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Companies are collections of people, each of which are free to have their own beliefs, but that doesn't mean the company should officially share and support the

Companies are collections of people, each of which are free to have their own beliefs, but that doesn't mean the company should officially share and support their individual beliefs. I see this only causing endless division within the company, instead of people being (more) unified in their pursuit of the company's vision. Why not encourage employees to represent their beliefs individually, and off company time, by giving them more vacation and flexible working hours instead? Empower the employees to participate in politics without the company taking a side itself? I'm tired of people pushing their political beliefs onto me at every opportunity, in every available setting, IRL and online.

exogeny 6y ago
Ironically, I'll bet most people think they can assume what your politics are just based on this post alone.
- rayiner 6y ago
  You might be surprised. There are a lot of traditional liberals who are beginning to take exception to this sort of thing. Megyn Kelly had Matt Taibbi on her show recently to talk about this and it was quite odd to see them agreeing on something.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Matt Taibbi isn't a traditional liberal, and his current flavor of accelerationist contrarianism is very compatible with Kelly. Not for nothing, but this Taibbi trait was amplified by him being pretty persuasively MeToo'd a couple years back; he tried to fend off criticism of his work in The eXile, but again, Rule of Goats. Honestly I think this says more surprising about Kelly than it does about Taibbi.
adamsea 6y ago
> Why not encourage employees to represent their beliefs individually, and off company time, by giving them more vacation and flexible working hours instead? Empower the employees to participate in politics without the company taking a side itself? IMHO it's about power and the profits power leads to, and the desire of large companies to maintain their power and their profit. IMHO on some level large corporations know that if they did this employees would get politically active and push more for their own interests to be represented in government over that of the large companies, resulting in less profit for said companies because government is investing in civil society and public infrastructure instead. IMHO part of the reason the George Floyd protests were as big as they were is that folks had time on their hands, which is not the normal case for most folks in our system as it is today.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Encourage employees to represent their beliefs individually by giving them more holidays? Looks like you're trying to shoehorn your belief, i.e. employees to have more vacation time, which is fine, but has nothing to do with "have more time to express themselves politically". That's a stretch.
- errantmind 6y ago
  I don't think it is that much of a stretch. As it is, most employees in the US barely have enough time to take a day off to vote, although that is getting easier with mail-in ballots. By giving employees more 'free time', they can spend it where they want, including political causes of their choosing.

exogeny 6y ago

Ironically, I'll bet most people think they can assume what your politics are just based on this post alone.

rayiner 6y ago
You might be surprised. There are a lot of traditional liberals who are beginning to take exception to this sort of thing. Megyn Kelly had Matt Taibbi on her show recently to talk about this and it was quite odd to see them agreeing on something.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Matt Taibbi isn't a traditional liberal, and his current flavor of accelerationist contrarianism is very compatible with Kelly. Not for nothing, but this Taibbi trait was amplified by him being pretty persuasively MeToo'd a couple years back; he tried to fend off criticism of his work in The eXile, but again, Rule of Goats. Honestly I think this says more surprising about Kelly than it does about Taibbi.

adamsea 6y ago

> Why not encourage employees to represent their beliefs individually, and off company time, by giving them more vacation and flexible working hours instead? Empower the employees to participate in politics without the company taking a side itself? IMHO it's about power and the profits power leads to, and the desire of large companies to maintain their power and their profit. IMHO on some level large corporations know that if they did this employees would get politically active and push more for their own interests to be represented in government over that of the large companies, resulting in less profit for said companies because government is investing in civil society and public infrastructure instead. IMHO part of the reason the George Floyd protests were as big as they were is that folks had time on their hands, which is not the normal case for most folks in our system as it is today.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Encourage employees to represent their beliefs individually by giving them more holidays? Looks like you're trying to shoehorn your belief, i.e. employees to have more vacation time, which is fine, but has nothing to do with "have more time to express themselves politically". That's a stretch.

errantmind 6y ago
I don't think it is that much of a stretch. As it is, most employees in the US barely have enough time to take a day off to vote, although that is getting easier with mail-in ballots. By giving employees more 'free time', they can spend it where they want, including political causes of their choosing.