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There is also another aspect. In theory your personal life and work are separated. Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. But many peop

by thro32 10y ago

There is also another aspect. In theory your personal life and work are separated. Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. But many people (sadly even on HN) think it is ok to fire people, based on their opinions.

jamroom 10y ago
I'm going to guess that a lot of HN does NOT think it is OK to fire people for their opinions - however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite.
- tdkl 10y ago
  I bet most of the people aren't completely in line of "companies beliefs", the only difference is finding this out and broadcasting publicly with modern social media and its witch hunt influence.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    I had a girlfriend at one point who used her mandatory volunteer time at her Christian company to make calls for Planned Parenthood. So proud she stuck to her beliefs despite pressure to do otherwise.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      > mandatory volunteer time Why work at a Christian company if you find their beliefs oppressive? I say this as someone who thinks there is a thin line (a birth canal) between infanticide and a legal abortion. And there's always the option of working at common ground. Instead of picking a point of contention, serve at a food bank. Nobody objects to those.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        I expect you know the obvious answer, because it's the best available compromise. For example, the mandatory volunteer time may not have offended any principles and come with higher pay.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        Because you need to eat?
- thro32 10y ago
  Most companies have no right to any sort of "core beliefs". We are doing business, not church or homeless shelter.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Every company has core values. If not stated otherwise, the core value is profit and reputation for the owners and executives.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- EdSharkey 10y ago
  Skipping past everything before the 'but', hehe ... > however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite. So I can veil and justify my prejudice in a company mission statement? This is busybody-ism run amok. This is institutionalized busybody thinking. We really need some collective soul-searching because great people are being destroyed. How about this, let's stop ruining people for what's going on between their ears. Everyone's got stupid ideas and ugly and complicated thoughts. Get over yourselves, thought police! Employers: hire people for what they can do for you, pay them fairly, and let them live the rest of their dumb lives in peace. If employees are being assholes in the workplace, discipline and/or fire them. If employees are tarnishing your brand by doing things disagreeable to you A) publicly, **AND** B) in your brand's name Then, by all means, fire them and shame them while you're at it. Put out press releases on how ruthless the firing was! Of course, the larger problem is the rest of the culture. There are groups who will retaliate against individuals by naming them and trying to link them to the brand of their employer. It puts the employer in an impossible bind. Brendan Eich and Mozilla spring to mind as a particularly memorable example of this. It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed. The only solution, as distasteful as it sounds to many, is to not let the terrorists win. Mozilla should have kept Eich on, just to spite the SJW's and prevent them from souring civil discourse.
  - gaur 10y ago
    > It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed. 49 people were massacred this year for going to a gay nightclub, but Eich was a victim of terrorism because he was fired? What are you smoking?
    - EdSharkey 10y ago
      Is there a better descriptor for what Eich was put through? I'd like to hear it. Brendan Eich contributed to the Prop 8[1] traditional marriage campaign that the California electorate voted on. It was a constitutional amendment and it passed which, in 2008, was simply stunning. In any case, Eich was shamed retroactively for his contribution. The hate and vitriol I read directed at the man at the time was incredible. If I were him, I would have been more in fear for my life and my family's, much less holding on to my CEO position. I don't know Brendan except hearing heard him speak a bit on youtube on technical topics, maybe he's a braver soul than I am IRL. In any case, "the use of violence or threats of violence in order to coerce, especially for political purposes" is the #1 definition of 'terrorism', which describes what happened with Eich pretty well. Fear is as powerful a weapon of terrorists as bullets or jet planes or pressure cookers are. Is this definition of terrorism and its implications well understood by you, and are you simply resistant to empathizing with someone with different politics than yours? That's all well and good until it's your ox that gets gored. Eich wasn't fired, at least not publicly. He stepped down because the cowards/traitors on the board let him dangle with no support. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  But then people extend the "core beliefs" of the company to whatever they want even if it has nothing to do with what the company does. As much as I disagreed with Brebdan Eich's political positions, I thought it was wrong that he was pushed out of Mozilla because of them. HN is not a single voice but my reading of it at the time was that, contrary to my position, most people thought it was the right thing to do.
Veen 10y ago
I'd put a slightly different spin on that. Instead of saying "personal life and work are separated," I'd say "the public and the private sphere are separated." When you post on Facebook or Twitter, you're publishing content in the public sphere, deliberately. Published ideas are for public consumption and judgement. If you don't want those ideas and opinions to be judged, don't publish them. Talk to your friends and family about them: keep them in the private sphere. There's a perverse modern idea that you don't have an identity unless it's a public identity. You barely exist unless you're seen to exist in Instagram pictures, Facebook posts, and Tweets. Not only don't you exist unless you build a social media identity, but because identity is sacrosanct, whatever you publish must be accepted without reservation and judgment — because it's just you being you. That's bullshit. You have a private identity. You don't have to publish your opinions in the public sphere, and if you do everyone has every right to judge those opinions. If you don't want to be judged, keep it private.
