191–200 of 1001 posts
I disagree with GitLab on this one, but that title is one crazy leap in logic... "Blood money is fine with us, says GitLab"
(Edit: media name correction. Egg on my face!)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 sam…
Also, there used to be a political spectrum and not just "progressive" and "conservative": This is something completely different than left/right - a right-wing person can easily be a progressive about his right views, while a left-wing person can be conservative [or even reactionary] about his left views.
[Edit: Note, I'm a non-native speaker: Maybe this differentiation is different between English than in German?]
So when do you imagine they'll be implementing Navajo language support in their UI? Or is someone going to have to make the judgement call that Navajo users don't constitute a big enough political block to influence their l10n priorities? Someone has to make those calls
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? The health of the democracy is far more important than your company's profit margin. And besides, enforcing silence is still a political move that strongly favours th…
I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.
GitLab are being hypocritical[1][2]. Let's not pretend the "women in tech" and LGBT movements aren't political. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous with their guidelines. To clarify my point: if you open the gates to the marketplace of ideas, make sure it's an actual marketplace . [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/10/08…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's a bad faith interpretation. It's more like a pressure cooker company saying "We build kitchen tools. We don't care who buys them. We will not spend any resources vetting customers to make sure they won't blow up a marathon with our product. Yes, even neo nazis are allowed to buy our product even though we executives disagree with them politically/morally/etc." That's an entirely reasonable stance.
And it's one other people and companies will factor in while doing business with them. To their good fortune and their bad.
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…
The issue is the null stance is functionally equivalent to support for the status quo which at this moment includes a lot of stuff people would not actively sign on to but often feel very content with passively signing off on it.
> If the public wants corporations to not interact with certain countries, they can ask their legislators to fascilitate passing of sanctions (like we have today against Syria, making it illegal to provide services to them).
This ignores both just how much the business tail wags the legislative dog in the US and the mountain of other factors that prevent or slow Congress from taking action against specific countries.
I'm sure everyone who has to earn a living to support their family will appreciate this move. Nothing is worse than politics at work, where you may lose your paycheck if you don't align with the correct factions.
The problem isn't the discussion of politics, it's the fact that that would even matter or influence your job in any negative way.
People are afraid to talk about anything remotely controversial today, because it could result in a call for them to be fired or resign. We've seen it in academia and I feel like we're going to see it more in industry. One opinion stated on a blog or social media will be enough for others to dig up every hint of anything someone has ever posted that could be seen as negative and outright calls to have them leave.
There's almost a point system in call-out culture; a subconscious social credit system among those who participate. The Coddling of the American Mind is a great book that talks about this growth in the academic space. It's made professors afraid to talk about difficult topics with their students.
GitLab are being hypocritical[1][2]. Let's not pretend the "women in tech" and LGBT movements aren't political. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous with their guidelines. To clarify my point: if you open the gates to the marketplace of ideas, make sure it's an actual marketplace . [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/10/08…
This is pretty standard neoliberal politics. Just as with similar decisions at Microsoft and Palantir, this change will never come from executives. It's up to the workers to change the company's direction, and I hope they will.
GitLab are being hypocritical[1][2]. Let's not pretend the "women in tech" and LGBT movements aren't political. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous with their guidelines. To clarify my point: if you open the gates to the marketplace of ideas, make sure it's an actual marketplace . [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/10/08…
It's hard to define what is and isn't political right? It can get ontological .. (i.e. if everything is political than nothing is political and if nothing is political than everything is political). It seems like in this case Gitlab is trying to avoid some of the Google/Amazon blowback for taking questionable contracts. In those cases .. tech people are in high demand. It's not that difficult for us to find work else…
No matter how misguided in practice, is it even immoral for people who believe that homosexuality is immoral to try convincing gay people to change?
> There are really complex questions here.
This is the sort of question that GitLab should not be asked to answer.