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This is a weird take. The tech industry is all politics all the time. Even if all you're doing is discussing policy changes as it relates to the business. Even

This is a weird take. The tech industry is all politics all the time. Even if all you're doing is discussing policy changes as it relates to the business. Even if literally everyone at the company agrees and is on the same political side you'll still occasionally discuss things like municipal broadband or the Affordable Care Act. By banning politics it creates a hush hush atmosphere where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything.

aniforprez 6y ago
I honestly don't understand the sentiment here when people are saying "do your job" and other things to that effect that strip all context from this. The biggest issue right now is COVID and when discussing it the topic can and will inevitable lead to something political. Is it helpful to have to think about the arbitrary line your employers have drawn and try to toe it? When do you know if you pissed off someone higher up? You cannot stop workplace discussions because programmers are people too and will want to find camaraderie and sympathy. Putting these rules and posting them publicly seems like a poor way of simply avoiding the issue rather than resolving it
- Cyberdog 6y ago
  > The biggest issue right now is COVID and when discussing it the topic can and will inevitable lead to something political. Will it? I feel like I've had dozens of conversations about the coof (most recently, about getting the shots and related stuff - I had some bad side effects to mine that caused me to miss a half day of work) without politics being a part of it. Do people not even try anymore?
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    What a perfect example. Just the very idea of bringing up vaccines is "political" to those that think vaccines are a means of the state to control the population. You don't think it's political, but it is to someone. And that person, under the guise of a "no politics aloud" policy could seek to silence you from any references to the benefits of the vaccines, it's side effects, etc.
swat535 6y ago
> The tech industry is all politics all the time .. This is a comical generalization of an entire industry which spans beyond US.. I have worked in plenty on companies (big and small) where politics was simply left outside of business and everyone was fine with simply discussing the actual system design, infrastructure and data models. Employees were simply not permitted to attempt to convert others to Christianity or initiate flame wars regarding abortion laws. There is a time and a place for politics and a business setting is just not it. I think this is a great move by Basecamp and I hope more companies follow. At a minimum, their stance is now crystal clear and there will be high cohesion between employees and management.
- vidarh 6y ago
  System design is often inherently political as well. How do capture gender in the database? That's a political debate. Do you care that you can't correctly store 'foreign' names? Political. Do you offer Catalan too when you translate to Spanish? Political. Do you include disputed territories on your countries lists or allow people to enter 'other'? Political. Privacy protection? Political. Systems are shaped by political debate and in turn shapes it. Your decisions will have a political dimension whether or not you like it. And that is before considering all of the internal cultural and behavioural issues that are inherently political. As for Basecamp, I think they've set themselves up for further conflict and turmoil. If I was there and hadn't quit yet, I'd consider it now because such a huge departure will destabilize oth.the company and internal culture for a long time.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    It sounds like you think all tech companies just make stuff for consumer websites. There are quite a few that don’t interact with global customers and literally never have to even discuss those things.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      I've worked across a wide range of companies in tech for 25 years, so no, I don't. But I've also yet to work for or with a single company where tech decisions were not inherently political. E.g. I had a contract to do a communications system to relay debug mapping data from an autonomous submersible. For a military research institute. It was inherently political because I had to consider if I was ok with working a project that might end up being used in armed conflict in the future my code certainly wouldn't). Or when I worked on code to maintain the quality documentation for a systems integrated that delivered backend systems for the police. I had no problems with that, but I might have if it'd been somewhere where the police had a worse reputation than in Norway where I did that job. I've worked on billing systems where we had to decide on anti-fraud measures. Sounds non-political, until you realise it often involves broad blocks that stereotypes behaviours based on factors that very easily ends up effectively profiling users. I could list many more. I've yet to work on a single software system where the higher level architecture did not involve consideration of political issues whether explicitly, or implicitly. I'm sure there are some, but I think there are far fewer than you imagine.
JamesBarney 6y ago
There's a big difference between having a friendly argument about the ACA over beers and telling a coworker they're enabling genocide by keeping a funny names list on the company slack.
lelanthran 6y ago
> By banning politics it creates a hush hush atmosphere where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything. My understanding is that these people did not leave because they were not allowed to discuss something innocuous, they left because they were not allowed to preach their belief system at work. > you'll still occasionally discuss things like municipal broadband or the Affordable Care Act. And if the woke crowd were able to "discuss" something without calling everyone who refused to join their belief system names, then this wouldn't be a problem.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything. That’s more true of a highly politicized workplace if you have the “wrong” opinions.

