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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#421

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

>But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? These are questions for people at work whose job…

"Are we hiring diverse people I want to work with" is a question relevant to everyone, because it falls under workplace conditions, which is something you're not allowed to prevent employees from discussing.

Also, we're talking about tech workers who get stock compensation, right? They literally own (part of) the company.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? These are questions for people at work whose job…

There will now be signs in the break room: NO GOSSIP NO POLITICS YOU WERE NOT HIRED TO HAVE OPINIONS OF YOU OWN JUST CODE

Sounds awesome.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#423
post #34

This is a tricky one. On one hand, there's the obvious issues: almost everything you can talk about is societal or political. Talking about your lawn growing is societal because it means you can have a lawn and that gets into the housing crisis sooner or later. If people can't speak about politics, marginalized group will have difficulty bringing up tough issues that impact them in their day to day job. On the other…

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

Basecamp's post specifically called this out as a problem.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#424

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#425

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

My company has mandated that 40% of our recruiting contacts for engineers are women. We have spent weeks talking about bias in our interview process and despite having no metrics showing bias is a problem we have made changes to combat it (i.e. no video on the call) that have led to worse experiences for our candidates. Suffice to say we have had a lot of trouble hiring engineers. > Why wouldn't you want to bring the…

How many woman engineers are in your team as a percent of total?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That question doesn't really make sense in the context of a US workplace. The employee:HR relationship is fundamentally adversarial over here. HR's job is to protect the company, including from its own employees. They will throw you under the bus if it benefits the company. Most people won't run into issues with them, but if you think that someone important to the company's bottom line is behaving inappropriately and…

What's the point you're trying to make? That irredeemable companies are a nightmare to work for? Well of course they are. And just like irredeemable relationships, you need to move on and improve your judgement to avoid a repeat. Bemoaning on Slack achieves nothing.

The point the post you're replying to was trying to make (true or not) was that US companies have this problem unilaterally — so there's no point to trying to avoid companies based on it, as long as the US is where you choose to live.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#427
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Asian students that can't get into Harvard despite higher scores disagree with you.

Since you wrote the "pink" analogy and this post too, I can respond here: The issue of anti-asian quotas at major american universities is absolutely a legitimate one that needs addressing. Here's why it's a little bit more complicated than just: "Let's just remove all criteria for university admission besides high scores. That won't discriminate against asians and be a true meritocracy". Because then, the amount of…

> There is no quota. There are goals to improve these numbers. But there is no quota in the professional world.

You're simply misinformed on this. I have direct primary source information from recruiting personnel in "Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft" that there are significant specific quota'd positions. These programs leaking to non-woke press is going to be an outrage.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. It’s made quite clear tha…

> It’s made quite clear that my only means of survival are to keep my mouth shut and present myself as entirely apolitical. That's because most conservative politics is fundamentally opposed to the rights of any given minority group, pretty much via definition. You're right, I want you to shut the hell up and be ashamed of your views. I want you to not feel free to speak freely about your bigoted opinions.

>That's because most conservative politics is fundamentally opposed to the rights of any given minority group, pretty much via definition.

This is a common misconception of conservative views toward minority groups. I find it much more common that conservatives are totally down with the rights, but annoyed or put off by strong activism among minority groups; the preachy nature of advertising, comedy, and other entertainment; and the retaliation against differing views, whether that be job losses, deplatforming, or any other far-reaching (read: disproportionate) social ramifications.

What conservatives and those who want to have a nuanced discussion around identity are finding difficult is the idea that the previously harsh nature of church life with regards to "sin" and rejection by a religious body have now been championed by identity activists who are now doing the same thing, only in a secular fashion -- going as far as calling otherwise benign expressions and statements of differing views "hateful" when they really aren't, and calling for the social/career equivalent of burning the witch at the stake -- alongside it being widely popular and mainstream to criticize speech that barely comes close to offending anyone with an ever-changing standard driving acceptable speech.

Example: "Charge That “Soap Dispensers” Prove “Systemic Racism” Reflects a Deeper, Darker Problem" Source -- https://thenewamerican.com/charge-that-soap-dispensers-prove...).

Hence the common narrative in conservative circles being: "powerful people are telling you how to feel on behalf of minority groups with little to no consent or representation of the minority groups themselves", true or not.

Example: an all-white leadership at Nextdoor adds racism warnings before users post content, not considering that a Person of Color could be posting "all lives matter" and imposing that they should be offended by what they themselves post (fact: Black conservatives exist in DROVES and strongly oppose BLM): Source -- https://notthebee.com/article/neighborhood-social-media-app-...

There are radical pockets of people in almost every subculture, but it is difficult to believe that minority groups are facing as many challenges as non-minorities say there are (that's key!) when each minority group is enthusiastically supported by the very most powerful government and private institutions. This is especially true, now that it has become commonplace, popular, and acceptable in public (government) settings and entertainment to be Anti-White, which is patently racist.

With that much support from the most powerful among us, what else is left? Some on the Left actively call for education camps and even genocide against conservatives. This cannot be proven differently.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? These are questions for people at work whose job…

"Are we hiring diverse people I want to work with" is a question relevant to everyone, because it falls under workplace conditions, which is something you're not allowed to prevent employees from discussing. Also, we're talking about tech workers who get stock compensation, right? They literally own (part of) the company.

If you don't like the people in a company, don't take a job there. Astounding to me that it is controversial that people who are hired to do a job should be spending their time doing the job they are paid to do instead of debating with other employees about what their employers should be doing. I don't see anyone suggesting that employees can't contact HR, or write letters to those whose actual job it is to making hiring decisions, or have discussions with the coworkers on their own time. If you are a shareholder, and you want to have input on how the company is run, there are numerous avenues to do so. The sense of entitlement is crazy.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I feel like there is a healthy conservative movement in the US and you are literally surrounded by conservatives all the time. In fact I think 74 million of them voted in the last election. So please explain how being a white male makes you some kind of victimized under-class.

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