New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity • Hacker News Board

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#401

Post by mrec » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:49 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #369

livinginfear wrote: post #80

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'm also a politically informed person and, unlike you, I am politically active. What can I say? It's my hobby. People go skydiving on weekends, I engage in left-wing politics. But I'm quite afraid of the possible consequences. What if a prospective employer sees me handing out flyers? What would by colleagues think? Well-paid developer and activist, how does that even work? Aren't they all unemployed and living with…

> liberal (as in right-wing)

What the hell? These terms are in no way synonyms.

You seem to be fairly extreme left, which is fine, but then labelling everyone to the right of you as "right-wing" is not a useful classification. "Left" and "right" are relative to the political centre, not to wherever you yourself happen to be.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#402

Post by SkyBelow » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:49 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #316

Tycho wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I never got what people mean with "bad faith" stuff. Like its some inherently bad kind of behaviors and ideas? Can you explain it to me like im 5? The worst that i can think of is that people are hiding their true interests and thus lying to you.

In general bad faith means that someone is lying to you, either implicitly or explicitly, when engaging you.

An example of this might be to act interested in a point, request sources to back it up, but with the intention to never look at the sources. Instead, the intent is to attack them for not providing sources making them look like their opinion is unsourced if they don't provide any, attack the sources if they provide anything that might be considered controversial, or to ignore them entirely and move onto the next person if they do provide good sources. The goal is to at worst waste their time and at best make them look like their position is unfounded.

Other examples might be asking questions when discussing a slightly controversial topic to get even more controversial replies that you will then quote mine to attack the poster, even if the quotes weren't controversial in context.

A less agreed upon example might be someone who is purposefully being misleading because they don't want to expose their true goal, but whose true goal is to educate the person. Asking leading questions to get someone to reach a conclusion when you would not be able to argue directly for that conclusion. This last example might even pass as an acceptable form of bad faith dialog because it is done with the intention of having a good faith conversation on a topic where good faith conversations aren't possible.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#403

Post by spangry » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

samvher wrote: post #371

briefcomment wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some of the points you’re explicitly vocal about?

To some extent I think these are things that should be discussed and addressed internally rather than externally so I'll try to be generic. Key things are (1) I'm a strong believer that anyone with a job should be easily able to get health insurance and be able to send their children to university (i.e. even if law doesn't enforce it I think a decent minimum wage for all employees is appropriate) (2) people doing wor…

FWIW your views are not what I think of when I hear the phrase 'progressive activist'. I tend to think of someone who is concerned almost exclusively with race, gender and sexuality.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#404

Post by axiosgunnar » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #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 wro…

One can only hope for the situation to overheat completely for and the lynchmobs to eat one another that the pendulum swings the other way.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#405

Post by thrwyoilarticle » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

lordloki wrote: post #395

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If everyone is opressed in some way - I agree - then my conclusion is that we should realise we all benefit from being allowed to opt-into the politics of those opressions. Many of my employment rights were or are political arenas.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#406

Post by thrwaeasddsaf » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

twoslide wrote: post #179

jl6 wrote: 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…

I'm not sure there is such a thing as an "apolitical space" - it is kind of like trying to remain stationary on a moving train. Even if you don't discss contentious issues, political parties, etc, you are still part of social and economic systems premised on political views. For example, one might say they don't talk about climate change/sexism/racism in the work place and therefore it is apolitical, but to another v…

> Even if you don't discss contentious issues, political parties, etc, you are still part of social and economic systems premised on political views.

Even if you don't rub it in my face, you're still sitting on an ass.

Having one doesn't make the work place a strip club, even if someone there likes to spend their off moments imagining how your concealed taint might look.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#407

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

heresie-dabord wrote: post #280

livinginfear wrote: post #80

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…

> correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense This is modern anti-culture. It's a climate where "opinions" matter more than knowledge and consumerism matters more than democracy. There are many employers. I am an employee, but I am first and foremost a citizen in a Democracy... If I have the courage to defend it and the will to learn/educate. An educational system worth th…

"It's a climate where 'opinions' matter more than knowledge..."

It's not just that. Sometimes the people don't understand the difference between their opinion and facts. Like I could point out some factual incorrectness and they see me as attacking their opinion. A lot of the time they coincidence, but sometimes I might be in favor of their opinion based on other facts and simply don't want misinformation to spread. Or we might share the same objective but that false information would lead to a flawed implementation that would block us from achieving a shared goal. Not to mention, I try not to attack an actual opinion, because everyone is entitled to one, even if it differs from mine.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#408

Post by bmmayer1 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #398

SonOfThePlower wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I'll bite.

It's because the labels themselves have become diluted to have any real meaning. Yes, there are white nationalists who show up to rallies waving Nazi flags. But it's also totally normal to hear people refer to "white supremacy" with regard to SATs[1]. So there really is a diminishing return on calling things racist, and that's probably what most people are "scoffing" at.

[1]https://www.tcpress.com/blog/dismantling-white-supremacy-inc...

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#409

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #346

blueflow wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got what people mean with "bad faith" stuff. Like its some inherently bad kind of behaviors and ideas? Can you explain it to me like im 5? The worst that i can think of is that people are hiding their true interests and thus lying to you.

The idea is that people are engaging with no interest in making society better. An example might be a person who advocates for policies that are almost certainly harmful to the communities he purports to care about because his rhetoric draws favor (i.e., social capital) from others of his well-to-do segment of the political spectrum. The chief idea is that someone is plainly not interested in addressing the problem t…

[deleted]

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#410

Post by Flozzin » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #316

Tycho wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I never got what people mean with "bad faith" stuff. Like its some inherently bad kind of behaviors and ideas? Can you explain it to me like im 5? The worst that i can think of is that people are hiding their true interests and thus lying to you.

To me bad faith is also just lying. You lie about your motives and intentions. You lie about the other's sides motives and intentions. Bad faith actors also prop up a lot of straw men in order to tear them down, but disengage or put words in the mouth of direct opponents. They make concrete statements, then back away and act like they never said if called out for it, or can't back up their assumption with evidence.

Bad faith arguments are more about scoring points or making that person feel better. It's never about the actual policy. So it allows the bad faith actor freedom to say whatever they want, as long as they come out ahead.