Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

When two deeply-held elements of personal identity are in conflict, the only way to resolve it is for both sides to keep silent or for a third party to insert himself and pick the side in which he believes. In either case, you are telling someone he must change who he is.

The alternative is to simply not discuss such matters at work.

And yes, I believe both sides have the right to express their beliefs and that the comfort of neither trumps the right of the other to speak. I just think time, place, and manner are generally reasonable constraints.

The kind of policy that GitLab is proposing here is fine - or even aspirational, under a certain lens - until one day you wake up and find that the same software is being used to destroy your community and compatriots.

How could that happen? Isn't this free speech to max utility? Isn't that flawless?

No, it's free utility to anyone - and you might eventually find that the people who are using it don't have you and your neighbours interests at heart.

The design of technology is _not_ ideologically neutral. It contains embedded biases and beliefs - even if they were subconscious or part of a community mindset - and those can and will be changed and overruled over time.

Careless licensing of technology will lead to the overriding and subversion of those ideologies, in ways that many of us would find abhorrent.

If you'd like to support that on the basis of free speech, you should ask yourself whether the worst re-applications of these technologies would still allow you to speak freely.

Except Cancel Culture is making it that these can't be discussed without complete agreement.

Take for example, "Women in Tech", personally I don't see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be 'solved'. For the better part of 15 years, there has been a massive movement to encourage women in STEM. There are hundreds of Women in Tech meetups, scholarships, Womens only courses... yet the numbers have barely budged in more than 10 years. Personally, it looks like in aggregate it will be difficult to get 50/50 representation of women and men in tech. To make it clear, we should definitely support everyone who is in tech, and make it an inclusive environment, but the continued push for 50/50 isn't going to happen so perhaps its not worth the huge money sink it is.

At the last place I worked that opinion was flat out branded "sexist", and if you didn't vocally agree with every women in tech initiative people asked why.

So I would say the ability to speak openly about politics was shut down long ago, and not by the people you think.

>> If you disagree I’d love to understand your viewpoint as to why.

I'm a underrepresented minority in just about everywhere but tech, yet you draw the line "at tech" for some arbitrary reason (as if my place of work or work opportunities defines who I am).

This is why I disagree. Someone is making arbitrary groups of underrepresentation and/or minority harm who have no real claim over said power.

Also:

>> I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege...

I am one of said underrepresented minorities "not in tech" (I also don't work in tech anymore, so I guess I'm in the clear now) who have no interest or desire to talk politics at work. Not when I was poor and drawing on EBT/SNAP/WIC and not when I've been well off, or anywhere in between.

There is no absolute reason you have to be privileged to not want to talk about politics at work. This is a majorly false assumption.

However this clearly won't lead to a productive workplace, which is why it's not a good idea to allow these discussions. There are plenty of other restrictions within a private company to create the best conditions for the work they're paying you for. It's perfectly reasonable.