- thro32 10y ago
  Public vs private is irrelevant. There are just bigots who can not tolerate different opinions.
  - Veen 10y ago
    Yes. But that should not be new or surprising information to anyone.
  - evgen 10y ago
    > There are just bigots who can not tolerate different opinions. Nor are they obligated to. To paraphrase, I may defend your right to speak your opinion but I am not required to be your friend or to spare you from any social consequences of your speech. Make no mistake, there has never been a time when unpopular speech did not have consequences for the speaker and if this bothers you then feel free to exercise your right not to speak or select a society that shares your beliefs.
    - thro32 10y ago
      Is "lynch mob" and "getting fired" covered under "social consequences" or under "defend your right to speak"?
tajen 10y ago
> fire people, based on their opinions. Lest we forget: - Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, fired for a donation, - Douglas Crockford, uninvited from NodeVember, the general opinion is that he said something that a woman didn't like, - Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, upon an unproven accusation, - And all people and the 2 colleagues who have been fired in smaller companies, in smaller events, without proof, only based on lynching and without demonstratedly due process to determine what they're guilty about (@mr-kanks from PyCon, I think about you every day I talk with a woman at work).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- 33333333333 10y ago
  - Curtis Yarvin, creator of Urbit, disinvited from presenting at the Strange Loop conference on programming languages after Steve Klabnik and perhaps other participants threatened to withdraw over Yarvin's political blog posts.
  - badsock 10y ago
    Doing something socially objectionable invites social consequences. I bet that Kony 2012 guy got uninvited from speaking engagements too.
    - mreiland 10y ago
      Doesn't mean it's right, it just means people are assholes. Lets we forget, not believing in slavery was socially objectionable not that long ago.
  - prospero 10y ago
    Calling other races well-suited to slavery isn't political, it's hate speech.
    - tajen 10y ago
Alex3917 10y ago
> Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. Keep in mind though that that's just a current fashion, not a law of the universe. You could just as easily make the case that if your religion doesn't matter at work, you should get a new religion (or a new workplace). The only reason our current beliefs are in fashion is basically that the continual development of new technology has made public morality irrelevant. But if we ever stop being able to innovate ourselves our of the hole we're digging then the party's over and we become an islamic republic or whatever.
- mtnygard 10y ago
  It is not a law of the universe, but it is somewhat more than fashion. In California, it is the law. Quoting from http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-employees-removal-of-employers-gaylesbian-pride-month-poster/ http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-em... In 1937, “the California Legislature, recognizing that employers could misuse their economic power to interfere with the political activities of their employees, enacted Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 to protect the employees’ rights.” Labor Code section 1101 provides: “No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: [¶] (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics …. [or] (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.” Labor Code section 1102 provides: “No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” These sections are designed to protect “ ‘the fundamental right of employees in general to engage in political activity without interference by employers.’ ”
  - Retra 10y ago
    ... and the law is the current fashion. It too could change on a wave of unpopularity.
- logmeout 10y ago
  In the US, discrimination is illegal: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/ https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/
gkya 10y ago
I don't want to work with a nazi, or with a racist, or with a fundamentalist zealot. I believe it's absolutely okay to get rid of these people in a company, as work is a social environment, no matter the level of professionalism. And also they may cause harm to the organisations they're part of.
- logmeout 10y ago
  > I believe it's absolutely okay to get rid of these people in a company Once you start thinking like that, it becomes easy to find any way to rationalize firing anyone for any reason.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    Eh, I don't know. I think Nazis are categorically and fundamentally different than, say, anti-vaxxers. I mean, if you don't want to vaccinate your child, fine. I don't agree with it, but I can live with it. If you identify with a group that literally burned people in ovens though? Yeah, I can't live with that, sorry.
    - huehehue 10y ago
      Interesting you compare those two groups where, in the 21st century, an anti-vaxxer is more likely to be responsible for causing a death.
      - enraged_camel 10y ago
        That's a good point. Yeah, don't get me wrong: not vaccinating your child is a very shitty decision, and dangerous both for the child and other children they interact with. Herd immunity and all that. But let's be fair: one major difference between anti-vaxxers and Nazis is that anti-vaxxers are simply misguided and ignorant. The Nazis on the other hand knew exactly what they were doing (exterminating people) and even developed fucked up methodologies for doing it more efficiently. So I stand by my previous assertion that the two groups are categorically and fundamentally different.
aikah 10y ago
As soon as you "shout" something in public, it's not personal anymore. It's true online like in real life. The problem is now you have an audience of potentially millions of people online, which makes things even worse.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
> Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. This is true only if your company has a deliberate no religion or politics position, and can operate like such. There are three things you hire people for: - Doing something specific - Working more general things out - Choosing what the first two do The first is completely apolitical, the second is partly apolitical, the third is completely political. Suggesting that a company is not, in some manner, a political machine is a useful way of shifting the blame for the things it does to the regulatory system and making employees do things they don't agree with.

