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The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for

The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employees and don't tolerate anyone who doesn't" are just...basic things you need to do in 2021. They aren't a distraction, I would say not saying them is a distraction. In all of the discussion around the blog post from Armstrong last year and the similar discussion around Basecamp, I never once saw an example cited of these so-called distractions from being mission-focused that wasn't just affirming the basic dignity of a group of people. I don't understand why doing so should be controversial. Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support the right of Black people to not be killed randomly and of LGBTQ+ people to exist simply doesn't belong in polite, modern society. How is this controversial? I simply cannot imagine working at a place that doesn't recognize the humanity of their workers. Utterly baffling and heartless mindset.

_3u10 5y ago
Perfect. There are many companies that want to do these performative acts. I like to work with companies and buy from companies that don’t make these statements but also don’t use slave labour to make their products. (Nike) You can have your values and I can have mine.
poszlem 5y ago
There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that women need to have the same rights as men and those that claim to be feminists. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that gays/lesbians are normal people and those who put rainbows everywhere.
- saurik 5y ago
  > There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER. FWIW, in this case, that "difference" might be that Coinbase was simultaneously treating their black employees poorly--dare I say, as "second class citizens"--while actively refusing to take a few seconds to agree with something as banal/obvious as "black lives matter". The BLM statement struggle was merely a catalyst for what were already existing and somewhat long-standing racial tensions brewing inside the company that had led people to feel that, with its actions, the company did not in fact care about its black employees... context you can't just pretend didn't exist going into Brian's "let's not talk about this and everyone go back to work" post. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-cryptocurrency-black-employees.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt... > The tensions at Coinbase came to a head in June, after the police killing of George Floyd. As many tech leaders publicly voiced support for Black Lives Matter protests, Black employees at Coinbase said on the Slack messaging platform that they were hurt by the silence of Mr. Armstrong and other executives about the matter. They organized a meeting where several of them told executives, often through tears, about their difficult experiences at the company, eight people who attended said. Take careful note: this wasn't "merely" "our difficult experiences in the world", this was "our difficult experiences at the company". Seriously: too much of this comment thread seems to be hyperfocused on BLM statements--as I guess y'all really think taking a few minutes and a couple sentences to acknowledge that in solidarity somewhere is somehow a horrible distraction--while ignoring that this had started in the background of "Coinbase is mistreating its black employees so much that it had already lost 3/4s of them" (and that's before Brian's post, so a lack of strong improvement since then is telling). This is way more concrete than these abstractions. > But according to 23 current and former Coinbase employees, five of whom spoke on the record, as well as internal documents and recordings of conversations, the start-up has long struggled with its management of Black employees. > “It was the first time I realized what racism felt like in the modern world,” said Layllen Sawyerr, a compliance analyst who is Black. “I felt like I was being bullied every day at work.” She said she filed a discrimination complaint with Coinbase’s legal department before quitting in 2018.
  - nxmnxm99 5y ago
    If you tell people they're victims, they'll act like victims. Not acknowledging George Floyd "hurts" black employees? This is the kind of nonsense born of priviledge. Anybody from the 3rd world reading this garbage feels sick. 20 year olds making 6 figures to build craigslist for crypto crying because their boss won't acknowledge an event.
- markdown 5y ago
  Nah, that's what the far right propaganda machine has tried to tell you. You're told to believe that Group X is bad, and when you find that you actually believe in the core tenet of Group X, you have trouble reconciling that. You want black lives matter supporters who don't actually fight for change. You want people who believe that women need to have the same rights to do nothing about their beliefs, and you want people who believe that gays and lesbians "are normal people" to keep believing that in secret. In short, you love the status quo, and you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have.
  - staysafeanon 5y ago
    >Nah, that's what the far right propaganda machine has tried to tell you. Nah, that's what facts and being a data driven adult have told us. Apparently they line up with the far-right. Looks like reality had a right bias. >You're told to believe that Group X is bad, and when you find that you actually believe in the core tenet of Group X, you have trouble reconciling that. Except Group X is bad, and sharing common beliefs is immaterial. Hitler/Nazis believed smoking was bad for you and excessive drinking was a blight on society. I agree with them on that, but there's obviously no issues reconciling the fact that they were bad. >You want black lives matter supporters who don't actually fight for change. If they wanted that, they'd be OK with all the neurotic performative virtue signaling at work LOL! >In short, you love the status quo, and you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have. In short, you believe "you're either with us, or against us." Facts, nuance, and logically considering problems are systemic White supremacy culture in your eyes. >you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have. He supports egalitarianism which definitely helps marginalized groups along with everyone else. You're supporting institutional racism.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
