3 ms·
I consider myself a moderate, and by voting habit, almost fully left-wing. I do see it as a free speech issue in one sense, but in practice I only see free spee
by throwawaysea 6y ago
I consider myself a moderate, and by voting habit, almost fully left-wing. I do see it as a free speech issue in one sense, but in practice I only see free speech being allowed for certain viewpoints. For example if you work at Google or Facebook and you speak up against affirmative action hiring practices or transwomen in women's sports, you will be fired. The excuse will be that these opinions are "hate speech" or that they violate some policy of discrimination at work place or made someone feel "unsafe" or whatever else. If on the other hand, everyone is given the same psychological safety and ability to speak up, without any social or professional repercussions, that might be acceptable.
That said, I think a workplace where people freely argue with each other and try to make their political viewpoints "win" is going to be unproductive. Leaving out politics is appropriate because it focuses the company's efforts on providing a better product or service. I view time and resources spent on those political activities as unproductive and distracting for the workforce. So in a sense, being political at work seems like a performance issue to me. I know some people will use mental gymnastics to claim that being political is somehow beneficial to the company with vague arguments around diversity or attracting certain customers or whatever, but I don't personally find those justifications to be compelling, as they seem disconnected from the reality that apolitical companies and products do just fine.
- bumbastique 6y ago> For example if you work at Google or Facebook and you speak up against affirmative action hiring practices or transwomen in women's sports, you will be fired. The excuse will be that these opinions are "hate speech" or that they violate some policy of discrimination at work place or made someone feel "unsafe" or whatever else. It's ridiculous isn't it, how these flawed stances became some sort of woke orthodoxy in recent years. Another jarring instance of this is, they'll all go on about how important mental health and neurodiversiry is and blah blah blah, but as soon as the office autist steps out of line and says the 'wrong' thing, they all pounce on him relentlessly and without mercy. I mean, just look at how RMS was treated, simply for expressing his honest opinions. Hounded out of his job. No dissent allowed in this new religion.