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" (Almost) everything is political. " Serving coffee is not political. Planning the network installation is not political. Code reviews, cleaning your office,

by jariel 6y ago

" (Almost) everything is political. " Serving coffee is not political. Planning the network installation is not political. Code reviews, cleaning your office, optimizing the VM, getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish, figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill, picking a guy to fix the fence ... It's 99% not political. Google search is barely political, ads are a little bit. Social Media is political and not that-that much more. It's 100% fine for you to 'work on something consistent with your political views' but at the same time just 'pick the place' instead of 'making the place' inherently political.

tupputuppu 6y ago
What's funny is that traditional media has just as much issues with misinformation and bias, yet the whole discussion around how content related to the election might not be straight and honest revolves completely around tech companies. For some reason it's just the west coast tech companies where information or search is political, but with traditional media it's not?
juniper_strong 6y ago
> Google search is barely political Search for "american mathematician" on Google and the first six images that come back with the search results are of black mathematicians, 3 of them women. That is political. Nothing wrong with female or black mathematicians, the more the better, but that's not how it went down. If I worked at Google and they asked me to code that, I would have said, "Sure, I can do that", which would be a non-political decision, but whoever decided on how that should be implemented was making a political decision.
- jariel 6y ago
  Yes, it's political but in the grand scheme of searches, it's almost irrelevant. 99.99% of searches are just searches, and that's it.
  - juniper_strong 6y ago
    Who gets to decide what is a political search and what isn't? And why do they get to decide that?
vkou 6y ago
> Google search is barely political. In 2020, the answer that google search gives to the query "Do masks protect you from COVID" is political. Whether or not google search even works in, say, Russia... Or Australia is political.
- tupputuppu 6y ago
  Don't newspapers report on masks? Are they political as well? Doesn't TV? Why is all the politics revolving around these west coast tech companies? Could it be that it's actually not that political, it's just that these companies are filled by extremely left wing west coast people who want to make it political?
  - vkou 6y ago
    Of course newspapers are political. I don't understand how this is even a point you're confused about, unless you believe in a truly extreme form of cultural relativism. You obviously have an axe to grind against a particular political spectrum, so I will pose a more direct example that does not involve it. Is Russia Today political? Is choosing to display it prominently in a search result political? Is choosing to display a 'this is state sponsored news' tag on it political? Is not choosing to display that tag on a link to the CBC, or NPR not a political decision? If you don't think RT is political, I can go down the list until we find something that is. Zero hedge? QAnon? The International Council of Communism? The newsletter published by your local KKK chapter? BLM? The reason the work of tech companies is political is because they've installed themselves as gatekeepers of political information. If they were dumb pipes, this wouldn't be an issue. They aren't, though.
    - tupputuppu 6y ago
      You didn't actually consider the fact that I might have an axe to grind towards everyone who makes the workplace political, and toxic by alienating people with minority view points? Would you consider it possible I'm a liberal myself? And that my liberalismi is exactly the reason it's difficult for me to accept this sort of behavior?
hombre_fatal 6y ago
> Google search is barely political Google is making everything political with its "Machine Learning Fairness" initiative. Like when you google image search "european art" or "white men". You'd think European art was 50% black person portraits and that 50% of white men were criminals or black.
yokaze 6y ago
What I understand from what you are saying, and with what I can agree is, that not everything you do, has to be or should be a political statement. But the point I trying to make is, that "apolitical" is not the absence of political. It is a political choice. Here a definition of apolitical: "not interested or involved in politics" > Serving coffee is not political. Which coffee do you serve? If you don't care, you are apolitical, but you can either serve coffee with child labour or not. > Planning the network installation is not political. So, it will include equipment from Huawei? Or Cisco? > Code reviews, If someone puts in there a "joke", do you address it? Should you? > cleaning your office, optimizing the VM, Yeah, probably not. > getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish, To which standard do you hold your suppliers? Are they subscribing to any social corporate responsibility standard? Are you? Are you trying to make a vegan dish or not? (Not that I care, I am apolitical there, but I do not think, it is not political) > figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill, Probably not. > picking a guy to fix the fence .. Are you rejecting the guy who has a MAGA bumper on his truck? > Google search is barely political, Really? There was just recently a case of republicans complaining about how they are ranked. What about Google in China? Or Hong Kong? > It's 100% fine for you to 'work on something consistent with your political views' but at the same time just 'pick the place' instead of 'making the place' inherently political. Here I think, I can understand that you want to say, that all the points I just made, are likely to be unproductive to be discussed at the workplace. And I would agree. You may say, you are tired of hearing those issues, and I can understand. But I would say, one doesn't make a place inherently political, it is. Being apolitical doesn't make it go away, that decisions have an impact on the public affairs of a country. In a small and intangible way probably, but so does a vote.
- jariel 6y ago
  You're reaching too hard. Choosing coffee is not child labour, bad jokes can happen anywhere, Huawei/Not Huawei is a security choice not a political one ... and for god's sakes we're picking our caprenters based in their bumpers stickers? No. I don't care what bumper stickers my carpenter has, and although I personally hate Trump, I don't care one bit that he has such a bumper sticker, and nobody else should either. 99.99% of Google content is mundane and not political. They're not banning a lot from Google search other than really illegal stuff. 'Choosing the SaaS vendor based on price' is not just 'going with the status quo. I get what you are trying to say, I just don't agree. I don't even think that workplaces embracing popular social issues directly that much, what matters is addressing the social issues directly, not as a matter of populism. Saying "our company doesn't hire black people, that doesn't seem fair, can we think about that" is 100% reasonable, but making public statements about BLM etc. is more political, less pragmatic.