by thro32 10y ago

jamroom 10y ago

I'm going to guess that a lot of HN does NOT think it is OK to fire people for their opinions - however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite.

tdkl 10y ago
I bet most of the people aren't completely in line of "companies beliefs", the only difference is finding this out and broadcasting publicly with modern social media and its witch hunt influence.
- ethbro 10y ago
  I had a girlfriend at one point who used her mandatory volunteer time at her Christian company to make calls for Planned Parenthood. So proud she stuck to her beliefs despite pressure to do otherwise.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    > mandatory volunteer time Why work at a Christian company if you find their beliefs oppressive? I say this as someone who thinks there is a thin line (a birth canal) between infanticide and a legal abortion. And there's always the option of working at common ground. Instead of picking a point of contention, serve at a food bank. Nobody objects to those.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      I expect you know the obvious answer, because it's the best available compromise. For example, the mandatory volunteer time may not have offended any principles and come with higher pay.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      Because you need to eat?
thro32 10y ago
Most companies have no right to any sort of "core beliefs". We are doing business, not church or homeless shelter.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Every company has core values. If not stated otherwise, the core value is profit and reputation for the owners and executives.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
EdSharkey 10y ago
Skipping past everything before the 'but', hehe ... > however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite. So I can veil and justify my prejudice in a company mission statement? This is busybody-ism run amok. This is institutionalized busybody thinking. We really need some collective soul-searching because great people are being destroyed. How about this, let's stop ruining people for what's going on between their ears. Everyone's got stupid ideas and ugly and complicated thoughts. Get over yourselves, thought police! Employers: hire people for what they can do for you, pay them fairly, and let them live the rest of their dumb lives in peace. If employees are being assholes in the workplace, discipline and/or fire them. If employees are tarnishing your brand by doing things disagreeable to you A) publicly, **AND** B) in your brand's name Then, by all means, fire them and shame them while you're at it. Put out press releases on how ruthless the firing was! Of course, the larger problem is the rest of the culture. There are groups who will retaliate against individuals by naming them and trying to link them to the brand of their employer. It puts the employer in an impossible bind. Brendan Eich and Mozilla spring to mind as a particularly memorable example of this. It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed. The only solution, as distasteful as it sounds to many, is to not let the terrorists win. Mozilla should have kept Eich on, just to spite the SJW's and prevent them from souring civil discourse.
- gaur 10y ago
  > It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed. 49 people were massacred this year for going to a gay nightclub, but Eich was a victim of terrorism because he was fired? What are you smoking?
  - EdSharkey 10y ago
