3 ms·

No, the problem is really about politicization and more specifically the fact that in most US tech companies there is an enormous bias towards those on the poli

No, the problem is really about politicization and more specifically the fact that in most US tech companies there is an enormous bias towards those on the political left, and a believe that those who lean left are more “scientifically educated” or intelligent or well-read, etc. As one example you can see it in the way you can make hostile comments about “straight white males” and nobody says anything, but if you were to make a hostile comment for a perceived racial or sexual minority you’d be fired before even finishing your sentence

heimatau 6y ago
> No You're speaking from a personal experience. I'm not minimizing your experience with my comments. But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop. What you describe is a sweat shop, not knowledge work. You can have downtime while still getting your work done and acting like an adult with colleagues. If you don’t have this skill set, make the effort to cultivate some tact and decorum.
  - heimatau 6y ago
    > You can have downtime This is where you might be misunderstanding. Downtime shouldn't be to engage in more stressful mental activity. Think about it. Go to the gym. Study for a big exam. Are you really engaged on the goals of a gym? Are you really engaged in getting a good grade on an exam? If you are, you are finite and I highly suspect that the high performers aren't going to try and add more stress on their lives (political or anything else). I'm suggesting they aren't sweating enough at the gym. I'm suggesting they aren't working hard enough. I'm not suggesting that they're a slave. I'm not suggesting they are a wage slave. I'm suggesting they are more likely to be working in a half-assed way and don't have a 'buy-in' to the company's objectives. Which tends to be true based on numerous business management studies (since at least the 1970s that I've read). Hard workers want enjoyable leisure. Not pissing off a Karen. Or dealing with a Greg. This is a toxic mindset that doesn't make any sense. P.S. There is also another variable. That some people are closed minded but, imho, that can be overcome with good soft skills of a good manager/vision/buy-in.
    - thaeli 6y ago
      I think you're underestimating how much _fun_ some people find this sort of recreational trolling.
      - heimatau 6y ago
        > I think you're underestimating how much _fun_ some people find this sort of recreational trolling. It doesn't matter if it's fun. It doesn't matter if someone paid them money to sabotage another company. The blame for allowing this excessive behavior in a business environment, lays with the leadership, full stop. Management is typically to blame and since CB is tiny, then it lays with the CEO. One could look at even the positive aspect of it. Say a group of coworkers are very close friends (either through work or prior) then they are excessively talking about something. Well, then that situation is the responsibility of their bosses. P.S. I've said my peace. If y'all still don't get it. Go read a few leadership or business management books.
- heimatau 6y ago
  The fact that this comment has gotten a lot of downvotes is pretty clear to me that techies are in an ecochamber. And...they want to keep their bubble. Good stuff.
thu2111 6y ago
I don't think it's a numerical bias. Rather the extreme left are just hyper-aggressive in ways other parts of the spectrum aren't, especially libertarians are not aggressive and they were traditionally a big bloc inside tech firms. As for the belief that the left are intellectually superior, that's not specific to tech firms. You get empty slogans about being "reality-based" from the left in all walks of life. It's why the left are struggling so much with COVID and lockdown: it's been chaos and incoherence from scientists/academics from day one so people who define themselves as superior due to their higher faith in "the science" have been taking a self-image beating. Or simply have gone into denial about it.
- heimatau 6y ago
  > especially libertarians are not aggressive Depends on the subgroup. > As for the belief that the left are intellectually superior, that's not specific to tech firms. IMHO, I feel this is an organic collusion of messaging. Like the boomers felt a little envious to Leftist ideas and it shows in how boomers are teaching future generations. I don't think this is intentional but there does seem to be an implicit shift in the writings that teach the youth. I grew up in the public education system and various books almost assume that Leftists are more critical thinkers. It could be a phrasing of a topic or a popular narrative that has taken root in the culture. Compound this overtime, you have a new generation that assumes the indirect messaging that they've been conditioned on. In conclusion, I think you're getting a lot of downvotes for two reasons. 1. You're making grand/general statements without supportive points. 2. You are contrarian to the current zeitgeist. I happen to agree with your main points (sheep are sheep and wolves are making sheep frantic). I wish more people were critical thinkers.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Thanks. Having had many years of being downvoted on HN I can assure you it doesn't matter how specific you are, if you aren't leftist here then leftists will downvote you as much as they can. Sometimes an especially aggressive leftist will go through your comment history and downvote every single comment as well in retaliation, which is how you can get a series of technical posts about technical topics that were upvoted at the time suddenly going to -1 after an unrelated later post on a topic the left cares about. This is why I call the left aggressive. I've never seen those sorts of tactics from libertarians and I have years of experience of them, or even conservatives. I have seen people who claim to be libertarian suddenly turn out to be totalitarian and start behaving in ways that are totally opposite to their prior stated positions once they got hold of some power, though. So I think there are some people out there who self-identify as libertarian because they came to associate it somehow with critical thinking or other positive qualities, yet never truly adopted the world view. But this is rare. Most people who claim to be libertarian act in ways that are relatively consistent with that claim. I agree that leftists push hard the idea that leftism is the same thing as critical thinking. This confusion can be especially seen in universities, which regularly claim to be teaching students critical thinking yet in which leftists have steadily pushed out anyone not aligned with them over the decades. People truly trained in critical thinking would ask what justifies the claim that universities teach critical thinking, but of course none of them ever seem to do this. It's just taken as given. We can see the results: academia is filled with groupthink, in which people's worth is based on vague groupthink-oriented concepts like "reputation".