by jariel 6y ago

tupputuppu 6y ago

What's funny is that traditional media has just as much issues with misinformation and bias, yet the whole discussion around how content related to the election might not be straight and honest revolves completely around tech companies. For some reason it's just the west coast tech companies where information or search is political, but with traditional media it's not?

juniper_strong 6y ago

> Google search is barely political Search for "american mathematician" on Google and the first six images that come back with the search results are of black mathematicians, 3 of them women. That is political. Nothing wrong with female or black mathematicians, the more the better, but that's not how it went down. If I worked at Google and they asked me to code that, I would have said, "Sure, I can do that", which would be a non-political decision, but whoever decided on how that should be implemented was making a political decision.

jariel 6y ago
Yes, it's political but in the grand scheme of searches, it's almost irrelevant. 99.99% of searches are just searches, and that's it.
- juniper_strong 6y ago
  Who gets to decide what is a political search and what isn't? And why do they get to decide that?

vkou 6y ago

> Google search is barely political. In 2020, the answer that google search gives to the query "Do masks protect you from COVID" is political. Whether or not google search even works in, say, Russia... Or Australia is political.

tupputuppu 6y ago
Don't newspapers report on masks? Are they political as well? Doesn't TV? Why is all the politics revolving around these west coast tech companies? Could it be that it's actually not that political, it's just that these companies are filled by extremely left wing west coast people who want to make it political?
- vkou 6y ago
  Of course newspapers are political. I don't understand how this is even a point you're confused about, unless you believe in a truly extreme form of cultural relativism. You obviously have an axe to grind against a particular political spectrum, so I will pose a more direct example that does not involve it. Is Russia Today political? Is choosing to display it prominently in a search result political? Is choosing to display a 'this is state sponsored news' tag on it political? Is not choosing to display that tag on a link to the CBC, or NPR not a political decision? If you don't think RT is political, I can go down the list until we find something that is. Zero hedge? QAnon? The International Council of Communism? The newsletter published by your local KKK chapter? BLM? The reason the work of tech companies is political is because they've installed themselves as gatekeepers of political information. If they were dumb pipes, this wouldn't be an issue. They aren't, though.
  - tupputuppu 6y ago
    You didn't actually consider the fact that I might have an axe to grind towards everyone who makes the workplace political, and toxic by alienating people with minority view points? Would you consider it possible I'm a liberal myself? And that my liberalismi is exactly the reason it's difficult for me to accept this sort of behavior?

hombre_fatal 6y ago

> Google search is barely political Google is making everything political with its "Machine Learning Fairness" initiative. Like when you google image search "european art" or "white men". You'd think European art was 50% black person portraits and that 50% of white men were criminals or black.

yokaze 6y ago

What I understand from what you are saying, and with what I can agree is, that not everything you do, has to be or should be a political statement. But the point I trying to make is, that "apolitical" is not the absence of political. It is a political choice. Here a definition of apolitical: "not interested or involved in politics" > Serving coffee is not political. Which coffee do you serve? If you don't care, you are apolitical, but you can either serve coffee with child labour or not. > Planning the network installation is not political. So, it will include equipment from Huawei? Or Cisco? > Code reviews, If someone puts in there a "joke", do you address it? Should you? > cleaning your office, optimizing the VM, Yeah, probably not. > getting a bandwidth deal, negotiating the SaaS pricing, choosing ingredients for the new dish, To which standard do you hold your suppliers? Are they subscribing to any social corporate responsibility standard? Are you? Are you trying to make a vegan dish or not? (Not that I care, I am apolitical there, but I do not think, it is not political) > figuring out how many loads of gravel are needed for the landfill, Probably not. > picking a guy to fix the fence .. Are you rejecting the guy who has a MAGA bumper on his truck? > Google search is barely political, Really? There was just recently a case of republicans complaining about how they are ranked. What about Google in China? Or Hong Kong? > It's 100% fine for you to 'work on something consistent with your political views' but at the same time just 'pick the place' instead of 'making the place' inherently political. Here I think, I can understand that you want to say, that all the points I just made, are likely to be unproductive to be discussed at the workplace. And I would agree. You may say, you are tired of hearing those issues, and I can understand. But I would say, one doesn't make a place inherently political, it is. Being apolitical doesn't make it go away, that decisions have an impact on the public affairs of a country. In a small and intangible way probably, but so does a vote.

jariel 6y ago
You're reaching too hard. Choosing coffee is not child labour, bad jokes can happen anywhere, Huawei/Not Huawei is a security choice not a political one ... and for god's sakes we're picking our caprenters based in their bumpers stickers? No. I don't care what bumper stickers my carpenter has, and although I personally hate Trump, I don't care one bit that he has such a bumper sticker, and nobody else should either. 99.99% of Google content is mundane and not political. They're not banning a lot from Google search other than really illegal stuff. 'Choosing the SaaS vendor based on price' is not just 'going with the status quo. I get what you are trying to say, I just don't agree. I don't even think that workplaces embracing popular social issues directly that much, what matters is addressing the social issues directly, not as a matter of populism. Saying "our company doesn't hire black people, that doesn't seem fair, can we think about that" is 100% reasonable, but making public statements about BLM etc. is more political, less pragmatic.