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New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

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Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#121

Post by read_if_gay_ »

livinginfear wrote: post #80

I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article. I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions i…

Engaging in real-life political discussions in the current climate is basically all risk, zero reward.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#123

Post by evgen »

shkkmo wrote: post #85
jeffbee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason I always look skeptically on other research about "polarization". The trend tends to be that in the past it was common for otherwise-sane people to advocate crazy stuff like bans on interracial marriage. Now the only people who are against interracial marriage are straight-ticket crazy people, and this sorting of society is superficially "polarization" but I can't find the negative in it, because…

Polarization has nothing to do with the craziness of ideas, but the lack of a middle ground. Polarization has to do with the clustering of beliefs. If attending BLM protests makes you less likely to attend pro-life protests, that is polarization. The strength of that correlation is the amount of polarization. Acceptance of Inter-racial marriage is a topic that was once far more polarized. That depolarization is exact…

Interracial marriage did not just slowly creep in until it was considered acceptable. It had to fight its way into the conversation, then have champions who were willing to take great risks and accept painful consequences for promoting these polarizing beliefs.

'Depolarization' on this subject is not something that just happened, nor it an effective strategy for change. What happened is that one side LOST and their viewpoint was forcibly removed from the conversation. Within a generation this viewpoint was considered completely unacceptable and those who held this belief learned to shut up unless they were prepared to become the office racist. Voila, depolarization.

Polarization is the only means by which change will be accomplished and there is a growing majority that desires change so your options are to either pick a side or accept the fact that this conflict is happening and keep your head down while you focus on the rest of your job. There are not other options and we passed the tipping point for this conflict quite a while ago.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#124

Post by jl6 »

Personal politics has absolutely no place in the workplace unless you’re working in politics. Nothing good can come of it. Leave it to the pub and Hacker News.

My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work.

“Bring your whole self to work” is a flawed goal unless you live to maximise shareholder returns.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#125

Post by systemvoltage »

phroobster wrote: post #96

I am so tired of constantly hearing about politics at my workplace. Politics have already made their way into the tv shows, music, video games, and online forums that I enjoy. At least let me disconnect from that outrage-fuel at work. It also affects team cohesion. I can easily collaborate with just about anyone when I don’t know their political beliefs. As soon as I find out someone holds opposing views on a topic I…

Agree and resonate with my personal observation. I've personally completely and utterly stopped following politics. I do follow local elections and things that affect me and my neighborhood (HOA, municipality decisions, etc.).

What we're seeing is an emergence of anti-political movement that is directly in response to the echo-chambered, uncivilized and nauseating social media that's profited from this rage. Twitter and Facebook along with the entire for-profit media machine is going to be historically marked as the dark footnote of human disgrace, greed and exceptional lack of responsibility.

I predict that the anti-political movement is going to take off and pick up steam in the intellectual circles. We're exhausted and I can feel it.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#126

Post by Neil44 »

ajkjk wrote: post #3

I don't trust this article. The phrase "Losing viewpoint diversity" is of course crafted to make it sound like a chilling trend. Pretty clear what they want you to think about it. But if you drill into what that's referring to, whether you think it's a bad thing is entirely up to what you think of how the viewpoints are changing. "Fewer racists than ever" also maps to "less viewpoint diversity" but is totally a good…

You’ve gone straight to the implication that everyone who doesn’t want to hear politics from the noisy few is racist, despite the article not mentioning specifics. This is exactly the kind of chilling effect it’s about. I.e. “You’re not shouting as loud as us, you must be one of THEM”

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#127

Post by efaref »

samsari wrote: post #114
arka2147483647 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In princible, the progressive left supports free speach. In practice, disagreement is met with explanations and accusations of ”shifting overton window”, ”new normal” and ”normalization”. Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.

Just because I support your right to say it doesn't mean I have to celebrate what you say, or why you said it.

This is exactly the problem. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" has been replaced with "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences". The latter is, of course, utter nonsense. Repercussions or retaliation for expressing wrongthink is the literal definition of a place that does not have freedom of speech.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#128

Post by lazyasciiart »

mr_toad wrote: post #102
hilbert42 wrote: post #69

"In the United Kingdom, most people don’t feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. For two-thirds of the population, talking politics sincerely, on the job, is uncomfortable." I don't live in the UK but have been there many times including having worked there and I believe this view is reasonably commonplace elsewhere, especially so in all Anglophone countries. I've always been a highly political person…

> 'gay' had a completely different meaning to what it does these days. And as for the subject itself, being completely taboo it was never discussed > If one looks at the problem globally, speaking one's mind in public nowadays is fraught with dangers. No wonder that so few actually do so. You don’t see any irony?

No?

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#129

Post by josteink »

alvah wrote: post #87

If you select for diversity in everything except viewpoint, which (in my experience) has increasingly been the case over the last ~20 years of my career, is it surprising that you end up with little diversity in (expressed) viewpoint?

Initially the theory was that a hiring people with more diverse backgrounds (the means) would translate into more diverse viewpoints (the goal).

Somewhere someone mistook the means for the goal, and never bothered to check if the initial theory even held up.

To make matters worse they also institutionalised racism and sexism in encoded it into the ideology.

It’s unscientific and racist, but the people complaining about online disinformation and fake news will be the first people to spread this drivel in the corporate sphere.

Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity

#130

Post by jollybean »

jl6 wrote: post #124

Personal politics has absolutely no place in the workplace unless you’re working in politics. Nothing good can come of it. Leave it to the pub and Hacker News. My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work. “Bring your whole self to work” is a…

I think this is missing the thrust of the issue which is that is, for some groups, certain kinds of politics invariably involve work and are a moral imperative.

If this were about issues likee 'big vs. small government' then it wouldn't be a problem.

But it's about political issues like 'diversity in the workplace' and 'Corporate support for Social Justice' (such as BLM) - as the big Elephant in the Room subject.

So things like 'Thanksgiving is Covert White Supremacy' as part of your job training [1] and 'we must achieve certain diversity targets or we are racist'.

That kind of stuff.

There's a group (part of the 13%) that thinks unless you're on board all of that, you're a problem, basically it's a moral imperative and anything else is racism. There's other groups that believe in some of those things, but are open minded with respect to other's views. And of course a wide array of other opinions.

I really don't believe that most other political subjects are entirely so sensitive. 'Privatization of Amtrack' or whatever is simply not going to engender in/out groups.

Abortion, Gun Rights are probably trigger issues for some, but they are really easy to just avoid at the office.

[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/only-white-people-can-b...

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