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Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?
by emsy 5y ago
Why do people think work is an appropriate place for political activism?
- jiscariot 5y agoIf I had to pick one cause, it is google's "bring your whole self to work" policy.
- woodruffw 5y agoThat's a great question for the Coinbase CEO!
- malermeister 5y agoEverything you do is implicitly political. To say you're non-political is just another political position itself - complicity with the status quo.
- disneygibson 5y agoWithout food, you can’t survive, therefore everything is implicitly about food. This line of thought is absurd. Words have definitions and boundaries for a reason.
- ygaitonde 5y ago> Without food, you can’t survive, therefore everything is implicitly about food. This, but unironically.
- mechanical_bear 5y agoHard disagree. Sometimes being apolitical is just a desire to not get involved and has nothing to do with supporting status quo.
- malermeister 5y agoNot getting involved always means at least tacitly supporting the status quo. To think otherwise is just an expression of privilege. There is no being apolitical.
- fleddr 5y agoNonsense. Silence means just that, silence. It could mean anything: I don't know. I don't care. I might care but don't have time to look into it. I care but it's not in my top 10 issues. None of these options support the status quo.
- ABeeSea 5y agoI doubt quoting MLK will change your mind, but considering what the Black community in America went through for 100’s of years; it’s worth consideration… >Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. >Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. >The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict. >The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. >The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. >We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. >Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul. >Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. >The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” >In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. >He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. >History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. >Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- fleddr 5y agoWhilst technically correct, I still object. Many if not most things aren't political in a meaningful way, but surely you can make them political. This is how you get "water is racist" and the entire movement of social justice becomes a thing of ridicule. The strategy harms, it doesn't help.
- malermeister 5y agoHow about this: Every economic interaction (which includes employment) is political. Would you agree with this?
- imtringued 5y agoTake one step back. The interaction might not be political in itself but the desire to be able to engage in it might be. As others said, buying a lawn mower isn't political. Demanding that the product you are buying is safe and that economic transactions are done with USD or Bitcoin is definitively political.
- fleddr 5y agoNo, not at all.
- emsy 5y agoI will think about it the next time I buy an old lawnmower on craigslist.
- ABeeSea 5y agoI hope you properly paid sales tax on that purchase, if required, as the political system in many US states requires you to.
- emsy 5y agoIf I take a dump I have to ensure to dispose it properly, because the fecal disposal is tightly regulated by many states, therefore taking a dump is a political issue.
- mattparcens 5y agoThe status quo is not necessarily a bad thing, for instance if you have a lot of activist coworkers who want to "burn the system to the ground," then I, for one, become a huge supporter of the status quo. One must remember that things can always get worse. Just because there exist concrete problems in society does not mean that you, or activist coworkers get to assume that you're/they're automatically right nor that you/they have workable solutions.
- jakelazaroff 5y agoBrian Armstrong has literally said he has a plan for Bitcoin to surpass the dollar as a reserve currency within the next decade [1]. That, to me, is an activist who wants to “burn the system to the ground”. [1] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/coinbase-ceo-bitcoin-surpass-dollar-reserve-currency-within-15-years-1512429 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/coinbase-ceo-bitcoin-surpass-dolla...
- imtringued 5y agoIt doesn't make sense because the whole idea of having a reserve currency is stupid to begin with and it was discovered to be stupid in the 40s.
- asabjorn 5y agoDo you by complicity [1] mean the critical social justice concept that all white (or people that believe in classical liberal culture) people are complicit in the maintenance and harms of systemic racism (stopping a perfect equity utopia) and white supremacy (continuation of individualistic western liberalism, instead of collectivist group-based critical social justice)? [1] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-complicity/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-complicity/ Edit: changed terminology from "classical white" to "classical liberal" culture. It diverges from critical social justice dogma by doing this, making my attempt at communicating with a Critical Social Justice adherent less in their language, but is hopefully clearer.
- ABeeSea 5y agoWhat is “classical white culture?” I’m not aware of any global culture associated with skin color. But feel free to enlighten me.
- Jensson 5y agoUSA has this strange notion where they group people by skin color and call that race and assume same skin color has same culture.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> USA has this strange notion where they group people by skin color and call that race No, we don’t. (There's two races where one of the common, not-generally-offensive names for each refers to a color, but people identified and identifying with each of those races have a wide range of skin colors, overlapping with those of most other races in both cases.) > and assume same skin color has same culture. No, we generally don’t.
- asabjorn 5y ago>> USA has this strange notion where they group people by skin color and call that race >No, we don’t. (There's two races where one of the common, not-generally-offensive names for each refers to a color, but people identified and identifying with each of those races have a wide range of skin colors, overlapping with those of most other races in both cases.) Correct, most people do not believe that skin color define them or their neighbor. The notion also generally does not make much sense, as Americans are incredibly racially mixed. However, a very aggressive and powerful minority that believe in critical social justice are enforcing racial stereotypes. To say you are defined by race is a bit like saying you are defined by nose size. It is an arbitrary trait amongst many. >> and assume same skin color has same culture. >No, we generally don’t. That is the Coinbase CEOs experience. People generally falsify preferences in public in order to not offend any Critical Social Justice activist that may ruin their life for saying the wrong thing. However, generally Americans are friendly and welcoming people that just want to live a good simple family life next to good neighbors of any creed.