heimatau 6y ago

> No You're speaking from a personal experience. I'm not minimizing your experience with my comments. But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> But if you have time to browse Social Media or enough time to get into extended hostile discussions (about ANYTHING), then your manager isn't doing their job. Full-stop. What you describe is a sweat shop, not knowledge work. You can have downtime while still getting your work done and acting like an adult with colleagues. If you don’t have this skill set, make the effort to cultivate some tact and decorum.
- heimatau 6y ago
  > You can have downtime This is where you might be misunderstanding. Downtime shouldn't be to engage in more stressful mental activity. Think about it. Go to the gym. Study for a big exam. Are you really engaged on the goals of a gym? Are you really engaged in getting a good grade on an exam? If you are, you are finite and I highly suspect that the high performers aren't going to try and add more stress on their lives (political or anything else). I'm suggesting they aren't sweating enough at the gym. I'm suggesting they aren't working hard enough. I'm not suggesting that they're a slave. I'm not suggesting they are a wage slave. I'm suggesting they are more likely to be working in a half-assed way and don't have a 'buy-in' to the company's objectives. Which tends to be true based on numerous business management studies (since at least the 1970s that I've read). Hard workers want enjoyable leisure. Not pissing off a Karen. Or dealing with a Greg. This is a toxic mindset that doesn't make any sense. P.S. There is also another variable. That some people are closed minded but, imho, that can be overcome with good soft skills of a good manager/vision/buy-in.
  - thaeli 6y ago
    I think you're underestimating how much _fun_ some people find this sort of recreational trolling.
    - heimatau 6y ago
      > I think you're underestimating how much _fun_ some people find this sort of recreational trolling. It doesn't matter if it's fun. It doesn't matter if someone paid them money to sabotage another company. The blame for allowing this excessive behavior in a business environment, lays with the leadership, full stop. Management is typically to blame and since CB is tiny, then it lays with the CEO. One could look at even the positive aspect of it. Say a group of coworkers are very close friends (either through work or prior) then they are excessively talking about something. Well, then that situation is the responsibility of their bosses. P.S. I've said my peace. If y'all still don't get it. Go read a few leadership or business management books.
heimatau 6y ago
The fact that this comment has gotten a lot of downvotes is pretty clear to me that techies are in an ecochamber. And...they want to keep their bubble. Good stuff.

thu2111 6y ago

I don't think it's a numerical bias. Rather the extreme left are just hyper-aggressive in ways other parts of the spectrum aren't, especially libertarians are not aggressive and they were traditionally a big bloc inside tech firms. As for the belief that the left are intellectually superior, that's not specific to tech firms. You get empty slogans about being "reality-based" from the left in all walks of life. It's why the left are struggling so much with COVID and lockdown: it's been chaos and incoherence from scientists/academics from day one so people who define themselves as superior due to their higher faith in "the science" have been taking a self-image beating. Or simply have gone into denial about it.

heimatau 6y ago
> especially libertarians are not aggressive Depends on the subgroup. > As for the belief that the left are intellectually superior, that's not specific to tech firms. IMHO, I feel this is an organic collusion of messaging. Like the boomers felt a little envious to Leftist ideas and it shows in how boomers are teaching future generations. I don't think this is intentional but there does seem to be an implicit shift in the writings that teach the youth. I grew up in the public education system and various books almost assume that Leftists are more critical thinkers. It could be a phrasing of a topic or a popular narrative that has taken root in the culture. Compound this overtime, you have a new generation that assumes the indirect messaging that they've been conditioned on. In conclusion, I think you're getting a lot of downvotes for two reasons. 1. You're making grand/general statements without supportive points. 2. You are contrarian to the current zeitgeist. I happen to agree with your main points (sheep are sheep and wolves are making sheep frantic). I wish more people were critical thinkers.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Thanks. Having had many years of being downvoted on HN I can assure you it doesn't matter how specific you are, if you aren't leftist here then leftists will downvote you as much as they can. Sometimes an especially aggressive leftist will go through your comment history and downvote every single comment as well in retaliation, which is how you can get a series of technical posts about technical topics that were upvoted at the time suddenly going to -1 after an unrelated later post on a topic the left cares about. This is why I call the left aggressive. I've never seen those sorts of tactics from libertarians and I have years of experience of them, or even conservatives. I have seen people who claim to be libertarian suddenly turn out to be totalitarian and start behaving in ways that are totally opposite to their prior stated positions once they got hold of some power, though. So I think there are some people out there who self-identify as libertarian because they came to associate it somehow with critical thinking or other positive qualities, yet never truly adopted the world view. But this is rare. Most people who claim to be libertarian act in ways that are relatively consistent with that claim. I agree that leftists push hard the idea that leftism is the same thing as critical thinking. This confusion can be especially seen in universities, which regularly claim to be teaching students critical thinking yet in which leftists have steadily pushed out anyone not aligned with them over the decades. People truly trained in critical thinking would ask what justifies the claim that universities teach critical thinking, but of course none of them ever seem to do this. It's just taken as given. We can see the results: academia is filled with groupthink, in which people's worth is based on vague groupthink-oriented concepts like "reputation".