    Is there a better descriptor for what Eich was put through? I'd like to hear it. Brendan Eich contributed to the Prop 8[1] traditional marriage campaign that the California electorate voted on. It was a constitutional amendment and it passed which, in 2008, was simply stunning. In any case, Eich was shamed retroactively for his contribution. The hate and vitriol I read directed at the man at the time was incredible. If I were him, I would have been more in fear for my life and my family's, much less holding on to my CEO position. I don't know Brendan except hearing heard him speak a bit on youtube on technical topics, maybe he's a braver soul than I am IRL. In any case, "the use of violence or threats of violence in order to coerce, especially for political purposes" is the #1 definition of 'terrorism', which describes what happened with Eich pretty well. Fear is as powerful a weapon of terrorists as bullets or jet planes or pressure cookers are. Is this definition of terrorism and its implications well understood by you, and are you simply resistant to empathizing with someone with different politics than yours? That's all well and good until it's your ox that gets gored. Eich wasn't fired, at least not publicly. He stepped down because the cowards/traitors on the board let him dangle with no support. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...
dorfsmay 10y ago
But then people extend the "core beliefs" of the company to whatever they want even if it has nothing to do with what the company does. As much as I disagreed with Brebdan Eich's political positions, I thought it was wrong that he was pushed out of Mozilla because of them. HN is not a single voice but my reading of it at the time was that, contrary to my position, most people thought it was the right thing to do.

Veen 10y ago

I'd put a slightly different spin on that. Instead of saying "personal life and work are separated," I'd say "the public and the private sphere are separated." When you post on Facebook or Twitter, you're publishing content in the public sphere, deliberately. Published ideas are for public consumption and judgement. If you don't want those ideas and opinions to be judged, don't publish them. Talk to your friends and family about them: keep them in the private sphere. There's a perverse modern idea that you don't have an identity unless it's a public identity. You barely exist unless you're seen to exist in Instagram pictures, Facebook posts, and Tweets. Not only don't you exist unless you build a social media identity, but because identity is sacrosanct, whatever you publish must be accepted without reservation and judgment — because it's just you being you. That's bullshit. You have a private identity. You don't have to publish your opinions in the public sphere, and if you do everyone has every right to judge those opinions. If you don't want to be judged, keep it private.

thro32 10y ago
Public vs private is irrelevant. There are just bigots who can not tolerate different opinions.
- Veen 10y ago
  Yes. But that should not be new or surprising information to anyone.
- evgen 10y ago
  > There are just bigots who can not tolerate different opinions. Nor are they obligated to. To paraphrase, I may defend your right to speak your opinion but I am not required to be your friend or to spare you from any social consequences of your speech. Make no mistake, there has never been a time when unpopular speech did not have consequences for the speaker and if this bothers you then feel free to exercise your right not to speak or select a society that shares your beliefs.
  - thro32 10y ago
    Is "lynch mob" and "getting fired" covered under "social consequences" or under "defend your right to speak"?

tajen 10y ago

> fire people, based on their opinions. Lest we forget: - Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, fired for a donation, - Douglas Crockford, uninvited from NodeVember, the general opinion is that he said something that a woman didn't like, - Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, upon an unproven accusation, - And all people and the 2 colleagues who have been fired in smaller companies, in smaller events, without proof, only based on lynching and without demonstratedly due process to determine what they're guilty about (@mr-kanks from PyCon, I think about you every day I talk with a woman at work).