- azornathogron 5y agoWhen I go for a walk with a friend, is that political? When I play a puzzle game on my computer? When I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? When I cook dinner? I suggest that there is much activity in life that is not political.
- tshaddox 5y agoI think it's pretty clear that when people say "everything is political" the "everything" is scoped specifically to scenarios where there is a decision to make and people disagree on how to make that decision. When someone says something like "meat is political" I don't think they mean that the physical substance on the dinner plate has this property, but rather that there are decisions to make that directly involve meat which people disagree about, and that politics is the (or at least one of the) processes by which decisions get made by groups of people when individuals in the group disagree.
- azornathogron 5y agoIt's not at all clear to me. What's the point in saying "everything is X" if you implicitly mean "everything is X except all the things that obviously aren't X"? If we all agreed on what was not political then no one would need to argue that "everything is political" in the first place, so if you want to have any interesting discussion at all then you need to actually say something about where the boundary is between political and non-political. Because it's that boundary that's contentious and might actually lead to some insight when discussed freely. The statement "meat is political" is a different case, because it is specific. It doesn't rely on an implicit clause that hides the actual concept of interest.
- tshaddox 5y agoIt’s just how people talk. They’re not making a universal quantification in first-order logic. If you ask someone what kind of food they want for dinner and they say “I like everything” you don’t conclude that they like genocide.
- imtringued 5y agoI agree, a lot of free market arguments just boil down to maintaining an imagined status quo. What I take issue with is that the real status quo is an unspoken rule that everyone understands but nobody ever talks about. Most of it boils down to appeal to nature in the form of "the strong rule over the weak" and actual freedom for all people is basically irrelevant.
- staysafeanon 5y ago>complicity with the status quo. This is a non-argument because "status quo" can be construed as anything and everything. It boils down to "you're either with us or against us." "If you don't actively support my pet cause on women's rights to own hand guns in California, it means you support the status quo. You support women being murdered and victimized without any recourse because you want to disarm them when they need guns the most! Supporting the status quo on gun rights is supporting women victimization!"
- vkou 5y agoBecause managers and directors feel that it is. They generally feel that it's an appropriate place for pushing their politics. (And complain loudly when employees do the same.)
- fullshark 5y agoWhy do companies try to inspire employees with things beyond purely mercenary motivations?
- sethherr 5y agoBecause mercenary motivation is in and of itself a choice. If everyone was motivated by money alone there wouldn’t be non-profits. There is clearly a market for occupations with different incentives.
- fullshark 5y agoSounds like both sides are generally looking for more from the labor arrangement than simply keeping the lights on.
- sethherr 5y agoAbsolutely! You spend the majority of your awake time at work. Some people optimize for money, others optimize for status, happiness or any other objective humans can have. I think the thing that really upsets people is that the company changed course. People who go to work at a HFT firm are probably all motivated by compensation - and would expect that, because it’s baked into the company culture and business model. People choose to work somewhere based the reward it offers. If that changes, without their consent, it breaks an unwritten contract.
- kasey_junk 5y agoI went to work for an HFT largely for non-compensation reasons. I had friends I liked working there and the technical challenges were extremely interesting. I learned a ton that has been really helpful sense in my career outside of HFT. Most of the engineers I worked with had similar motivations. I actually think my time in Silicon Valley startups has had me interacting with people more interested in compensation than any of my time in trading. (None of this matters to the larger discussion but wanted to offer you a perspective of someone who has actually made the choice you are using as an example)
- tptacek 5y agoBecause that's part of the premise of a society governed in large part by the free market. That's an idea I support, but it only makes sense if market power isn't amoral. Tech company employees wield some of the most important power in our markets.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago>"a society governed in large part by the free market" I disagree and have a much more simple explanation. Activists naturally want to involve as many people as they can in their cause/struggle. By framing everything as political, they open up opportunities to proselytize in areas traditionally not appropriate for 'politics'. If you couple that with a cultural expectation that people must take a side, and, that simply not being a [bad thing] is not enough, you must be actively anti-[bad thing], and you've got the current climate Brian Armstrong is trying to avoid.
