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

economist.com

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

#861

Post by gryfft »

globular-toast wrote: post #850
IntelMiner wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The letter people" You mean LGBT+? Because dang that's an incredibly insulting way to completely dismiss everyone who isn't straight then

No, I mean the people who identify as a letter and scald you if you don't know what their letter means. I have no idea what half of those letters mean or whether it means gay or straight (the T could definitely be straight, I know that much). I've also known plenty of gay people over the years who haven't ever mentioned these letters so it's nothing to do with that.

I have scoured the farthest, deepest reaches of the Leftist Web to retrieve the lost scrolls containing the arcane encoding of this horrifying acronym:

L: Lesbian (This means women who like women.)

G: Gay (This means men who like men.)

B: Bisexual. This means women and men who like both women and men.

T: Trans. This means you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.

Q: Queer. This means you do not identify as straight but don't feel like you necessarily fit into just one of the other buckets all of the time. Maybe you don't feel particularly like a man or a woman, or you don't feel like masculinity or femininity really even come into play in your sexuality.

I: Intersex. Some people are born with sex organs that don't look like the venerable "man/woman" anatomy charts. As it turns out they are still living breathing people.

A: Asexual. Some people do not feel sexual attraction toward other human beings. As it turns out they are still living breathing people.

+: Sometimes people feel like they fall somewhere on a spectrum of the above. Sometimes people using the acronym intend to include allies. Sometimes people just haven't figured out their sexuality yet exactly, they just know 'one man and one woman' isn't it.

LGBTQIA+. It's not alphabet soup, it's not a joke, appending BBQ isn't clever. It's just lesbians, gay men, bi people, trans people, queer people, intersex people, asexual people, and allies or people who are still having trouble categorizing themselves and how they feel.

Now you know all the letters. It didn't even use up the whole alphabet.

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

#862

Post by sdenton4 »

aksss wrote: post #635
sdenton4 wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, 'autocracy' means "a country, state, or society governed by one person with absolute power," and has nothing to do with any of this. There's no 'auto' here, no governing, and any power involved is far from absolute... Freedom of speech doors not mean freedom from consequences for what one says. If someone says shitheel things, their 'reputation' is allowed to suffer...

Well just think about all the times in history where religious culture has the upper hand, or anti-communism, or communism. To me it doesn’t matter what the dogma of the day is, the behavior of loud elements in society shouting down free expression, or unorthodox thought, is pretty repugnant. It’s not as simple as saying society is just expressing displeasure. That’s fine, but I think we can all see a different beast…

Well, no, I absolutely don't see it. The cultural revolution was launched and enforced by Mao, who had absolute control over a very violent regime, about twenty years into the era of Chinese communism.

You know, basically a Twitter mob run amok, rite?

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

#863

Post by unishark »

triceratops wrote: post #841
unishark wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your idea of business and what entrepreneurs want is simplistic. You must know it will be easy to find people who don't fit blanket statements like this. Even if you think this is the natural inclination of the public corporation, not all companies have to go public and not all investors in public companies care about nothing the company does besides make profit. It's a world of humans we operate in, not some kind of…

Do you disagree with my central thesis that businesses employ people almost entirely to increase revenue or cut costs? The presence of a few sinecures in some companies doesn't change this basic fact.

Yes I disagree and not because of people slipping through the cracks or something. I was referring to people and companies who have a mission. For example to help the blind to see or connect the world. Or the many many small businesses who seek to improve their local region and employ people.

Perhaps you're thinking of the pressures on management of the fortune 500 or something, but that's a far cry from sweeping claims like "almost entirely" or "every job". If you want a job at a place with more of a conscience or whatever, they are all over the place. Especially among startups.

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

#864

Post by globular-toast »

gryfft wrote: post #861
globular-toast wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean the people who identify as a letter and scald you if you don't know what their letter means. I have no idea what half of those letters mean or whether it means gay or straight (the T could definitely be straight, I know that much). I've also known plenty of gay people over the years who haven't ever mentioned these letters so it's nothing to do with that.

I have scoured the farthest, deepest reaches of the Leftist Web to retrieve the lost scrolls containing the arcane encoding of this horrifying acronym: L: Lesbian (This means women who like women.) G: Gay (This means men who like men.) B: Bisexual. This means women and men who like both women and men. T: Trans. This means you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Q: Queer. This means you do not…

Right. And what does any of that have to do with work? I don't care what sex you like, what genitals you have or what you were born with. Keep it to yourself, please.

For the record, my politics are firmly left of centre so I don't appreciate getting the "right wing" rubber stamp that is so often dished out to silence people you don't like.

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

#865

Post by spoonjim »

suifbwish wrote: post #584
spoonjim wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely have not “paid their debt to society” unless they can undo the felony. You can’t pay back the debt of raping someone or stabbing them or killing them. Even if they let you out of jail.

By that logic, anyone who is proven then to be involved willingly or not in the false accusation and wrongful imprisonment of anyone should be punished by the harshest means physically possible. Absolutely no mercy.

Willfully? Absolutely. I think willfully trying to get someone convicted of a crime should carry 3x the punishment of that crime. It’s the deliberate misuse of state power to pervert the course of justice.

