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> And it sure sounds like you're mixing that up with "deviating even slightly from the orthodoxy". You're just proving my point with your insinuation that when

> And it sure sounds like you're mixing that up with "deviating even slightly from the orthodoxy". You're just proving my point with your insinuation that when I explain why some people might not be comfortable sharing their political views in their workplace that I am somehow condoning whatever negative political ideology you disagree with. I have said absolutely nothing of my own politics.

eropple 9y ago
Qui tacet consentire videtur. You're up on your Latin, I assume. And your history, the history that gives you grounds to make these sweeping (and they are sweeping) statements you're making about the nature of work and society and how very apolitical one should be there. This stuff was, after all, figured out thousands of years ago. Shame we keep thinking it's all so novel, but, yanno. Anyway, for those less up on these things: it's been settled in political spheres for millenia that silence, when you can speak and choose not to, is assent--is support of the status quo. And the status quo is profoundly fucked for a whole lot of people, notably a whole lot of people I care about. Ennobling that silence, and that support, because of fear of mustachio-twirling nonexistent entities? Sorry, my dude, but I know where your car is parked.
- jakebasile 9y ago
  > Sorry, my dude, but I know where your car is parked. You don't know anything about me. I think I'm actually a pretty alright guy, and I treat everyone with as much respect as they treat me. It's wonderful that on a post about why some people are afraid to bring politics to work, I'm being witchhunted now because I answered, in a completely non-partisan way, why that might be. I regret even making my post. Discourse is impossible anymore.
  - eropple 9y ago
    You are not being witch-hunted, my dramatic dude, you are being argued with. There are no torches. There are no pitchforks. But let's be crystal clear: you are not aiming to have "discourse". If it were discourse, you'd, like, actually try to respond to the thrust of what I was saying, instead of rending your shirt and getting all "oh, a witch-hunt, I hope I'm not made of wood!" at a little bit of conversation. And I in turn would respond to your points, and maybe somebody here might learn something. (Maybe even me!) But nah. You gotta get down from that cross you climbed on, though. Nobody brought nails for you. To address your self-characterization, even the notion of treating "everyone with as much respect as they treat [you]" is a cop-out. What about how they treat the people around you? See Damore, to whom you could, by your own characterisation (assuming you're male; apologies if not, but "Jake" is pretty indicative), be totally okay with--because it's just all the women at the company he's shitting on. But not you. It should be obvious, I trust, that's not how decency works. And that scales to a maxim: "attacks on those weaker than us are attacks on us." (That's Maciej's entire thing, by the way.) And it's why you cannot ever be apolitical "because it's work" without fundamentally endorsing bad, bad stuff. You didn't ask for that responsibility, but neither did I. And yet, we own it, and it is up to us to be as good and decent with the burden as we can be.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    What's happening here isn't "witch hunting," it's discussion on a forum. You may be uncomfortable being questioned or critiqued, but lamentably that is par for the course when posting to a discussion forum. There may also be fora where what you say isn't called into question; this, I don't think, is one of them. Discourse is certainly possible.
  - Tyrek 9y ago
    I think that there are two lines here that are easy to conflate. 1) That the golden rule "treat others as you would like to be treated" is sufficient to make you A Good Person, or at least not complicit in any sort of -ism. 2) That, as (assumption here) a member of the ethnic/cultural majority in tech, there's some obligation to speak up for those who may not be able to do so themselves - the social dynamics are different when a member of the 'in' group calls the group out on exclusionary behavior, as opposed to when an 'out' group-er does so. On some level, this is a cultural divide, and at least from my perspective, we're perhaps realizing that the first line is insufficient - plenty of repugnant norms and behaviors have been implicitly approved by mainstream society despite everyone conforming to the 'golden rule'.
- sctb 9y ago
  You need to fix how you address other community members. The guidelines ask us to comment civilly and substantively, and what you're doing here is rhetorical bullying. Don't you want us to have thoughtful and insightful conversations about this? Stop sabotaging it.

eropple 9y ago

Qui tacet consentire videtur. You're up on your Latin, I assume. And your history, the history that gives you grounds to make these sweeping (and they are sweeping) statements you're making about the nature of work and society and how very apolitical one should be there. This stuff was, after all, figured out thousands of years ago. Shame we keep thinking it's all so novel, but, yanno. Anyway, for those less up on these things: it's been settled in political spheres for millenia that silence, when you can speak and choose not to, is assent--is support of the status quo. And the status quo is profoundly fucked for a whole lot of people, notably a whole lot of people I care about. Ennobling that silence, and that support, because of fear of mustachio-twirling nonexistent entities? Sorry, my dude, but I know where your car is parked.

jakebasile 9y ago
> Sorry, my dude, but I know where your car is parked. You don't know anything about me. I think I'm actually a pretty alright guy, and I treat everyone with as much respect as they treat me. It's wonderful that on a post about why some people are afraid to bring politics to work, I'm being witchhunted now because I answered, in a completely non-partisan way, why that might be. I regret even making my post. Discourse is impossible anymore.
- eropple 9y ago
  You are not being witch-hunted, my dramatic dude, you are being argued with. There are no torches. There are no pitchforks. But let's be crystal clear: you are not aiming to have "discourse". If it were discourse, you'd, like, actually try to respond to the thrust of what I was saying, instead of rending your shirt and getting all "oh, a witch-hunt, I hope I'm not made of wood!" at a little bit of conversation. And I in turn would respond to your points, and maybe somebody here might learn something. (Maybe even me!) But nah. You gotta get down from that cross you climbed on, though. Nobody brought nails for you. To address your self-characterization, even the notion of treating "everyone with as much respect as they treat [you]" is a cop-out. What about how they treat the people around you? See Damore, to whom you could, by your own characterisation (assuming you're male; apologies if not, but "Jake" is pretty indicative), be totally okay with--because it's just all the women at the company he's shitting on. But not you. It should be obvious, I trust, that's not how decency works. And that scales to a maxim: "attacks on those weaker than us are attacks on us." (That's Maciej's entire thing, by the way.) And it's why you cannot ever be apolitical "because it's work" without fundamentally endorsing bad, bad stuff. You didn't ask for that responsibility, but neither did I. And yet, we own it, and it is up to us to be as good and decent with the burden as we can be.
- Frondo 9y ago
  What's happening here isn't "witch hunting," it's discussion on a forum. You may be uncomfortable being questioned or critiqued, but lamentably that is par for the course when posting to a discussion forum. There may also be fora where what you say isn't called into question; this, I don't think, is one of them. Discourse is certainly possible.
- Tyrek 9y ago
  I think that there are two lines here that are easy to conflate. 1) That the golden rule "treat others as you would like to be treated" is sufficient to make you A Good Person, or at least not complicit in any sort of -ism. 2) That, as (assumption here) a member of the ethnic/cultural majority in tech, there's some obligation to speak up for those who may not be able to do so themselves - the social dynamics are different when a member of the 'in' group calls the group out on exclusionary behavior, as opposed to when an 'out' group-er does so. On some level, this is a cultural divide, and at least from my perspective, we're perhaps realizing that the first line is insufficient - plenty of repugnant norms and behaviors have been implicitly approved by mainstream society despite everyone conforming to the 'golden rule'.
sctb 9y ago
You need to fix how you address other community members. The guidelines ask us to comment civilly and substantively, and what you're doing here is rhetorical bullying. Don't you want us to have thoughtful and insightful conversations about this? Stop sabotaging it.