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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

#941

Post by mavhc »

angrygoat wrote: post #846
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.…

A better analogy for Twitter and Facebook is the town square, rather than the phone company. They don't just enable point to point discussion, but broadcast to any and all who will listen. Which is fine, and good, except when algorithms keyed only to engagement cause the noisiest, most provocative and potentially divisive content to be amplified. We have, for a very long time, had laws concerning appropriate behaviou…

This is the actual thing about technology, amplification. One person has 1 voice, but then they buy a megaphone, or say something to get attention online and the algorithms are programmed to say that's good. What's picked to be amplified, or muted, is the issue.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#942

Post by zer0tonin »

dcolkitt wrote: post #852
slg wrote: post #625

Earlier 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. 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…

I don't think the closet ever benefited gay people. Also commerce is probably the furthest you can get from being apolitical so I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#943

Post by V-2 »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #937
ProAm wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I largely agree, history has shown this wont fair well for humanity either. Look at IBM and the Holocaust [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

The flurry of downvotes is telling.

That comment didn't exactly add much value to discussion, given that this exact (and fairly obvious) example is prominently featured in the article, under a headline "Historical precedent".

> If you can see how people might respond to IBM, infamous for providing technology that helped the Nazis in World War II [...]

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#944

Post by afiori »

repolfx wrote: post #922
izacus wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a very far cry from the modern Google where arguing maybe girls find geeky stuff boring gets you fired, where they manipulate ML models to believe the world is some intersectional 'utopia' as part of social engineering programmes, where employees spend huge amounts of time erasing gendered pronouns from source code comments. Huh? Can you link some substantiations to these claims, it seems way bizarre?

Erasing gendered pronouns from comments: no, because that's a story I heard from former colleagues who are still there. Arguing maybe girls find geeky stuff boring: this is what Damore did, but he wrote it much more formally and cited lots of studies. It boiled down to though, "most women find tech boring because they're women". Damore's essay is here: https://firedfortruth.com/2017/08/08/first-blog-post/ Manipulatin…

I want to play devil advocate for a moment and defend a wildly optimistic view of what some googlers might intend to do.

Already a way to debias a model (I know nothing of ML in specific, it is just an overview) would be to have the model explicitly realize that "engineer" need to be assigned a gender in certain situations. So in this sense the correct answer should be to try and understand whether this engineer is a specific human whose gender you should know so not to make wrong assumptions.

Whether this defense applies to this specific case I do not know, my point is that sometimes it is possible to actually partly debias something. The fact that it can be done in the wrong way does not mean it should not be done.

The same way there is a nice middle point between corporate anarcho-capitalism and totalitarian regimes.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#945

Post by afiori »

archi42 wrote: post #315
ajhurliman wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the analogy still stands if the goods/service is a commodity. It's not like $evil_corp will just forego using version control if GitLab doesn't offer it; there are tons of version control offerings. The interesting spot is where you're selling off-the-shelf goods/ services that nobody else can provide. I would say that it's morally wrong to provide those services in that case since it's directly attributable…

So if $villain goes to the hardware store, says he needs a good hammer since $villain is feeling like hitting $someone with it - then the hardware store should sell a hammer? After all, $villain may go to the competing hardware store and get a hammer there, or even build his own hammer.

Here the metaphor breakdown for a very simple reason: crimes are crimes and not crimes are not crimes.

the villain part is irrelevant. If $hero/heroine wants to buy an hammer to smite $villain, the hardware store is in the same situation: protect your safety and call the police.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#946

Post by tanto »

As many here seem to like the idea of not a non political workplace couple quick questions:

- If I work at a workplace which produces a deadly weaponize-able Gas (lets for random reasons call it Zyklon B) should I care for politics or just do my job and provide any customer with my product?

- If I offer storage (e.g. for Cars, Git-Repos, Shoes, ...) should I care if maybe one of my customers is this Gas producing company which needs some storage?

You see where I am getting? There seems to be this trend that politics is some side business which people should only think about when they do either nothing or do it as a job. I don't think Democracies will survive this way.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#947

Post by eadmund »

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…

I suspect very strongly that each of your 'marginalised' groups would have much greater luck discussing politics at works than its opposite. I can't imagine any tech company these days allowing folks to use work time to support the traditional view of marriage, traditional gender roles or old-fashioned racial views (that last, in particular, is completely unimaginable — and that's a really good thing!).

I think the privilege right now belongs to those in those 'marginalised' groups, who have the privilege to advocate for their views.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#948

Post by Majestic121 »

yxhuvud wrote: post #927
Gunax wrote: post #512

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." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use other services (or roll their own) and gitlab can't do anything about that. Neither would it be overreaching for the workers building that product to request a say in how it's used. I think this is the crux of the issue. Anyone is of course free to…

> Facebook control ~90% of social media. Source? That doesn't really match the numbers I've seen. Especially not for younger people.

Remember that Facebook owns Instagram and Whatsapp.

They might not be 90+ everywhere, but they do own a significant amount

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#949

Post by RavingGoat »

prepend wrote: post #618
xenocyon wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: many tech workers want some agency over what they are building and don't want to be forced to work on nefarious applications. I don't seek an outsized claim on society but I do reserve the right to decide what my hands will - or won't - build.

That’s why I like posts like this from GitLab. They are clear what their priorities are so you can choose what to build with your hands. Lots of people don’t care or don’t have time to evaluate the thousands or millions of customers using software. The evaluation never ends so even if you shut off the really bad one, there will be another. Picking a legal limit let’s me focus on other things.

Gitlab is a common whore. They'll do whatever you want as long as you are paying.
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