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New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
231–240 of 734 posts
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace I'd say I'm a mix of conservative/Libertarian and this kind of blows my mind over the past few years. It seems like I constantly hear people on the left openly voicing their political opinions around crowds of people, and always speak in a way that they genuinely believe everyone around them agrees....and often have a condescending wa…
It sounds like you're saying "I only see these leftists using extremely shallow reasoning, and they don't understand that they're wrong because they don't look at my/our reasoning beyond a shallow level." If you would look for more depth in the reasoning of the people you're disagreeing with yourself, you might be surprised at what you might find. The frustration you're expressing to me seems to be very symmetric, oc…
One of the problems of modern political discourse is that the world is now extremely fragmented, and the economic and social theories underpinning this or that position are extremely complex - on all sides.
For example, stuff like gender-related issues on the left have now evolved through hundreds of papers and volumes, which might even make sense if considered sequentially (and if validity is granted to the field at all) but look outright baffling from "the street". There is no possibility of civil dialogue between some intellectual who spent his or her life (over)analysing a complex and niche topic, and an averagely-informed person. It's like having a professor of String Theory discuss that with an undergraduate drop-out: whether the theory is right or wrong, they are just not speaking the same language, and there is not enough time for either side to work on finding a level of complexity that is agreeable to both.
Add to it that social incentives push people towards finding "un-owned niches" and push them into mainstream consciousness even if they are very rare, and you end up with constant arguing on what are basically strawmen (the "immigrant who never works", the "transexual who wants to use this or that toilet", etc etc).
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did I express an opinion? I'm pretty sure I just quoted a statistic. But since you asked: American police kill white men (including unarmed white men) at the same rate at which they kill black men, once you control for crime rate and poverty. But police killings of white men don't become national news. Tony Timpa died in near-identical circumstances to George Floyd. Ask yourself why you haven't heard of him. Or Ryan…
This is why I don't think you should be downvoted. As long as you express something in a civil way, you should be able to do it without repercussion. And you did.
Thanks.
> As long as you express something in a civil way, you should be able to do it without repercussion.
To get back the original topic of the thread: an increasing problem in our workplaces is that lots of people don't think this way. And maybe I'm wrong, but the impression I get is that those people are overwhemingly of a particular political persuasion. It's not even "left wing" but a specific type of ultra-leftism. The word "woke" has so much baggage but I'm not aware of a better label.
It's impossible to have a good-faith discussion with these people. Any disagreement is immediately met with mind-reading accusations of bigotry. Professional and personal consequences are likely to follow, which I suppose is consistent: if I sincerely believed that someone was a literal white supremacist, I wouldn't want them in my company either.
I don't know how things are internally at Coinbase or Basecamp, but I can sympathise with the general idea of their "no politics at work" policies. There are better and worse ways you can implement such a policy - some of the objections I've heard are totally fair, e.g. gay men saying "since gay marriage is a political issue, does this mean I'm not allowed to mention at work the fact that I have a husband?" I'm straight, but I wouldn't want to work at a place where gay people feel like they have to keep their sexuality a secret.
But it's not always that clear-cut. Coinbase's initial "no politics at work" announcement said something like "we can all agree that something is a problem while disagreeing on the best way to solve it", and that's the key thing I think we're losing. You can believe that black lives matter without supporting the organisation called Black Lives Matter. You can oppose racism without agreeing with the policy prescriptions of Ibram Kendi (and there are black intellectuals who make such a case, e.g. Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter.) Maybe I'm wrong, and I don't claim to be an expert on any political issue, racism included. But can we at least have this discussion without my being called a white supremacist? To quote a famous victim of police violence: can't we all just get along? And if that really isn't possible, maybe we should just all shut the fuck up and stick to writing code.
