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A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

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Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#61

Post by CyberRabbi »

It’s pretty amazing that a list of funny names has become national news. There will always be some set of names that certain cultures (even hyper liberal woke ones) will consider funny. Pointing that out and poking fun doesn’t seem necessarily immoral. For the most part we can’t control what we consider funny.

E.g. I’m sure most woke people who consider themselves allies in the struggle against oppression would consider a name like “Donald Drumpf” funny. That’s just a property of the specific values of that culture. Does it suck for guys named “Donald drumpf”? Sure, but punishing any specific individual for pointing out his name is funny does not negate the fact that the entire culture itself finds it funny. Better for drumpf to know than not know. He could always move or change his name. Less than ideal but wherever you go some name will be considered funny.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#62

Post by jacob2484 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #8

Obviously, we can't know the exact particulars of how every argument went down at Basecamp, and we have to intuit an awful lot from fairly limited blog posts by Jason, DHH, and tweets from (mostly ex)-employees. But it feels like there's a pretty clear pattern that this wasn't a case of a few politically motivated employees being a distraction and disrupting an otherwise harmonious environment. A third of the company…

"On twitter, anonymous interviews, and any other source that I've seen, not one Basecamper has come out in support of Jason and David, and employees seem universally aligned against their actions." Why would they in this cancel culture poison of today - so they can be vilified for not agreeing with some extreme leftist position? More than likely there's a silent majority that DOES align with their action, and that should be OK.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#64

Post by randompwd »

hugoromano wrote: post #21

Some years ago I had manager that replied to a staff member ”you are paid to work, not to think or speak”. Yep, the company went bust. People need to be cared for, if they want to talk about Pluto and politics, let them and listen. This all goes back to a passive vs active operations. The pandemic created too much active work, online meetings.

Some years ago I had manager that replied to a staff member ”you are paid to work, not to think or speak”. Yep, the company went on to become a billion dollar mega-success and everyone lived happily ever after.

These conclusion forming anecdotes in the small from a single moment in time between don't provide a strong base for causal arguments.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#65

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

barrkel wrote: post #46
aspaceman wrote: post #4

Why is that every, single article that gets posted on this subject at HN completely ignores the “funny names” list that actually caused this incident. Folks keep acting like it was kids screaming BLM on the company message board and it’s kind of infuriatingly disingenuous. It feels almost purposeful that folks are ignoring the specific political grievance that employees had, and they are framing it as activist pressu…

FWIW, I can see the funny side of a funny names list, and I honestly have a hard time getting worked up over it. It's not professional; it's juvenile, it's what you'd expect from a teenager, but it's not really worth getting worked up over. Junk it, stop it happening again, move on. From my POV.

But as you can see from the sixth post here on HN, and all the previous ones that gathered over a freaking thousand of comments, some people just won't let it go.

It's bikeshedding taken to the extreme. Nanoracism leading to microaggressions, leading to DHH planning a genocide, for fuck's sake. This is insane, those people throwing such words around without even knowing what the fuck they are talking about.

And all of this storm in a teapot seems to be a thing people would spend a weekend mulling over and over and over again instead of going outside or reading a nice book, or solving some, you know, real problems.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#66

Post by pavel_lishin »

sampo wrote: post #30
spacemanmatt wrote: post #2

I could hardly disagree more with the premise that activism is anti-fellowship. This seems like a very narrow take on activism.

> I could hardly disagree more with the premise that activism is anti-fellowship. If you are doing activism, in the workplace, that runs against the beliefs and opinions of (some of the) the people you work with. How could this be anything but anti-fellowship?

Which beliefs and opinions? What if I'm arguing that our non-white employees are being passed over for promotions, and our women employees are all chronically underpaid compared to the men? How would that be more anti-fellowship than your fellows not being paid equitably?

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#67

Post by StavrosK »

dools wrote: post #33
StavrosK wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably less about Basecamp and more about the "straw that broke the camel's back" of people being tired of activists being so loud. Semi-unrelatedly, I noticed something interesting: People who try to solve problem X seem to dislike other people who try to solve the same problem in a slightly different way almost as much as they dislike the people who cause X in the first place. I find myself being put off…

“People being tired of activists being so loud” == over privileged people being pissed off that under privileged people keeping ruining their privileged experience by pointing out their privilege EDIT: unsurprisingly the word privilege is triggering on HN

It's not that the word "privilege" is triggering people, it's that your comment is exactly the sort of dismissal that leads to the sentiment I described.

If someone complains you're too loud, saying "you just don't like what you're hearing" will just further alienate you from people who like what you're saying but don't like the volume.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#68

Post by heinrichhartman »

ali0sha wrote: post #41

> Joining together for a common purpose ... is political. What is that purpose, why is it common, and how does the joining work - these are the fundamental political problems. > If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow. Yes. At work, you are a mercenary. Your safety, family, health, concern for the decent treatment of your fellow humans, ought to come before your produc…

>> Joining together for a common purpose > ... is political.

I think the author is referring to the mission statement of companies. While some missions statements have political elements, I can see plenty of mission statements that give a common purpose and are not political. Examples: "Accellerate the advent of sustainable transport" -- Tesla, "Build the best CPU" -- Intel (?).

It is well known that a strong mission statement is an important motivation for people to join and continue to work at companies (e.g. Pink's Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose Framework). So to describe a company as a group of people who are joining together for a common purpose is not wrong.

(Of course, there are of course many more factors that influence work-place selection and motivation.)

Can you elaborate where you see this all rooted in politics?

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#69

Post by ali0sha »

cblang wrote: post #58
ali0sha wrote: post #41

> Joining together for a common purpose ... is political. What is that purpose, why is it common, and how does the joining work - these are the fundamental political problems. > If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow. Yes. At work, you are a mercenary. Your safety, family, health, concern for the decent treatment of your fellow humans, ought to come before your produc…

A lot of the activists are docile lambs and corporate ladder climbers inside the companies. Their activism focuses on saying the right words and dis-empower Gen-X and older.

Is that how you characterise the activism at bandcamp, which said "maybe this racist list of 'funny names' is racist, and maybe we shouldn't do that?"

Because, to write off 'how about not being racist' as "saying the right words and dis-empower Gen-X", or "[using] a platform for their own interests" is ...

racist.

And being anti-racist is political activism, and that's good.

Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship

#70

Post by heinrichhartman »

ali0sha wrote: post #41

> Joining together for a common purpose ... is political. What is that purpose, why is it common, and how does the joining work - these are the fundamental political problems. > If you put other things above your fellows and mission, you're a mercenary, not a fellow. Yes. At work, you are a mercenary. Your safety, family, health, concern for the decent treatment of your fellow humans, ought to come before your produc…

> If laying down your belief that racism is harmful and wrong is necessary for you 'mission', then the mission is itself harmful and wrong, and no amount of 'fellowship' is going to change that.

Absolutely! I did not see anyone at Basecamp questioning this.

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