Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#421

Post by TimTheTinker »

fighterpilot wrote: post #376
TimTheTinker wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because "woke" is racism in reverse. As long as there's racism (in any direction), color matters. You can't treat or think of people differently on the basis of race without knowing who is in what race. The last thing "woke" people want is for discrimination on the basis of race to disappear, or for the color of people's skin to no longer factor in to how they are judged or treated. Edit: agreed with a…

There's no such thing as racism in reverse. Just racism. To be clear.

Thanks - added an edit to my comment.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#422

Post by [deleted] »

suetoniusp wrote: post #215
GeneralMayhem wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really disingenuous false equivalency. First, you're implying that all opinions are equally valid. That is... I'll be polite and simply call it nonsense. "Gay people should have rights" and "gay people shouldn't have rights" are not opinions of equal value, and it's not "eating your cake and having it too" to say that the latter opinion is unwelcome. Second, there's a very clear relationship between the "le…

"Gay people should have rights". What "rights" currently are being denied to gays? Honest question

[deleted]

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#423

Post by akomtu »

halostatue wrote: post #346
paul_f wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually you can. And it has been done successfully for decades. Proselytizing has no place in the workplace.

…for mostly straight white men, making more money than more qualified women while getting away with sexual harassment. Advocating for equal treatment isn’t proselytization, it’s asking for treatment like an equal human being.

I'm imagining right now how this spherical bad white man spends a day harassing everyone with sexism, then at 5 pm grabs an envelope with a fat day pay, turns to the more qualified woman sitting next to him, makes a disgusting self entitled smile, and on his way to the exit gives a high five to his even whiter boss.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#424

Post by 8note »

eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

The entrepreneur is perfectly willing to use my work to push political changes. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to too.

If you want to get politics away from the office, stop giving the wealthy and corporations political power

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#425

Post by mplanchard »

CincinnatiMan wrote: post #322
mplanchard wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be nice for sure. I think that some people don’t get that privilege still by virtue of who they are. As a recent example that came up in my social circle, say you’re a woman in tech. It turns out that literally every single woman I know in tech has had to deal with at best unwanted propositions but more frequently outright harassment by their male coworkers. In situations like that, you can’t get away from…

The connection to politics in your scenario isn’t clear to me. Are people having charged discussions on Slack about whether men should be allowed to harass women? I would think the scenario would be an open and shut case of going to associate relations to complain about the harassment. No real political discussion to be had.

Talking about the differential experiences of women vs men in the workplace and pushing for policies or support to improve the situation seem like pretty political activities to me.

Just as an example of how these situations become political also, I was once at a company where an employee raised an issue that was pretty unambiguous and had multiple witnesses. The same employee was then demoted and sidelined until they eventually quit. They were well liked in the company, so a number of people quit along with them in protest. There’s no way for something like that to not be political, in my opinion.

I guess it’s just not always as simple as going to management and hoping for the best.

Edit: also it’s great that we view women’s right to not be harassed in the workplace as a given, but how did it get there? Decades of tireless political activism. Sure, some things people are political about seem less important, and will probably fizzle out, but IMO it’s not worth quashing the potential for real, good change for the sake of not having to deal with the things we think are unimportant.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#426

Post by mattnewton »

smegger001 wrote: post #408
mattnewton wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think everyone interpreted “Simpsons yellow” as race-less. Certainly the show didn’t - On the show, Homer identifies as a white male IIRC, and some characters (like Apu) are not yellow. You have to pick some skin tone for the default; just floating features would be off putting. Believing that the pan-white default of “simpsons yellow” is raceless because you feel represented in it excludes that others might…

Somewhere farther down another commenter asked if I would consider it race neutral if it was dark magenta. My response was yeah sure. If it is not a real skin tone it is neutral and i would feel just as attached to it and feel it is raceless equally as bright yellow. I don't feel anymore or less represented either. *edited for spelling

Dark magenta would probably have the same problem that floating features have, which is it distracts from the content (and would probably be hard to read compared to actual skin tones).

The situation was, people chose yellow as the default, and that excluded some people. So, if we cared about being polite and fixing it for those people, and if our options were to either change to some hideous magenta that couldn’t be misinterpreted as representing a real skin tone vs just offering more skin tones, I think we made the right choice.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#427

Post by 49531 »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #371

One part of the article: This is about a guy who wrote a book on his own time, published it outside of work. Someone did not like some parts of the book and the guy had to quit his job? There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. I write fictional stories in my spare time (never at work), I enjoy doing it. Some people enjoy reading them (I can't figure out why) It is a sad day for a Democracy when I…

I would argue that this has always been the case, it has never been uncommon to be fired for political activities done outside of work. Perhaps you're only noticing it now that people who think and act like you are experiencing it?

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#428

Post by 0xy »

ir123 wrote: post #413
ThinkBeat wrote: post #371

One part of the article: This is about a guy who wrote a book on his own time, published it outside of work. Someone did not like some parts of the book and the guy had to quit his job? There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. I write fictional stories in my spare time (never at work), I enjoy doing it. Some people enjoy reading them (I can't figure out why) It is a sad day for a Democracy when I…

>There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. That's where you are wrong. He wrote some things he genuinely believed in, and its reasonable to assume that his actions will follow similar lines. Would I want a self proclaimed nazi to work with me? Hell no. Would I want a misogynist to work with me? No.

Political beliefs are a protected class in practically every first world country, including the US. If an employee was a member of a fascist party it'd quite literally be illegal to fire them on that basis.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#429

Post by TimTheTinker »

open0 wrote: post #331
TimTheTinker wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because "woke" is racism in reverse. As long as there's racism (in any direction), color matters. You can't treat or think of people differently on the basis of race without knowing who is in what race. The last thing "woke" people want is for discrimination on the basis of race to disappear, or for the color of people's skin to no longer factor in to how they are judged or treated. Edit: agreed with a…

This is such horseshit. You people on this website are far more of problem for the world than the crowd of woke 20-somethngs that as a group have very little power or money.

Perhaps you'd consider making a case for your opinion instead of resorting to attacks on people.
Post reply on HN