It's much better than Apple not hiring people based on their political views expressed online.
Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#852Earlier quoted context omitted.
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? 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 the discrimination laws as they are currently setup in the US do not protect LGBTQ folks in the way they protect others. For example, in many states p…
If you're in an area where discrimination against LGBT people is still widespread, then keeping politics out of the office most likely benefits LGBT workers.
In San Francisco, almost everyone expressing a political opinion will support gay rights. In rural Mississippi, many of those workers will be bringing out their anti-gay inflammatory baggage when discussing politics. I'm virtually certain that far more anti-LGBT vitriol occurs within political discussions than the average non-political conversation.
This isn't unusual either. Throughout history oppressed groups have very frequently found refuge in the apolitical world of commerce. Just look at the history of Jews in Europe. Even when surrounded by a bigoted culture, trade and business ties encouraged tolerance and cooperation. The worse periods always tended to be the points where some ruler decided that politics all of a sudden needed to be injected into every sphere of life. Just look at the Spanish Inquisition or the Nuremberg Laws.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#853Earlier 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…
> I think it's fair to question whether 50/50 should be the goal. There's a very strong inverse correlation between a country's gender equality and female representation in STEM. I.e. countries like Algeria and the UAE have much higher female participation in tech than countries like Sweden and the Netherlands. That doesn't necessarily mean that women in tech don't face discrimination or harassment. But it strongly s…
I think that in Algeria and the UAE if you have spent the amount of money it takes to get a STEM education you don't divert into a different field even if the conditions are difficult, in the developed world the calculations are quite different.
This is something I can attest to personally to a certain extent.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#854Earlier 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…
> I think it's fair to question whether 50/50 should be the goal. There's a very strong inverse correlation between a country's gender equality and female representation in STEM. I.e. countries like Algeria and the UAE have much higher female participation in tech than countries like Sweden and the Netherlands. That doesn't necessarily mean that women in tech don't face discrimination or harassment. But it strongly s…
> But it strongly suggests that discrimination isn't the primary driver of female under-representation in the industry.
I don't see that it does. It's entirely possible that in less egalitarian countries, women are just less likely to leave tech on account of discrimination or harassment. I can think of several reasons why this might be the case:
- Women in poorer countries might be more likely to endure mistreatment for financial reasons.
- Women there might just be more accustomed to mistreatment.
- Tech might be less hostile to women relative to other fields in those countries. Eg. in Western countries, it's "normal" for women to become teachers, but somewhat less normal for women to become programmers. In more misogynistic countries, it's considered abnormal for women to be teachers or programmers, so there would be less to differentiate the options.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#855Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question: why do you think work shouldn't be about discussing the issues that matter? Why dance around the issues?
Behind your question seems to be the idea that all places should be places for discussing the "ideas that matter". I don't think that is correct. Work isn't a debating society. It isn't part of a political campaign. It's a place for efficiently producing things that people want. If it fails at that, society suffers, even if some really good debates happen. We have other places for those debates; we don't have other p…
Work isn't a debating society but it is part of larger society, if we all go to work building gas chambers without any willingness to discuss the political implications of having all these damn gas chambers around, well..
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#856Without 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…
Because tech culture has skewed so insanely towards the authoritarian left that any challenge to the orthodoxy your post suggests is immediately weaponized. There is simply no way to honestly discuss the points you bring up without putting one's reputation and eventually career in danger. The Damore memo is a perfect example of this. The only safe thing to do in our culture right now is virtue signal and nod along wi…
tech culture has skewed
so insanely towards the
authoritarian leftRe: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#857Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive. The reason they are so divisive is because the loud people fall into two categories: 1) people who loudly and constantly complain about these issues and for whom no amount of improvement is enough, and 2) people who think all these problems are greatly exaggerated, part of the liberal culture wars, and find it extremely annoying that anyone would bring it…
>The "silent majority" in these issues are people who say "yeah, sure, it seems fair to allow gay marriage, why not"... For a very long time this was NOT the majority opinion despite some brave tech companies imposing policies that prevented LGBT discrimination. Keep in mind too that many states in which tech companies do business still (with the support of the majority) legalize discrimination of LGBT in hiring, hou…
Of course. Every old idea was new once, and that is the role of the activist and ideologue: to introduce new ideas for public assessment.
But these people would do well to remember that the bulk of the public they are trying to convince are not ideologues as well.
The well mannered majority may not know best but it is what is ultimately making the decisions.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#858I 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…
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.…
Problem is that is only a carrier creates a barrier to monetize the platform through ads. Nobody with a serious brand doesn't want to see ads next to nazi propaganda and some kinky furry porn.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#859Earlier 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…
I've heard this hypothesis a lot, but there's something that bothers me about it. If you've ever been passionate about something, something that's hard and takes a lot of effort and practice to become good at, would you really let microaggressions stop you from doing that thing? I mean, being a programmer is not exactly a high status thing for white males either. If I tell people I'm a programmer, I generally am comp…
> If you've ever been passionate about something, something that's hard and takes a lot of effort and practice to become good at, would you really let microaggressions stop you from doing that thing?
Yes, actually, people do this all the time. They find new things to be passionate about if being passionate about something is too painful.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#860In short, STFU SJW! Awesome.