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

#866

Post by gryfft »

globular-toast wrote: post #864
gryfft wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have scoured the farthest, deepest reaches of the Leftist Web to retrieve the lost scrolls containing the arcane encoding of this horrifying acronym: L: Lesbian (This means women who like women.) G: Gay (This means men who like men.) B: Bisexual. This means women and men who like both women and men. T: Trans. This means you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Q: Queer. This means you do not…

Right. And what does any of that have to do with work? I don't care what sex you like, what genitals you have or what you were born with. Keep it to yourself, please. For the record, my politics are firmly left of centre so I don't appreciate getting the "right wing" rubber stamp that is so often dished out to silence people you don't like.

>Right. And what does any of that have to do with work?

For you? Nothing. For your LGBTQIA+ coworkers? It means having to figure out how many times a day to bite your tongue when somebody "apolitically" makes an "innocent" attack helicopter joke that "isn't targeting" them. Ignoring those people and their feelings is political. I have personally called out coworkers who were making shitty "jokes" in front of clearly-uncomfortable non-straight coworkers. This is a real thing that happens every day even if you successfully ignore it.

>No, I mean the people who identify as a letter and scald you if you don't know what their letter means

I was assisting you should you desire not to be "scalded" by not understanding what eight letters mean. Your combative stance about those marginalized people belies your claim to be "firmly left of center."

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

#867

Post by nailer »

Amezarak wrote: post #797
nailer wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are. Race and sex and sexual attraction are innate qualities. People can and do change their beliefs - I’m not sure why anyone would say otherwise as they can easily confirm this for themselves.

Setting aside the question of whether beliefs are influenced by genetics, there's no dichotomy between 'innate' and 'choice.' My religion or political views may not be 'innate' (whatever that means), but they are also not a choice. Can they change over time? Yes! But not because I woke up and made the free choice that today, I will believe something else. You cannot simply decide to truly believe something else in th…

People chose to adopt or to leave nazism all the time as well (that said it’s not a particularly common belief).

Sure people changes their beliefs - something I thought was true turns out to be no longer true, I no longer believe in it. I think you’re trying to say that because our beliefs are based upon our judgment they’re somehow not fluid. But we chose to judge and consider ourselves.

As mentioned earlier, sex, race and sexuality are innate and deserve protection. Nobody is arguing otherwise (unless you are).

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

#868

Post by smegger001 »

lebuffon wrote: post #834
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…

Observation IMHO This: :-) is an emoji. These new-fangled things on our phones are tiny pictures. As pictures they communicate differently than ascii characters because they are a different medium. But that horse has left the barn... ;-)

yeah it really bugs me when ascii faces like :-) are auto converted into a emojii/emoticon by messaging apps or text editors. but that is another conversation

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

#869

Post by Aloha »

gryfft wrote: post #861
globular-toast wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean the people who identify as a letter and scald you if you don't know what their letter means. I have no idea what half of those letters mean or whether it means gay or straight (the T could definitely be straight, I know that much). I've also known plenty of gay people over the years who haven't ever mentioned these letters so it's nothing to do with that.

I have scoured the farthest, deepest reaches of the Leftist Web to retrieve the lost scrolls containing the arcane encoding of this horrifying acronym: L: Lesbian (This means women who like women.) G: Gay (This means men who like men.) B: Bisexual. This means women and men who like both women and men. T: Trans. This means you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth. Q: Queer. This means you do not…

I look at all this self segmentation and categorization as a net harm to all queer people as a community, I've actually come around to the idea of GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) as a preferred term, because it makes it harder for us to self segregate internally, and no longer view the fight for one groups equality as the fight for all of us.

I'm gay, and for me equality was people no longer caring which gender I was attracted to. I wanted that level of normality - where my orientation just no longer mattered - where I no longer needed a separate support community just to exist, where I no longer needed to fear someone finding out I was different than others, that was supposed to be the goal, wasn't it?

I look at trans folks the same way, if someone is trans, as soon as they tell me they're now a woman, or a man, they're a woman, or a man, they're not a transwoman or a transman, they don't get an othering here - that's counter to the goals of as taught to equality me - so we wouldn't need to fear anymore.

My goal, is still that in the workplace none of this should matter any more than what color hair you have (or if you have hair at all, in the same way that bald is a hair color) - that was what the end goal of all of this was supposed to be - and yes, its natural to want to seek out affinity groups - people who have had shared experiences - but that should be something that helps the minority add something to the whole, not take something away from the whole.

While there is still discrimination, particularly for trans folks, we've come so very very far from where the world was when I was a scared 15 year old who came out in 1998, and yes, there is still road yet to travel, the circle-the-wagons mentality I see among other queer folks, and what I perceive as the desire to try to turn the LGBT rights movement into a generic left wing movement is harmful to our end goal of equality for queer people everywhere - The end goal should be to make LGBT rights and acceptance an uncontroversial issue across the entire political spectrum.

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

#870

Post by lliamander »

throwaway316943 wrote: post #838
kwdc wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[...] a place for civil discussion but if you get kicked out [...]' That "but" is the dividing line. As soon as you cross it you've left civil discussion. (And become the asshole who needs to be ejected because of it). Most times, especially in political debates, its caused by an inability to tolerate a diverse range of views, including those you don't agree with. Polarisation overwhelms this ability even further. "…

No, I provided an example of uncivil debate namely screaming and flipping tables. As long as you can sit peaceably and discuss your views it doesn’t matter what they are.

Are you suggesting that's how things work? Because they pretty plainly don't work that way.
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