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If we were to discuss politics at work at any length we would be at immediate risk of losing valuable people. We all pretty much know where we stand on politics

If we were to discuss politics at work at any length we would be at immediate risk of losing valuable people. We all pretty much know where we stand on politics, and it is not together. And many of us feel very strongly about our irreconcilable positions. But by carefully not talking about them (or engaging when someone less in tune starts) we get along just fine. That's not official policy but it is a good one.

benjohnson 6y ago
Our small company has a "No drama" policy. We have an astounding diverse team and we've learned to appreciate each other.
- ikiris 6y ago
  For a lot of people, appreciating all people and letting them live their lives is "politics"
- pjc50 6y ago
  Does it also have a sexual harrasment policy, or is the response to one employee reporting that another groped them going to be "you're fired"? As is traditional?
- watwut 6y ago
  > we've learned to appreciate each other. How do you know if people cant express anger at someone? It is not mock question. I recently found out that colleagues who pretended to have good relationships (because we dont talk negatively about others as cultural thing) had long term resentments against each other. And those resentments were influencing work under surface in negative way - until it blew up into dysfunction which is how I realized.
  - benjohnson 6y ago
    We have an issue system - instead of "Bob always leaves his mess to clean up" if you have a problem your supposed to put it in generic terms like "kitchen is sometimes left a mess" and then put a counter measure: "kitchen cleaning trainig and checklist". If the countermeasure is reasonable we implement it. We've found this keeps people from festering. Heck.. one employee thought he was being underpaid. He was. He put it in the issue tracking system and we now have a public skill system and renumeration scale.
    - shakkhar 6y ago
      Not saying that this can't work in practice, but it sounds a bit passive-aggresive to me. I'd imagine if someone has some feedback for me, they'd talk to me directly instead of leaving a ticket in an issue tracker. You already mentioned that your company is small and this system has worked for you so far, but I doubt this will work at Facebook scale.
- tolbish 6y ago
  Does your company do anything remotely controversial such as moderating how people are informed, or providing tech for military organizations?
  - ry_co 6y ago
    It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial. At scale, anything is political. The only solution is to keep politics out of business, and manifest our political opinions through government. Business, like economics or biology, is dismal. The most efficient and productive continue on. Government's role is to make the ideologically agnostic machine of business align with our values. In the kind of competitive economy we have, it can only be this way. If we try to apply politics from within a business, we risk introducing instabilities and ineffeciencies, making the business less competitive–an existential threat to the values we incorporated into the business.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial. No, the existence of controversy over an issue is a question of empirical fact, not political opinion. The ascription of significance to the existence of controversy may be a political opinion (and is certainly a value-based opinion), but not the question of whether controversy exists.
      - ballenf 6y ago
        If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial? You can always find at least one upset person about any significant decision of any company, thus it's inherently political when you decide which group of people or how big a group you have to have to merit the "controversial" badge. Those complaining of being deplatformed would probably agree strongly with your definition, however, so I will admit the definition of this word is itself controversial. Or maybe I shouldn't, because the prior sentence feels very political to me.
beefalo 6y ago
political views !== who you think deserves human rights
- gfodor 6y ago
  And this is the reason things have changed so much: Step 1: first, identify truly evil people (like self-avowed white supremacists) Step 2: find a unfalsifable or weak method to associate non-evil people with the evil ones. Step 3: once this method becomes part of the zeitguist, infer the association implies agreement. Step 4: once agreement is assumed when stating the association, imply the person's agreement is in the realm of intolerance or hatred. Step 5: once a person is assumed to have hateful or intolerant beliefs due to the association, 'intolerance of intolerance' kicks in and it's no longer considered ethical to do anything other than push that person out of the public sphere, or, as this comment does, claim they are not free to hold their beliefs quietly. (despite the fact, of course, that these beliefs aren't the ones they have, but the ones projected onto them via the tactics of the previous steps.) Through this mechanism you can pull anyone you want into the realm of being cancellable or ostricized, once you find a suitable associative vector. The vectors being used today are quite weak, such as being seen in a photograph with someone, sharing news from a website of a particular political slant, or even using a specific phrase.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    Yup. This is worthy of a top comment. That’s exactly how it works. Things will never get better if everyone keeps ostracizing people they disagree with. My family is Republican, Libertarian, and Democrat. No greens yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me. We have great conversations and no one thinks anyone is Hitler or Pol Pot. I really hope the current zeitgeist dies a quick death.
    - toiletfuneral 6y ago
      Some of my family is conservative and extremely racist towards Mexicans & Blacks, and are 100% fine alienating a lot of us out of allegiance to trump. I’m jealous of you and angry at the rise of unabashed white supremacy in my circles
peterlk 6y ago
This is exactly the argument for privacy. Privacy is about agreed lines because we know that there are some places where we just won't get along. The "if you have nothing to hide" argument assumes that you want to see the things that I'm hiding. In this case, people are hiding their political affiliation (or at least their explicitly expressed opinions) because we know that if it was shared, all of our lives would be harder.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Privacy is slightly different - it has a temporal aspect. Eg, religion on a census, for obvious reasons looking back at last century. The consensus against retrospective punishment is a lot weaker than people might expect, and who knows what new social crimes the future will bring.