aniforprez 6y ago

I honestly don't understand the sentiment here when people are saying "do your job" and other things to that effect that strip all context from this. The biggest issue right now is COVID and when discussing it the topic can and will inevitable lead to something political. Is it helpful to have to think about the arbitrary line your employers have drawn and try to toe it? When do you know if you pissed off someone higher up? You cannot stop workplace discussions because programmers are people too and will want to find camaraderie and sympathy. Putting these rules and posting them publicly seems like a poor way of simply avoiding the issue rather than resolving it

Cyberdog 6y ago
> The biggest issue right now is COVID and when discussing it the topic can and will inevitable lead to something political. Will it? I feel like I've had dozens of conversations about the coof (most recently, about getting the shots and related stuff - I had some bad side effects to mine that caused me to miss a half day of work) without politics being a part of it. Do people not even try anymore?
- deanCommie 6y ago
  What a perfect example. Just the very idea of bringing up vaccines is "political" to those that think vaccines are a means of the state to control the population. You don't think it's political, but it is to someone. And that person, under the guise of a "no politics aloud" policy could seek to silence you from any references to the benefits of the vaccines, it's side effects, etc.

swat535 6y ago

> The tech industry is all politics all the time .. This is a comical generalization of an entire industry which spans beyond US.. I have worked in plenty on companies (big and small) where politics was simply left outside of business and everyone was fine with simply discussing the actual system design, infrastructure and data models. Employees were simply not permitted to attempt to convert others to Christianity or initiate flame wars regarding abortion laws. There is a time and a place for politics and a business setting is just not it. I think this is a great move by Basecamp and I hope more companies follow. At a minimum, their stance is now crystal clear and there will be high cohesion between employees and management.

vidarh 6y ago
System design is often inherently political as well. How do capture gender in the database? That's a political debate. Do you care that you can't correctly store 'foreign' names? Political. Do you offer Catalan too when you translate to Spanish? Political. Do you include disputed territories on your countries lists or allow people to enter 'other'? Political. Privacy protection? Political. Systems are shaped by political debate and in turn shapes it. Your decisions will have a political dimension whether or not you like it. And that is before considering all of the internal cultural and behavioural issues that are inherently political. As for Basecamp, I think they've set themselves up for further conflict and turmoil. If I was there and hadn't quit yet, I'd consider it now because such a huge departure will destabilize oth.the company and internal culture for a long time.
- kortilla 6y ago
  It sounds like you think all tech companies just make stuff for consumer websites. There are quite a few that don’t interact with global customers and literally never have to even discuss those things.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    I've worked across a wide range of companies in tech for 25 years, so no, I don't. But I've also yet to work for or with a single company where tech decisions were not inherently political. E.g. I had a contract to do a communications system to relay debug mapping data from an autonomous submersible. For a military research institute. It was inherently political because I had to consider if I was ok with working a project that might end up being used in armed conflict in the future my code certainly wouldn't). Or when I worked on code to maintain the quality documentation for a systems integrated that delivered backend systems for the police. I had no problems with that, but I might have if it'd been somewhere where the police had a worse reputation than in Norway where I did that job. I've worked on billing systems where we had to decide on anti-fraud measures. Sounds non-political, until you realise it often involves broad blocks that stereotypes behaviours based on factors that very easily ends up effectively profiling users. I could list many more. I've yet to work on a single software system where the higher level architecture did not involve consideration of political issues whether explicitly, or implicitly. I'm sure there are some, but I think there are far fewer than you imagine.

JamesBarney 6y ago

There's a big difference between having a friendly argument about the ACA over beers and telling a coworker they're enabling genocide by keeping a funny names list on the company slack.

lelanthran 6y ago

> By banning politics it creates a hush hush atmosphere where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything. My understanding is that these people did not leave because they were not allowed to discuss something innocuous, they left because they were not allowed to preach their belief system at work. > you'll still occasionally discuss things like municipal broadband or the Affordable Care Act. And if the woke crowd were able to "discuss" something without calling everyone who refused to join their belief system names, then this wouldn't be a problem.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> where the mere mention of something inocuious can get you fired so you end up never talking about anything. That’s more true of a highly politicized workplace if you have the “wrong” opinions.