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

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

#871

Post by wpietri » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #810

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it's a giant mistake to see a workplace as a place where the entrepreneur is a tiny god-king. It isn't about being a god king, its about people being capable of collectively doing a task without saddling the execution of that task with all of their personal, political and emotional baggage. >If people want to play-act as robots, I won't deny them their kink. But that's not what interests me about work, and i…

Gosh, you want to collect a fat paycheck and have freedom to do what you want in your off hours? That sounds very political. What are you doing bringing up politics in relation to work? And you might think I'm kidding. But those views would have made you a complete radical in 1867. By 1967 it wouldn't have been radical for a white man, but it was still radical for anybody non-white or non-male. By 2017, it was somewh…

Sorry, that should be IGMFY.

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

#872

Post by ghusbands » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

collaborative wrote: post #718

gryfft wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who huffily decry "politics" also tend to have political beliefs which they feel are apolitical. Examining and unpacking those beliefs is "political," however, so that the net result is "I just don't want my politics questioned or examined, even when it affects other people."

Believe it or not there are plenty of people who live their lifes outside of politics. They don't vote, they don't have any favorites in the political arena Politics is divisive and agressive. Some people are put off by the easy narratives of good vs bad Only dictatorships have historically wanted to permeate every aspect of life with politics. The USSR used to say "everything is politics". There are plenty of exampl…

You're talking about partisan politics; most here are talking about the more general meaning of "the actions or activities concerned with achieving and using power in a country or society". So talking about workplace racism is political, but it's not about political parties.

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

#873

Post by foolfoolz » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #720

mk81 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think the answer is a return to 20th century "no politics at work" Why not?

Because "no politics at work" isn't neutral, it means supporting the status quo by way of defining what counts as "politics". Is calling someone by their preferred pronouns, or wearing a mask during the pandemic politics?

i can’t stand this argument. if your not actively trying to X then you support Y. it’s cherry picked grandstanding. its a way to single people out without a conversation. cancel culture in the microcosm. you do not have to act in any specific way to hold some political beliefs and no one should judge you for your beliefs

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

#874

Post by gryfft » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #869

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…

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…

As a straight man, it is not my place to enforce what anyone wants to call themselves-- as an ally the best thing I can do is listen, but it's important to speak up, too, to use the privilege I have for good when I can.

I'll note that I didn't mean to come across as the ultimate authority on the taxonomy of minorities to which I do not belong. The commenter to whom I was responding had dismissively referred to LGBTQIA+ as "letter people" who scold you for getting it wrong, and I was pointing out that the letters are really not some impossible to divine thing, it's just an acronym like HDMI or SCSI that describes some ways real people identify themselves.

>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.

I find myself confused. You seem to be saying that a subgroup of the greater community of gender and sexual minorities are turning GSM rights into a leftist thing. How exactly does one go about doing that? One side of the political spectrum outright rejects the validity of GSM rights, and the other doesn't, and you're saying the side that doesn't is somehow at fault?

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

#875

Post by lliamander » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #629

baryphonic wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you quoted him in context, you'd show that he regarded this particular lady friend of his as a "strong woman" in both body and mind. Why didn't you do that?

Most likely because we don't all know his individual lady friend, but we definitely know people who are 'women in the bay area'. If a person makes a broad sweeping statement then qualifying it with an individual exception is no more significant than some tiny disclaimer int he corner of a billboard.

I'm fairly sure that if his comment had been about (for instance) white men in the bay area, he would still have his job.

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

#876

Post by lilactown » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #700

8note wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right mostly wants companies to push the politics of their owners, ensuring that the payments keep flowing from the companies to the right wing leaders.

https://howmuch.net/articles/the-30-biggest-political-donors... Democrats get paid a lot more by companies than Republicans do. In fact, drastically so.

Democrats are an essentially center-right party with a socially progressive veneer.

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

#877

Post by ne0flex » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #839

ne0flex wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that a…

Your skip level manager experience reminds me of an interaction with a diversity officer at my previous employer.

The company had hired a diversity officer and she began an initiative that requierd all company employees take an optional cultural course that was essentially something about power dynamics between culture/race. Since it wasn't really relevant to my role, I decided not to take the course as it was optional... until I found out it wasn't. I started receiving emails and phone calls from the diversity officer that I should take the course. I thought it was a bit weird and just ignored her. She then contacted my boss and told her to tell me to take the course. Starting to get pissed off, I asked my boss if the course was option, she said yes, then I said I'm not taking it.

I'm mixed race with mainly French and Indian ancestry and while I can pass for full white (albeit a white person that spends time in the sun), my skin is tanned just enough that I can pass for other ethnic groups as well. However, my name is undoubtedly French.

I then received an email from the diversity officer saying that I was an example of a problematic white person and that I was probably ignoring her because she was female and Indian. Then I was contacted by HR for discriminatory conduct and told to report to their office. When I showed up at the office, I could visibly see they were confused as they were clearly expecting someone that didn't look like me. Luckily for me, some of my family is Hindu and I happened to be wearing a religious bracelet I received as a present and I was basically able to fend off their accusations of racism and whatnot. Left the company shortly afterwards.

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

#878

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Sat, May 22, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #859

w0de0 wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> posting him in any but a right-wing community is going to be a troll for reactions This is an extreme shifting of the overton window and cult behavior that excommunicates liberals from the left. Joe Rogan himself is on the left, he has mostly liberal views, he wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders. But because he's heterodox and talks to the "other", he's a sinner who must be cast out.

Isn't there a difference between someone on the other side within the democratic political spectrum, and someone on the other side wanting to overthrow said democracy?

And yes, there's people outside of the democratic political spectrum both on the right and the left side. In Germany they currently march together ("Querdenker").

However, at least according to the FBI, the right-wing extremists are the larger problem right now.

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

#879

Post by kodah » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

lilactown wrote: post #876

kodah wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://howmuch.net/articles/the-30-biggest-political-donors... Democrats get paid a lot more by companies than Republicans do. In fact, drastically so.

Democrats are an essentially center-right party with a socially progressive veneer.

"Democrats" in the context of these findings includes progressives, if that's the delineation you're trying to make.

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

#880

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #875

anigbrowl wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely because we don't all know his individual lady friend, but we definitely know people who are 'women in the bay area'. If a person makes a broad sweeping statement then qualifying it with an individual exception is no more significant than some tiny disclaimer int he corner of a billboard.

I'm fairly sure that if his comment had been about (for instance) white men in the bay area, he would still have his job.

That's a different question.

White men as a group have high social and economic status, so a broad-spectrum put-down isn't likely to impact them very much. Women have spent a long time trying to overcome exclusionary social mores, and have correspondingly less social and economic capital, so it's in their interest to cooperate against overt sexists.