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1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

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Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#321
post #316
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must be nice to have the privilege to not need to worry about the political opinions of your coworkers. I take it most people don't see your existence, as you are, as a political problem?

If any of your coworkers have threatened to stop you from existing you should call the police.

Marginalized peoples are often not threatened overtly. They often cannot prove their case to the satisfaction of the not marginalized. For some groups, calling the police is the last thing they would do.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#322
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to remove politics from your work. If you try to ignore everything except the mission of making money at work, that ALSO is a political choice…

> It is impossible to remove politics from your work. It absolutely is and this statement is either not informed enough or is being argued in bad faith. Unless your job is involved in direct politics or government you can keep the politics out and focus on the work. I do not need my peers or coworkers bringing in politics to the workspace. Politics is a disease that seems to be seeping in everywhere because a vocal m…

Genuinely asking because I never got this: how do you remove politics from your work if your work provides healthcare? Like what if you or your dependents want birth control or need an abortion or get a blood transfusion that happens to be from a black person or take hormone replacement therapy or take AIDS drugs or get a vaccine or whatever is the political medical controversy do jour?

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cannot work without doing social activism then perhaps a non-profit foundation is a better place to be?

but that's thing...what is "social activism" here? I don't think having a single tweet or post from your company's account saying "happy Pride month, we love our LGBTQ+ Coinbasers" is activism really....it's just like, a nice thing to do. No one is saying Coinbase or any company should pay their employees to go make phone calls for Bernie Sanders' campaign on the clock. It seems like people are inventing some kind of…

I don't know, more people celebrate Christmas compared to Pride month, but saying "Merry Christmas" can be seen as controversial. It's hard to imagine that "happy Pride month" is completly neutral.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The woke biggest fear is that people realize that only about 5-10% are woke so you can ignore them without much consequences no matter how much of a fuzz they make on twitter. They try to make a fuzz here at HN as well but just like the real world they aren't the majority here either.

This is quite disturbing, see all those accounts created 30 minutes ago: - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fancifulfiend - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=workersrights - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tesselator I wonder what's going on with HN moderation.

> I wonder what's going on with HN moderation.

The front line is automatic software. Then there's us with stuff like flagging and downvoting. The rest is handled by a small team.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#325

The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employee…

Basecamp's angry worker faction was demanding the company apologize for contributing to a white supremacist, genocidal culture... because some customer service folks had a funny customer name list that included names from all backgrounds. That had absolutely nothing to do with basic dignity for marginalized groups. It was simply a grab for power and status. One of many. We who have been watching are very familiar wit…

Unfortunately it's a discussion tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the argument that this is making a workplace a political party is what the fuck are you supposed to do if you’re transitioning at work? Now you’re fucking political, and all you want is for your boss to call you she/her and your health insurance to cover your hormones.

I don't think we should optimise workplaces for the smallest possible edge cases. If you joined a bigoted company as a queer person and transitioned then you have to change your job, the same way if you join NPR and suddenly realise after spending too much time online that you are in fact right wing. Work is a place where people go to earn money to do stuff they want after. It's not a place to get validation.

That doesn’t answer my question of what happens if someone transitions in a workplace. How do you do that non-politically? Dismissing the edge cases of marginalized people is kind of like… of course they’re edge cases. Marginalized people are edge cases by definition.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#327
post #295

Love that Armstrong did this at Coinbase. I want to work at work, not worry about the political opinions of my coworkers.

It must be nice to have the privilege to not need to worry about the political opinions of your coworkers. I take it most people don't see your existence, as you are, as a political problem?

>I take it most people don't see your existence, as you are, as a political problem?

I want to point out that this is a perfect example of how absolutely mind numbing and toxic it is to interact with a lot of these "woke" types. OP made an benign comment ("I want to work at work, not worry about the political opinions of my coworkers.") and its taken in the maximally worst way possible. There's no nuance, and no room for debate or discussion, where you immediately assume that the people you interact with want you dead or worse (your "existence").

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#328
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any of your coworkers have threatened to stop you from existing you should call the police.

Marginalized peoples are often not threatened overtly. They often cannot prove their case to the satisfaction of the not marginalized. For some groups, calling the police is the last thing they would do.

If you can’t prove something, there’s a strong possibility it’s not real. There’s a reason that we require proof when you accuse someone of wrongdoing.

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we stick to "a company can do everything it wants as long as it is legal and people are free to go work at whichever company they want"? Why is that controversial? If you want to effect social change become a politician, do not try to turn your work place into a political party that has to react to every social fashion.

The problem with the argument that this is making a workplace a political party is what the fuck are you supposed to do if you’re transitioning at work? Now you’re fucking political, and all you want is for your boss to call you she/her and your health insurance to cover your hormones.

Lets say that coinbase said "We are fully political at work, we expect all of you to have conservative views!". Would that make you happier than their current apolitical stance?

Re: 1 Year of Coinbase as a mission focused company

#330
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats political about using coinbase to buy and sell bitcoin?

crypto is political

Is any technology inherently political, or do we make it political when we pick political fights over it? Did 7-Eleven become a political company when Bloomberg went and banned Big Gulps?
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