>I never once saw an example cited of these so-called distractions from being mission-focused that wasn't just affirming the basic dignity of a group of people. You are free to affirm whatever you want, and have all sort of discussions about society at large when your aren't being paid for your time by someone else to do a job that has nothing to do with affirming groups of people. >I simply cannot imagine working at a place that doesn't recognize the humanity of their workers. Utterly baffling and heartless mindset. Its baffling to me that so many people feel entitled to espouse their social and cultural beliefs in the workplace instead of doing the job they are being paid to do. The way a workplace recognizes the humanity of their workers is by offering good wages, good hours and a generous benefits package.
- mrRandomGuy 5y ago
  This just in, people who also happen to work are not mindless automatons. People like working at places that seem to align with their own personal views. It's baffling to me that people believe I should turn off my brain when I'm at work.
  - poszlem 5y ago
    If you cannot work without doing social activism then perhaps a non-profit foundation is a better place to be?
    - fancifulfiend 5y ago
      [flagged]
    - gwelson 5y ago
      but that's thing...what is "social activism" here? I don't think having a single tweet or post from your company's account saying "happy Pride month, we love our LGBTQ+ Coinbasers" is activism really....it's just like, a nice thing to do. No one is saying Coinbase or any company should pay their employees to go make phone calls for Bernie Sanders' campaign on the clock. It seems like people are inventing some kind of strawman of "paid activism" that no one is asking for.
hardwaregeek 5y ago
All of these statements are like when people comment their condolences or congratulations on social media. Yeah, it’s just a gesture, but the gesture is appreciated. And like a condolence, I don’t think it’s weird if a company doesn’t say anything, but I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations.
- shapefrog 5y ago
  > I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations I am proud I have never written RIP Celebrity on twitter when a celebrity died or sent my congratulations to a Kardashian on the occasion of the brith of their child. When I have offered condolences or congratulations it has been exclusively in person or in a non public broadcast message. I guess that makes me weird, but personally I find posting that sort of shit on social media decidedly odd.
gfodor 5y ago
You say you’re baffled but conclude the people you are baffled by are heartless. You’re not baffled: you have made up your mind.
- markdown 5y ago
  They are heartless. What's baffling is what they gain from being so firmly against basic displays of outreach and acceptance between humans and groups of humans.
  - wiredone 5y ago
    This type of bookending is why Coinbase made this decision. What data do you have that indicates they are heartless?
    - whymauri 5y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-cryptocurrency-black-employees.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt... https://www.lieffcabraser.com/employment/coinbase/ https://www.lieffcabraser.com/employment/coinbase/ make of this what you will.
    - markdown 5y ago
      Data? What are you, a machine? I see a good, meaningful gesture. I see people attacking that gesture. I find that heartless.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  > I now try to avoid using the English idiom "I just don't understand how..." to express indignation. If I genuinely don't understand how, then my model is being surprised by the facts, and I should discard it and find a better model. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tWLFWAndSZSYN6rPB/think-like-reality https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tWLFWAndSZSYN6rPB/think-like...
  - Talanes 5y ago
rafale 5y ago
What if a bunch of white male employees ask the company to make s statement that their lives matter too? After all they are overrepresented in suicide statistics, drug addiction and homelessness. You now this shit will make a lot of leftists lose their mind and show up at ur company offices trying to cancel you out of existence. In a society going mad like ours, opting out of the madness like Coinbase did is the best option.
- AgentME 5y ago
  "Black lives matter" is a slogan that largely refers to a desire to solve issues related to police brutality and black people. "White lives matter", as it's commonly said and understood, is merely a contrarian pushback against that desire to fix those issues. Obviously white lives do matter like others, but making a statement of something communicates something other than the literal meaning: it asserts that there's part of the meaning that the receiver isn't demonstrating knowledge of, and it evokes connections to things people have encountered before. If you say "white lives matter", intending it to mean something about suicide statistics, and other people interpret it as racist pushback against solving police brutality, the other people aren't doing something surprising or wrong. You would just be fruitlessly rebelling against how language actually works. If you want to raise awareness about suicide, go ahead, but don't use a slogan that already has a meaning that will be misinterpreted in your context, and certainly don't do it competitively against people raising awareness for a different issue.
