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There's nothing wrong with you privately expressing your concern about a project to superiors, and leaving the company if you don't agree. When you protest aga

There's nothing wrong with you privately expressing your concern about a project to superiors, and leaving the company if you don't agree. When you protest against it publicly in the workplace and shout down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you, then we have a problem. This is the difference between escalating concerns vs political activism, regardless of the actual issue at stake.

joshuamorton 7y ago
> shout down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you Isn't this what you're doing now: shouting down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you about the place of political discussion in the workplace? Edit: To rephrase since you missed what I was getting at: you are advocating for institutional support in silencing people who express views with which you disagree in the workplace. That is, views which are "too political" should be forbidden and, if expressed, presumably shouted down or otherwise silenced. If for example, I expressed my disagreement with you that I believe political views are reasonable to express in the workplace, what action would you take?
- manigandham 7y ago
  No, I'm discussing. This isn't a workplace, it's a public internet forum. Nobody is prevented from participating here by my posts. You're free to discuss whatever you want as well. Replying to your edit => A workplace is different than the state. You do not have complete freedom within a corporation, and expression is very different from beliefs. Nobody cares about your beliefs, but your expression will be limited to increase harmony and productivity within a commercial space where you're paid to do work.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    You didn't actually address my question, and I made no mention of the state. I'm going to quote you again: you claimed that > When you protest against it publicly in the workplace and shout down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you, then we have a problem. I'm asking if you think that's generally true. For example, if you actually believe this, you would presumably make no attempt to silence me if I protested something in the workplace, as doing so would be taking exactly the action you object to. Presumably you would internally object to my protesting something, and we both agree that that's alright. But were you to express that concern outwardly, say by asking me to stop, it would be shouting down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you about workplace conduct. And therefore we would have a problem, or more correctly, you would have a problem with yourself. In other words, we encounter a bit of a paradox. How you resolve this paradox is of paramount importance: the value system you use to resolve this paradox becomes the values you use in the workplace. I'm using this to illustrate a point: there isn't a "null" position. Nebulously banning "political" views doesn't work unless you're clear about what makes something political. And people will disagree with you on those things. Its much less painful to ban things based on content (say: cursing or insults) than "how political it is", because the second is just an excuse to let your values implicitly bias the local Overton window without acknowledging that.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      > the second is just an excuse to let your values implicitly bias the local Overton window without acknowledging that I can't speak for the original commenter, but I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that. Banning politics is a difficult and inevitably biased rule. But the alternative seems to be that politics invades every minute of everyone's life, and that's completely intolerable unless you're fortunate enough to precisely align with your local mainstream.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        And that's fine. It's a choice. One I personally disagree with, but at least it's a deliberate choice. But if you make such a deliberate choice you need to be frank about it: you're making a tradeoff between, let's say, tranquility and openness, and favoring tranquility at a cost to people whose views are less mainstream. Or (under an alternate definition of political), you're making the choice to accept without argument the whims of the current government, in other words making company values dictated by the environment instead of by the company itself. This is, again, not inherently wrong, but you should own this and understand that it isn't a morally superior or better position, it's just an arbitrary stance that might make sense for you, but it comes at a cost to others. > but it's miles better than the scenario where politics is allowed to invade every minute of everyone's life. I just want to note that, as someone who works at Google, its very easy to turn politics "off", so to speak. There are mailing lists and group chats I just don't access. I'm privileged enough to be able to do that because there are very few political issues that directly affect me. That isn't true for some of my coworkers. Those who are, to take one example, immigrants are directly affected by "politics" on the daily. And so avoiding discussion or interaction with politcal issues isn't possible for them. The same is true for coworkers who are Muslim, or who have undocumented family members. The political realities are inescapable for them. Asking them not to discuss those issues at work is like asking me not to discuss, say, a parent being hospitalized. They're real issues that affect and weigh on people. Forcing people to keep those things bottled up, especially when the company may be taking action that negatively impacts those people, isn't nice.
        7y ago
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    The premise that commercial spaces should primarily be organized for productivity is a political statement.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      No, it's what businesses are paying employees for. There's nothing political about it, in the context of actual government politics (and not the abstracted everything-is-political viewpoint).

