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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#561

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'll openly admit that I don't have an answer for the deeper issue here (Gitlab selling software to evil customers), in terms of specifically politics: I don't think politics should be discussed at workplaces that do not participate in political systems in an official capacity (lobbying, PACs etc.). If your employer engages in politics, then that should be an allowed topic and/or other accommodations should be made f…

Every voter (and non voter) is participating in a political system by choosing to vote (and not vote!). Those who got democracy also got all the responsibility with it.

Those in a democratic system who do not engage in politics are bad citizens.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#562
post #3

When was it ever okay to discuss politics at work?

Depends on people, I suppose. I'm easily capable of disengaging and leaving people not upset so I have discussed politics (anarcho-capitalist views, full paternalism views, just-world views) safely and without rebuke everywhere I've worked.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great way to lose advertisers. Case in point: Youtube's demonetization policy.

Advertisers didn't care for over a decade until partisan agitators such as Media Matters and Vox methodically cherry picked screenshots of brands next to maligned youtube channels, and then contacted brands threatening to publish names and shame if they didn't pull their advertising. The result of this short-sighted crusade was Youtube becoming unprofitable for millions of small creators around the world, and people…

This is the first I’ve heard this hypothesis. Do you have links to any data?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#564
post #129

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product. If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal mea…

I wish it was that simple honestly. If Google is doing business with nazis then as a consumer I have absolutely every right to boycott Google.

Consumers have every right not to do business with someone for any reason they please.

Generally where things go into lawsuit territory is when a business refuses to provide service to someone based on something that has protected status.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#565
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The telephone analogy is terrible. Phone calls are usually between two people, or a small number of people. At the very least, they're bounded to some relatively small number. When you post something on Twitter, unless your account is private, you've broadcasted your speech to anyone in the world who cares to see it. Not moderating any speech at all is a quick way to allow a community to turn into a cesspit of spam a…

Twitter isn’t a phone call, but it also isn’t a message board. You only see the tweets of the people you personally choose to follow; it doesn’t matter if there are 100 billion spam accounts posting ads to nobody. There are millions of Twitter accounts in Japanese, but if you don’t follow any of them, and nobody you follow retweets them, you’d never know they exist. You can also block or mute specific accounts, mute…

> You only see the tweets of the people you personally choose to follow

If that was true, that would help a lot.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#566

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…

Others made good general and specific arguments for avoiding such discussions at a workplace, but I'd like to offer a thought experiment that can help understand it better.

Imagine yourself noticing that people around you start to reveal themselves as strongly religious - and not in your religion, if you subscribe to any - and very much into proselytizing. Not a day goes by without someone approaching you to convince you to believe in their god. Even when not explicitly preaching, they keep invalidating everything you worry about. "You fret about your 401k as if you were to use it. Armageddon is coming soon, and if you believe in God, you'll get the best 401k there is!". "I wonder how can you spend so much time on that hobby, when so many people still haven't heard the Good News." "Yes, this disease is a tragedy, but God's Kingdom will soon cure it, and all others too. These doctors are wasting their time." "You're depressed because of climate change? Don't be! God won't let anything happen to Earth!"

At some point you would really start to prefer people to stop talking any and all religion at workplace.

This isn't an arbitrary example. As a teenager, I've been that preacher. People who do that believe strongly in what they talk about - it's literally the most important issue in their lives. The conflict stems from failure to understand that just because they care about an issue, doesn't mean everyone else does too. Failing to recognize that, doubling down on efforts to make others pay attention, breeds contempt, resentment, and otherwise achieves the exact opposite of what's intended.

I've seen both sides of this, and the way the topics you mention are approached today very much reminds me of such religious groups. There's a time and place for all discussions, but they need to happen in contexts where all parties are at least a little receptive, and not by performing DDOS on someone's attention, or invalidating everything they care about that's not related to the important issue.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing I learned: if you can hope for something in life that never disappoints, then you can count on the white moderate to disappoint you every time.

Care to elaborate?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#568

I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…

> The nazi example they gave is also quite egregious. America has sanctions. If the public wants corporations to not interact with certain countries You're talking countries--that's one case but it's not the only case. America also has Nazis. Here. They are Americans. Even if they weren't, it's an abdication one's core moral responsibilities to one's community and society with this kind of "oh, ask your [bought] legi…

I'd do the same, but this is just describing the choice of every worker in a free labor market. And almost nobody in the US has more labor market power than tech workers. Some people leave their jobs because their leadership is too Christian, or their boss is an adulterer, or whatever reason.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#569
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with libertarianism is, ultimately, that libertarians only care about themselves. 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…

You say that like the rest of the gov does not exist. The mere knowledge that a dangerous program exists can be reported to the FBI with all relevant information without Github having to run a gestapo firewall on all content it hosts.

Can everyone in the world appeal to the FBI?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#570

Technical professions are generally held responsible for what they enable. Biology: researchers can't do anything they want on plants, animals or humans. Medicine: doctors are expected to follow strict guidelines with their patients. Even engineering: implementing a cheating system for diesel tests will (rightfully) get engineers into trouble. But software engineering seem to have a pass on how the things we build is…

Your examples aren’t very convincing for biology and medicine. The counter examples seem way more numerous. Biologists enabled chemical warfare. Same harm has been done with mathematics. Physics. I think we largely let researches do research, and don’t hold researchers accountable for harm enabled with that research. In other words, self policing of customers seems like a newer and uncommon phenomenon.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Biologists at large may have "enabled" biological (not chemical, that's chemists) warfare by learning about biology and contributing to humanity's understanding of it, but it was only specific biologists who actively created biological weapons, and only those biologists should be held accountable (and they should).

Mathematicians at large may have enabled various terrible things again by contributing to our knowledge of math, but those mathematicians are blameless; only the ones who used their knowledge to (insert bad thing here) are the ones who can be blamed.

Doing research that can be later used for good or evil is generally fine. To say that improving our understanding of biology is a bad thing is clearly ridiculous. However, actively contributing to a biological weapons program is a very different matter.

For a hosting service, that's much more like active contribution than simply providing knowledge. The people who wrote the Linux kernel are akin to the biologists who simply increased our understanding of biology, but people who manage a hosting service with actual customers are not like this: they have the power to decide who is using the service for actual evil, and the ability to refuse their business.

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