  - rafale 5y ago
    One could argue that the BLM slogan, being intentionally divisive and exclusive, is designed to provoke from day one rather than bring up constructive change. It's a heavily politicized movement. Since Biden was elected for example, the issue of BLM and police brutality is not mediatized nearly as much as before. It's not that the problem was fixed overnight, it's just that there is no use for it right now by the progressive left agenda. It's not a honest movement. I refuse to support it even if I support the general idea that our police force and judicial system need reform to infuse them with more humanity and empathy. And given that the two of us, as reasonable people, can have a rational disagreement on this issue, why should our employer take a side? Why bring this discussion in the office? It's not like the issue is so obvious and simple (i.e. all people have equal rights, women should be able to go to school, ...) that it's okay employers take a side. The simple stuff is usually written in the US constitution. And employers don't take stand opposite of it because... it's unconstitutional.
tuesdayrain 5y ago
It's disingenuous to pretend like "black lives matter" is merely a phrase that any decent person should agree to without question. BLM is a political group with a radical left-leaning agenda that encompasses much more than just "don't kill black people randomly" as you suggest. Discussing these things in the workplace inevitably leads to the accusation that if you don't support BLM, you must not think black lives matter. It's a very cheap tactic, akin to saying that you're not a patriot if you don't support the PATRIOT act.
civilized 5y ago
Basecamp's angry worker faction was demanding the company apologize for contributing to a white supremacist, genocidal culture... because some customer service folks had a funny customer name list that included names from all backgrounds. That had absolutely nothing to do with basic dignity for marginalized groups. It was simply a grab for power and status. One of many. We who have been watching are very familiar with the game. The framing of it as merely about basic dignity is deeply disingenuous, but is itself familiar and another part of the game. What about the dignity of customer service workers? Is it upholding their dignity to frivolously condemn them for a mildly immature in-joke that showed no racial bias and harmed no one? Some of us, you will find, are not so easily played for fools.
- poszlem 5y ago
  Unfortunately it's a discussion tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position
  - remarkEon 5y ago
    The other I've seen deployed more and more often is the Kafka Trap, and with increasing degrees of complexity.
- schneems 5y ago
  At least a third of the company quit. That is not something that happens over something “deeply disingenuous”. I’ve got a timeline put together on it https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-how-rails-gets-made/ https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho... the post also goes into detail about Rails governance internals from my experiences as a contributor over the last decade.
tmule 5y ago
This is a caricature of the “mission-focused” mindset. I’ll preface this message by saying that I am brown, raised in relative poverty in the third world, and left of center on most issues. I’ll also say that I have materially contributed a substantial portion of my income helping educate poor brown kids, which most of my preachy white colleagues haven’t and won’t. The discourse at work in SV tech is not about, “hey, let’s not hang homosexuals”, which I am sure 99.99% of employees and employers fully agree with. It’s typically more in the vein of, “hey, why did we hire person Z, who the media has proven to be a bigot”. As an explicit example: Antonio Garcia Martinez’s firing was, IMO, bizarre and unwarranted and a manifestation of this attitude (coming from a company that is okay with using Uyghur labor). I actually do not want my colleagues to have a very narrow view of what’s right and wrong — or a very black and white view of the world. And surely, I don’t want to expend cycles at work having such conversations.
- tmule 5y ago
  Bunch of presumably white folk downvoting away. Sigh - utterly predictable, unfortunately. If you feel so strongly about a good world/society, please indulge in effective altruism or donate a large chunk of your money to help poor brown and black folks in the poorest nations of the world. Your signaling is useless.
  - AgentME 5y ago
    This sounds like "other people have it much worse in the world, suck it up or help them instead of trying to do things you think will improve things in your own life".
    - alentist 5y ago
      This sounds like you're strawmanning the GP.
nxmnxm99 5y ago
This is such obnoxious virtue signalling. Do you issue statements decrying the 30 people murdered in a car explosion in Djibouti on a daily basis? Who decide which new social issue you're supposed to care about? It's distracting, propagandist and politically charged bullshit. Just because I don't support BLM doesn't mean I don't have a problem with black people randomly being killed. It's the exact same bullshit as shoving "support our troops or else you hate freedom" down people's throats.
zaroth 5y ago
“Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support…” Please, stop right there. If you find yourself in this line of thinking, consider for a moment that you’re being a zealot.
- Aicy 5y ago
