Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#481

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

Take underrepresented minorities in tech (presuming yours is a tech workplace): You can work on that in a "nonpolitical" way. (It is, as you say, still politics, in a way, but it's not being done like it's politics.) You say, "You know that Android developer position that's been open for four months, that we can't find anyone for? I wonder if there might be some non-traditional candidates that would fit that role. How could we go about finding them?" That's done in a non-political way. The emphasis is on "this could help the organization".

Or, you could address the same issue by saying "We need to pressure HR to require them to present at least one under-represented minority candidate for each open position." That's a much more political approach to the same problem.

On a more general level:

> We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive.

Sure. But don't do the discussing at work. That's not what work is for. (The exception is when the problem does affect work. If the workplace is trans-hostile, say, you need to address that at work, and there's probably not a non-political way to do it.)

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#482

Post by icelancer » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #327

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

I absolutely agree that politics is everywhere and picking and choosing which type of political discussion is allowed is itself political, (I’ve also never been convinced that URMs in tech isn’t primarily a pipeline problem but ofc wouldn’t want to shut off debate on that) I guess the difference in what is allowed is between “positive” vs “negative” politics. By that I don’t mean positive politics is absolutely the b…

>> “We want to empower marginalized groups”

This also means nothing. What does "empower" mean in this context? Define it, and you are guaranteed to piss off plenty of people in the marginalized groups, to say nothing of the majority groups (whose rights today apparently are meaningless).

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#483

Post by dTal » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #415

madrox wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." This sounds really good until someone refuses to bake a wedding cake for a couple because they're gay. The supreme court ruled in favor of the baker. You're advocating for a world where that's ok. Is that the world you want to live in?

I think these bakers suck, but I do agree with the Supreme Court. A private business should be allowed to refuse to serve customers for whatever reason they choose. The only exception should be legal monopolies; they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate, because there are otherwise no other options.

Hah, ninja'd. We wrote the same comment, except mine's longer.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#484

Post by rolltiide » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #207

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a po…

had me in the first half

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#485

Post by buboard » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #449

buboard wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that black or white thinking sounds fallacious

Which part is black/white thinking - the belief that values need to inform your actions?

"why do you bother pretending to have values at all?"

plus how does one go from "dont discuss politics at work" to "they have no values at all"?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#486

Post by manigandham » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

galaxyLogic wrote: post #370

alkonaut wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right. Saying “don’t talk politics at work” seems to assume that politics is something that goes on on the outside. A stream of news on divisive topics. In reality, politics happens everywhere and you can’t really avoid talking about it. “Don’t talk about politics not relevant for the workplace” could be reasonable (most poltics is after all not related).

To me this (news not your comment) sounds like a very slippery slope. What happened to freedom of speech? And who is to decide what is "political" what is not? As long as speech is not offensive, I think it should be protected.

All speech is protected or none of it is. Offense is subjective. It's useless as a measure of what to protect.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#487

Post by icelancer » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

earthscienceman wrote: post #252

jedberg wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a wealthy white male, I couldn't agree more. For people like me, politics is a choice. But as my female friends of color often remind me, politics is not a choice for them.

Which actually really boils down to what the word "white male privilege" really means. If you think politics is annoying, then it's because you're privileged enough for it to not matter. ^^^ privileged white male

>> If you think politics is annoying, then it's because you're privileged enough for it to not matter.

I felt this way as a poor minority. This statement people keep bandying about that white people are forced to repeat lest they seem racist is absurd.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#488

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

neonate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is such a clear analysis that someone should transcribe it. Here's the main part of what Naval says: "If Google, Facebook, and Twitter had been smart about this, they would not have picked sides. They would have said "We're publishers. Whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes. If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it." It's like the phone company.…

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

People warned that this would happen when Facebook (YouTube, Steam, etc.) started sliding in this direction.

And years before Facebook was even created, a middle way was also proposed where a carrier like Facebook wouldn't be legally responsible for the content they carried, unless they started to select and/or moderate that content, at which point they would lose the carrier status, becoming a simple broadcaster, which would be legally responsible for everything that they would help to broadcast.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#489

Post by cgiles » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #377

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #168

Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work. If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion. Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups: — lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality becau…

I don't understand how any of these conversations(besides the first one, in perhaps an HR meeting), could possibly be topical at work? The company isn't paying me to preach my political agenda. Have you also considered that while a "marginalized" person might be keenly aware, researched and emotionally invested in discussing these things, a "privileged" person may feel ambushed and distracted by these questions while…

> I agree with the progressive arguments - that you can't just say "no politics in X", that politics are inherent to what you do.

I would push back on this. In a trivial sense, politics is in everything, because everything is somehow related to everything else.

For most work-related purposes, an LGBT issue, to take a random example, is relevant in the same way it is relevant to include the gravitational influence of Neptune when calculating the trajectory of a thrown object on Earth: technically there is an influence, but it is minute. This would be true unless, perhaps, you work in HR and dealing with this stuff is part of the job description. Naturally, strongly committed activists won't see it that way because they see literally everything through the lens of their hobbyhorse.

But I agree very much with your second paragraph. I work in medical research. The important thing about it is to find cures for diseases. If some allegedly or actually marginalized person comes in and attempts to derail this important work with their own issues, it is incredibly self-centered. I don't care how bad you think your group has it, it isn't as bad as "the group of people with metastatic cancer". Privileged as I may or may not be, it isn't me such a person would be harming, it's the patients.

I think most people in my field recognize this and political issues generally aren't a problem there. I wonder if there is an inverse correlation between the importance of the work and the likelihood that people will bring up political issues.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#490

Post by rayiner » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #430

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with at least Facebook and Twitter (and possibly Google) in this analysis is that their attention-grabbing model requires them to analyse and interfere with the data which is coming through their systems. The only way not to do that would be for FB timelines and Twitter feeds to be strictly sequential feeds which at some point in the past they may have been but they are not now. Once you start basing your…

Exactly. At face value, I'm firmly in favor of what Ravikant was saying, but even the simple example of a spam filter proves how it's impossible in practice: without basic spam filtering, something like Twitter would be absolutely unusable in the face of endless crypto and malware spam. At some level, Twitter/FB/et al have to do SOMETHING to shape/filter the volume of traffic they receive.

I don't think calls to regulate Twitter/FB would get much traction if all they were doing was spam filtering. To see it from a different direction: imagine the shit show that would happen if Google started "moderating" gmail content, even though it currently does very aggressive spam filtering.