joshuamorton 7y ago

> shout down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you Isn't this what you're doing now: shouting down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you about the place of political discussion in the workplace? Edit: To rephrase since you missed what I was getting at: you are advocating for institutional support in silencing people who express views with which you disagree in the workplace. That is, views which are "too political" should be forbidden and, if expressed, presumably shouted down or otherwise silenced. If for example, I expressed my disagreement with you that I believe political views are reasonable to express in the workplace, what action would you take?

manigandham 7y ago
No, I'm discussing. This isn't a workplace, it's a public internet forum. Nobody is prevented from participating here by my posts. You're free to discuss whatever you want as well. Replying to your edit => A workplace is different than the state. You do not have complete freedom within a corporation, and expression is very different from beliefs. Nobody cares about your beliefs, but your expression will be limited to increase harmony and productivity within a commercial space where you're paid to do work.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  You didn't actually address my question, and I made no mention of the state. I'm going to quote you again: you claimed that > When you protest against it publicly in the workplace and shout down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you, then we have a problem. I'm asking if you think that's generally true. For example, if you actually believe this, you would presumably make no attempt to silence me if I protested something in the workplace, as doing so would be taking exactly the action you object to. Presumably you would internally object to my protesting something, and we both agree that that's alright. But were you to express that concern outwardly, say by asking me to stop, it would be shouting down others for as little as not vehemently agreeing with you about workplace conduct. And therefore we would have a problem, or more correctly, you would have a problem with yourself. In other words, we encounter a bit of a paradox. How you resolve this paradox is of paramount importance: the value system you use to resolve this paradox becomes the values you use in the workplace. I'm using this to illustrate a point: there isn't a "null" position. Nebulously banning "political" views doesn't work unless you're clear about what makes something political. And people will disagree with you on those things. Its much less painful to ban things based on content (say: cursing or insults) than "how political it is", because the second is just an excuse to let your values implicitly bias the local Overton window without acknowledging that.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    > the second is just an excuse to let your values implicitly bias the local Overton window without acknowledging that I can't speak for the original commenter, but I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that. Banning politics is a difficult and inevitably biased rule. But the alternative seems to be that politics invades every minute of everyone's life, and that's completely intolerable unless you're fortunate enough to precisely align with your local mainstream.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      And that's fine. It's a choice. One I personally disagree with, but at least it's a deliberate choice. But if you make such a deliberate choice you need to be frank about it: you're making a tradeoff between, let's say, tranquility and openness, and favoring tranquility at a cost to people whose views are less mainstream. Or (under an alternate definition of political), you're making the choice to accept without argument the whims of the current government, in other words making company values dictated by the environment instead of by the company itself. This is, again, not inherently wrong, but you should own this and understand that it isn't a morally superior or better position, it's just an arbitrary stance that might make sense for you, but it comes at a cost to others. > but it's miles better than the scenario where politics is allowed to invade every minute of everyone's life. I just want to note that, as someone who works at Google, its very easy to turn politics "off", so to speak. There are mailing lists and group chats I just don't access. I'm privileged enough to be able to do that because there are very few political issues that directly affect me. That isn't true for some of my coworkers. Those who are, to take one example, immigrants are directly affected by "politics" on the daily. And so avoiding discussion or interaction with politcal issues isn't possible for them. The same is true for coworkers who are Muslim, or who have undocumented family members. The political realities are inescapable for them. Asking them not to discuss those issues at work is like asking me not to discuss, say, a parent being hospitalized. They're real issues that affect and weigh on people. Forcing people to keep those things bottled up, especially when the company may be taking action that negatively impacts those people, isn't nice.
      - 7y ago
- maxerickson 7y ago
  The premise that commercial spaces should primarily be organized for productivity is a political statement.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    No, it's what businesses are paying employees for. There's nothing political about it, in the context of actual government politics (and not the abstracted everything-is-political viewpoint).