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
33333333333 10y ago
- Curtis Yarvin, creator of Urbit, disinvited from presenting at the Strange Loop conference on programming languages after Steve Klabnik and perhaps other participants threatened to withdraw over Yarvin's political blog posts.
- badsock 10y ago
  Doing something socially objectionable invites social consequences. I bet that Kony 2012 guy got uninvited from speaking engagements too.
  - mreiland 10y ago
    Doesn't mean it's right, it just means people are assholes. Lets we forget, not believing in slavery was socially objectionable not that long ago.
- prospero 10y ago
  Calling other races well-suited to slavery isn't political, it's hate speech.
  - tajen 10y ago

Alex3917 10y ago

> Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. Keep in mind though that that's just a current fashion, not a law of the universe. You could just as easily make the case that if your religion doesn't matter at work, you should get a new religion (or a new workplace). The only reason our current beliefs are in fashion is basically that the continual development of new technology has made public morality irrelevant. But if we ever stop being able to innovate ourselves our of the hole we're digging then the party's over and we become an islamic republic or whatever.

mtnygard 10y ago
It is not a law of the universe, but it is somewhat more than fashion. In California, it is the law. Quoting from http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-employees-removal-of-employers-gaylesbian-pride-month-poster/ http://volokh.com/2013/08/06/lawsuit-over-firing-based-on-em... In 1937, “the California Legislature, recognizing that employers could misuse their economic power to interfere with the political activities of their employees, enacted Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 to protect the employees’ rights.” Labor Code section 1101 provides: “No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy: [¶] (a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics …. [or] (b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.” Labor Code section 1102 provides: “No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” These sections are designed to protect “ ‘the fundamental right of employees in general to engage in political activity without interference by employers.’ ”
- Retra 10y ago
  ... and the law is the current fashion. It too could change on a wave of unpopularity.
logmeout 10y ago
In the US, discrimination is illegal: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/ https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/

gkya 10y ago

I don't want to work with a nazi, or with a racist, or with a fundamentalist zealot. I believe it's absolutely okay to get rid of these people in a company, as work is a social environment, no matter the level of professionalism. And also they may cause harm to the organisations they're part of.

logmeout 10y ago
> I believe it's absolutely okay to get rid of these people in a company Once you start thinking like that, it becomes easy to find any way to rationalize firing anyone for any reason.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Eh, I don't know. I think Nazis are categorically and fundamentally different than, say, anti-vaxxers. I mean, if you don't want to vaccinate your child, fine. I don't agree with it, but I can live with it. If you identify with a group that literally burned people in ovens though? Yeah, I can't live with that, sorry.
  - huehehue 10y ago
    Interesting you compare those two groups where, in the 21st century, an anti-vaxxer is more likely to be responsible for causing a death.
    - enraged_camel 10y ago
      That's a good point. Yeah, don't get me wrong: not vaccinating your child is a very shitty decision, and dangerous both for the child and other children they interact with. Herd immunity and all that. But let's be fair: one major difference between anti-vaxxers and Nazis is that anti-vaxxers are simply misguided and ignorant. The Nazis on the other hand knew exactly what they were doing (exterminating people) and even developed fucked up methodologies for doing it more efficiently. So I stand by my previous assertion that the two groups are categorically and fundamentally different.

aikah 10y ago

As soon as you "shout" something in public, it's not personal anymore. It's true online like in real life. The problem is now you have an audience of potentially millions of people online, which makes things even worse.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

> Your religion or political opinions should not matter at work. This is true only if your company has a deliberate no religion or politics position, and can operate like such. There are three things you hire people for: - Doing something specific - Working more general things out - Choosing what the first two do The first is completely apolitical, the second is partly apolitical, the third is completely political. Suggesting that a company is not, in some manner, a political machine is a useful way of shifting the blame for the things it does to the regulatory system and making employees do things they don't agree with.