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SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

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Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#932

Does Elon Musk always ask himself “ok what’s the most petty/childish/immature response I can produce for this situation?” I’m not sure what’s actually wrong with him or if it’s at all clinical or just the billionaire disease of being surrounded by people who agree with you for too long. But I get a feeling there is something a bit off with his behavior and/or mental health, and that it’s been getting worse lately. I…

He has Asperger’s and has talked openly about his difficulty understanding social cues. https://www.axios.com/2022/04/15/elon-musk-aspergers-syndrom... I don’t think that fully excuses or justified everything he does, but it has some explanatory power. It’s obvious by his work output that he is not a very typical person, and it seems like society as a whole is gaining tremendous benefit from his eccentricity. I don’t…

That makes sense, thanks. Being on the autism spectrum doesn’t forgive any behavior of course but can explain it. He should get people to explain social issues, and people to filter/write his own output. It would benefit everyone, most of all him.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#933
post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

Basically we claim to live in democratic societies where free speech is a founding value, then proceed to spend the majority of our waking life in highly undemocratic environments, where expressing the wrong opinion can cause loos of your livelyhood, where you have no voice when it's time to take decisions that will affect your future life.

You can vote for a new government but in the end what happens in your workplace will have more consequences on your life.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#934
post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't inconsistent. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences, if said consequences do not restrict future freedom of speech.

For this to be consistent you have to define access to a Twitter account as more important to ones future freedom of speech than being able to put a roof over your head.

If spacex employed more than 50% of people in America, then...

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Activist employees are toxic to company culture. We created a rule that politics and religion were not appropriate topics at work. A couple of people quit in response, and morale improved dramatically.

It used to be social decorum to not talk about politics and religion at work. But the past 10 years everyone wants to be an activist now. I'd like to see more rules around this in every company. It kills productivity and really distracts from the company goals.

It's common for companies or their leadership to take a public partisan stance via speech or donations.

Why are we surprised when employees then want to talk politics?

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#936

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

Freedom of speech does not mean being free of consequences. Much like you're free to offend, the other side is free to be offended and employment goes both ways. Firing someone because they fundamentally disagree on how the company should be run is not censorship, it's keeping only people who align with the direction you're headed.

“Freedom of speech does not mean being free of consequences”

By that definition, everyone in the world has freedom of speech.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#937
post #110

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

> It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue

No, not really, since this has very little to do with free speech. Free speech does not mean that you can communicate with your superiors, or in fact any other person you're in some relationship with (spouse, family member, etc.), in arbitrary ways with no consequences.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#938
post #937

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

> It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue No, not really, since this has very little to do with free speech. Free speech does not mean that you can communicate with your superiors, or in fact any other person you're in some relationship with (spouse, family member, etc.), in arbitrary ways with no consequences.

who knows what it means for Musk. he said (paraphrasing) that whatever is legal should be allowed on Twitter. this doesn't really mean anything with regards to his speech at work views.

if we want to somehow generalize the ethos of whatever is legal should be allowed (so basically he thinks Twitter is too strict) then we might conclude that he favors more "open dialogue" and this does feel contrary to firing employees for criticism. (though I haven't seen the letter, it's possible the authors/signers explicitly said something that simply make it clear that they won't continue to work in this or that way, and the company decided that okay, the company won't change so they have to go anyway - see the Gebru ultimatum)

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#940

Here's my unpopular opinion - good riddance. It's not a free speech issue because SpaceX isn't a public square. It's a company, and companies are top down. If these employees are at Musk's company, then they had better be prepared to play by Musk's rules, and they did the exact opposite, essentially leading a mutiny against the boss and sowing discord within the company in the process. SpaceX isn't an activist organi…

Generally OK, but I'm not sure if we should have different perspective for SpaceX considering it's funded by taxpayers' money, it's not out there competing in the free market...

false, spacex is a contractor with bounding contracts, who cares which organization spend the money. The contract matter, if you want to argue, there is starliner to criticize
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