  Given that the next few words were "...the right of Black people to not be killed randomly" I do not consider that being a zealot, but just a normal person.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    That's because "the right of black people to not be killed randomly" is the motte, and supporting the movement Black Lives Matters and all that it stands for is the bailey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy. I'll add that people "randomly killing black people" are mostly killed by black people https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-....
    - okwubodu 5y ago
      Unless I’m missing something the root comment did not mention BLM. That’s a whole different sentence. Please, if the only purpose of your comment is derailing, keep it to yourself.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        The root comment was: > The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employees and don't tolerate anyone who doesn't" are just...basic things you need to do in 2021. They aren't a distraction, I would say not saying them is a distraction. The context is people asking the Coinbase CEO to make a statement about BLM. You can read about it here: https://www.wired.com/story/turmoil-black-lives-matter-political-speech-coinbase/ https://www.wired.com/story/turmoil-black-lives-matter-polit... This is the start of the first paragraph of that article: > IN EARLY JUNE, a week after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, employees at Coinbase gathered, virtually, for an emotional meeting. In the previous few days, mirroring workplaces elsewhere, the company’s Slack channels had been filled with comments about the nationwide protests and demands for more support for Black employees. In the background hovered a specific question: Would Coinbase and its CEO, Brian Armstrong, make a public statement about Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement, as so many Silicon Valley companies had? I think it's fair to say here that the root comment changed the goalposts from "make a public statement about Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement" to "merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter"". Which, in that case, would fit my characterisation of that comment as a motte-and-bailey fallacy. I appreciate your intent in keeping the discussion on topic, however in that case I think I was on topic.
whymauri 5y ago
'Acknowledging discrimination in our industry is distracting, so to stop being distracted I'm going to focus on writing on how un-distracted we are because we're _mission focused._ I'm going to do this several times.' I can't be the only person feeling a sense of irony, here. A big argument you see a lot is that people who raise concerns around equitable treatment only do it for clout, the ever popular 'virtue signaling' phrase. Is this not, to some extent or another, similar behavior but for a different audience? Virtual signal* for thee but not for me? Is this something we've discussed yet? * I've never been a fan of this term, anyway. Even if someone were 100%, consciously and purposefully 'virtue signaling', it has little baring on the validity of their argument.
- proxyon 5y ago
  What you've said makes no sense. Coinbase offered a bunch of employees the change to quit gracefully with an exit package rather than fire them. That's not virtue signaling, that's material reality.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Companies do it all the time without seeking publicity.
baobabKoodaa 5y ago
> merely saying "we as a company [...] don't tolerate anyone who doesn't [share our political stance]" are just... basic things you need to do in 2021 > Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support [our political stance] simply does not belong in polite, modern society That's extremely divisive and intolerant. Also, it's a cheap rhetorical trick to replace [political stance] with "doesn't want black people to be indiscriminately murdered". Literally no-one is arguing that black people should be indiscriminately murdered. Some people just want to do work at their workplace instead of engaging zealots in political debates that might lead to being cancelled at book burnings. That doesn't mean they want to genocide black people. You should learn to tolerate people who have political opinions different from yours.
gorwell 5y ago
As an atheist that grew up in a religious environment, the techniques and patterns of religions are recognizable. You may not realize it, but you are introducing religion into the workplace. A Christian posts on HN: merely saying "we as a company believe thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" or "we as a company believe you shall not steal" are just...basic things you need to do in 1952.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  As someone who grew up in Iran, you're mixing two entirely unrelated things up in bad faith. Saying people deserve to be able to live isn't the same as introducing extremely "othering" religions. The tactics are the same, the goals are different. Comparing these is bad faith.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - staysafeanon 5y ago
    >you're mixing two entirely unrelated things up in bad faith. The Leftist's Exit Fallacy: claim the response is in bad faith because you cannot reasonably respond to the core claims, and do not have any retorts to the analogies, metaphors, etc. used. >Saying people deserve to be able to live isn't the same as introducing extremely "othering" religions. The fact that I can't tell if you're talking about leftism or Christianity is hilarious, and telling. >The tactics are the same, the goals are different. That's literally what he was highlighting here... >Comparing these is bad faith. "I have no response to your well thought out arguments, so I'm just going to disregard them entirely because the narrative must be preserved!"

