Changes at Basecamp

By cancelling in this context I mean trying to ostrasize those they disagree with. Talking negatively about them, excluding them as much as possible from social and professional activities. Ignoring their advice and opinion at work. Being rude or negative when they do have to engage with them etc.

In short, acting without the respect and courtesy we would want colleagues to show each other.

But it would also mean people who belittle or demean others because of their gender. Or people who belittle, demean, and bully people with less experience.

One of PayPal’s founders once bragged that they declined to hire an engineer because they said they liked to “shoot hoops,” and PayPal was not a company where people liked to “shoot hoops.”

All of that would be “cancelling” people too, by your definition, and it’s all just as worthy of discussion.

What about old-school companies where everyone played golf. If you were, say, someone who liked hiking and canoeing, you might have been made to feel like you don’t fit in. Is that the same thing as being made to feel uncomfortable about social issues? Or is it somehow different because “playing golf” is normal, but “advocating for social justice” is not?

A word like “activist” is extremely imprecise. Any time someone is making other people uncomfortable, isn’t that important?

If I was a woman and the water cooler discussion every Monday morning was about various men and their misadventures picking up women in bars, I’d say there was discussion causing strife and division, but few people would say “activists” were involved. If I then complained about the unprofessional water-cooler talk, would I be the activist trying to change the company culture?

If it’s the “strife and division” that’s the problem, we need not restrict ourselves to discussion “activism.” But if the real problem is that we’re ok with some strife and division, but not others, well...

We ought to come clean about that and say, basically, “Don’t try to change anything, not even the stuff that makes you uncomfortable, because this is how we like it, and if something has to change, that something is you."

> People are going to say "obviously stuff like this is okay", but to me that's even worse. The company can and will apply arbitrary rules to whatever they think is unacceptable political speech.

From reading this announcement, it seems like they are going with the former. The article specifically mentions "every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large." Of course, it remains to be seen how exactly they apply this rule. The announcement doesn't mention how they will go about enforcing this prohibition, but to me it's very clear that the examples you mentioned obviously fall under this prohibition, as well as many other topics I would expect to be discussed at work, like vacation and holiday policies.