- cortesoft 5y agoIt is impossible to remove politics from your work. If you try to ignore everything except the mission of making money at work, that ALSO is a political choice…
- urda 5y ago> It is impossible to remove politics from your work. It absolutely is and this statement is either not informed enough or is being argued in bad faith. Unless your job is involved in direct politics or government you can keep the politics out and focus on the work. I do not need my peers or coworkers bringing in politics to the workspace. Politics is a disease that seems to be seeping in everywhere because a vocal minority thinks every moment needs political involvement. It does not.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y agoGenuinely asking because I never got this: how do you remove politics from your work if your work provides healthcare? Like what if you or your dependents want birth control or need an abortion or get a blood transfusion that happens to be from a black person or take hormone replacement therapy or take AIDS drugs or get a vaccine or whatever is the political medical controversy do jour?
- cortesoft 5y agoGive me any job, and I am certain I can think of a way politics is inextricably involved. If you are a website and you host user comments, and the government requests information about a commenter. Do you give it to them right away, or do you fight it? What if the country is a known violator of human rights? What if the request is to try to track down a pedophile? What if it is to track down a journalist? Either decision is political. If you comply, that is a political decision. If you decline, that is a political decision. If you fight it in court, that is a political decision. What about deciding what to do with user data. Do you sell it to the highest bidder? Do you protect privacy? Do you sell it, but only to certain people? Do you use it internally? Do you store it at all? How much effort do you put into securing your users data? Is that decision purely financial, or do you believe you have a responsibility to protect your users data even if it costs you more than you would lose in a breach?
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- kasey_junk 5y agoBecause it’s historically been one of the most important parts of the political sphere? It’s a very new thought that work should be apolitical.
- throwawaysea 5y agoIt's not that anyone thinks it is appropriate - they know it is inappropriate. It's more that they don't care, and are willing to do whatever it takes to leverage the power of institutions (such as companies, universities, and government agencies) to fulfill their personal political and ideological goals. This is a well-known strategy for activism, particularly on the left, and even has a name - "long march through the institutions" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_march_through_the_institu...). Some call it "entryism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism). As we've seen in American tech companies, once a foothold is gained, these motivated activists immediately start to loudly push for the aggressive exclusion of opposing views, and cancellation of all who belong to a different political group. Signaling consequences for opposition leads to self-censorship from others, which in turn helps further cement the perceived institutional consensus around the activists' platform. This strategy is ultimately effective, both because institutional takeover can build silently and become visible suddenly, and because company leaders are often too timid in exercising their power to shut down or fire such disruptive employees.
- ABeeSea 5y agoThat wikipedia article doesn’t support your claims at all.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago> As we've seen in American tech companies, once a foothold is gained, these motivated activists immediately start loudly push for the aggressive exclusion of opposing views, and cancellation of all who belong to a different political group. Reminds me of a cryptocurrency exchange with an activist CEO who forbids dissenting political views in the workplace. Can’t remember his name.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoThis looks like a textbox case of the "Paradox of Intolerance" by Karl Popper, does it not?
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoBecause work equals social mobility, and if a workplace excludes certain demographics they will remain socially immobile.
- xibalba 5y agoBecause liberal arts higher education has been completely usurped by Postmodernism and Marxism, and it indoctrinates students with the belief that everything everywhere is politics, always. This mentality has infected "liberal" intellectualism outside the academy, to the point where it is, essentially, the "culture" of much of the Left in the U.S.
- jakelazaroff 5y agoHave you considered that people have reached those beliefs after observing and reflecting on how they perceive the world to work? Why are you so sure it’s “indoctrination” when people come to a conclusion that doesn’t comport with your worldview?
- ABeeSea 5y agoDefine what you believe Marxism to be. It isn’t a buzz word for anything to the left of Reagan. And everything is politics. A political system could decide to outlaw computers and the internet. How would your SaaS business survive then?
- xibalba 5y agoI define Marxism broadly as the initial poisoning of the left-leaning mind with the concept of the ubiquitous class struggle. It has mutated into a belief system under which there is always an oppressing class and an oppressed class. It can be the landed gentry (oppressors) vs. the commoners (oppressed), capital (oppressors) vs. labor (oppressed), racial majority (oppressors) vs. racial minority (oppressed). But at its core, it is unable to view the current state of the world, or any subdivision thereof, in terms other than oppressed and oppressor, whether any reasonable person would agree or not. And, as can be seen with all Marxists (operating under there many self-ascribed labels), the only cure is revolution and purification. Of course, for those of us with a passing grasp of recent history, its quite clear that both of those will lead to mass violence and death. See also, the Bolshevik Revolution and its ensuing horrors, Mao's revolutions and their ensuing horrors, the Cuban revolution and its continued mass oppression, the French Revolution and all of its violent insanity, etc. etc. > And everything is politics And thus we arrive at Postmodernism. Postmodernism introduces the belief that everything is relative and everything is a construct. There is no base reality, no ground truth–or if there is, we can dismiss it as irrelevant given the all powerful constructs and systems of human life. Thus one can make arguments like, "Everything is always politics" and use such asinine premises as the basis of injecting noxious politics into every facet of our lives. Once again contravening the majority of people's lived experiences and desires.