5 ms·

> your political agenda And the alternative is the company's political agenda. So you are saying we must all, 8+ hours a day, support our employers political a

> your political agenda And the alternative is the company's political agenda. So you are saying we must all, 8+ hours a day, support our employers political agenda, and then in the time remaining we can try to counteract that a bit. If you think political action begins and ends at the vote then you have a lot to learn about the nature of politics in practice.

CyberRabbi 6y ago
You aren’t being paid to promote your political agenda, you are being paid to perform your function as an employee. If you don’t support your company’s agenda, why would you work there?
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  You honestly don't see how what you're describing is a fairly radical political opinion? You are now arguing that you should choose your means of survival as a political statement. If you don't lock-step agree with the politics of tech companies in general, you should find a lower salary someplace else that agrees more with your political beliefs. I would love if people who are privacy advocates could get facebook salaries working for the EFF. It looks like what you are advocating here is that not only should you silence non-status quo opinions, but your income should strongly correlated with your alignment with dominant political powers.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    If you think that politics is an overriding consideration at all times - that every hour you spend working for someone is an hour spent supporting their political agenda - I don't think you have any choice but to choose your means of survival as a political statement. I agree that this is a pretty bad outcome, which is why I'd encourage you not to embrace such totalizing views of politics.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    The premise of your argument is that you have no choice in your employment, which is false. There are hundreds of tech companies to work for, if not thousands. No one is forcing climate change activists to work for oil companies. As a corollary it would be absurd for a climate change activist to argue that oil companies must employ them to allow their companies to be destroyed from the inside out. I’m simply saying your employer does not pay you to advance any agenda other than their own and that using your employer’s time to advance a political agenda irrelevant to theirs is theft, for lack of a better term.
  - chii 6y ago
    > choose your means of survival as a political statement...[or] find a lower salary someplace else that agrees more with your political beliefs. or, compare how much you like a higher salary, vs a company that agrees with your political views. And choose appropriately. What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own.
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      > What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own. Very well put and I’m terrifyingly surprised at how many people are arguing for the opposite. That is literal subversion.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      > What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Why is that inappropriate exactly? If my boss’ opinion is “unions shouldn’t exist because I think I’m entitled to treat people however I want/play them off each other/depress wages” why am I not allowed to rebel against that and organize with my coworkers? In fact, the right to do this very thing is enshrined in law.
    - sagichmal 6y ago
      This is entirely appropriate. Why do you think it isn't?
    - almost_usual 6y ago
      A lot of people need to lie to themselves and others that they’re not complete sell outs who forfeited their morals for a high salary. Being loud at work and social media is one way of doing that. It ends up with no real traction in reality though because the companies they work for don’t prioritize it over profits.
  - rank0 6y ago
    Did you read the Coinbase blog post? The conversation has really devolved away from the original topic. Coinbase issued a statement saying they are focused on their mission as a for-profit company. You're spinning it into something its not. "I don’t think companies can succeed trying to do everything. Creating an open financial system for the world is already a hugely ambitious mission, and we could easily spend the next decade or two trying to move the needle on global economic freedom." What exactly do you disagree with about their statement? What are you proposing that Coinbase do differently? Should they collectively vote to align the company with a political party? It's a business not an activist group.
  - almost_usual 6y ago
    I think what they’re suggesting is an employee who focuses more attention on work at work will outperform the employee who doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what the subject is.
- guipsp 6y ago
  To put food on the table
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  While we're focused on the purely "Political" agenda in this conversation, politics of a company include anything from how on-calls work to how sick days are counted. You can work at a company and advocate for changing things and it can be as comparatively small as ensuring on-call rotations are fair to ensuring the company voices support for and takes actions in line with supporting Black Lives Matter. These are all political in the spirit described up thread as saying that politics is the figuring out and deciding of these issues as a group.
