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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#501

Post by ck425 »

skinkestek wrote: post #444
cozuya wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think we are in this mess because we are mixing up state and religion. Marriage was a religious thing. There is no reason any part of the state should mess with it. But, for a while it so happened that it was useful for the state to rely on marriage to mean "two people living together" for whatever that should mean in tax codes etc. With that came the rules that followed the mainstream religion at the time. Today t…

> Marriage was a religious thing

Do you have sources to back that up? I'm genuinely curious. My understanding was that marriage was always a social contract, but that society and religion used to be more intertwined thus 'religious marriage'.

I don't disagree with the idea of separating the religious and civil/cultural aspects of marriage. But I think you'll find non religious folk resistant to calling civil/cultural partnerships something other than marriage. It's a deeply embedded cultural concept not just a religious concept.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#502

Post by throwawayboise »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #313
sokoloff wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course. I've seen that number decrease over the decades, but it's obviously not zero (and probably never will be). It's not clear that the presence of those people on the earth requires official work channels to be a political discussion free-for-all. I spend time on a fairly small number of discussion sites. Invariably, the ones with the highest signal-to-noise ratio are the ones which ban gratuitous politic…

I agree that political discussion generates more heat than light, and I agree that the company should be able to prohibit specific topics. At the same time, Basecamp’s definition of “political” is extremely broad (“every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant”) and I don’t blame people for worrying that anodyne statements would fall under its umbrella.…

These are things that you might bring up in personal conversation with friends at work. Airing your personal list of daily grievances, trials and tribulations on chat channels might get you some murmers of sympathy but most people will be rolling their eyes behind your back.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#503

Post by astrange »

comp_throw7 wrote: post #477
astrange wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Minor nit, but afaik Basecamp does not include any sort of stock or equity as part of its compensation package.

This is true but I felt like this subthread was generalizing back to the rest of the industry. It looks like they're doing profit sharing as an alternative, which does make you feel responsible for the company doing well, but doesn't give you power to affect it in the same way.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#504

Post by lukaszkups »

Most discussions here at HN are about the changes about "Politics".

Honestly, I don't really care what political views have my colleagues and I don't care to share my thoughts about this at my workplace. Talking about politics makes place a lot more toxic. Politics are toxic (because of the politicians, most of the time).

What really makes me smile is #2. Like really, most of the IT companies has their lucrative offers with TONS of benefits, e.g. that they're sponsoring you gym, fresh food etc.

I REALLY DON'T CARE - I'm an adult person, give me more money instead, let me decide by myself how I spend it.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#505

Post by gtyras2mrs »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #227
brown9-2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I worked at a company that had to institute a similar policy for more or less this reason: The people pushing certain political agendas wanted to force everyone else to pick a side on certain political issues. When the conversations get to a point where even opting out is perceived as the "wrong answer", things get ugly.

Even on the same side, there's quite a few shouting matches that quickly spirals out when idealists "call out" pragmatists who compromise on a few things.

Not sure how appropriate it would be from a US context, but say Bernie-bros and Clinton / Biden supporters.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#506

Post by throwawayboise »

tyingq wrote: post #213
stephsmithio wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hear the, "But anything could be viewed as societal and political discussion", it's kind of a straw man argument. We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to and they augmented their request with, "But if you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. Someone will gently remind you of the etiquette, and we'll move on. This isn't some zero-tolerance, max-consequences new policy." F…

I don't feel like it's a strawman. I don't know the culture there, but what about: - Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either) - "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?) - Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?) - O…

> "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?)

How about Jodie says, "No thanks"

"Aw, why not?"

"Not really my thing"

"What, do you have a problem with gay people?"

I mean I see that as likely as any outcome from that conversation starter.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#507

Post by YetAnotherNick »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

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?

Because if you have data(like Google had) that women are paid more for same skillset or try to argue that the company is focusing too much on diversity at the expense of talent, do you think it doesn't count as politics. Honest question, I don't have strong opinion in these topics, but I know people who have.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#508

Post by throwawayboise »

tshaddox wrote: post #117
exegete wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you described is talking about personal interests and activities, and I agree that is the kind of stuff that is easy and fun to talk (and hear) about with others. I’m starting to think many people don’t have personal activities and interests and don’t know what to fill in small talk with other than what they saw on social media or the news.

What about people whose personal interests and activities directly involve politics? Like people interested in political analysis or reporting, or people interested in competitive policy debate, or even people who actively do advocacy work in their free time? Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend?

I don't try talk about my gym routine with coworkers who aren't interested in gym workouts. It's boring to them and the conversation goes nowhere. So you should not try to talk about politics with people who aren't interested in your politics.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#509

Post by lhnz »

jonas21 wrote: post #179
lhnz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's soft cancellation. Hard cancellation is when you get others to gang up on them and go to HR to try to get them fired. Afterwards, you publicise whatever got them fired offline in the hopes that they become 'radioactive' to employers and so that they and their family fall on hard times. I'm a little confused as to why people don't understand what "cancel" means in this context. Isn't it quite a popular topic no…

Your comment and the comment you're replying to gave two very different definitions of "cancel". And yet you're surprised that people find it ambiguous?

It's not ambiguous in the context. And normally people don't bring the sorites paradox to definitions of words that describe gradients -- we can describe something as cancellation even when there are more severe cancellations that are possible.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#510

Post by Griffinsauce »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #436
Hamuko wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies becoming vocal political entities over the past few years has been mind-blowing Are we pretending that all that corporate lobbying and political donations that have been going on for years and years was non-political?

There’s a difference between economic politics to be lobbied for and cultural politics to signal/argue about.

Does economic inequality fall in the first or the second bin?
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