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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

#981

Post by tha0xb2 »

nradov wrote: post #454
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…

Your opinion is not valid. Guns aren't necessarily political. Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?

Before you flag, comment why:

>Guns aren't necessarily political.

Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist.

>Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?

Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns.

Does this sound familiar?

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

#982

Post by tha0xb2 »

nradov wrote: post #454
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…

Your opinion is not valid. Guns aren't necessarily political. Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?

>Guns aren't necessarily political.

Guns are absolutely 100% political. Their existence is political, and one political party doesn't want them to exist.

>Should I refrain from asking work colleagues who they think is likely to medal in the 2021 Olympics women's skeet shooting event?

Yes, because it's a privilege to be able to shoot guns. Also, guns trigger me, so please do not talk about subjects which disproportionately affect minorities, like guns.

Does this sound familiar?

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

#983

Post by bingbong70 »

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #949
_-david-_ wrote: post #919

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all every political party lies to stay in power. The idea that this is unique to the Republican party is ridiculous. The Democratic consistently lie and bend the rules as well. If you think Republicans are supporting fascism then you either don't know what fascism is or what Republicans support.

Its not me that thinks that. Its, you know, historians and stuff. But what do they know. There's a difference between some people lying or saying not entirely true things sometimes, and a whole system of belief based on lies. If you believe Republicans and Democrats are on the same level there, there's no point that we continue. I will not convince you of anything and vice versa.

It is quite interesting to watch people rationalize what they experienced under Trump, even as a person that was not a fan of the sensationalist coverage he received in the MSM... IMO he was an objectively bad leader and his short-termist approach has upcoming 2nd and 3rd order effects that most people are not prepared for.

The global immune system is in the process of responding to the re-emergence and attempted normalization of western (white) chauvinism that he played a role in reviving.

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

#984

Post by j_wtf_all_taken »

foolfoolz wrote: post #975
j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it can sometimes be true in the sense that if you do not support X, you are willing to let Y happen. Things like climate change, mask wearing and stuff. You can hate that argument, people can still accuse you of it and they might be right.

no. this falls apart because there are innumerable i justices in the world. i am silent on almost all of them. that does not mean i support the status quo

There's a difference between an injustice somewhere in the world completely unrelated to oneself, an an injustice one witnesses and doesn't say something (e.g. discrimination) or an injustice one is part of and does not change anything (e.g. climate change if one lives in a wealthy country).

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

#985

Post by permo-w »

baryphonic wrote: post #961
permo-w wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually mean “politics free”, or do you mean “progressive politics free”? Because unless the website is made absolutely perfectly with exactly the right intentions, it will become parler or gab for jobs. Who are the people that care so much that they’ll choose a job based on it? Probably 80% hardline conservatives, 10% aggressively apolitical people and 10% unwoke left types like me But even if the other 20%…

> Who feels ostracised in their job? I’d say generally it’s the hardcore right-wing people who lean towards being poor communicators I feel ostracized in my job. Of course, no one actually knows I'm right-wing at work, so they'll openly trash talk straw-man caricatures of my beliefs in front of me, which leads to further self-ostracism. I think that's the big lie of the progressive elite we have today: it pretends to…

do you regard yourself as a good communicator?

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

#986

Post by packetlost »

throwkeep wrote: post #846
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?".

> "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?" Are they in a cult? That sounds like some Scientology shit.

Ideology follows many of the same basic structures as a religious belief system, in many cases ideology is a subset of a religious belief system, but in this case it's not. Combine that with the extreme polarization and demonization of the other side*, one of the oldest propaganda techniques ever[0], you end up with cult-like mentality. Even some circles (on both sides) will have love-bombing [1], a technique used to recruit new members. I grew up in a cult (Jehovah's Witnesses) and went against my dad when I was 16 to get out of it. Once you've been though that stuff and come out on the other side, you can't help but not see it in the modern political climate and it's disgusting.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing

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

#987

Post by glglwty »

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... ;-)

That is a 顔文字 not 絵文字

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

#988

Post by mk81 »

madrox wrote: post #304
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 the genie is out the bottle. For better or worse, many tech companies have worked hard to make your workplace your social hub in an effort to retain employees and get them to work longer hours. That's already happened, so now we have to deal with the good and bad that came from that. Going backward to how things were is as realistic as uninventing Twitter.

Personally think this pushback by companies will continue and that those companies that successfully avoid "woke at work" will be spectacularly more effective at delivering products and services their customers want.

We'll see.

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

#989

Post by anigbrowl »

eloff wrote: post #965
anigbrowl wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could equally ask why it bothers you so much - don't you have any real problems? People don't need permission for their aesthetic tastes.

This is not about aesthetic tastes. It's about identifying as part of a group based on skin pigment color. I thought we've moved past that shit.

I think it's OK for people to like things that resemble themselves. We will probably end up with emojis that reflect a variety of different body shapes and so on too.

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

#990

Post by dang »

globular-toast wrote: post #757
fighterpilot wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not being able to escape anxiety-inducing situations" This sounds like an emotionally abusive environment unless you happen to agree with the political agenda being pushed. To feel socially pressured to go along or else be ostracized from your work is fairly awful. I'm fortunate that I've worked in a rather politically balanced industry which naturally turns out to be apolitical as a consequence of mere demographics…

That's exactly what it's like. I've not seen it put like this before, but anxiety inducing is just right, and yes, it is abusive. Take the letter people, for example. They will ridicule people for not understanding the difference between G and Q, for example. Phrases like "if you don't know what X means, you must live under a rock" are common. Then you have the pronoun people who tell us anyone can choose any set of…

If you keep taking HN threads further into ideological flamewar, we're going to have to ban you again. Would you please stop?

In case it's helpful: not all your comments do this, nor even all your comments on divisive topics. When you stick to describing your personal experience, for example, it's fine. But when you call names, denounce others, or pour snark and vitriol, those things are not fine—and you've done a ton of that on HN. That's not cool!

We probably would have re-banned you by now, except I imagine I see signs of improvement here and there. Please improve further. It's not in your interest to make this place nastier; that's guaranteed to make it less interesting, and the odds of it being interesting are the only reason for any of us to come here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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