6 ms·

This is a tricky one. On one hand, there's the obvious issues: almost everything you can talk about is societal or political. Talking about your lawn growing is

by shados 5y ago

This is a tricky one. On one hand, there's the obvious issues: almost everything you can talk about is societal or political. Talking about your lawn growing is societal because it means you can have a lawn and that gets into the housing crisis sooner or later. If people can't speak about politics, marginalized group will have difficulty bringing up tough issues that impact them in their day to day job. On the other hand, I haven't seen a company where the various politics Slack channel didn't devolved to a couple of white guys in an eco chamber trashing anyone who isn't agreeing with their favorite issue of the day. And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such. Some issues may be fairly one sided, at least at a high level (gender and race equality), others are much more nuanced (gentrification and housing, the school debt crisis) and the discussions are always bordering on needing HR involved to avoid people screaming at each other. Some are extremely subjective but just as heated in Slack (the whole working from home thing). So how do you handle it? Let people talk about it but ban the slack channels? Ban it altogether? Have HR moderating the discussions? I honestly don't know. Right now it seems like the status quo of "let it happen and hope for the best" is the best of the bad options you have in front of you, but eventually something goes sour and you have to do something. Basecamp's approach is likely missing the mark, but I'd be curious what others are doing. If your answer is "Nah, we have tons of political discussions at work and its all positives", you're probably not looking very hard.

aaronbrethorst 5y ago
Grass lawns are also just flat-out bad. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-alternatives-grass-lawn https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-...
- lovegoblin 5y ago
  Which is a perfect example of how nothing is truly apolitical.
  - azemetre 5y ago
    I'm extremely late to the thread, but why is pointing out that manicured lawns may have negative environment effects now political? I'm genuinely curious because after reading this thread you get the impression that you shouldn't be allowed to exist because to do so would be a political act.
    - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
      The climate crisis is political, and this has bearing on that.
  - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
    Yep, exactly.
ljm 5y ago
One place I worked at had a politics channel, designed to keep the chat out of the general spaces. Mainly because the team worked across the world and politics were US-centric first and UK-centric second, and nobody wanted a ping on one of the global chat channels only to get a link complaining about a sleazy American politician or the debate on Brexit as if none of the rest of the world (and the politics there) existed. As it happened, we noticed the few people with even vaguely right-wing opinions or ideals were dogpiled by a much larger contingent of left-wing people. It was an ugly sight, and I wasn't happy with that at all. It eventually settled down and the diversity of opinion opened up enough for people to have a sensible chat, but those first few months were utterly fucking shameful. It was about then that I stopped identifying as left wing and decided that there isn't a side to pick unless you've made it who you are. I still disagreed with most of the conservative viewpoints, but disagreement is fine. A bit of healthy back and forth, get another drink, and then change the topic.
- therealdrag0 5y ago
  Reminds me of this essay: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
  - ljm 5y ago
    That touches on what I feel, I think. In my own words, once you have something as an identity, criticism or disagreement very quickly turns into an attack on who you are; an attack on your being. It's not about the issue any more, it's about you feeling threatened and fighting back to protect yourself and feel safe. Ultimately I identify as myself and that encompasses a small collection of things where I feel intensely vulnerable but also very secure in knowing that, relating to my experience of growing up, abandonment, attachment, my mental health, and so on. Attacking those aspects of my being is likely to hurt me, and is the point where I would decide whether this person needs to be present in my life or not. So I would speak out strongly on the topic of depression and suicide, for example, because part of who I am - my identity - is that I tried multiple times and survived each time, and that long-term state of depression significantly changed who I am. If someone made fun of me for being some bleeding-heart liberal whenever I talk about compassion or some spiritual experience? whatever...I don't care. It's not for everyone.
brown9-2 5y ago
> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?
- markmark 5y ago
  Basecamp's post specifically called this out as a problem.
  - brown9-2 5y ago
    Then I think their problem is not “politics” but being unable to deal with individual employees who are being unreasonable and uncivil.
    - shados 5y ago
      That's easy to say until you see how it actually happens. Basecamp would likely still be in the news, just instead of being about banning politics talks, it would be because they're somehow preventing their employees from supporting some cause or another.
      - brown9-2 5y ago
        This move is generating even more unrest and publicity for them
        shados 5y ago
        Oh for sure. Writing the blog post (at all) and putting that policy in without discussing it within the company was a REAAAAAAALLY bad/tone deaf move. When they announced it originally I assumed it had been implemented for weeks and they had the expected all hands meeting internally and concerns/edge cases worked out. They clearly didn't. Saying that was dumb would be the understatement of the week.
        5y ago