_3u10 5y ago

Perfect. There are many companies that want to do these performative acts. I like to work with companies and buy from companies that don’t make these statements but also don’t use slave labour to make their products. (Nike) You can have your values and I can have mine.

poszlem 5y ago

There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that women need to have the same rights as men and those that claim to be feminists. There is a difference between people/companies that believe that gays/lesbians are normal people and those who put rainbows everywhere.

saurik 5y ago
> There is a difference between people/companies that believe that lives of black people matter and those that claim that BLACKLIVESMATTER. FWIW, in this case, that "difference" might be that Coinbase was simultaneously treating their black employees poorly--dare I say, as "second class citizens"--while actively refusing to take a few seconds to agree with something as banal/obvious as "black lives matter". The BLM statement struggle was merely a catalyst for what were already existing and somewhat long-standing racial tensions brewing inside the company that had led people to feel that, with its actions, the company did not in fact care about its black employees... context you can't just pretend didn't exist going into Brian's "let's not talk about this and everyone go back to work" post. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-cryptocurrency-black-employees.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt... > The tensions at Coinbase came to a head in June, after the police killing of George Floyd. As many tech leaders publicly voiced support for Black Lives Matter protests, Black employees at Coinbase said on the Slack messaging platform that they were hurt by the silence of Mr. Armstrong and other executives about the matter. They organized a meeting where several of them told executives, often through tears, about their difficult experiences at the company, eight people who attended said. Take careful note: this wasn't "merely" "our difficult experiences in the world", this was "our difficult experiences at the company". Seriously: too much of this comment thread seems to be hyperfocused on BLM statements--as I guess y'all really think taking a few minutes and a couple sentences to acknowledge that in solidarity somewhere is somehow a horrible distraction--while ignoring that this had started in the background of "Coinbase is mistreating its black employees so much that it had already lost 3/4s of them" (and that's before Brian's post, so a lack of strong improvement since then is telling). This is way more concrete than these abstractions. > But according to 23 current and former Coinbase employees, five of whom spoke on the record, as well as internal documents and recordings of conversations, the start-up has long struggled with its management of Black employees. > “It was the first time I realized what racism felt like in the modern world,” said Layllen Sawyerr, a compliance analyst who is Black. “I felt like I was being bullied every day at work.” She said she filed a discrimination complaint with Coinbase’s legal department before quitting in 2018.
- nxmnxm99 5y ago
  If you tell people they're victims, they'll act like victims. Not acknowledging George Floyd "hurts" black employees? This is the kind of nonsense born of priviledge. Anybody from the 3rd world reading this garbage feels sick. 20 year olds making 6 figures to build craigslist for crypto crying because their boss won't acknowledge an event.
markdown 5y ago
Nah, that's what the far right propaganda machine has tried to tell you. You're told to believe that Group X is bad, and when you find that you actually believe in the core tenet of Group X, you have trouble reconciling that. You want black lives matter supporters who don't actually fight for change. You want people who believe that women need to have the same rights to do nothing about their beliefs, and you want people who believe that gays and lesbians "are normal people" to keep believing that in secret. In short, you love the status quo, and you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have.
- staysafeanon 5y ago
  >Nah, that's what the far right propaganda machine has tried to tell you. Nah, that's what facts and being a data driven adult have told us. Apparently they line up with the far-right. Looks like reality had a right bias. >You're told to believe that Group X is bad, and when you find that you actually believe in the core tenet of Group X, you have trouble reconciling that. Except Group X is bad, and sharing common beliefs is immaterial. Hitler/Nazis believed smoking was bad for you and excessive drinking was a blight on society. I agree with them on that, but there's obviously no issues reconciling the fact that they were bad. >You want black lives matter supporters who don't actually fight for change. If they wanted that, they'd be OK with all the neurotic performative virtue signaling at work LOL! >In short, you love the status quo, and you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have. In short, you believe "you're either with us, or against us." Facts, nuance, and logically considering problems are systemic White supremacy culture in your eyes. >you're scared that giving marginalised groups a better shake might take away some of what you have. He supports egalitarianism which definitely helps marginalized groups along with everyone else. You're supporting institutional racism.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

