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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#121

Post by darawk »

kemenaran wrote: post #99

Technical professions are generally held responsible for what they enable. Biology: researchers can't do anything they want on plants, animals or humans. Medicine: doctors are expected to follow strict guidelines with their patients. Even engineering: implementing a cheating system for diesel tests will (rightfully) get engineers into trouble. But software engineering seem to have a pass on how the things we build is…

> Technical professions are generally hold responsible for what they enable. Biology: researchers can't do anything they want on plants, animals or humans. Medicine: doctors are expected to follow strict guidelines with their patients. Even engineering: implementing a cheating system for diesel tests will (rightfully) get engineers into trouble.

Biology researchers are held responsible for what they do. Not usually what they enable. The examples you gave are biology researchers themselves doing something. The relevant analogy would be if we held the inventors of CRISPR responsible for some future super-virus engineered using it.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#123

Post by sl1ck731 »

ajaimk wrote: post #67

This is a biased article written in an inflammatory style. Also, there is a mistake in the first 5 letters (Gitlab is not "San Francisco based" being remote-only)

The company entity is headquartered in San Francisco, even if its only a PO box that is its "address".

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#124

Post by core-questions »

archi42 wrote: post #35
vowelless wrote: post #18

I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…

> I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. There is a middle-ground between "talking about politics" is "encouraged" and "forbidden".

Where we seem to find ourselves today is in a position where if you have very progressive politics, you can say whatever you like - no matter how radical - whereas if you have conservative politics you can't even admit that without any specifics without being thought of as evil.

This is how we can get away with saying it's "encouraged" while really making sure any meaningful counter-argument is "forbidden" at the same time.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#125

Post by solitus »

saas_sam wrote: post #8
Rebelgecko wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's a SV thing? I saw some of the documents from a recent lawsuit against Google and was pretty astounded by the sorts of things that people were willing to not only say but actually put into writing where anyone on their intranet could see (things along the lines of "I won't let anyone on my team if they have political belief X or voted for Y")

It's 100% a SV thing. It is assumed that everyone working for a SV company is on the left and hates anything on the right. Voice dissent at your own peril.

"We're on the left, but we looooove tax havens."

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#126

Post by sokoloff »

malvosenior wrote: post #23
sokoloff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you have reasonable adults working together? I think I’ve, on appropriate occasion, discussed politics with friends and colleagues at every workplace I’ve ever been at. [Edit: some senior leadership] openly supports the DNC and has commented to that effect at town halls. To pretend that people are apolitical or to ban all political discussions because some people can’t seem to handle disagreements in a profe…

Would you feel the same way if your current CEO openly supported the RNC?

Certainly. What they believe and support as a private person is interesting and maybe a topic for conversation, but not determinant of whether I want to work for them.

I’m openly Libertarian; I have people on my team who are openly pro-Trump. Being in MA and in tech, there are obviously many pro-left employees.

If you can only work for and with people with whom you agree politically, you might have (or be) a problem. “Not talking politics at work” is a bandaid over this problem, at best.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#127

Post by g_sch »

baalimago wrote: post #13

Reminds me of Peter Handke's recent Nobel prize in literature, where the committee were/are heavily criticized for judging only by literature, and not by Handke's political viewpoints. Maybe politics doesn't need to be involved in every single part of society, only the political aspects of it.

I tend to think of everything in life as political in some way. After all, politics is the fundamental question of how power is distributed in the world. However, even if you don't subscribe to this view, I would argue that work and the workplace are one of the more political spaces.

I agree that it isn't easy to be political in the workplace, and it is often better to keep your head down. But think about all the posts here on HN about workplace issues: compensation, toxic bosses, dubious or unethical product and design choices...and so on. All of these things are political because they involve people exercising their power on others, and other people organizing to take that power back.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#128

Post by pc86 »

malvosenior wrote: post #100
pfranz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well aware I'm in a very privileged position, but I've tried to make a very strong effort throughout my career to live below my means. Maybe I'm pessimistic about losing my job or my company going under, but the freeing thing is if I'm unhappy for whatever reason I have options for leaving. I try hard not to assume or expect this from others, but I very strongly encourage it.

> I'm well aware I'm in a very privileged position This is indeed a very privileged position. Most people need to pay rent, buy food, save for retirement, pay for their kids clothes...

In what possible way could you have read pfranz's comment to think they don't need to save for retirement or buy food?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#129

Post by anm89 »

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product.

If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal means. Otherwise why would I wan't gitlab to have anything to do with this process?

The tech unicorns screwed themselves over BIG TIME, the second they stopped claiming they were just infrastructure and platforms and got into content moderation. They will now forever be a pawn of whoever has some power and has some agenda. It's an obviously unwinnable game for everyone involved besides maybe some politicians.

I don't want this to become a Joe Rogan debate but Naval Ravikant got this exactly right on his Rogan Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44&t=3661

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#130

Post by Smithalicious »

Good, this makes me glad to be using Gitlab. Gives me confidence that I can rely on them even if I ever get into hot water politically. I also think that it's good to assert that yes, it's fine for a git host to just host people's repositories and not have to be in charge of making moral judgements. We have other tools for judging morality; things so immoral that society shouldn't allow them should be handled by the law, and things that individuals do not morally agree with should be boycotted by those individuals.
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