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I am not sure work is the right place to express your opinions on controversial topics. It is different though sharing your thoughts/interest with people you t

by timavr 8y ago

I am not sure work is the right place to express your opinions on controversial topics. It is different though sharing your thoughts/interest with people you trust at work. Also there is assymetry of impact of ideas between two sides. Independent person would probably say that conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around. Like gun debate. If co-worker comes to work and says guns are bad. Ok whatever your opinion man. But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat.

cargo8 8y ago
It's a little bit different if your job is to design and build a product intended to be arbiters of free speech, and the govt is pressuring your industry and company specifically to maybe take a heavier hand in moderating... In that case your job probably largely involves thinking through and talking through these issues with open-minded peers, wherein lies the rub
Turing_Machine 8y ago
> But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. How do you think that "Yo, Marxism is awesome" would be perceived by someone who grew up in a communist slave state? Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century?
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  It's amusing to read Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier in 2018 and learn that 100 years ago bolshevism was in big fashion among the English bourgeois youth, and Lenin was considered one of the greatest men alive. This is even after the revolution and the Red Terror. Time is a flat circle. Either way, I personally don't want legislation to ban people from talking or promoting nazism or leninism. Let bad ideas be defeated in the arena of conversation, I don't need my feelings protected from hearing something I dislike and strongly disagree with.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century? There were no Marxist governments in the 20th Century, and if you believe otherwise you've been duped (perhaps indirectly) by Leninist propaganda.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    As is often the case, the proliferation of modifiers negates the original sense: Marxism-Leninism vs Marxism.
  - Turing_Machine 8y ago
    Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? We have dozens of examples, dude. And the invariable outcome is invariably followed by some apologist like you who claims "that wasn't real Marxism". After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. Sorry, guy. We're not going to let you murder another hundred million people.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.
BadassFractal 8y ago
Exactly, "controversial" is a mostly relative notion, almost always with respect to the local majority opinion.
inetknght 8y ago
> work is the right place to express your opinions on controversial topics. This shuts down all discussion of controversial topics. If you're not allowed to discuss how those controversial topics can impact your work environment and customers then you're running down a very slippery slope of biasing your company against customers who similarly hold controversial viewpoints. > Independent person would probably say that conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around. This is a biased opinion. > for other side this person might be perceived as threat. Controversial topics aren't limited to politics and feeling threatened can go both ways. I happen to own a gun and am pro-second-amendment. I feel threatened by people who are not trained to use guns. What about cars? I feel threatened by people who brag about racing. Or drinking. Or smoking. Or sex. But that's the easy stuff that "everyone" (well, mature people IMO) knows not to talk about at the office. But then there's the other things. The things that relate to work. I definitely feel threatened when a coworker talks about customers in a derogatory manner, especially when it's my boss. Employees can be customers too. I feel threatened when someone at the office talks about how we're increasing the margins by cutting corners somewhere. I have empathy for customers and I don't want our product's quality reduced. If I don't feel my job security would be safe if I spoke up, then my coworker talking about that will make me feel threatened.
- webkike 8y ago
  You feel threatened by people talking about smoking?
  - inetknght 8y ago
    Talking about not so much, but actively participating in yes. I grew up in a Mormon family where smoking was not only taboo but very strongly punished. Even second-hand smoke can cause medical problems. If I can't tell my coworkers that I don't appreciate them smoking -- even outside of the building -- anywhere I can smell it then that's going to cause problems for me.
- etrautmann 8y ago
  > I feel threatened by people who are not trained to use guns. This is a strained and bizarre argument and requires unpacking for me to understand, unless you meant it as hyperbole. I enjoy shooting safely, but I can't imagine feeling threatened by someone's lack of firearms training in an office workplace.
morgtheborg 8y ago
> Independent person would probably say that conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around. I would argue said person isn't actually "independent" then. > this person might be perceived as threat Only by a hysterical person.
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  >Only by a hysterical person. This is incredibly insulting, especially since you've thrown it out curtly with no explanation. While I personally am not threatened by a person voicing their gun enthusiasm at work (giving all benefit of the doubt to the hypothetical gun enthusiast, e.g. it's not an out-of-the-blue zealous fervor), but I can easily imagine a non-hysterical person feeling threatened if they have zero experience with gun owners and zero context with which to personally relate to gun owners. Try to have at least a little understanding of other people whose experiences are not your own.
  - morgtheborg 8y ago
    I was responding to > If co-worker comes to work and says guns are bad. Ok whatever your opinion man. But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. If you genuinely feel like you have been threatened by the above to the extent that your work is now an unsafe place for you so conservatives should keep any chat about their guns to themselves, I'm sorry, but you are having an extreme emotional response disconnected from reason. Aka hysterical. > I can easily imagine a non-hysterical person feeling threatened if they have zero experience with gun owners and zero context with which to personally relate to gun owners Look, I can see how someone might have been brainwashed to find all guns so scary that the concept of someone near them who isn't a police officer having access seems like a direct threat to them...just like I can see someone being so brainwashed as to view all African-Americans as innately dangerous and feeling unsafe working with them. But in both cases I'd claim you are being irrational to an extreme sufficient to call your reaction hysterical.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
supercanuck 8y ago
there is a big difference between, i like to shoot guns in the woods on weekends and gun ranges so i can learn to defend myself and lets arm kindergarten teachers to prevent school shootings the second makes me question your judgement, but that is exactly the sort of discussions going on in politics today
masonic 8y ago
conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around You're saying that conservatives are more open-minded than the other side, then.
rubbingalcohol 8y ago
Though it gets murky when it's standard-fare for your coworkers to have Twitter accounts blasting their extreme leftist ideological beliefs. Or perhaps you take issue with one-sided moderation policy that bans syndicated political cartoonists but consistently allows violent threats against conservatives like Dana Loesch - but bringing up such concerns would get you railroaded out of the company like James Damore. Real-world examples of individuals who have had their careers destroyed by just questioning the moral majority creates a hostile work environment, self-censorship, and ultimately mediocrity as your company blindly alienates potentially half its U.S. consumer-base and decays into irrelevance. That sort of scenario works itself out in the end, so it's fine by me.
jerkstate 8y ago
If someone shares an anti-gun opinion, it could be construed that they do not think people should have a right to effective self-defense, which could also be perceived as a threatening position.