>I never once saw an example cited of these so-called distractions from being mission-focused that wasn't just affirming the basic dignity of a group of people. You are free to affirm whatever you want, and have all sort of discussions about society at large when your aren't being paid for your time by someone else to do a job that has nothing to do with affirming groups of people. >I simply cannot imagine working at a place that doesn't recognize the humanity of their workers. Utterly baffling and heartless mindset. Its baffling to me that so many people feel entitled to espouse their social and cultural beliefs in the workplace instead of doing the job they are being paid to do. The way a workplace recognizes the humanity of their workers is by offering good wages, good hours and a generous benefits package.

mrRandomGuy 5y ago
This just in, people who also happen to work are not mindless automatons. People like working at places that seem to align with their own personal views. It's baffling to me that people believe I should turn off my brain when I'm at work.
- poszlem 5y ago
  If you cannot work without doing social activism then perhaps a non-profit foundation is a better place to be?
  - fancifulfiend 5y ago
    [flagged]
  - gwelson 5y ago
    but that's thing...what is "social activism" here? I don't think having a single tweet or post from your company's account saying "happy Pride month, we love our LGBTQ+ Coinbasers" is activism really....it's just like, a nice thing to do. No one is saying Coinbase or any company should pay their employees to go make phone calls for Bernie Sanders' campaign on the clock. It seems like people are inventing some kind of strawman of "paid activism" that no one is asking for.

hardwaregeek 5y ago

All of these statements are like when people comment their condolences or congratulations on social media. Yeah, it’s just a gesture, but the gesture is appreciated. And like a condolence, I don’t think it’s weird if a company doesn’t say anything, but I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations.

shapefrog 5y ago
> I would find it weird if a person was really proud of how they didn’t give condolences or congratulations I am proud I have never written RIP Celebrity on twitter when a celebrity died or sent my congratulations to a Kardashian on the occasion of the brith of their child. When I have offered condolences or congratulations it has been exclusively in person or in a non public broadcast message. I guess that makes me weird, but personally I find posting that sort of shit on social media decidedly odd.

gfodor 5y ago

You say you’re baffled but conclude the people you are baffled by are heartless. You’re not baffled: you have made up your mind.

markdown 5y ago
They are heartless. What's baffling is what they gain from being so firmly against basic displays of outreach and acceptance between humans and groups of humans.
- wiredone 5y ago
  This type of bookending is why Coinbase made this decision. What data do you have that indicates they are heartless?
  - whymauri 5y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-cryptocurrency-black-employees.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/coinbase-crypt... https://www.lieffcabraser.com/employment/coinbase/ https://www.lieffcabraser.com/employment/coinbase/ make of this what you will.
  - markdown 5y ago
    Data? What are you, a machine? I see a good, meaningful gesture. I see people attacking that gesture. I find that heartless.
thewakalix 5y ago
> I now try to avoid using the English idiom "I just don't understand how..." to express indignation. If I genuinely don't understand how, then my model is being surprised by the facts, and I should discard it and find a better model. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tWLFWAndSZSYN6rPB/think-like-reality https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tWLFWAndSZSYN6rPB/think-like...
- Talanes 5y ago

rafale 5y ago

What if a bunch of white male employees ask the company to make s statement that their lives matter too? After all they are overrepresented in suicide statistics, drug addiction and homelessness. You now this shit will make a lot of leftists lose their mind and show up at ur company offices trying to cancel you out of existence. In a society going mad like ours, opting out of the madness like Coinbase did is the best option.

AgentME 5y ago
"Black lives matter" is a slogan that largely refers to a desire to solve issues related to police brutality and black people. "White lives matter", as it's commonly said and understood, is merely a contrarian pushback against that desire to fix those issues. Obviously white lives do matter like others, but making a statement of something communicates something other than the literal meaning: it asserts that there's part of the meaning that the receiver isn't demonstrating knowledge of, and it evokes connections to things people have encountered before. If you say "white lives matter", intending it to mean something about suicide statistics, and other people interpret it as racist pushback against solving police brutality, the other people aren't doing something surprising or wrong. You would just be fruitlessly rebelling against how language actually works. If you want to raise awareness about suicide, go ahead, but don't use a slogan that already has a meaning that will be misinterpreted in your context, and certainly don't do it competitively against people raising awareness for a different issue.
- rafale 5y ago
  One could argue that the BLM slogan, being intentionally divisive and exclusive, is designed to provoke from day one rather than bring up constructive change. It's a heavily politicized movement. Since Biden was elected for example, the issue of BLM and police brutality is not mediatized nearly as much as before. It's not that the problem was fixed overnight, it's just that there is no use for it right now by the progressive left agenda. It's not a honest movement. I refuse to support it even if I support the general idea that our police force and judicial system need reform to infuse them with more humanity and empathy. And given that the two of us, as reasonable people, can have a rational disagreement on this issue, why should our employer take a side? Why bring this discussion in the office? It's not like the issue is so obvious and simple (i.e. all people have equal rights, women should be able to go to school, ...) that it's okay employers take a side. The simple stuff is usually written in the US constitution. And employers don't take stand opposite of it because... it's unconstitutional.

