It's unwise to post political opinions, period, as any type of worker. I feel most people who do so are virtue signaling anyway
Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
31–40 of 56 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#32There is a huge left bias and you will actively be ousted from the FAANGs if you admit any conservative or $non_mainstream opinion. One place I know of – people wanted you dead if you were not vaccinated. It was pure hatred and this was ok with leadership.
Another place where we had significant reach to a large audience we actively curated anti-conservative content.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#33I agree with most of the other comments. As a staunch conservative, I have found it better to just keep my thoughts to myself. Additionally, there is usually little to be gained from sharing your opinions. Past a certain age, most be are so set in their opinions that arguing with them achieves nothing. Personally, I enjoy a thoughtful, respectful, and in-depth discussion (maybe even debate), but most people would rather just regurgitate the media talking points or, worse, jump straight to calling you racist, homophobic, a bigot, a religious zealot, or whatever else they think will quickly shut you up. In short, it's better to just keep your thoughts to yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with that. I don't talk politics on the job at all, I feel we're all the in the same boat with the same mission to succeed and everyone on the team deserves equal respect. I'm not saying I want to write a workplace manifesto like James Damore. I just want to be able to express my opinions outside of work and not have that influence hiring decisions.
James Damore is a good example. By expressing an opinion in a somewhat careless way, and by the repetition of its simplification in even more careless ways, he managed to alienate about half the workforce at the company he worked for (and almost everywhere else). I learned to use the Bernard Meltzer criteria: "Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If th…
He was actually almost painfully careful about how he expressed that opinion, specifically because he knew that some people would try to misrepresent him. To the extent of continually citing research papers to back up what he said, to constantly caveat everything and so on. In the event, progressives lied about what he said anyway despite his care, knowing full well that their sort of people wouldn't read the actual memo so they could claim anything they liked about it.
He certainly didn't alienate half of all people, that's a wild overestimate, but Google tolerates extremely disruptive behavior from certain types of employees to the extent that it will give in to nearly any demand no matter how unreasonable.
He definitely didn't say anything untrue or even unkind. And he was responding to an explicit request for feedback, so it wasn't unnecessary or unhelpful either. So the Meltzer criteria seems pretty useless there.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#35Almost the opposite. Tech is mostly conservative in the classic sense-- limited government, personal freedoms, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#36If you feel that your political opinions should be communicated, then do so but not under your own name unless you plan to use your workplace to build an audience. Depending on the workplace, this may damage your career, but sharing your opinions is the first step to building an audience and and switching careers.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#37There is a huge left bias and you will actively be ousted from the FAANGs if you admit any conservative or $non_mainstream opinion. One place I know of – people wanted you dead if you were not vaccinated. It was pure hatred and this was ok with leadership. Another place where we had significant reach to a large audience we actively curated anti-conservative content.
Vaccination status is not a political issue. And HN is fairly conservative, so there might be a bit of a victim complex going on here.
"Does anyone else feel like they are judged for their minority opinion" is an interesting concept in a community full of like-minded individuals.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#38Frankly I can't tell what's real or not any more. Filecounter, if that's your real name, you could be just concern trolling. You might be sincere. You might be a bot. You might be in the 50 ruble army spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. Maybe you're just lonely and just want someone to talk to. I would lean against posting your political opinions on the internet, and instead step away from the computer and you kno…
Here's what brought me here. I have a twitter account under my real name which I've never tweeted, and I'm afraid to even like a conservative post by Elon Musk because I feel like someone will find my account and judge me and I won't get my next job because of it. Ridiculous? I know. But I can't be the only one who self censors in today's world.
Hire someone from India to use their phone number to create a Twitter account anonymously. You can find providers on freelancing sites as well as social media chat rooms.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#39Depends on who you (want to) work with. I think about it this way: co-operation depends on trust and shared values, the lack of which hinders or prevents this. Every one of us is a bag of values, and some of these will often intersect with some of those we work with. Since team work is an active act of co-operation, it makes more sense for me to actively share those values that are broadly in agreement with those tha…
While your values may shape your political opinions, hopefully they are quite separate.
I think of political opinions as more concrete expressions of deeper values, just like other tastes and tendencies. So while they may generally correlate, a specific political opinion will be the result of several competing values, lived experience and other influences.
So yes, they are somewhat separate, and IMO they can shift quite wildly, given the same set of core values.
Re: Ask HN: Is it unwise to post conservative opinions as a tech worker?
#40Conservative opinions are unwelcome in most places now. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/evidence-c... https://archive.is/I7xFz https://www.realcleareducation.com/speech/ https://archive.is/b5UII
Wow. I didn't realize it has gotten that bad out there. Well, after reading those at least now I don't feel so alone in my self censorship. Thankyou