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The health of democracy requires that individuals be able to speak their mind and advocate their beliefs. This doesn't work if their livelihood is controlled b

The health of democracy requires that individuals be able to speak their mind and advocate their beliefs. This doesn't work if their livelihood is controlled by a group of hyper-intolerant political totalitarians. What GitHub is doing is giving individuals rooms to breathe, think, and live. It's preventing the rule of the intolerant minority, the forced homogenization of thought and suppression of dissent. We banned these things from the government long ago; this is a good step towards reducing the power of non-governmental power centers in corporations to coerce speech and thought of people around them. As a free-thinking person this would make me much more likely to want to work for GH. At a place like Google I know I'd have to be deeply closeted as others flagrantly denigrate my identity and ideas around me. Here at least everyone can be closeted together, and live in a pluralistic way with different beliefs alongside each other. This is how we suppress constant political conflict. You just aren't allowed to go after people for who they are or what they believe; we accept differences. And reducing political speech at work helps with that.

kova12 7y ago
At my place of work, when I brought up my opinions on diversity/inclusion/gender neutral speech, I was verbally bullied, and resent this still, after 3 years of working there. Talking politics at work is not democracy, because people with dissenting opinions get silenced by belligerent activists. I applaud gitlab for refusing to be arbiter of morals
keiferski 7y ago
Not sure if/what Github is doing, but I think you meant Gitlab.
Nullabillity 7y ago
> The health of democracy requires that individuals be able to speak their mind and advocate their beliefs. Exactly. > This doesn't work if their livelihood is controlled by a group of hyper-intolerant political totalitarians. Exactly. Hence why we need to acknowledge the right to speak your mind. > a place like Google I know I'd have to be deeply closeted as others flagrantly denigrate my identity and ideas around me. The Google case is interesting. Maven was pretty equivalent to a peaceful demonstration. Management had one opinion, (many) employees had ethical objections and eventually got their way. Damore's case was.. messier, and more relevant to your point. Then again, this policy would just subject everyone to the same thing, while sacrifing the previous benefits. And it's all ultimately enforced by humans anyway, so if anything I'd expect it to lead to further polarization. > Here at least everyone can be closeted together, and live in a pluralistic way with different beliefs alongside each other. Many decisions don't have a neutral option. This policy just means that you won't have any say once those crossroads become relevant.
lovich 7y ago
>It's preventing the rule of the intolerant minority... If a majority want to discuss politics and political change, isn't this just an intolerant majority enforcing their politics on everyone? Unless someone is the type of person who would never advocate for any change no matter what happened to them, from being made King to being made a slave, then they aren't actually apolitical. Everyone who doesn't want to discuss politics or thinks they aren't political are just saying that the current political status quo fits their views.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Politics isn't an atomic unit. It's perfectly normal - and arguably the default state - to be apolitical on many if not most issues.
  - lovich 7y ago
    The default state is still a state, its not a null option. You wouldn't be apolitical if the current politics said your parents had to be executed when they hit 50 and your children had to be turned over to the state so they could best determine their use, would you? That's a hyperbolic statement, but the intent is to show that being "apolitical" about current politics has no distinction between agreeing with the current politics. If you start telling people they can't discuss their politics because "we want to be uninvolved in politics" what you are really saying is, "My politics are in charge and the status quo. Your opinion needs to be silenced"
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Your hyperbolical example notwithstanding, I disagree. Being apolitical isn't about promoting status quo, it's about being indifferent to the status quo and the whole space of adjacent options. If I'm apolitical about issue X, it doesn't mean I'm a happy supporter of current state of X. It means I don't care whether it stays the way it is, or changes to any of the possible alternative states that are within the Overton window around X. To use a clarifying analogy: if there's a C++ project in the company, and somebody asks me for the opinion about whether to rewrite it in Java, and I say "I don't care, I'm indifferent about this issue", it doesn't mean I support the project staying as is. It means literally what I said - go ahead and rewrite it in Java, or Python, or COBOL. Whatever, I just don't care. This is what being apolitical about an issue means. And back to politics - I have a right to care or not care about whatever I please. You can try to convince me to care about some thing you care about, but you have no right to force me to care, and trying to do it makes me only want to oppose you out of spite. The "apolitical means just supporting status quo" meme is essentially a manipulative attempt at forcing people to care about something they don't, a rehash of the old "if you're not with us, you're against us".

