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I understand your position. But too often people who have legitimate gripes with society (like you say) are quick to classify legitimate disagreement with an a

I understand your position. But too often people who have legitimate gripes with society (like you say) are quick to classify legitimate disagreement with an attack on their identity. Disagreement over a company's diversity policies (for example) is not inherently an attack on anyone's personhood, but it is frequently interpreted as one, and with great rancor. One definition of power that is sometimes given: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." If the climate around things such as diversity policies effectively suppresses dissent, then the advocates of such policies have real power, whether or not they psychologically perceive it.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
What does that even mean? Of course your job has power over your employment that's tautological. And given how expensive hiring people is there's a market interest in making sure "free thinkers" don't drive entire groups away in their vain attempt to pretend it's the 19th century. If you feel you have a right to bull others and to deny that is to restrict your ability to "dissent"; if you feel that you have the right to spread false information (women aren't welcome in tech, any given race isn't welcome, any given sexuality isn't welcome, etc"; then you should perhaps sit down and remember your company is going to exercise its free speech and kick you too the curb. The cost of giving you a "safe space to dissent" isn't worth reducing the hiring pool. Free market baby, get fucking used to it.
- stale2002 8y ago
  That's fine to believe this, but don't pretend like the person you are responding to is "privileged". That is what the person was arguing against. Yes, a company can fire you for basically any reason, even of it is because you wore a blue shirt or voted for the wrong person. But don't pretend that workers are "privileged" or the people in power in this situation.
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    What Im against is these morons that think they're entitled to a space to excercise their bigotry despite the obvious capital costs of it. It's not a question of privilege it's a question of what is your value system. Do you believe in organizational power of free markets? If so you are by definition for these types of tolerance programs. Corporate social responsibility isn't charity; it's just good business sense. Unless you're a conman preying on fear, bigotry is categorically bad for business.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      The original poster was responding to someone who explicitly was bringing up the ideas of privilege. Example quote from above "If you do not perceive that imbalance, it means you are on the better end of it, and your lack of stand is simply apathy for the status quo." This was the topic that was brought up, and the original poster was responding to this. Like I said, it is perfectly ok for you to not care about the ideas of power and privilege. Although I will say that many people on the left claim to care about these ideas, so it make sense to bring these ideas up when discussing things that happen at large, left-wing companies. But the point that the OP was making is that it is very ironic to bring up these concepts. It is ironic because the suppression of dissent is very real power. It is not a judgment on whether this is right or wrong. It is merely a statement of fact, that quite the opposite to what people claim about "privilege" and power, that if you are afraid of disagreeing with the powers that be, then you are definitely not "privileged".
- dang 8y ago
  > What does that even mean? [...] Free market baby, get fucking used to it. Please don't take HN threads further into the flamewar style. It's possible to disagree without doing that, and on this site, necessary. You needn't look far for good examples: you replied to one, and it was replying to another. Please be like them and not like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aluren 8y ago
>One definition of power that is sometimes given: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." I'm pointing this out because I see no one else did, but that quote is from Kevin Alfred Strom, a neo-Nazi convicted for possession of child pornography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom) and he really meant to convey not-so-subtle antisemitic undertones with it. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but I thought you'd wanted to know so you won't have this pointed out in a more formal context by less charitable people.
- haberman 8y ago
  Appreciate the heads-up. I think it is a legitimate point despite its unsavory origins. But I agree that its origin makes invoking it a poor choice in low-trust discussion.
  - omegaworks 8y ago
    >I think it is a legitimate point despite its unsavory origins. It's actually not. It's dismissive of the lived realities of people marginalized by unchosen structural norms. You can deny that identity has tangible effects, but that doesn't make what you say true. It only serves to demonstrate your blindspot. It is one that is commonly shared by people whose identity is considered the default. Some people that are loudly ignorant, especially those that defend their ignorance vigorously, face consequences in professional settings. As they should. It's a waste of everyone's time and effort.
    - haberman 8y ago
      > Some people that are loudly ignorant, especially those that defend their ignorance vigorously, face consequences in professional settings. Sort of like Galileo did? Sometimes the societal norms of what is considered "ignorant" are wrong. If you haven't come across it, I would highly recommend the book Galileo's Middle Finger. It was written by a lefty who started her career as an activist fighting for the humane treatment of intersex people (a marginalized group). But later in her career she discovered lots of people who were accused of being ignorant had actually been unfairly smeared by people whose accusations didn't stand up to scrutiny.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago

What does that even mean? Of course your job has power over your employment that's tautological. And given how expensive hiring people is there's a market interest in making sure "free thinkers" don't drive entire groups away in their vain attempt to pretend it's the 19th century. If you feel you have a right to bull others and to deny that is to restrict your ability to "dissent"; if you feel that you have the right to spread false information (women aren't welcome in tech, any given race isn't welcome, any given sexuality isn't welcome, etc"; then you should perhaps sit down and remember your company is going to exercise its free speech and kick you too the curb. The cost of giving you a "safe space to dissent" isn't worth reducing the hiring pool. Free market baby, get fucking used to it.

stale2002 8y ago
That's fine to believe this, but don't pretend like the person you are responding to is "privileged". That is what the person was arguing against. Yes, a company can fire you for basically any reason, even of it is because you wore a blue shirt or voted for the wrong person. But don't pretend that workers are "privileged" or the people in power in this situation.
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  What Im against is these morons that think they're entitled to a space to excercise their bigotry despite the obvious capital costs of it. It's not a question of privilege it's a question of what is your value system. Do you believe in organizational power of free markets? If so you are by definition for these types of tolerance programs. Corporate social responsibility isn't charity; it's just good business sense. Unless you're a conman preying on fear, bigotry is categorically bad for business.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    The original poster was responding to someone who explicitly was bringing up the ideas of privilege. Example quote from above "If you do not perceive that imbalance, it means you are on the better end of it, and your lack of stand is simply apathy for the status quo." This was the topic that was brought up, and the original poster was responding to this. Like I said, it is perfectly ok for you to not care about the ideas of power and privilege. Although I will say that many people on the left claim to care about these ideas, so it make sense to bring these ideas up when discussing things that happen at large, left-wing companies. But the point that the OP was making is that it is very ironic to bring up these concepts. It is ironic because the suppression of dissent is very real power. It is not a judgment on whether this is right or wrong. It is merely a statement of fact, that quite the opposite to what people claim about "privilege" and power, that if you are afraid of disagreeing with the powers that be, then you are definitely not "privileged".
dang 8y ago
> What does that even mean? [...] Free market baby, get fucking used to it. Please don't take HN threads further into the flamewar style. It's possible to disagree without doing that, and on this site, necessary. You needn't look far for good examples: you replied to one, and it was replying to another. Please be like them and not like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aluren 8y ago

>One definition of power that is sometimes given: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." I'm pointing this out because I see no one else did, but that quote is from Kevin Alfred Strom, a neo-Nazi convicted for possession of child pornography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom) and he really meant to convey not-so-subtle antisemitic undertones with it. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but I thought you'd wanted to know so you won't have this pointed out in a more formal context by less charitable people.

haberman 8y ago
Appreciate the heads-up. I think it is a legitimate point despite its unsavory origins. But I agree that its origin makes invoking it a poor choice in low-trust discussion.
- omegaworks 8y ago
  >I think it is a legitimate point despite its unsavory origins. It's actually not. It's dismissive of the lived realities of people marginalized by unchosen structural norms. You can deny that identity has tangible effects, but that doesn't make what you say true. It only serves to demonstrate your blindspot. It is one that is commonly shared by people whose identity is considered the default. Some people that are loudly ignorant, especially those that defend their ignorance vigorously, face consequences in professional settings. As they should. It's a waste of everyone's time and effort.
  - haberman 8y ago
    > Some people that are loudly ignorant, especially those that defend their ignorance vigorously, face consequences in professional settings. Sort of like Galileo did? Sometimes the societal norms of what is considered "ignorant" are wrong. If you haven't come across it, I would highly recommend the book Galileo's Middle Finger. It was written by a lefty who started her career as an activist fighting for the humane treatment of intersex people (a marginalized group). But later in her career she discovered lots of people who were accused of being ignorant had actually been unfairly smeared by people whose accusations didn't stand up to scrutiny.