  - chii 6y ago
    > politics of a company that's not a political stance - that's negotiating your working conditions. It's private and individual, and only affect you (and your colleagues). It doesn't affect society at large whether you have on-call or how sick days are counted _at_ your place of employement. But to use your position as an employee to push for universal sick leave, or for BLM, which affects society at large, not just yourself, is a political stance.
    - 0xCMP 6y ago
      You take for granted current working conditions which were won via hard-fought political battles and which affect us to this day. Also what about Maternity leave? Paternity leave? Are those not political? How is negotiating working conditions not related to "how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society"? It's inherently (little p) political even if the engagement is at a company similar to how politics on your local HOA is still politics. edit: typo
      - CyberRabbi 6y ago
        I think you’re conflating issues relevant to the business of the company, which might be considered political, and political issues which are irrelevant to the business of the company. The former is okay, the latter is not. The subject of OP is the latter.
        6y ago
- ptd 6y ago
  Usually money.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  If you feel like a change should be made at a company you'd probably advocate for it. You just believe that 'politics' is outside the scope of the company. Other's believe that it is not.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    > You just believe that 'politics' is outside the scope of the company. Other's believe that it is not. I believe this is a strawman. The issue at hand is political issues that are explicitly irrelevant to the mission of the company. Issues that are relevant to the company should be discussed and potentially acted upon, if that furthers the agenda of the company (and not just some irrelevant political agenda that you might be passionate about).
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
      I have seen companies claim that the things that their customers do with their product is not their responsibility. They have claimed that they are right to ignore that issue because they believe it is "political". Naming something as political can be used to shutdown conversation that can and should be happening in a company. Let's get concrete with this: Do you feel like a soft drink maker has an obligation to disengage with countries that have set up systemic discrimination and regularly violate human rights conventions? It really doesn't seem within the mission of providing the world with sugary carbonated water. It's hard to imagine cutting ties with a country due to disagreement with how they treat their population as non-political. And yet 34 years ago this happened: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-... But wait you say: it's just a prudent business decision because the economics were against them and it was a "PR" win. It doesn't matter. It's political. This is an inherently political statement: “Our decision to complete the process of disinvestment is a statement of our opposition to apartheid and of our support for the economic aspirations of black South Africans.” -Donald R. Keough
      - CyberRabbi 6y ago
        That was a decision that the leadership of that company made. I don’t see how that justifies employees bringing their irrelevant politics into an environment.
randomperson321 6y ago
> we must all, 8+ hours a day, support our employers political agenda Isn't this the whole point of work? Exchanging your own preferences and time for money? > in the time remaining we can try to counteract that a bit Ideally you wouldn't be working for a company who is diametrically opposed to your own beliefs. This is why I will never work for Facebook.
- wwright 6y ago
  > Isn't this the whole point of work? Exchanging your own preferences and time for money? In our current economic system, yes for some people; but less so for some individuals, and again even less in economies with UBI. A founder, for instance, is often not looking to trade preferences but instead to actually make an impact on the world while sharing in the profit of that impact. This is different than just trading things away: you are collaborating actively. Of course, that’s currently mostly available for small groups such as founders and small-business owners. And you may note that… all of this has political ramifications :) Small business owners are heavily impacted by political regulation; the ability of workers to organize and take a joint ownership over their work is governed by laws too. None of this exists in a vacuum. We are who we are because of who we all are, and we do what we do because of what we all do. That’s political. Some people just want others to be passive.
baryphonic 6y ago
Yes. When you join a company, you are signing onto their political agenda. If you don't believe that, then I wonder if you'd have an aversion to working for Jeffrey Epstein.