benjohnson 6y ago

Our small company has a "No drama" policy. We have an astounding diverse team and we've learned to appreciate each other.

ikiris 6y ago
For a lot of people, appreciating all people and letting them live their lives is "politics"
pjc50 6y ago
Does it also have a sexual harrasment policy, or is the response to one employee reporting that another groped them going to be "you're fired"? As is traditional?
watwut 6y ago
> we've learned to appreciate each other. How do you know if people cant express anger at someone? It is not mock question. I recently found out that colleagues who pretended to have good relationships (because we dont talk negatively about others as cultural thing) had long term resentments against each other. And those resentments were influencing work under surface in negative way - until it blew up into dysfunction which is how I realized.
- benjohnson 6y ago
  We have an issue system - instead of "Bob always leaves his mess to clean up" if you have a problem your supposed to put it in generic terms like "kitchen is sometimes left a mess" and then put a counter measure: "kitchen cleaning trainig and checklist". If the countermeasure is reasonable we implement it. We've found this keeps people from festering. Heck.. one employee thought he was being underpaid. He was. He put it in the issue tracking system and we now have a public skill system and renumeration scale.
  - shakkhar 6y ago
    Not saying that this can't work in practice, but it sounds a bit passive-aggresive to me. I'd imagine if someone has some feedback for me, they'd talk to me directly instead of leaving a ticket in an issue tracker. You already mentioned that your company is small and this system has worked for you so far, but I doubt this will work at Facebook scale.
tolbish 6y ago
Does your company do anything remotely controversial such as moderating how people are informed, or providing tech for military organizations?
- ry_co 6y ago
  It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial. At scale, anything is political. The only solution is to keep politics out of business, and manifest our political opinions through government. Business, like economics or biology, is dismal. The most efficient and productive continue on. Government's role is to make the ideologically agnostic machine of business align with our values. In the kind of competitive economy we have, it can only be this way. If we try to apply politics from within a business, we risk introducing instabilities and ineffeciencies, making the business less competitive–an existential threat to the values we incorporated into the business.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial. No, the existence of controversy over an issue is a question of empirical fact, not political opinion. The ascription of significance to the existence of controversy may be a political opinion (and is certainly a value-based opinion), but not the question of whether controversy exists.
    - ballenf 6y ago
      If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial? You can always find at least one upset person about any significant decision of any company, thus it's inherently political when you decide which group of people or how big a group you have to have to merit the "controversial" badge. Those complaining of being deplatformed would probably agree strongly with your definition, however, so I will admit the definition of this word is itself controversial. Or maybe I shouldn't, because the prior sentence feels very political to me.

beefalo 6y ago

political views !== who you think deserves human rights

gfodor 6y ago
And this is the reason things have changed so much: Step 1: first, identify truly evil people (like self-avowed white supremacists) Step 2: find a unfalsifable or weak method to associate non-evil people with the evil ones. Step 3: once this method becomes part of the zeitguist, infer the association implies agreement. Step 4: once agreement is assumed when stating the association, imply the person's agreement is in the realm of intolerance or hatred. Step 5: once a person is assumed to have hateful or intolerant beliefs due to the association, 'intolerance of intolerance' kicks in and it's no longer considered ethical to do anything other than push that person out of the public sphere, or, as this comment does, claim they are not free to hold their beliefs quietly. (despite the fact, of course, that these beliefs aren't the ones they have, but the ones projected onto them via the tactics of the previous steps.) Through this mechanism you can pull anyone you want into the realm of being cancellable or ostricized, once you find a suitable associative vector. The vectors being used today are quite weak, such as being seen in a photograph with someone, sharing news from a website of a particular political slant, or even using a specific phrase.
- christophilus 6y ago
  Yup. This is worthy of a top comment. That’s exactly how it works. Things will never get better if everyone keeps ostracizing people they disagree with. My family is Republican, Libertarian, and Democrat. No greens yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me. We have great conversations and no one thinks anyone is Hitler or Pol Pot. I really hope the current zeitgeist dies a quick death.
  - toiletfuneral 6y ago
    Some of my family is conservative and extremely racist towards Mexicans & Blacks, and are 100% fine alienating a lot of us out of allegiance to trump. I’m jealous of you and angry at the rise of unabashed white supremacy in my circles

peterlk 6y ago

This is exactly the argument for privacy. Privacy is about agreed lines because we know that there are some places where we just won't get along. The "if you have nothing to hide" argument assumes that you want to see the things that I'm hiding. In this case, people are hiding their political affiliation (or at least their explicitly expressed opinions) because we know that if it was shared, all of our lives would be harder.

roenxi 6y ago
Privacy is slightly different - it has a temporal aspect. Eg, religion on a census, for obvious reasons looking back at last century. The consensus against retrospective punishment is a lot weaker than people might expect, and who knows what new social crimes the future will bring.