Live data from Hacker News

New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

ethicalsystems.org

391–400 of 734 posts

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#391
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without getting into the details, I don't think anyone here has to worry about becoming a victim of these persons, being accidentally hired by these persons, or accidentally doing business with them to the point where it supports their activities. I wouldn't mention it if I thought it was still an issue.

why would you not mention if it still an issue? if you are not fight against, are you not a complicit?

I assure you I was never complicit.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should companies cater to racists?

One thing I learned after 10 years of being vegetarian: antagonism is a a loosing strategy. Shaming and tribalism doesn't help anybody, and is an arrogant view of the world. You are probably some *ist right now, compared to a future world view. Just because people have an opinion you know is unwise doesn't make them a bad person. They are like you. You are more like them than you think, but like them you have blind s…

When I was a teenager, I had a classmate that would often point out I was eating corpses and it was gross whenever I was eating a ham sandwich.

A friend of his, liked also to point out I believed in fantasies, myths and magic, because I wasn't an atheist.

One day the pair grabbed a holy book from my closed backpack (yep, they opened it without permission), and started playing soccer with it, while saying the book was useless for anything other than being kicked.

Let's say that wasn't an winning strategy, I am still not vegetarian and still not an atheist, all they did was convince me that they are assholes.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#394
post #124

Personal politics has absolutely no place in the workplace unless you’re working in politics. Nothing good can come of it. Leave it to the pub and Hacker News. My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work. “Bring your whole self to work” is a…

Politics has a tendency to seep in. For example, at a job a long while ago a colleague made a "joke" about a gang rape that had recently been in the news. He started humming the Batman song and sang "Na, na, na, na, GANGRAPE, na, na, na, na, GANGRAPE, ...." I told him his joke was tasteless and offensive. He said it was "just a joke" and our colleagues mostly sided with him. Was he bringing politics into the workplace by joking about gangrape? Was I bringing politics into the workplace? "Politics free" just means that the politics of the majority dominates.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#395

I am so tired of constantly hearing about politics at my workplace. Politics have already made their way into the tv shows, music, video games, and online forums that I enjoy. At least let me disconnect from that outrage-fuel at work. It also affects team cohesion. I can easily collaborate with just about anyone when I don’t know their political beliefs. As soon as I find out someone holds opposing views on a topic I…

Making you uncomfortable is the point. An opressed person doesn't get to opt-out of politics about opresssion.

Everyone is oppressed in some way. Unfortunately, everyone loses in the oppression Olympics. If you are oppressing others that you assume aren't oppressed enough, then you are an oppressor and the cycle continues.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#396
Something has changed in the last year or two. Basically it is impossible to talk with someone about anything other than weather and the tasks in the pipeline. Everyone is afraid of being cancelled. Even if you tell something politically correct today, you don't know if this will be cancellable in 10 years and then a co-worker who doesn't like you will make a tweet about what you said. Something has gone terribly wrong in the society...

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#397

I 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…

I've been one to speak my mind. I see myself as having been punished for it. I was doing work a grade or two above mine but was held back from promotion. So I didn't make senior developer on that team. Then I was even in jeopardy of losing my job over a statement I made (not vulgar, disrespectful, or anything) so I have to switch stacks a couple times to move out of a bad area of the company. I'm 9 years in and just a midlevel. My trust in the company and my desire to work hard for them are abysmal.

"Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense."

I was stupid enough to do this too. People were discussing the gender wage gap the way the TV reporters do - that a woman in the same job as a man, with all things equal, makes 80 cents on the dollar. So I brought up the BLS study that shows that the 80 cents number is about an aggregate comparison of all men and women in the workforce, and that the main driver of the discrepancy comes from the types of jobs that men and women are in. I wouldn't be surprised if I get downvoted on here for this comment too.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#398

I 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…

The result is that world becomes more and more boring. No interesting discussion can take place. Environment becomes more toxic and it's mainly due to radicals who perceive everything as offensive and everybody who disagrees as "nazi" or "racist" or "-phobic".

I'm not sure why everyone keeps scoffing at the idea of calling some of these folks Nazis or racists. It's not hyperbole or an exaggeration. We did have a rally with a bunch of white nationalists exercising their "free speech" to chant "The Jews will not replace us" and they ended up murdering someone there. We had a National Security Advisor to the President of the United States promoting replacement theory. There are countless other examples major and minor over the last 12 years. Just how much racism and bigotry has to be clearly and consistently demonstrated for the labels to stick?

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#399
post #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…

I am from Brazil, here mainstream journalism for most part support blatantly a few political parties and ideologies, and do their best to sabotage the others, including with blatant lies.

I think people start believing journalism is "political", when it stops being "factual" for political reasons.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#400
post #310

I 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…

Lot of advice floating about the workplace these days along the lines of be candid, join the conversation, bring your whole self to work, etc. The people giving this advice seem to have no conception that not everyone actively engaged in these topics is acting in 100% good faith. Being too open could so easily backfire. Encouraging this is borderline negligent. Indeed there’s entire branches of activism that rest on…

> join the conversation, bring your whole self to work, etc.

This is a classic honeypot. They want to weed out people who have views that do not align with current PC status quo. One of the reasons is that no company wants to be associates with an employee who has views that could damage company image and lose money. They want your whole self, so they can discard you if they think you are a liability.

Post reply on HN