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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 whatev

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.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      But I think your framing is backwards here. * Banning politics from the workplace is a huge benefit to people whose views are less mainstream. In the presence of politics, people with non-mainstream views have to either lie about what they think or live under a constant cloud of controversy. * Banning politics from the workplace is the only way to keep your values independent of the political environment. If politics are allowed, you constantly have to monitor the political landscape to make sure following your company values won't make your employees rebel. * Your analogy does hold, and it would be unreasonable to have a rule where I'll be punished for chatting in the breakroom about how my cousin might be deported. But it would also be unreasonable for me to interrupt meetings with demands that the company must cancel its medical plan, because my dad has the same insurance and I don't think they're treating him right. More broadly, I don't think anyone actually wants or would benefit from politics in general in the workplace. The only people I've seen argue for it are confident that their politics will be popular, and that all political views they find offensive will continue to be forbidden.
- manigandham 7y ago
  1) Surely you can see the difference between topics? Politics are not relevant to work. Office policies are. You can discuss and protest the latter if you want, but not the former. I'm sure you don't discuss porn habits and drug usage with your coworkers, do you? But of course it's fine to discuss working from home or new laptops. There is no paradox here. 2) I would prefer any feedback and protests be in private when are relevant to the company. You don't make a fuss and nobody else does either, so we can all work in peace and quiet. Most companies implement these rules for the sake of everyone. 3) "unless you're clear about what makes something political." This is exceedingly clear for the vast majority of people, except the activists who are making the fuss.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    > Office policies are Perfect, so questions of what companies we contract with, how we do hiring and diversity, and what bathrooms people are allowed to use are all office policies and reasonable work discussion topics. Can you give examples of the kinds of things you object to then? Fwiw, I've known people who discuss their porn and drug habits at work. Hell I've known people who do drugs with their co-workers. > I would prefer any feedback and protests be in private when are relevant to the company Of course, it's only as a side effect that this undercuts the effectiveness of any activism. Are you familiar with the concept of "yes of course you can protest, but not like that" for all values of that? If the only acceptable forms of protest are ones that can be ignored with no consequences, you've just de facto silenced those who have concerns with the status quo. That's a very political decision, totalitarian ist to be specific. > This is exceedingly clear for the vast majority of people, except the activists who are making the fuss. If it's so clear, you should have no trouble making it explicit without relying on the word politics. Since you still seem to miss it, my entire premise here is that "politics" is a form of doublespeak and people who use it are generally unwilling to actually go on record with the views they want to censor, instead using it as a sort of "things that make me uncomfortable in the moment" catch-all, but without giving the same courtesy of banning "things that make me uncomfortable" to other people. So far your unwillingness to pin down exactly what you mean by political hasn't done much to dispell that thought.
    - 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

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.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    But I think your framing is backwards here. * Banning politics from the workplace is a huge benefit to people whose views are less mainstream. In the presence of politics, people with non-mainstream views have to either lie about what they think or live under a constant cloud of controversy. * Banning politics from the workplace is the only way to keep your values independent of the political environment. If politics are allowed, you constantly have to monitor the political landscape to make sure following your company values won't make your employees rebel. * Your analogy does hold, and it would be unreasonable to have a rule where I'll be punished for chatting in the breakroom about how my cousin might be deported. But it would also be unreasonable for me to interrupt meetings with demands that the company must cancel its medical plan, because my dad has the same insurance and I don't think they're treating him right. More broadly, I don't think anyone actually wants or would benefit from politics in general in the workplace. The only people I've seen argue for it are confident that their politics will be popular, and that all political views they find offensive will continue to be forbidden.
manigandham 7y ago
1) Surely you can see the difference between topics? Politics are not relevant to work. Office policies are. You can discuss and protest the latter if you want, but not the former. I'm sure you don't discuss porn habits and drug usage with your coworkers, do you? But of course it's fine to discuss working from home or new laptops. There is no paradox here. 2) I would prefer any feedback and protests be in private when are relevant to the company. You don't make a fuss and nobody else does either, so we can all work in peace and quiet. Most companies implement these rules for the sake of everyone. 3) "unless you're clear about what makes something political." This is exceedingly clear for the vast majority of people, except the activists who are making the fuss.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > Office policies are Perfect, so questions of what companies we contract with, how we do hiring and diversity, and what bathrooms people are allowed to use are all office policies and reasonable work discussion topics. Can you give examples of the kinds of things you object to then? Fwiw, I've known people who discuss their porn and drug habits at work. Hell I've known people who do drugs with their co-workers. > I would prefer any feedback and protests be in private when are relevant to the company Of course, it's only as a side effect that this undercuts the effectiveness of any activism. Are you familiar with the concept of "yes of course you can protest, but not like that" for all values of that? If the only acceptable forms of protest are ones that can be ignored with no consequences, you've just de facto silenced those who have concerns with the status quo. That's a very political decision, totalitarian ist to be specific. > This is exceedingly clear for the vast majority of people, except the activists who are making the fuss. If it's so clear, you should have no trouble making it explicit without relying on the word politics. Since you still seem to miss it, my entire premise here is that "politics" is a form of doublespeak and people who use it are generally unwilling to actually go on record with the views they want to censor, instead using it as a sort of "things that make me uncomfortable in the moment" catch-all, but without giving the same courtesy of banning "things that make me uncomfortable" to other people. So far your unwillingness to pin down exactly what you mean by political hasn't done much to dispell that thought.
  - 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).