tuesdayrain 5y ago

It's disingenuous to pretend like "black lives matter" is merely a phrase that any decent person should agree to without question. BLM is a political group with a radical left-leaning agenda that encompasses much more than just "don't kill black people randomly" as you suggest. Discussing these things in the workplace inevitably leads to the accusation that if you don't support BLM, you must not think black lives matter. It's a very cheap tactic, akin to saying that you're not a patriot if you don't support the PATRIOT act.

civilized 5y ago

Basecamp's angry worker faction was demanding the company apologize for contributing to a white supremacist, genocidal culture... because some customer service folks had a funny customer name list that included names from all backgrounds. That had absolutely nothing to do with basic dignity for marginalized groups. It was simply a grab for power and status. One of many. We who have been watching are very familiar with the game. The framing of it as merely about basic dignity is deeply disingenuous, but is itself familiar and another part of the game. What about the dignity of customer service workers? Is it upholding their dignity to frivolously condemn them for a mildly immature in-joke that showed no racial bias and harmed no one? Some of us, you will find, are not so easily played for fools.

poszlem 5y ago
Unfortunately it's a discussion tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position
- remarkEon 5y ago
  The other I've seen deployed more and more often is the Kafka Trap, and with increasing degrees of complexity.
schneems 5y ago
At least a third of the company quit. That is not something that happens over something “deeply disingenuous”. I’ve got a timeline put together on it https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-how-rails-gets-made/ https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho... the post also goes into detail about Rails governance internals from my experiences as a contributor over the last decade.

tmule 5y ago

This is a caricature of the “mission-focused” mindset. I’ll preface this message by saying that I am brown, raised in relative poverty in the third world, and left of center on most issues. I’ll also say that I have materially contributed a substantial portion of my income helping educate poor brown kids, which most of my preachy white colleagues haven’t and won’t. The discourse at work in SV tech is not about, “hey, let’s not hang homosexuals”, which I am sure 99.99% of employees and employers fully agree with. It’s typically more in the vein of, “hey, why did we hire person Z, who the media has proven to be a bigot”. As an explicit example: Antonio Garcia Martinez’s firing was, IMO, bizarre and unwarranted and a manifestation of this attitude (coming from a company that is okay with using Uyghur labor). I actually do not want my colleagues to have a very narrow view of what’s right and wrong — or a very black and white view of the world. And surely, I don’t want to expend cycles at work having such conversations.

tmule 5y ago
Bunch of presumably white folk downvoting away. Sigh - utterly predictable, unfortunately. If you feel so strongly about a good world/society, please indulge in effective altruism or donate a large chunk of your money to help poor brown and black folks in the poorest nations of the world. Your signaling is useless.
- AgentME 5y ago
  This sounds like "other people have it much worse in the world, suck it up or help them instead of trying to do things you think will improve things in your own life".
  - alentist 5y ago
    This sounds like you're strawmanning the GP.

nxmnxm99 5y ago

This is such obnoxious virtue signalling. Do you issue statements decrying the 30 people murdered in a car explosion in Djibouti on a daily basis? Who decide which new social issue you're supposed to care about? It's distracting, propagandist and politically charged bullshit. Just because I don't support BLM doesn't mean I don't have a problem with black people randomly being killed. It's the exact same bullshit as shoving "support our troops or else you hate freedom" down people's throats.

zaroth 5y ago

“Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support…” Please, stop right there. If you find yourself in this line of thinking, consider for a moment that you’re being a zealot.

