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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 f

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.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  (fyi I really appreciate this thread of discussion, it's quite interesting) To your first point, this is only true if you're forced to participate. We have workplace social events, I sometimes choose not to participate. We have political arguments, I often disagree with the majority in those conversations. I simply don't engage when I'm not up for a debate. It's yet to be an issue. I'd agree that forcing people to express their political views is unreasonable, but that also isn't a position I've seen expressed except as a Boogeyman. To your second point, if your values are independent of the current political climate, you need to be able to discuss how your actions align with your values. If you're working in political spaces, this necessitates discussion of political issues. To be concrete, if your values are "don't be evil", you need to be willing to have the discussion on whether or not working with the Chinese government on a censored search tool is evil. This is a really complex question (and I use this example because I've heard great arguments in both directions), but if you censor political discussion, the organization can't be held accountable, because no one is allowed to ask. To your third point, I'm in agreement with your specific example, but asking a question about improving the healthcare policy at an all hands on HR issues would be warranted. Similarly, asking about access to gender neutral restrooms would be warranted even if it's political to some people. To your last bit, I'm not saying that you can't ban certain things for certain reasons. As an example, banning discrimination is okay, even though some discrimination might be political. In essence, I'm of the opinion that if you hold a belief strongly enough to ban dissent, you should be forthright about the belief. If your want to ban Republicans, or ban people who openly identify as trans (both of which are legal in various US jurisdictions), at least have the decency so say so and not hide behind banning "political discussion" or "political activism".
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    (Agreed! I'm glad we're having it.) I don't think forced political expression is entirely a boogeyman. There was an article a couple months back[1] where a guy was publicly offended that (admittedly among other complaints) his coworkers weren't talking enough about police brutality. Anecdotally I have a lot of stories; for Hispanic Heritage Month, for example, we had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posters all around the office. It's definitely important to discuss how your actions align with your values. Sometimes that will mean discussing values issues that are also political issues, and sometimes that will mean making a very slippery distinction. But this isn't the extent of the political activism at Google. When employees insisted that Kay Coles James must not be allowed on the AI advisory council[2], they didn't argue that having her would make Google do some particular evil thing. They argued that she's a mean person who holds the wrong political views, so Google must shun her. People definitely should be honest about what they want to ban and why. But again, in my experience, most people opposed to politics in the workplace honestly do have content-neutral motivations. I'm a very strong Andrew Yang supporter, bumper sticker and pile of campaign swag and all, and I never bring it up in the workplace because I'm not there to do partisan politics. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-memo-about-being-black-at-google https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-me... [2]https://medium.com/@against.transphobia/googlers-against-transphobia-and-hate-b1b0a5dbf76 https://medium.com/@against.transphobia/googlers-against-tra...

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.

joshuamorton 7y ago
(fyi I really appreciate this thread of discussion, it's quite interesting) To your first point, this is only true if you're forced to participate. We have workplace social events, I sometimes choose not to participate. We have political arguments, I often disagree with the majority in those conversations. I simply don't engage when I'm not up for a debate. It's yet to be an issue. I'd agree that forcing people to express their political views is unreasonable, but that also isn't a position I've seen expressed except as a Boogeyman. To your second point, if your values are independent of the current political climate, you need to be able to discuss how your actions align with your values. If you're working in political spaces, this necessitates discussion of political issues. To be concrete, if your values are "don't be evil", you need to be willing to have the discussion on whether or not working with the Chinese government on a censored search tool is evil. This is a really complex question (and I use this example because I've heard great arguments in both directions), but if you censor political discussion, the organization can't be held accountable, because no one is allowed to ask. To your third point, I'm in agreement with your specific example, but asking a question about improving the healthcare policy at an all hands on HR issues would be warranted. Similarly, asking about access to gender neutral restrooms would be warranted even if it's political to some people. To your last bit, I'm not saying that you can't ban certain things for certain reasons. As an example, banning discrimination is okay, even though some discrimination might be political. In essence, I'm of the opinion that if you hold a belief strongly enough to ban dissent, you should be forthright about the belief. If your want to ban Republicans, or ban people who openly identify as trans (both of which are legal in various US jurisdictions), at least have the decency so say so and not hide behind banning "political discussion" or "political activism".
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  (Agreed! I'm glad we're having it.) I don't think forced political expression is entirely a boogeyman. There was an article a couple months back[1] where a guy was publicly offended that (admittedly among other complaints) his coworkers weren't talking enough about police brutality. Anecdotally I have a lot of stories; for Hispanic Heritage Month, for example, we had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posters all around the office. It's definitely important to discuss how your actions align with your values. Sometimes that will mean discussing values issues that are also political issues, and sometimes that will mean making a very slippery distinction. But this isn't the extent of the political activism at Google. When employees insisted that Kay Coles James must not be allowed on the AI advisory council[2], they didn't argue that having her would make Google do some particular evil thing. They argued that she's a mean person who holds the wrong political views, so Google must shun her. People definitely should be honest about what they want to ban and why. But again, in my experience, most people opposed to politics in the workplace honestly do have content-neutral motivations. I'm a very strong Andrew Yang supporter, bumper sticker and pile of campaign swag and all, and I never bring it up in the workplace because I'm not there to do partisan politics. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-memo-about-being-black-at-google https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-me... [2]https://medium.com/@against.transphobia/googlers-against-transphobia-and-hate-b1b0a5dbf76 https://medium.com/@against.transphobia/googlers-against-tra...