kova12 7y ago

At my place of work, when I brought up my opinions on diversity/inclusion/gender neutral speech, I was verbally bullied, and resent this still, after 3 years of working there. Talking politics at work is not democracy, because people with dissenting opinions get silenced by belligerent activists. I applaud gitlab for refusing to be arbiter of morals

keiferski 7y ago

Not sure if/what Github is doing, but I think you meant Gitlab.

Nullabillity 7y ago

> The health of democracy requires that individuals be able to speak their mind and advocate their beliefs. Exactly. > This doesn't work if their livelihood is controlled by a group of hyper-intolerant political totalitarians. Exactly. Hence why we need to acknowledge the right to speak your mind. > a place like Google I know I'd have to be deeply closeted as others flagrantly denigrate my identity and ideas around me. The Google case is interesting. Maven was pretty equivalent to a peaceful demonstration. Management had one opinion, (many) employees had ethical objections and eventually got their way. Damore's case was.. messier, and more relevant to your point. Then again, this policy would just subject everyone to the same thing, while sacrifing the previous benefits. And it's all ultimately enforced by humans anyway, so if anything I'd expect it to lead to further polarization. > Here at least everyone can be closeted together, and live in a pluralistic way with different beliefs alongside each other. Many decisions don't have a neutral option. This policy just means that you won't have any say once those crossroads become relevant.

lovich 7y ago

>It's preventing the rule of the intolerant minority... If a majority want to discuss politics and political change, isn't this just an intolerant majority enforcing their politics on everyone? Unless someone is the type of person who would never advocate for any change no matter what happened to them, from being made King to being made a slave, then they aren't actually apolitical. Everyone who doesn't want to discuss politics or thinks they aren't political are just saying that the current political status quo fits their views.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Politics isn't an atomic unit. It's perfectly normal - and arguably the default state - to be apolitical on many if not most issues.
- lovich 7y ago
  The default state is still a state, its not a null option. You wouldn't be apolitical if the current politics said your parents had to be executed when they hit 50 and your children had to be turned over to the state so they could best determine their use, would you? That's a hyperbolic statement, but the intent is to show that being "apolitical" about current politics has no distinction between agreeing with the current politics. If you start telling people they can't discuss their politics because "we want to be uninvolved in politics" what you are really saying is, "My politics are in charge and the status quo. Your opinion needs to be silenced"
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Your hyperbolical example notwithstanding, I disagree. Being apolitical isn't about promoting status quo, it's about being indifferent to the status quo and the whole space of adjacent options. If I'm apolitical about issue X, it doesn't mean I'm a happy supporter of current state of X. It means I don't care whether it stays the way it is, or changes to any of the possible alternative states that are within the Overton window around X. To use a clarifying analogy: if there's a C++ project in the company, and somebody asks me for the opinion about whether to rewrite it in Java, and I say "I don't care, I'm indifferent about this issue", it doesn't mean I support the project staying as is. It means literally what I said - go ahead and rewrite it in Java, or Python, or COBOL. Whatever, I just don't care. This is what being apolitical about an issue means. And back to politics - I have a right to care or not care about whatever I please. You can try to convince me to care about some thing you care about, but you have no right to force me to care, and trying to do it makes me only want to oppose you out of spite. The "apolitical means just supporting status quo" meme is essentially a manipulative attempt at forcing people to care about something they don't, a rehash of the old "if you're not with us, you're against us".