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Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

economist.com

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Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#671

Post by nearbuy »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #581
imgabe wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd need to convince workers to not believe that someone who says sexist stuff in a book is going to cause a problem for them. No. A million times no. If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is under any obligation to preemptively address things someone imagines might happen based on their misi…

> If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee. I don't believe this at all, and more importantly, the way you've phrased your second paragraph, I don't think you really believe it all, either. That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee…

> But what if the employee had been in the KKK, and had argued for white supremacy, and that other races were lazy and poor workers? Would you still think an employer would be out of bounds for firing that employee?

I'm going to go in a different direction here and say maybe we shouldn't fire former KKK members if they aren't causing problems at work.

Look, these people need to eat. Either they work somewhere, or they get welfare. At least with the former they're doing something productive with their time other than... whatever a white supremacist might do with their free time.

Also, if we're firing former KKK members, we're not really leaving them a path towards deradicalization. If they can't integrate with society and get a normal job even if they renounce the KKK, then they have a strong disincentive to leave their hateful community.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#672

Post by hervature »

furyofantares wrote: post #448
smegger001 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the one that gets me is adding race to emoji. they all used to be 'Simpsons yellow', a skin tone not found in any ethnic or racial group, and as such not representing or excluding any group but now we have black white and other various skin tones for our happy-faces. WHY? Does black happy face mean something different than white happy face isn't happiness universal? why bring race into something that was simply meant…

I perceive the cartoon yellow emojis to be white, an alternative interpretation never occurred to me at all. The first time a black coworker gave a black thumbs-up reaction on slack, I noticed I didn't want to +1 it. I didn't identify with it, it didn't feel like it was coming from me. This was a strong reaction and totally unexpected, and it was a "holy shit" moment as well, because I suddenly imagined how excluded…

There’s a lot wrapped into this comment. Did you perceive yellow to be white because it is the default and you are white? I say that because of your realization you had. I assume that some people felt excluded because of their preconceived notion that the Simpsons are white (with good reason) but also that others (perhaps younger people who may not have seen the show) would follow the same default->my skin color connection.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#674

Post by rimliu »

ir123 wrote: post #413
ThinkBeat wrote: post #371

One part of the article: This is about a guy who wrote a book on his own time, published it outside of work. Someone did not like some parts of the book and the guy had to quit his job? There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. I write fictional stories in my spare time (never at work), I enjoy doing it. Some people enjoy reading them (I can't figure out why) It is a sad day for a Democracy when I…

>There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. That's where you are wrong. He wrote some things he genuinely believed in, and its reasonable to assume that his actions will follow similar lines. Would I want a self proclaimed nazi to work with me? Hell no. Would I want a misogynist to work with me? No.

It is not reasonable to assume. I may have different views about some traditions and customs but I may also understand that my views are not shared/accepted and act by the accepted norms even if I think they should change. "When in Rome…". Thoughtcrime moving from fiction to reality looks very scary.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#675

Post by rimliu »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #166
moomin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s well worth reading up on the details of the Basecamp disaster. At every point in the process, it was about work. How people behaved at work, how clients were treated, how people reacted to feedback, how information was communicated. It may have been “politics” but it was in no way separable from Basecamp‘s core business.

Yep. The story of Basecamp is a story of how the extreme-right is able to successfully tar any progress - or, frankly, any lack of regress - as "politics", and therefore something that belongs in a box somewhere else, to be addressed at some other time. When what you want is the status quo, you can always look like the great reconciler by saying "this isn't the time for this conversation", because you win by default.

When you are extremely to the left everything else is to the right, right?

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#676

Post by kortilla »

hypertexthero wrote: post #284
eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

> “The proximity of his workplace and his home is convenient, but there is a serious political motivation underlying it, too. When Steidl was a teen-ager, he spent several weeks volunteering at Auschwitz, clearing paths for visitors and sleeping in a former barracks. His father had served in the German Army, and Steidl participated in a program that had been established, he said, to show young Germans “what the paren…

> Normally, when you have a business and you produce something industrial, you have the plant somewhere and it makes a lot of dirt, and poison, and noise, and destroys the environment.

That’s... not how industry works anymore. The reason you don’t want to live in an industrial park is because they are bright, loud, and take up a ton of space so they destroy walkability.

To the larger point though. It’s a bit daft to compare not talking about politics to shooting Jews. The German guards most certainly discussed what they were doing and felt that it was the right thing.

If we’re going for melodramatic comparisons, political echo chambers in the workplace lead to the type of groupthink that result in real gas chambers.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#677

Post by [deleted] »

baryphonic wrote: post #449

> Coinbase and Basecamp, which each lost 60 employees after their bosses changed the rules, have apparently been inundated with applications from people wanting to work for politics-free firms. Basecamp lost 20 employees. 60 would be nearly their entire workforce. Coinbase did indeed lose 60 people out of around 1200 at the time.[0] [0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-10-08...

[deleted]

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#678

Post by sjaak »

I just listened to a conversation where Sam Harris paints a bleak picture after having spoken with leaders in tech.

Sam Harris (SH):

I was recently at a meeting of very connected people in tech and media. I won't name anyone but they are people who are or were running some of the biggest companies. These are people with massive influence and are on the same page with everything we've said here. But when told that they really should just present a united front here and not tolerate these mutinies of their woke employees. So the example I gave in this meeting is ... (Sam goes over the situation of Nicholas Christakis at Yale, omitted for brevity) ... So I floated that example to these captains of industry, and said at what point do your companies just hold the line? And say: if you feel that way go work somewhere else. And everyone in the room agreed that that was not going to happen, that there was no way that was going to happen.

Jesse Singal (JS):

Just because of the backlash you mean?

SH:

Yeah that it has gone too far, it's too scary, there is too much money to lose. It went over like a lead balloon, it was a complete non-starter. I kept pushing it, the people in this room literally know everybody, you could have a star chamber meeting where everyone agreed to be on the same page here, so that the mutineers from Google couldn't just jump over to Amazon or Facebook or Apple. You could literally get everyone to agree to just wake up simultaneously. They said: there's no way it's going to happen. It's over. It was an incredibly bleak picture coming from people who either are at the top or were at the top of some of the biggest businesses in tech and media. Which suggested to me that the situation is worse than I thought, not better.

The above is a partial transcript of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18mvHPN9mY from 36:55 forward.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#679

Post by refurb »

Huggernaut wrote: post #624
refurb wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statements come across as paranoia and looking for a problem where one likely doesn’t exist. As a white guy should I examine every interaction to see if there are racial or gender undertones? If my African American boss tells me not to be late, is it because I’m white? Or my female boss says my work is subpar, is it because I’m a man? No, that’s silly without evidence. And Martinez’s statement was: 1) fiction, 2…

It might be silly without evidence. The threshold for silliness would become a lot lower if there were a history of systemic problems and extensive evidence of similar scenarios in the present.

“Extensive evidence of similar scenarios”?

So if in another company a man discriminated against a woman, it increases the probability that the same thing is happening to the OP?

That sounds quite sexist actually. You’re basically stereotyping men based on a few bad actors.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#680

Post by mikojan »

eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

> Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work?

You spent most of your waking hours at work. The slave mentality required to basically turn off your moral compass while you are there (for 8+ hours) - that's mind bending to me

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