Really I think this is a symptom of a deeper rot within our political instutitions. In a more perfect world, we'd all be content to keep politics out of the workplace because it wouldn't be necessary: we'd be able to satisfy our political needs through the structures that are specifically in place to do so. If workplaces are being hyper-politicised, something is going wrong with democracy.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say that this is a failure of philosophy in political leadership. Not that philosophy was ever paramount in politics, but it was at least expected in the highest classes. Everything devolves into tribalism without philosophy. It looks like people are discoursing, but they are really just signalling.
Politics in English-speaking countries, particularly the US, seems to have partly become entertainment. Some of the "fans" appear more fervent than even the politicians themselves. I'm an outsider and even I've been drawn into US politics, because it is entertaining. Sometimes it's more entertaining than a fictional story. But I doubt that this makes for sensible governing.
Their election cycles happen every 2 years and I think there's no time limit for electoral advertising. So they're always promoting candidates, almost all year round.
To top that off, they have only two parties and party affiliation is almost like supporting a sports club.
A recipe for great objectivity.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
That has absolutely nothing to do with modern "abolish the police" rhetoric. "Abolish the police" is a utopian Marxist fantasy that holds that in some hypothetical perfected society we won't need police because everyone will just get along, and that the only reason we currently "need" police is because capitalism/patriarchy/white supremacy/imperialism drive people to commit crime and violence, therefore all we have t…
Upthread: "why won't people treat each other's political reviews with respect in the workplace" This comment: "insane, dangerous garbage and it should not be tolerated"
HN isn't the workplace.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#236I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article. I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions i…
> how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace I'd say I'm a mix of conservative/Libertarian and this kind of blows my mind over the past few years. It seems like I constantly hear people on the left openly voicing their political opinions around crowds of people, and always speak in a way that they genuinely believe everyone around them agrees....and often have a condescending wa…
I think you over-dignify yourself as the "sane" side. You believe you can perceive all the flaws in your opponents reasoning, they're obvious to you - but reject the possibility that they feel exactly the same way about you. The humility you expect from them - you aren't displaying it yourself. The situation has far more symmetry than you assert.
The things you describe as political policies - they aren't. "Universal health care" and "minimize gun deaths" are goals, or value systems. You can make excellent pragmatic arguments for why they make sense (e.g. human capital is valuable), but as primary values they're motivated by emotion. Likewise, your perspective of "someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts" does not "make logical sense" - it simply fits your value system, motivated by a sense of righteousness. You might be able to construct logical arguments for it, but let's not kid ourselves that's why you feel that way.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#237I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article. I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions i…
Would you feel more comfortable in a company that openly encouraged / enforced political debate within a civil framework? Is the problem (in your company and the world at large) that open respectful political debate has not got a common set of rules / words? If there was a phrase "I respectfully disagree - I understand that ..." was a phrase used by every TV host, Politician and Facebook poster, would prefacing your…
Political debate used to have rules. Take this [0] debate between William F Buckley and Noam Chomsky about the Vietman War, for example. The two clearly detested each other but the debate was mostly civil.
Christopher Hitchens' debate are others worth watching.
Does these even happen any more in MSM?
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because I support your right to say it doesn't mean I have to celebrate what you say, or why you said it.
This is exactly the problem. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" has been replaced with "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences". The latter is, of course, utter nonsense. Repercussions or retaliation for expressing wrongthink is the literal definition of a place that does not have freedom of speech.
As the old Soviet joke goes: "We have freedom of speech in the USSR too. The difference is that in the USA, you can use your freedom of speech more than once."
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#239>Similarly, 62 percent of adults told us that journalism was “too political”
I don't understand what this even means.
Is it that people think that there is too much reporting on politics?
Does it mean that people think that journalism is too biased towards political ideologies?
Does it mean that people think every story is excessively told through a political lens?
Without knowing what these people mean by that it's a completely useless statistic to use.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#240Is there a way we can detect these people and not hire them? It takes enough restraint to refrain from commenting on rampant virtue signalling on LinkedIn and I often fail. Having to deal with it at work would be a step too far.
Probably not, since it would inevitably be a proxy for some protected classes and would appear as an unfair hiring bias.