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

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#601

Post by slg » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #465

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…

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

>personally I don't see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be 'solved'

I say the below not as an attempt to criticize you for this viewpoint, but as a way to try to explain why this viewpoint is often interpreted as sexist.

The question is why do you believe this? The possible explanations for why women are underrepresented in tech basically comes down to either nature or nurture. Either there is something in the way we as a society and industry educate, hire, manage, and promote women or there is something fundamentally different about women that prevents them from participating in this industry at the same rate as men. The former is fixable and you say this isn't fixable so we can assume this isn't your viewpoint. That would seem to mean your explanation relies on the idea that there is something fundamentally different about women that leads to them not going into tech. Do you see how that could easily be interpreted as sexist? It doesn't take much of a leap for people to hear the non-sexist "woman don't do this" as the sexist "women can't do this". You need to be able to articulate why you belong in that first camp or else everyone will just write you off as being in the second.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#602

Post by wonnage » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:04 PM UTC

unscrupulous_sw wrote: post #560

legostormtroopr wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Just to chime in, I also unknowingly got myself labeled sexist when the topic came up during a random lunch with "friends" (company provided lunch so it had random people from HR and recruiting). Somehow or another the topic of whether going for 50/50 will "lower the bar". So I started thinking about the problem mathematically like any engineer would, with statistical distributions and estimates of the existing pipel…

You can't use statistics without a model. The problem is that you have a shitty model and it's annoying when you keep parroting it like you're so logical. Your model as inferred from this comment is that there's some way to quantify the current applicants, and that applicants below a certain value are always rejected. The remaining applicants are "above the bar" and could be hired. The current "above the bar" group is not 50/50, therefore changing it means accepting people below the bar.

The problem is that none of your assumptions hold water. Technical interviews are about as accurate as flipping a coin. Mundane factors like whether or not the interview is after lunch have a major impact on pass rates. Performance on the interview has little to no predictive value for future job performance.

You can't brush this off as social ignorance, this is simply ignorance of the facts.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#603

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:04 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.

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#604

Post by namirez » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #422

namirez wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's illegal, we'll take it down. Give us a court order. Otherwise we don't touch it. Interestingly the underlying assumptions in most analyses like this is that everyone lives in US and obeys US laws. What if China goes after a political dissident through Facebook? Even worse, what if Facebook propaganda is used to incite genocide by the government of Myanmar? Where do you get the court order to take it down? U…

> Interestingly the underlying assumptions in most analyses like this is that everyone lives in US and obeys US laws. Even better! Stop trying to act like global companies, and pick a jurisdiction to work out of. If Facebook is an American company (which they are), they are held to and follow US laws. Maybe this means that Facebook doesn't remove Nazi propaganda because of the US 1st Amendment. What follows is actual…

> Or, people enjoy Facebook and then rally their government for laws to be changed.

It's not going to happen, because people can connect to FB easily using a vpn without giving FB the chance to monetize ads. It's already happening in countries that have banned FB.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#605

Post by amoitnga » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:07 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…

Here's my 2c.

Why do you need to discuss anything at all? Work is where I work. I'm being paid for my time and professional expertise, not my opinion on anything else. I don't get why would I be allowed to spend that time on conversations not related to work.

Being allowed to have some short talk, maybe discuss something quickly, like a game last night or something, is and should be more of a nicety. Nobody gonna stop me from doing this. But I don't see why we should be allowed spending long periods of time discussing other important issues.

There are meetups, we can get together after work, go for a beer etc... And have those conversations in our personal time if we deem it important. But not during business hours.

Work is for work. So banning conversations is reasonable imo, and not only political.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#606

Post by kelnos » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:07 PM UTC

friedman23 wrote: post #382

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…

It seems to me what you want is not to discuss politics at work but dictate politics are work. Unless you are perfectly okay with your co worker coming in with a MAGA hat every day and explaining to you why they think LGTB people don't deserve the right to marry.

I don't view this as a political issue at all.

If I ran a company and had LGBTQ employees, I would not want what you just described because it would be creating a hostile environment for those employees.

Coming into your workplace and telling your co-workers that they don't deserve equal rights under the law is just a shitty thing to do. It's an issue of basic respect and has nothing to do with politics.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#607

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #465

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…

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

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#608

Post by neonate » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #479

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.…

Naval, like most VC investors, think too highly of themselves and go on twitter tirades in areas where they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. The quote above is a real example. Their views are tinged by living in advance Western societies, and in their libertarian bubbles. In real life, a platform like Google and Facebook, that has unprecedented reach globally, is the opposite of a private phone ca…

If I understand the argument, he isn't saying that those horrible things are fine and should be allowed. He's saying that it's the government's job to do something about them. Once the tech companies took a bite out of that poisoned apple, their fate was sealed, to become government-controlled.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#609

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

corndoge wrote: post #177

Nullabillity wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? The health of the democracy is far more important than your company's profit margin. And besides, enforcing silence is still a political move that strongly favours th…

I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#610

Post by shantly » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:09 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #18

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…

> 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?

I'm not usually a "the people in power are actively trying to keep the workers divided amongst themselves and seeing one another as the enemy, so they don't organize against the people who are actually keeping them down" sort, but in this specific case... well, there might be a bit of that going on, at least for what "political discussion" usually means in the context of SV-type workplaces.