Aicy 5y ago
Given that the next few words were "...the right of Black people to not be killed randomly" I do not consider that being a zealot, but just a normal person.
- Zababa 5y ago
  That's because "the right of black people to not be killed randomly" is the motte, and supporting the movement Black Lives Matters and all that it stands for is the bailey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy. I'll add that people "randomly killing black people" are mostly killed by black people https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-....
  - okwubodu 5y ago
    Unless I’m missing something the root comment did not mention BLM. That’s a whole different sentence. Please, if the only purpose of your comment is derailing, keep it to yourself.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      The root comment was: > The thing I hate about this line of thinking is the supposed "distractions" of being mission-focused are nearly all related simply to basic rights/dignities for marginalized groups. I don't think anyone is saying companies need to take a strong stance on every political issue, but merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter" or "we as a company welcome and accept our LGBTQ+ employees and don't tolerate anyone who doesn't" are just...basic things you need to do in 2021. They aren't a distraction, I would say not saying them is a distraction. The context is people asking the Coinbase CEO to make a statement about BLM. You can read about it here: https://www.wired.com/story/turmoil-black-lives-matter-political-speech-coinbase/ https://www.wired.com/story/turmoil-black-lives-matter-polit... This is the start of the first paragraph of that article: > IN EARLY JUNE, a week after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, employees at Coinbase gathered, virtually, for an emotional meeting. In the previous few days, mirroring workplaces elsewhere, the company’s Slack channels had been filled with comments about the nationwide protests and demands for more support for Black employees. In the background hovered a specific question: Would Coinbase and its CEO, Brian Armstrong, make a public statement about Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement, as so many Silicon Valley companies had? I think it's fair to say here that the root comment changed the goalposts from "make a public statement about Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement" to "merely saying "we as a company believe the lives of our Black employees matter"". Which, in that case, would fit my characterisation of that comment as a motte-and-bailey fallacy. I appreciate your intent in keeping the discussion on topic, however in that case I think I was on topic.

whymauri 5y ago

'Acknowledging discrimination in our industry is distracting, so to stop being distracted I'm going to focus on writing on how un-distracted we are because we're _mission focused._ I'm going to do this several times.' I can't be the only person feeling a sense of irony, here. A big argument you see a lot is that people who raise concerns around equitable treatment only do it for clout, the ever popular 'virtue signaling' phrase. Is this not, to some extent or another, similar behavior but for a different audience? Virtual signal* for thee but not for me? Is this something we've discussed yet? * I've never been a fan of this term, anyway. Even if someone were 100%, consciously and purposefully 'virtue signaling', it has little baring on the validity of their argument.

proxyon 5y ago
What you've said makes no sense. Coinbase offered a bunch of employees the change to quit gracefully with an exit package rather than fire them. That's not virtue signaling, that's material reality.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Companies do it all the time without seeking publicity.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago

> merely saying "we as a company [...] don't tolerate anyone who doesn't [share our political stance]" are just... basic things you need to do in 2021 > Anyone who doesn't fully and unambiguously support [our political stance] simply does not belong in polite, modern society That's extremely divisive and intolerant. Also, it's a cheap rhetorical trick to replace [political stance] with "doesn't want black people to be indiscriminately murdered". Literally no-one is arguing that black people should be indiscriminately murdered. Some people just want to do work at their workplace instead of engaging zealots in political debates that might lead to being cancelled at book burnings. That doesn't mean they want to genocide black people. You should learn to tolerate people who have political opinions different from yours.

gorwell 5y ago

As an atheist that grew up in a religious environment, the techniques and patterns of religions are recognizable. You may not realize it, but you are introducing religion into the workplace. A Christian posts on HN: merely saying "we as a company believe thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" or "we as a company believe you shall not steal" are just...basic things you need to do in 1952.

aaomidi 5y ago
As someone who grew up in Iran, you're mixing two entirely unrelated things up in bad faith. Saying people deserve to be able to live isn't the same as introducing extremely "othering" religions. The tactics are the same, the goals are different. Comparing these is bad faith.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- staysafeanon 5y ago
  >you're mixing two entirely unrelated things up in bad faith. The Leftist's Exit Fallacy: claim the response is in bad faith because you cannot reasonably respond to the core claims, and do not have any retorts to the analogies, metaphors, etc. used. >Saying people deserve to be able to live isn't the same as introducing extremely "othering" religions. The fact that I can't tell if you're talking about leftism or Christianity is hilarious, and telling. >The tactics are the same, the goals are different. That's literally what he was highlighting here... >Comparing these is bad faith. "I have no response to your well thought out arguments, so I'm just going to disregard them entirely because the narrative must be preserved!"