5 ms·

Seems like a reasonable interpretation in my experience. I have definitely seen people told not to talk about what you might call controversial because it is po

Seems like a reasonable interpretation in my experience. I have definitely seen people told not to talk about what you might call controversial because it is political. Don't talk about your abortion and how it made your life better or worse. Don't talk about your birth control. Don't talk about how you were explicitly told by an authority figure you were not worthy of a job because of your sex/gender. Easy for me to imagine someone being told not to talk about their gay marriage under similar circumstances. I think commonly used phrases are "its not for polite company", "keep politics out of it", "don't bring your politics here", etc. It is obviously selective enforcement of the rules, but that is a common and unfortunately often effective shield. Luckily I have heard/see less of the above over the last 10 years than the 10 years before that.

throwaway894345 6y ago
I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political, but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  It is possible for a subject to be both political and controversial. I think the fact that there are two sides to US politics, and those two sides split cleanly along almost every controversial topic, is causing the confusion. Because it's both. Abortions are controversial because some people believe they should not be allowed to happen, while others belive women should be in control of their own bodies. Abortions are political because the Republican party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to legislate against abortion. The Democratic party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to maintain women's ability to get an abortion if they need one. Thus a controversial topic is also political. Any discussion of the topic will inevitably reduce to a political discussion because the two political parties are so closely aligned with the two sides of the conversation. Because of the way that US politics has been so data-driven, focus-group informed, every controversial topic is being used as a method of creating political traction. So everything controversial is becoming political. Even something as banal as wearing a mask during a pandemic is turned into a political statement.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > It is possible for a subject to be both political and controversial I didn’t claim otherwise. I believe that people are told not to talk about their abortion because it’s controversial, but not because it’s political barring perhaps a few people who aren’t educated enough to understand the distinction. > Abortions are political because the Republican party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to legislate against abortion. The Republican party’s political advocacy is obviously political, but it doesn’t follow that any given account of an abortion is political. Both are controversial, however. > So everything controversial is becoming political. Controversial things frequently are political, but that doesn’t mean any particular speech about a controversial topic is political speech. You seem to be confusing a prohibition about politics with a prohibition against any topic that has a political aspect. So at coinbase, a gay man could talk about his marriage despite that gay marriage is also a political subject (and also a controversial topic in some spheres, albeit probably not the SV spheres), but he (and any employee for that matter) couldn’t advocate for or against gay marriage policy or norms.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  And that is in itself a political act.
- davorak 6y ago
  The phases I use in my response above explicitly often explicitly use the word politics. The people saying that are not being narrow with their definitions like you are here. So if people live their life having people around them using the word politics like in my phrases above they will also start using the word that way. A way that does not match up with your definitions. > You’re confusing “controversial” with “political”. So when you say things like the above it comes off to me as unreasonable/uncharitable. Since the people you are talking to are using a set of definitions that are relatively common in my experience. edit: unreasonable -> unreasonable/uncharitable --- > I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political, but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial. Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics. In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial. If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences.
  - throwaway777888 6y ago
    >Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics. And you can research and discuss those topics outside of work. You're not being paid to show up to work and form PACs. You're not being paid to show up to work to virtue signal about the most fashionable wedge issue of the day. You're not being paid to show up to work and sow discord by assuming moral high ground and vilifying the other side. etc., etc. >In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial. The political culture status quo at Bay Area companies is that this is an alt-right talking point. >If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences. Conversation at work absolutely should not be a large mechanism for political discussion. It's work. If there are political consequences because workers are no longer allow to virtue signal all day, then that speaks more about their weak mental state than it does about politics.

throwaway894345 6y ago

I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political, but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
It is possible for a subject to be both political and controversial. I think the fact that there are two sides to US politics, and those two sides split cleanly along almost every controversial topic, is causing the confusion. Because it's both. Abortions are controversial because some people believe they should not be allowed to happen, while others belive women should be in control of their own bodies. Abortions are political because the Republican party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to legislate against abortion. The Democratic party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to maintain women's ability to get an abortion if they need one. Thus a controversial topic is also political. Any discussion of the topic will inevitably reduce to a political discussion because the two political parties are so closely aligned with the two sides of the conversation. Because of the way that US politics has been so data-driven, focus-group informed, every controversial topic is being used as a method of creating political traction. So everything controversial is becoming political. Even something as banal as wearing a mask during a pandemic is turned into a political statement.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > It is possible for a subject to be both political and controversial I didn’t claim otherwise. I believe that people are told not to talk about their abortion because it’s controversial, but not because it’s political barring perhaps a few people who aren’t educated enough to understand the distinction. > Abortions are political because the Republican party has a publicly-stated policy of wanting to legislate against abortion. The Republican party’s political advocacy is obviously political, but it doesn’t follow that any given account of an abortion is political. Both are controversial, however. > So everything controversial is becoming political. Controversial things frequently are political, but that doesn’t mean any particular speech about a controversial topic is political speech. You seem to be confusing a prohibition about politics with a prohibition against any topic that has a political aspect. So at coinbase, a gay man could talk about his marriage despite that gay marriage is also a political subject (and also a controversial topic in some spheres, albeit probably not the SV spheres), but he (and any employee for that matter) couldn’t advocate for or against gay marriage policy or norms.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
And that is in itself a political act.
davorak 6y ago
The phases I use in my response above explicitly often explicitly use the word politics. The people saying that are not being narrow with their definitions like you are here. So if people live their life having people around them using the word politics like in my phrases above they will also start using the word that way. A way that does not match up with your definitions. > You’re confusing “controversial” with “political”. So when you say things like the above it comes off to me as unreasonable/uncharitable. Since the people you are talking to are using a set of definitions that are relatively common in my experience. edit: unreasonable -> unreasonable/uncharitable --- > I’ve never heard anyone told not to talk about those things because they’re political, but I could believe they were told not to talk about them because they’re controversial. Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics. In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial. If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences.
- throwaway777888 6y ago
  >Knowledge and understanding of a topic is required before reasoned action is taken. If you can not talk about abortion, birth control, sexual/gender discrimination, gay marriage, and more because it is controversial then we might be getting in to an area where speech is so restricted that it impedes knowledge transfer and understanding on those topics. And you can research and discuss those topics outside of work. You're not being paid to show up to work and form PACs. You're not being paid to show up to work to virtue signal about the most fashionable wedge issue of the day. You're not being paid to show up to work and sow discord by assuming moral high ground and vilifying the other side. etc., etc. >In order to have an informed populace then need to be exposed to things, sometime controversial. The political culture status quo at Bay Area companies is that this is an alt-right talking point. >If you remove a reasonably large mechanism for that, conversation at work, it will have political consequences. Conversation at work absolutely should not be a large mechanism for political discussion. It's work. If there are political consequences because workers are no longer allow to virtue signal all day, then that speaks more about their weak mental state than it does about politics.