are actually less likely to get shot by the police th…

In Brazil, it is my impression Asians are treated as white by the police.

The rule of thumb is that they will be more violent with poorer people, which has a high correlation with having darker skin, at least in southern Brazil. Asians are more often than not, middle and upper-class.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horseshoe theory implies (if not explies, if that's a word) that going far left or far right automatically entails becoming authoritarian, and that they converge as you go farther "left" or "right". That's pretty demonstrably false, and even a two-dimensional political compass (let alone one with more axes) does a much better job of describing actual political stances than a horseshoe can. Authoritarianism v. liberta…

I always viewed it as descriptive and not prescriptive, so I wouldn't say it implies movement across the authoritarian axis just by moving more right or left.

I feel like even as a descriptive theory it doesn't really map all that well to reality, though.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#553
post #121

At this point, companies might as well just have an explicit policy of not hiring anyone registered as a Republican. Party affiliation is not a protected class, after all.

As pointed out below, there are some states where politics are protected. I looked it up because I do plan to use that information in hiring decisions going forward. I wouldn't surprised if I get downvoted for this, but I intend to ask anyone I interview in the future (not currently in a role that involves hiring) if they voted for Trump in 2020. And a yes will be a disqualifying answer on the basis of poor judgement…

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Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#554

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I think another post hit the mark here but generalizing people into extreme groups is a real problem. I know many people on the “right” and “left” that basically only agree with half of what their chosen party says, or maybe they only agree with one issue that is very important to them. On the left it is usually abortion and the right it is usually economy. My point is that saying things like “many” is not all or eve…

You're not going to convince many that symbolically property damage across the nation is of the same offense as storming the capitol and beating one of your own to death. The group that stormed the capital was also not ideologically diverse. They were running on a common emotion of hate. Sure, you had hundreds of useful idiots giving the bad actors cover but that's the whole point of being a useful idiot for the left…

Property damage? I mean literally police stations and city halls were attacked across the US and many people did die in the protests, and cops were even killed at random in the name of BLM. Don’t try to stand on the grave of one individual officer in the case who volunteered to protect the building and reports still read his “injuries were unknown” and report it as if it was a murder. Officers die every day around the country from a traffic stop and somehow it is an “insurrection” when one dies in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. And to you that fault is all of those hundreds of thousands of people? Did anyone at your high school ever murder someone, does that make you a murderer because you all were not ideologically diverse and had the same education. It is prejudice to assign others blame by virtue of association. There was no hate by many people they simply wanted election integrity to be verified and allow investigation to occur.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#555

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> Militant left is as dangerous as militant right. Yeah... The terrible dangers of universal healthcare and proportional taxes...

Promoting universal healthcare and proportional taxes isn't dangerous at all. Neither is promoting freedom of speech and healthy laws for small businesses. It get dangerous when either side decides that anything standing in the way (in their opinion) of these ideals are "other", and that the "others" are so evil they are simply inhuman, and must be quashed by all means necessary. This pattern repeats in history many,…

> It get dangerous

True. Remember all the lynchings of white people in the South by the BBB, for offenses sometimes as minor as drinking from the wrong water fountain?

Or when BLM marched, with torches in hand, chanting "Blood and soil" and "You will not replace us"? There was even a Neonazi woman who was ran over by a BLM activist driving a car.

And what about the day when BLM terrorists invaded the Capitol threatening to kill everyone who wouldn't break the law and vote Obama back into the presidency? That day was wild.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#556

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You know this how? https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri... Specifically: “ Even if you work in a state that doesn’t protect employees from political discrimination, you might still have a legal claim if your employer’s actions were really based on a protected trait under Title VII or a similar state law. For example, if African American employees are fired for participating in a Black Lives Ma…

We’re making the same point. They have to show that there was discrimination against protected beliefs. The employer’s currently-stated position does not meet that bar. If the ex-employee has evidence that hasn’t been published by the employer, then they could win in court, if they can convince the court that their evidence is sound.

Looks like it. I never implied that it was automatic, but it’s the details that will make/break the case, if it were to go to court.

Even the social media choices may be subject, because it may depend largely on how the employer perceived it at the time.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#557
post #470
post #260

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You should probably put that on your job-listing ads! Also, how do you plan on phrasing the question? And if you're not fully within the power to "disqualify" the candidate, what other steps are you planning on taking to prevent them from being hired by your employer? Have you discussed it yet with your employer's HR department yet?

Ha, yes, the intent is that it would be an open and stated part of the hiring process. There's no reason to surprise people with the question. I'd rather let candidates self-select them out, as much for this question as for any other mis-alignments. I did a poor job in my first comment of explaining my role relative to hiring. I'm speaking from a position of having been a founder and CEO, and likely being one again.…

Would you consider listing this preference on your linked-in profile then? It's the same deal as a job ad.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#558
post #362

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Do you even have social media accounts yourself? It seems very contradictory coming from someone who announced he is leaving LinkedIn and Twitter

I run a whole-ass BBS, several chat servers, and a mailing list, and have personal websites in the wayback machine going back to the 90s. I am extremely online.

I don't care to what degree you're online, I asked about social media accounts. If you yourself don't have them, it's weird you'd ask others for them.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'd most likely arrive shooting, as they do when there are parties in slums. Can you please link to the news articles about these slum parties that are broken up by officers who start shooting the moment they arrive? Seems like something that would definitely get reported on. In all my time living in low-income housing, I never witnessed something like this. And I had plenty of sleepless nights when neighbors wo…

You can read about one such case, one that created enough social repercussion that the cops involved had legal trouble, here: https://recordtv.r7.com/fala-brasil/videos/mpsp-ira-indiciar... Most often nothing happens.

I see this link happened in Brazil. Definitely a horribly incident.

My comment, and my personal experiences, relate to America. At least here, I don't know of any events where police have opened fire on a pack of teenagers partying without reason. But they could exist, which was why I was asking for evidence.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by Dr. King's philosophy, it would seem that covering up, censoring, and cancelling hateful people is the same as covering up a boil and letting it fester. "We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natu…

You are missing the "and dealt with". It needs to be dealt with. Exposing it does not deal with it. It just gives it more air to spread. You actually need the dealing with part.

>You are missing the "and dealt with".

What makes you think that?

It's literally in the quote.

Covering up hatred is not dealing with it, it's a facile attempt at ignoring it.

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