by shados 5y ago

aaronbrethorst 5y ago

Grass lawns are also just flat-out bad. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-alternatives-grass-lawn https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-...

lovegoblin 5y ago
Which is a perfect example of how nothing is truly apolitical.
- azemetre 5y ago
  I'm extremely late to the thread, but why is pointing out that manicured lawns may have negative environment effects now political? I'm genuinely curious because after reading this thread you get the impression that you shouldn't be allowed to exist because to do so would be a political act.
  - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
    The climate crisis is political, and this has bearing on that.
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  Yep, exactly.

ljm 5y ago

One place I worked at had a politics channel, designed to keep the chat out of the general spaces. Mainly because the team worked across the world and politics were US-centric first and UK-centric second, and nobody wanted a ping on one of the global chat channels only to get a link complaining about a sleazy American politician or the debate on Brexit as if none of the rest of the world (and the politics there) existed. As it happened, we noticed the few people with even vaguely right-wing opinions or ideals were dogpiled by a much larger contingent of left-wing people. It was an ugly sight, and I wasn't happy with that at all. It eventually settled down and the diversity of opinion opened up enough for people to have a sensible chat, but those first few months were utterly fucking shameful. It was about then that I stopped identifying as left wing and decided that there isn't a side to pick unless you've made it who you are. I still disagreed with most of the conservative viewpoints, but disagreement is fine. A bit of healthy back and forth, get another drink, and then change the topic.

therealdrag0 5y ago
Reminds me of this essay: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
- ljm 5y ago
  That touches on what I feel, I think. In my own words, once you have something as an identity, criticism or disagreement very quickly turns into an attack on who you are; an attack on your being. It's not about the issue any more, it's about you feeling threatened and fighting back to protect yourself and feel safe. Ultimately I identify as myself and that encompasses a small collection of things where I feel intensely vulnerable but also very secure in knowing that, relating to my experience of growing up, abandonment, attachment, my mental health, and so on. Attacking those aspects of my being is likely to hurt me, and is the point where I would decide whether this person needs to be present in my life or not. So I would speak out strongly on the topic of depression and suicide, for example, because part of who I am - my identity - is that I tried multiple times and survived each time, and that long-term state of depression significantly changed who I am. If someone made fun of me for being some bleeding-heart liberal whenever I talk about compassion or some spiritual experience? whatever...I don't care. It's not for everyone.

brown9-2 5y ago

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

markmark 5y ago
Basecamp's post specifically called this out as a problem.
- brown9-2 5y ago
  Then I think their problem is not “politics” but being unable to deal with individual employees who are being unreasonable and uncivil.
  - shados 5y ago
    That's easy to say until you see how it actually happens. Basecamp would likely still be in the news, just instead of being about banning politics talks, it would be because they're somehow preventing their employees from supporting some cause or another.
    - brown9-2 5y ago
      This move is generating even more unrest and publicity for them
      - shados 5y ago
        Oh for sure. Writing the blog post (at all) and putting that policy in without discussing it within the company was a REAAAAAAALLY bad/tone deaf move. When they announced it originally I assumed it had been implemented for weeks and they had the expected all hands meeting internally and concerns/edge cases worked out. They clearly didn't. Saying that was dumb would be the understatement of the week.
        5y ago