CyberRabbi 6y ago

You aren’t being paid to promote your political agenda, you are being paid to perform your function as an employee. If you don’t support your company’s agenda, why would you work there?

baron_harkonnen 6y ago
You honestly don't see how what you're describing is a fairly radical political opinion? You are now arguing that you should choose your means of survival as a political statement. If you don't lock-step agree with the politics of tech companies in general, you should find a lower salary someplace else that agrees more with your political beliefs. I would love if people who are privacy advocates could get facebook salaries working for the EFF. It looks like what you are advocating here is that not only should you silence non-status quo opinions, but your income should strongly correlated with your alignment with dominant political powers.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  If you think that politics is an overriding consideration at all times - that every hour you spend working for someone is an hour spent supporting their political agenda - I don't think you have any choice but to choose your means of survival as a political statement. I agree that this is a pretty bad outcome, which is why I'd encourage you not to embrace such totalizing views of politics.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  The premise of your argument is that you have no choice in your employment, which is false. There are hundreds of tech companies to work for, if not thousands. No one is forcing climate change activists to work for oil companies. As a corollary it would be absurd for a climate change activist to argue that oil companies must employ them to allow their companies to be destroyed from the inside out. I’m simply saying your employer does not pay you to advance any agenda other than their own and that using your employer’s time to advance a political agenda irrelevant to theirs is theft, for lack of a better term.
- chii 6y ago
  > choose your means of survival as a political statement...[or] find a lower salary someplace else that agrees more with your political beliefs. or, compare how much you like a higher salary, vs a company that agrees with your political views. And choose appropriately. What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    > What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Or use such a position as leverage to push your own political views to a wider audience than you could on your own. Very well put and I’m terrifyingly surprised at how many people are arguing for the opposite. That is literal subversion.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    > What's not appropriate is to choose the company with the highest salary, but whose owner's political views differ from your own, and then try to change that to something more suitable to your own. Why is that inappropriate exactly? If my boss’ opinion is “unions shouldn’t exist because I think I’m entitled to treat people however I want/play them off each other/depress wages” why am I not allowed to rebel against that and organize with my coworkers? In fact, the right to do this very thing is enshrined in law.
  - sagichmal 6y ago
    This is entirely appropriate. Why do you think it isn't?
  - almost_usual 6y ago
    A lot of people need to lie to themselves and others that they’re not complete sell outs who forfeited their morals for a high salary. Being loud at work and social media is one way of doing that. It ends up with no real traction in reality though because the companies they work for don’t prioritize it over profits.
- rank0 6y ago
  Did you read the Coinbase blog post? The conversation has really devolved away from the original topic. Coinbase issued a statement saying they are focused on their mission as a for-profit company. You're spinning it into something its not. "I don’t think companies can succeed trying to do everything. Creating an open financial system for the world is already a hugely ambitious mission, and we could easily spend the next decade or two trying to move the needle on global economic freedom." What exactly do you disagree with about their statement? What are you proposing that Coinbase do differently? Should they collectively vote to align the company with a political party? It's a business not an activist group.
- almost_usual 6y ago
  I think what they’re suggesting is an employee who focuses more attention on work at work will outperform the employee who doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what the subject is.
guipsp 6y ago
To put food on the table
0xCMP 6y ago
While we're focused on the purely "Political" agenda in this conversation, politics of a company include anything from how on-calls work to how sick days are counted. You can work at a company and advocate for changing things and it can be as comparatively small as ensuring on-call rotations are fair to ensuring the company voices support for and takes actions in line with supporting Black Lives Matter. These are all political in the spirit described up thread as saying that politics is the figuring out and deciding of these issues as a group.
- chii 6y ago
  > politics of a company that's not a political stance - that's negotiating your working conditions. It's private and individual, and only affect you (and your colleagues). It doesn't affect society at large whether you have on-call or how sick days are counted _at_ your place of employement. But to use your position as an employee to push for universal sick leave, or for BLM, which affects society at large, not just yourself, is a political stance.
  - 0xCMP 6y ago
    You take for granted current working conditions which were won via hard-fought political battles and which affect us to this day. Also what about Maternity leave? Paternity leave? Are those not political? How is negotiating working conditions not related to "how we engage and collaborate with each other as a society"? It's inherently (little p) political even if the engagement is at a company similar to how politics on your local HOA is still politics. edit: typo
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      I think you’re conflating issues relevant to the business of the company, which might be considered political, and political issues which are irrelevant to the business of the company. The former is okay, the latter is not. The subject of OP is the latter.
      - 6y ago
ptd 6y ago
Usually money.
X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
If you feel like a change should be made at a company you'd probably advocate for it. You just believe that 'politics' is outside the scope of the company. Other's believe that it is not.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  > You just believe that 'politics' is outside the scope of the company. Other's believe that it is not. I believe this is a strawman. The issue at hand is political issues that are explicitly irrelevant to the mission of the company. Issues that are relevant to the company should be discussed and potentially acted upon, if that furthers the agenda of the company (and not just some irrelevant political agenda that you might be passionate about).
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
    I have seen companies claim that the things that their customers do with their product is not their responsibility. They have claimed that they are right to ignore that issue because they believe it is "political". Naming something as political can be used to shutdown conversation that can and should be happening in a company. Let's get concrete with this: Do you feel like a soft drink maker has an obligation to disengage with countries that have set up systemic discrimination and regularly violate human rights conventions? It really doesn't seem within the mission of providing the world with sugary carbonated water. It's hard to imagine cutting ties with a country due to disagreement with how they treat their population as non-political. And yet 34 years ago this happened: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-18-mn-11241-... But wait you say: it's just a prudent business decision because the economics were against them and it was a "PR" win. It doesn't matter. It's political. This is an inherently political statement: “Our decision to complete the process of disinvestment is a statement of our opposition to apartheid and of our support for the economic aspirations of black South Africans.” -Donald R. Keough
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      That was a decision that the leadership of that company made. I don’t see how that justifies employees bringing their irrelevant politics into an environment.

randomperson321 6y ago

> we must all, 8+ hours a day, support our employers political agenda Isn't this the whole point of work? Exchanging your own preferences and time for money? > in the time remaining we can try to counteract that a bit Ideally you wouldn't be working for a company who is diametrically opposed to your own beliefs. This is why I will never work for Facebook.

wwright 6y ago
> Isn't this the whole point of work? Exchanging your own preferences and time for money? In our current economic system, yes for some people; but less so for some individuals, and again even less in economies with UBI. A founder, for instance, is often not looking to trade preferences but instead to actually make an impact on the world while sharing in the profit of that impact. This is different than just trading things away: you are collaborating actively. Of course, that’s currently mostly available for small groups such as founders and small-business owners. And you may note that… all of this has political ramifications :) Small business owners are heavily impacted by political regulation; the ability of workers to organize and take a joint ownership over their work is governed by laws too. None of this exists in a vacuum. We are who we are because of who we all are, and we do what we do because of what we all do. That’s political. Some people just want others to be passive.

baryphonic 6y ago

Yes. When you join a company, you are signing onto their political agenda. If you don't believe that, then I wonder if you'd have an aversion to working for Jeffrey Epstein.