by timavr 8y ago

cargo8 8y ago

It's a little bit different if your job is to design and build a product intended to be arbiters of free speech, and the govt is pressuring your industry and company specifically to maybe take a heavier hand in moderating... In that case your job probably largely involves thinking through and talking through these issues with open-minded peers, wherein lies the rub

Turing_Machine 8y ago

> But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. How do you think that "Yo, Marxism is awesome" would be perceived by someone who grew up in a communist slave state? Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century?

BadassFractal 8y ago
It's amusing to read Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier in 2018 and learn that 100 years ago bolshevism was in big fashion among the English bourgeois youth, and Lenin was considered one of the greatest men alive. This is even after the revolution and the Red Terror. Time is a flat circle. Either way, I personally don't want legislation to ban people from talking or promoting nazism or leninism. Let bad ideas be defeated in the arena of conversation, I don't need my feelings protected from hearing something I dislike and strongly disagree with.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Or even someone familiar with the history of Marxist governments in the 20th Century? There were no Marxist governments in the 20th Century, and if you believe otherwise you've been duped (perhaps indirectly) by Leninist propaganda.
- danharaj 8y ago
  As is often the case, the proliferation of modifiers negates the original sense: Marxism-Leninism vs Marxism.
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  Ah, yes. The old "but that wasn't REAL Marxism" line. So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? We have dozens of examples, dude. And the invariable outcome is invariably followed by some apologist like you who claims "that wasn't real Marxism". After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. Sorry, guy. We're not going to let you murder another hundred million people.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > So tell me, why is it that whenever someone attempts to institute a Marxist government, the invariable outcome is slavery, starvation, and mass murder? No one has ever instituted a government intended to be Marxist, with or without those ends. I'm not even sure there's been a major effort to institute Marxist government, even if it failed to institute a government, since the time of Marx and Engels. Leninism, which rejects key aspects of Marxism (particularly, it's essential prerequisite conditions and it's basic methods) but sells itself as Marxism (hence my line about people believing Marxist governments have exist being dupes of Leninism) has been attempted with the results you describe. The closest thing that has actually been put into practice to Marxism (which still isn't Marxism, differing in roughly the opposite direction but lesser degree than does Leninism) is the modern mixed economy that has displaced the 19th century system Marx named “capitalism” throughout the developed world, which was both shaped by (largely through Marxist influence on Western labor movements) and which incorporates several elements of Marx’s platform and compromises versions of some others elements of that platform, when compared to the 19th Century capitalism it displaced. > After so many attempts, one can only conclude that either, yes, it is "real Marxism" or that "real Marxism" is impossible to implement. The latter is closer to the truth; at least, it seems politically impossible to achieve support for a radical transition to Marxism in a state which had acheived the prerequisite state Marx identifies as essential. While both building class consciousness on some level in the working class and using it as a lever to move the State in a direction closer Marxism is possible (and, indeed, seems to have near-universally occurred in states meeting Marx’s criteria), and Marx seems also to have been accurate in both suggesting that such incremental change would be leveraged by capitalists to forestall revolution and would be precarious and eternally at risk of backsliding spurred by the capitalist class, the revolutionary alternative Marx proposed seems impractical in practice.

