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Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

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Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do you wonder why he pushes for politics in the workforce? Because he doesn’t understand that these places openly hostile towards gays are likely formed by white heterosexual Christian conservatives defending their identity and pushing for politics at workplace. > it should be all of our goal—is to stamp out places where such hate is encouraged You can’t stamp out people. You forcibly convert that one place to…

What are these white heterosexual Christians defending their identity against?

Against treats to that identity.

Through most of the history, the threats were imaginary, and it was conservative majority who oppressed other people.

Recently however, in places like Bay Area, the conservatives are no longer a majority, and consequently the treats became quite real, see e.g. https://www.scribd.com/document/368692388/James-Damore-Lawsu...

I don’t think the right way to solve this is oppress, stamp out, or discriminate people positively or negatively. The right way is promoting tolerance (the good one i.e. civilized behavior towards people despite different positions, not the bad one that says everyone must express the only true position), and most importantly following the laws.

Democracy + judicial system worked OK for centuries. IMO it’s the only working mechanism invented so far how a society can function despite different people have different identities and beliefs.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#552
post #306
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> misogynistic divorce laws, violence against “immodest” women, and application of the death penalty for homosexuality or apostasy It is a caricature. You have been reading the internet too much and spent too little time talking to actual Muslim people. However, if you find out that one of your employees is a member of the taliban, feel free to fire him.

There are 13 Muslim-majority countries where apostasy is punishable by death, including Malaysia, Iran, Nigeria, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan only imposes the death sentence for blasphemy. The UK has many sharia courts which act as marriage and divorce authorities, where women often have far fewer rights than men. (This sounds hysterical and far-right-ish, but it’s true) I’ve heard horror stories of ex-…

> The UK has many sharia courts which act as marriage and divorce authorities, where women often have far fewer rights than men. (This sounds hysterical and far-right-ish, but it’s true)

Point out one of these Sharia courts on Google maps please.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#553

This is why it's fruitless to argue with Marxists--they subjugate truth to layers of shifting context. Non-Marxist: Is true? Marxist: No. was/is/will be used against my political tribe, therefore it is false. Non-Marxist: Well, can it just be "technically" true in this narrow case if we ignore the greater context? Marxist: I don't understand what you're talking about. Non-Marxist: Can anything be both true and politi…

All you've done here is create an outrageous caricature in your head to argue against.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#554
post #170
post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

I don't mean any offense, but it has been my experience that people who can afford to "put politics aside", so to speak, are people from demographics who didn't have politics "happen" to them. When you are gay or trans and a significant chunk of people find your mere existence revolting, when you are black and a significant chunk of people believe you are innately less intelligent and more prone to violence, when you…

It’s just great that you have an entire spiel devoted to justifying how people should get indoctrinated into your political beliefs in the work place. Make no mistake, people like you (eventually) cause many more problems in this world than you would like to self righteously pretend you solve.

To every person who is unprejudiced, not politically inclined, and is forced to take part in your rallies, there is nearly nothing separating you from your reactionary counterparts.

I’ll go even further to suggest that the prevalent attitude among your ilk implicating those who are not actively involved in your political movement are somehow culpable is enough to make evangelicals seem like the side to choose moving into the rest of this century.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#555
post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The politics that's happening to you, if you're in a western republic or democracy, is one that created and maintains unprecedented safety and freedom otherwise alien to human existence.

Please don't post generic ideological comments to HN. They just lead further off topic and deep into flames. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Whoops. That you would condemn a perfectly reasonable comment like that speaks volumes about your character and the political leanings of whomever is paying for your coffee.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#556
post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

> When at work respect your colleagues,not because of their politics and beliefs but because 1) they're human 2) you would want to be respected if you were in their shoes 3) out of respect for your own self You cannot escape politics no matter the environment. Your personal political views are a reflection of your core values, ethics and morals. I'd much rather have companies take a stand than try to appease everybod…

> Your personal political views are a reflection of your core values, ethics and morals.

That's a pretty bad way to view politics, IMO. It not might be what you mean (in which case, sorry!), but the phrasing you used makes it seem like anyone who disagrees with your politics has different morals (or values/ethics).

That might sometimes be true, but you're leaving no room for differences of opinion that have nothing to do with morality! When Galileo said the Earth goes around the Sun, he wasn't saying it because he had different morals/values, he was saying it because he had a different belief about the world.

When the left and right disagree (in America), it's sometimes about morals/values, but it's also sometimes an honest disagreement about how the world works!

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of conservatism is profoundly stereotypical and incorrect.

Does this understanding of American conservatism not describe effective points for voter galvanization? In other words, it's an operational definition in tune with American voter behavior. One might point to the rallying cry for a US Constitutional ban to gay marriage, during the Bush presidential candidacy. Did that not serve to rally the American conservative base? Is Alex Jones not representative of effective (mea…

As far as I know (which is not much), opinion on gay rights has shifted drastically in the last 10-20 years, both among democrats and republicans.

And I really don't think that Alex jones is the #1 most popular media personality today, not by a long shot (where did you get that statistic?). And him specifically being censored is not why many people are concerned, except insofar as it is indicative of how other people are treated. Most people that I listen, on both the left and the right, absolutely abhor him.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those makes you alt right. You'll find absolute free speech advocates on both the left and the right. It's more of a libertarian/authoritarian issue than a left/right issue. Only extremists on the left would disagree that sex differences are partially/fully biological (depending on how you're defining biological and sex).

> Only extremists on the left would disagree that sex differences are partially/fully biological (depending on how you're defining biological and sex). Unfortunately, there were enough “extremists” to get both Larry Summers and James Damore fired.

Summers and Damore exercised their first amendment right to free speech.

Their employers decided they did not want to deal with the entirely predictable controversy both caused and exercised their first amendment right to freedom of association.

Seems like the first amendment is intact to me.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just do something for endangered species then. The problem with your entire line of thought is, that you're trying to make it seem like we shouldn't allocate more resources to pertinent causes. Save pangolins (and smallpox) if you really care about them. What is it about whale penises that's causing all this jealousy and needless arguments about semantics?

> Just do something for endangered species then. The problem with your entire line of thought is, that you're trying to make it seem like we shouldn't allocate more resources to pertinent causes. Save pangolins (and smallpox) if you really care about them. I agree - this is exactly what "all endagered species matter" is is doing. > What is it about whale penises that's causing all this jealousy and needless arguments…

Endangered species matter. I've never seen an animal rights activist dispute the fact that endangered species matter more than the rest. What is the charter of "All lives matter"? What is the objective output of that movement other than negating the fact that endangered lives matter more?

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#560
post #84

Worked across very liberal and very conservative places in tech. Neither is pleasant. In my opinion, the American self-image and self-worth largely characterized by subscription to a political ideology is the problem. What bothers me is not dress codes,free meals,open offices,etc... But the very idea that a company would display or promote politics in the work place. Why are companies promoting "pride",donating to tr…

In general I agree with you, but neither pride nor tolerance training is political. Pride is like St. Paddy's Day or Chinese New Year: it's neither left or right. Tolerance training isn't political either. If an employer wants their employees to be comfortable at work, it's within their right to train employees to be tolerant of each other. It has nothing to do with politics. It's strange how gay people just being ga…

Chinese New Year can be political. Why is it celebrated under that name in Western countries, rather than Tết or Korean New Year or just Lunar New Year? And then add Chinese money funding the events for some soft power propagation...
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