651–660 of 1001 posts
Discussing politics at work has NEVER been a routine thing for me and as far as I know that's always been the cultural norm, at least where I live. It's handled very carefully. So I just assumed that this was the norm and discussing politics at work was the exception.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I've worked at a company that heavily encouraged discussion of politics at work, and it was a nightmare. The things management sponsored (at the request of employees) included: - A women-only Slack channel. - Women-only events, such as a free screening of Wonder Woman. The men at the company were expected to work during that time. - An "ally skills workshop"[1], which attempted to indoctrinate us with an explicitly r…
> 2 hour-long workshop: most common complaint was "Too short!" >3 hour-long workshop: only a few complaints that it was too short
There’s no other data or reasoning presented. Surely other factors must be important and it seems unwise to select a time solely on these two points.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
Or is the idea that, because the old model sucks, we need to optimize this intermediary metric (diversity) in the interests of the ultimate goal of raising-the-bar?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is not a fair comparison. The OC was not talking about proselytizing, they were talking about how to create an inclusive environment at work. We cannot create an inclusive environment at work if we are not allowed to openly talk about groups who currently do not feel included and why that is.
* - Inclusive environment obviously cannot include the people who hardened their hearts to God, and apostates who turned their back on the Word of God and only speak to poison the minds of good people.
Good, this makes me glad to be using Gitlab. Gives me confidence that I can rely on them even if I ever get into hot water politically. I also think that it's good to assert that yes, it's fine for a git host to just host people's repositories and not have to be in charge of making moral judgements. We have other tools for judging morality; things so immoral that society shouldn't allow them should be handled by the…
Rely on them for what, exactly? What makes you think they would bend for you and not this other political entity that has you in hot water?
For those who are a little confused about the no politics at work thing... If you read the policy we link to about politics, we mention people talking politics during coffee chats, 1-on-1s, etc, but as a general rule we don't lead with those topics. We focus on inclusion, and we have been very successful at that by respecting others and making work a collaborative, judgment free place. As someone who sometimes has th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a fair comparison. The OC was not talking about proselytizing, they were talking about how to create an inclusive environment at work. We cannot create an inclusive environment at work if we are not allowed to openly talk about groups who currently do not feel included and why that is.
Being a preacher does not feel like proselytizing. It feels like focusing people's attention on important issues, and working towards an inclusive* environment conductive to open talk about the most important of issues. * - Inclusive environment obviously cannot include the people who hardened their hearts to God, and apostates who turned their back on the Word of God and only speak to poison the minds of good people…
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…
You'd be surprised at what is "not illegal". Every community moderates. You can make an argument that some sites have moderated too much, or been too overtly political. But every community moderates, and has to. This can be demonstrated with a simple example. Guess what isn't illegal? Spam! It should be obvious that FB and Twitter etc have to take spam down though. Then there's abusive behaviour. Stalking, harassment…
Spam, pornography, and profanity are not viewpoints. The problem with social media is not censorship of unwanted content that an ordinary person can identify without reference to viewpoint. What bothers civil libertarians, myself included, is censorship of specific points of view, even when these points of view are expressed in a calm and civil manner.
> Horrifying
Who gets to decide what's horrifying? You? Why?
+ We do business with customers with values that are incompatible with [our own values](/handbook/values/) for the following reasons:
+
+ 1. Our mission is 'everyone can contribute', while there is a [code of conduct for contributing](https://about.gitlab.com/community/contribute/code-of-conduct/) we want to get as close to everyone as possible.
+ 1. We [do not discuss politics in the workplace](/handbook/values/#religion-and-politics-at-work-) and decisions about what customer to serve might get political.
+ 1. [Efficiency is one of our values](/handbook/values/#efficiency) and vetting customers is time consuming and potentially distracting.
+ 1. It maps to the MIT expat open source license we use that [doesn't discriminate against fields of endeavor](https://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456).
We generally don't discuss religion or politics in public forums because it is easy to alienate people
that have a minority opinion. It's acceptable to bring up these topics in social contexts such as
coffee chats and real-life meetups with other coworkers, but always be aware of cultural sensitivities,
exercise your best judgement, and make sure you stay within the boundaries of our Code of Conduct.
On the one hand, you can use this policy to prevent white people from loudly supporting a white supremacist political leader in an office with a very small percentage of people of color. Banning talk of politics here will make it easier to stop dog-whistle racism before it even starts.
On the other hand, you can also use this policy to shut conversations by minority groups who want to support politicians who are improving the lives of people of color. If one goal your company has is, for example, to make your company more ethnically diverse, it would perhaps behoove you to allow different ethnic groups to discuss the political issues they face, and raise awareness of issues critical to them. Banning such speech makes it much harder for them to advocate for better treatment, and educate people in the workplace about the issues they face.
Everyone who thinks this is controversial is falling into the trap of trying to judge a complex issue with emotion, rather than complex rational thought. If you literally decided your opinion about this within 30 seconds, chances are it wasn't very well thought out. I'm willing to bet the CEO is just as guilty of such rushed decision-making.
--
But there were three other points in the PR!! The last of which I think is really worth considering: "The MIT expat open source license [..] doesn't discriminate against fields of endeavor."
The most common example given is that "you cannot stop an abortion clinic, or an anti-abortion activist, from using the source code". This is an incredibly important part of our society that protects minority groups.
In 2012, in Colorado, a bakery discriminated against a gay couple by refusing to make their wedding cake, because the bakery owners didn't approve of gay marriage. This was (rightly, I think) found by the courts to be illegal discrimination. But you could also consider this case a form of discrimination of field of endeavor, if what you're endeavoring-for is to be married while gay. You can't refuse to make the gay couple a wedding cake - so should you be able to refuse a white supremacist from using your version control tool?
This is where we walk into ethical quicksand. There is a l o n g philosophical rabbit hole you can fall down trying to figure out how to treat people you disagree with. People have spent their whole lives going over these issues and literally nobody has figured it out for certain. And that's why I think the policy, based on the third reason, is acceptable.
The third reasoning, "vetting customers is time consuming and potentially distracting", is clearly true. We could spend our entire lives arguing the moral philosophy of how to treat people we disagree with, but we'd never get any work done. Sure, you could start an ongoing process of defining who can and can't be a customer, but if it takes any amount of discussion at all, and impacts your business, you're losing money and time, and not necessarily achieving an increase in value, either for society, or your customers/stockholders.
So for the sake of expediency, for simplicity, for being the Switzerland of open source, this one company can allow that particular conversation to go on outside its walls, and continue to just bake cakes and write version control tools, and let history be the ultimate arbiter.