BadassFractal 8y ago

Exactly, "controversial" is a mostly relative notion, almost always with respect to the local majority opinion.

inetknght 8y ago

> work is the right place to express your opinions on controversial topics. This shuts down all discussion of controversial topics. If you're not allowed to discuss how those controversial topics can impact your work environment and customers then you're running down a very slippery slope of biasing your company against customers who similarly hold controversial viewpoints. > Independent person would probably say that conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around. This is a biased opinion. > for other side this person might be perceived as threat. Controversial topics aren't limited to politics and feeling threatened can go both ways. I happen to own a gun and am pro-second-amendment. I feel threatened by people who are not trained to use guns. What about cars? I feel threatened by people who brag about racing. Or drinking. Or smoking. Or sex. But that's the easy stuff that "everyone" (well, mature people IMO) knows not to talk about at the office. But then there's the other things. The things that relate to work. I definitely feel threatened when a coworker talks about customers in a derogatory manner, especially when it's my boss. Employees can be customers too. I feel threatened when someone at the office talks about how we're increasing the margins by cutting corners somewhere. I have empathy for customers and I don't want our product's quality reduced. If I don't feel my job security would be safe if I spoke up, then my coworker talking about that will make me feel threatened.

webkike 8y ago
You feel threatened by people talking about smoking?
- inetknght 8y ago
  Talking about not so much, but actively participating in yes. I grew up in a Mormon family where smoking was not only taboo but very strongly punished. Even second-hand smoke can cause medical problems. If I can't tell my coworkers that I don't appreciate them smoking -- even outside of the building -- anywhere I can smell it then that's going to cause problems for me.
etrautmann 8y ago
> I feel threatened by people who are not trained to use guns. This is a strained and bizarre argument and requires unpacking for me to understand, unless you meant it as hyperbole. I enjoy shooting safely, but I can't imagine feeling threatened by someone's lack of firearms training in an office workplace.

morgtheborg 8y ago

> Independent person would probably say that conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around. I would argue said person isn't actually "independent" then. > this person might be perceived as threat Only by a hysterical person.

happytoexplain 8y ago
>Only by a hysterical person. This is incredibly insulting, especially since you've thrown it out curtly with no explanation. While I personally am not threatened by a person voicing their gun enthusiasm at work (giving all benefit of the doubt to the hypothetical gun enthusiast, e.g. it's not an out-of-the-blue zealous fervor), but I can easily imagine a non-hysterical person feeling threatened if they have zero experience with gun owners and zero context with which to personally relate to gun owners. Try to have at least a little understanding of other people whose experiences are not your own.
- morgtheborg 8y ago
  I was responding to > If co-worker comes to work and says guns are bad. Ok whatever your opinion man. But if they come to work and like yo guns are awesome, 2nd amendment bros. I own one, then for other side this person might be perceived as threat. If you genuinely feel like you have been threatened by the above to the extent that your work is now an unsafe place for you so conservatives should keep any chat about their guns to themselves, I'm sorry, but you are having an extreme emotional response disconnected from reason. Aka hysterical. > I can easily imagine a non-hysterical person feeling threatened if they have zero experience with gun owners and zero context with which to personally relate to gun owners Look, I can see how someone might have been brainwashed to find all guns so scary that the concept of someone near them who isn't a police officer having access seems like a direct threat to them...just like I can see someone being so brainwashed as to view all African-Americans as innately dangerous and feeling unsafe working with them. But in both cases I'd claim you are being irrational to an extreme sufficient to call your reaction hysterical.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

supercanuck 8y ago

there is a big difference between, i like to shoot guns in the woods on weekends and gun ranges so i can learn to defend myself and lets arm kindergarten teachers to prevent school shootings the second makes me question your judgement, but that is exactly the sort of discussions going on in politics today

masonic 8y ago

conservative ideas are Perceived to be more controversial by other side then other way around You're saying that conservatives are more open-minded than the other side, then.

rubbingalcohol 8y ago

Though it gets murky when it's standard-fare for your coworkers to have Twitter accounts blasting their extreme leftist ideological beliefs. Or perhaps you take issue with one-sided moderation policy that bans syndicated political cartoonists but consistently allows violent threats against conservatives like Dana Loesch - but bringing up such concerns would get you railroaded out of the company like James Damore. Real-world examples of individuals who have had their careers destroyed by just questioning the moral majority creates a hostile work environment, self-censorship, and ultimately mediocrity as your company blindly alienates potentially half its U.S. consumer-base and decays into irrelevance. That sort of scenario works itself out in the end, so it's fine by me.

jerkstate 8y ago

If someone shares an anti-gun opinion, it could be construed that they do not think people should have a right to effective self-defense, which could also be perceived as a threatening position.