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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

#661

Post by kevinh »

yodsanklai wrote: post #372
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…

Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work ? There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace. Some employees are uncomfortable with discussing politics at work as it may create unnecessary tensions. Those who like debating about politics can always gat…

> Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work?

If you're gay and you mention the gender of your spouse, you are going to get a reaction. People consider the existence of LGBT individuals to be political. It's hard to have anything other than surface level conversations without family and relationships coming up.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#664

Post by core-questions »

slg wrote: post #601
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…

>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.…

There's something fundamentally different about women that enables them to give birth to children. Humanity has been discussing the differences in behaviour between these two groups for literally millennia. Are we really going to just decide by fiat that there is zero possibility of a difference in inclination or ability that lends itself to women simply not wanting to be in this field as much as men?

You essentially have to practice some kind of biological denialism in order to believe this "problem" is entirely managerial in nature. Discussing biological differences between sexes should not be considered sexism.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#665

Post by RangerScience »

mikedilger wrote: post #635
snowwrestler wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. Too many women choose to leave not because they didn't like the work, but because they didn't like all the bullshit they were implicitly asked to put up with, in order to do the work. If ver…

Your hypothesis regarding harassment or being made to feel unwelcome is reasonable and always needs to be explored. But it is not the only hypothesis, and other factors are probably also in play. I disagree that there "is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry" and I suppose the argument would then hang on the word "obvious".. are the other hypotheses obvious? Perhaps not…

I would want any analysis theorizing a difference rooted in biological dimorphism to work with sex as a multidimensional distribution, as that's what it is.

If you want to do one on gender, you would go in for self-reported gender, and have 3+ selection options (m/f/o).

If you're going to talk about natural selection resulting in career preference, you should talk sex, not gender.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#666

Post by hellllllllooo »

wpietri wrote: post #646
anm89 wrote: 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…

"Don't discuss politics at work," is a political statement. It rules particular views in bounds and rules others out. Similarly any business ends up making moral choices. It's unavoidable. To act in the world is to have impact. To consciously act is to intend particular impact. Commerce is inherently social; you choose to serve certain people in certain ways, with particular outcomes intended. These choices are inher…

Thank you for writing what I was thinking so eloquently.

Everyone's life is effected by politics and GitLab is making a political decision as to which politics are acceptable to discuss at work. Politics will still be discussed, but only the politics that those deciding deem acceptable and this inherently political.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#667

Post by jfim »

belorn wrote: post #551
jetpks wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women were barely allowed into workplaces in general within the last 50 years and are still fighting biases that have existed for millennia. Fixing the lack of women in tech is a multi-century process, not something that's just knocked out in as little as 15 years. We'd be lucky to start seeing the needle move in such a short amount of time.

This does nothing to explain why 85% of women and 85% of men in Sweden work in gender segregated professions, with gender segregation getting worse for every year. It does nothing to explain why out of 5 professions with 99% or higher gender segregation, 3 is female dominated and 2 is male dominated. It also does not explain why the only university program that ended up single gender a few years ago was female domina…

It might just be that with a social net that one can fall back onto, people pick the careers that they want instead of the careers that pay more?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#668

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

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…

>To make it clear, we should definitely support everyone who is in tech, and make it an inclusive environment, but the continued push for 50/50 isn't going to happen so perhaps its not worth the huge money sink it is.

Not worth the huge money sink to whom? The companies involved? Because the ideologues of identity politics capitalizing on this "shame"-induced economy are making a fortune from it and while they continue to do so, you can expect more of the same.

It will stop of course when the bubble pops, lucrative front-end JS jobs requiring a 3 month "bootcamp" to get into disappear and every remaining IC is stack ranked based on that which is quantitative.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#669

Post by Barrin92 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #372
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…

Why do you think LGBT rights (first item on your list) is something that should be discussed at work ? There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace. Some employees are uncomfortable with discussing politics at work as it may create unnecessary tensions. Those who like debating about politics can always gat…

>There are laws against discrimination and companies have to comply, but I don't see a good reason why this kind of topic should be addressed at the workplace.

because it is entirely unfeasible that any social problem that arises is immediately delegated to a court. workspace problems that are not necessarily criminal are most effectively solved directly where they occur. This requires that discourse at work is allowed so that information can be exchanged freely.

Carrying every conflict into a legal battle because employers don't like the fact that human interaction on occasion results in tension and is messy is quite ridiculous. You might as well start pouring Xanax into the water dispenser to calm the employees.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#670

Post by core-questions »

sgustard wrote: post #169
core-questions wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where we seem to find ourselves today is in a position where if you have very progressive politics, you can say whatever you like - no matter how radical - whereas if you have conservative politics you can't even admit that without any specifics without being thought of as evil. This is how we can get away with saying it's "encouraged" while really making sure any meaningful counter-argument is "forbidden" at the sam…

I work at an oil company in Houston and if I expressed a shred of progressive thought I would be run out of town. Maybe this place is more your speed?

Probably, but what if we both got something that improved our quality of life? I don't want to hear preaching any more than you do. Wouldn't we all get along with our coworkers better if there was less of this in general?
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