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Before I answer, could you please give concrete examples of what you mean by intolerance? I’m genuinely curious and trying to be open minded, I hope I’m not com

Before I answer, could you please give concrete examples of what you mean by intolerance? I’m genuinely curious and trying to be open minded, I hope I’m not coming across as confrontational. At my last job I was open about my Christianity. I haven’t really had a chance to do that at my current job because of COVID. At my current job though I do talk about the fact that I own a gun in the context of recreation, and at my last job I defended the second amendment in a lunch conversation, but I haven’t really run into an opportunity to espouse a commitment to proactive self defense in a work context… I do talk about self defense with friends though, some of whom strongly oppose the second amendment. My current friends are to my knowledge entirely not Christian.

bordercases 6y ago
The reason why I'm surprised is because a lot of what counts for political commentary within Silicon Valley circles has emphasized stances in cultural issues which seem opposed to either the Christian attitude or second amendment rights or other views that get broadly tagged as "conservative" or "unkind". It's definitely possible to be tasteful and silent when sitting on a Zoom call as people voice strong views in support of XYZ, but it's another thing to wonder if your working relationships are at risk if you voice the opposite, and the majority of media sponsored by SV money sets up the discourse to make that view look foolish which triplicates the amount of work you need to do to defend it. At the same time it's possible that this is just an issue of a vocal minority of companies controlling the majority of impressions. Since you seem to have had more positive experiences (which I wouldn't expect), I should let you have the floor. (Last question, if you don't mind: what denomination?)
- jonathanyc 6y ago
  Thanks for engaging in a civil way! Yeah, at my last job people definitely were more vocal about political issues. That’s actually how my religion came up. Now everything is work from home and over video, and people at my new job are also more heads-down. I’d certainly say that people have misconceptions about Christianity or might paint Christians with broad strokes in discussions. But I haven’t found people to be rude after I try to explain my stances, even if they disagree, unless they are not great people to work with in the first place :) But I don’t think that’s anywhere near as intolerant as for example racism I’ve experienced, which is why the claim that the Bay Area is more intolerant irks me. I’m a Presbyterian and consider myself to be pretty hardline theologically. TULIP and all that. EDIT: I would definitely expect different reactions if I said inflammatory things to coworkers like “you’re going to hell!”, or to people against the second amendment “hope you don’t miss your children when the oligarchs enslave them because you didn’t have a gun!” But I think communicating while disagreeing without resorting to vitriol is also just a core part of being an engineer. Maybe those things are true but they’re not really productive ways to engage people.

bordercases 6y ago

The reason why I'm surprised is because a lot of what counts for political commentary within Silicon Valley circles has emphasized stances in cultural issues which seem opposed to either the Christian attitude or second amendment rights or other views that get broadly tagged as "conservative" or "unkind". It's definitely possible to be tasteful and silent when sitting on a Zoom call as people voice strong views in support of XYZ, but it's another thing to wonder if your working relationships are at risk if you voice the opposite, and the majority of media sponsored by SV money sets up the discourse to make that view look foolish which triplicates the amount of work you need to do to defend it. At the same time it's possible that this is just an issue of a vocal minority of companies controlling the majority of impressions. Since you seem to have had more positive experiences (which I wouldn't expect), I should let you have the floor. (Last question, if you don't mind: what denomination?)

jonathanyc 6y ago
Thanks for engaging in a civil way! Yeah, at my last job people definitely were more vocal about political issues. That’s actually how my religion came up. Now everything is work from home and over video, and people at my new job are also more heads-down. I’d certainly say that people have misconceptions about Christianity or might paint Christians with broad strokes in discussions. But I haven’t found people to be rude after I try to explain my stances, even if they disagree, unless they are not great people to work with in the first place :) But I don’t think that’s anywhere near as intolerant as for example racism I’ve experienced, which is why the claim that the Bay Area is more intolerant irks me. I’m a Presbyterian and consider myself to be pretty hardline theologically. TULIP and all that. EDIT: I would definitely expect different reactions if I said inflammatory things to coworkers like “you’re going to hell!”, or to people against the second amendment “hope you don’t miss your children when the oligarchs enslave them because you didn’t have a gun!” But I think communicating while disagreeing without resorting to vitriol is also just a core part of being an engineer. Maybe those things are true but they’re not really productive ways to engage people.