5 ms·

> For instance, I might have an opinion that we should bring back slavery. A totally offensive opinion, yes, but dammit, I'm entitled to have it. I think this

by samth 15y ago

> For instance, I might have an opinion that we should bring back slavery. A totally offensive opinion, yes, but dammit, I'm entitled to have it. I think this is confusing two very different things. You are "entitled" to have this opinion in that (a) you shouldn't be locked in prison for stating this opinion and (b) I am not allowed to beat you up for having this opinion. However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired. I think this is exactly analogous to this case. Sqoot could have held a successful hackathon if they didn't display their sexism in their ad copy, but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. That's why the apology rubs people the wrong way.

kyberias 15y ago
> However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired. I think this opinion is wrong. If one expresses his opinion about slavery, he should not be fired. Now that you had this wrong opinion about opinions, should you be fired? From work? From Hacker News? Anywhere?
- saalweachter 15y ago
  While I generally subscribe to the Utopian ideal that good ideas should be able to triumph over bad ideas by virtue alone, there are probably both times where it is inappropriate and appropriate for someones opinions and beliefs to be relevant to their employment. Scenario A, normal job, no customer interaction, non-manager, but an irrepressibly talkative fellow. Likes to talk to his co-workers about how awesome slavery is. Co-workers have complained that they're tired of hearing him, you've talked to him, he keeps talking irregardless. Scenario B, customer-facing job. It comes up at the company picnic that the employee thinks slavery was really awesome. You haven't yet heard him mention this to a customer. Scenario C, manager. One of your underlings, in charge of a hopefully-diverse group of under-underlings, expresses his pro-slavery opinions to you.
  - nirvdrum 15y ago
    A more relevant and recent example is whether you support software patents. Those opposed to them rail against those in favor of them pretty hard. Some are now making hiring decisions based upon that. Should I not be allowed to express my views on software patents simply because you don't agree with them? You'd like to paint it as a black & white issue, but I don't see it that way. Sorry for the liberal use of pronouns there. But there's an extremely worrying trend to me whereby it's no longer okay to disagree or have an open discussion about certain topics that the HN mass has decided their stance on. Most of the time I, and many others, just bow out and let everyone here virtually pat themselves on the back as each professes the moral high road they've taken. It defeats the point of having an open forum or discussion on an article. It's our equivalent of political rhetoric.
    - kls 15y ago
      You did a very good job of illustrating the slippery slope that we open up when policing ideas and the issue being where do we drawn the line.
    - saalweachter 15y ago
      Detour from the main point: as a programmer, I'm pretty OK with programmers and programmer-employers coming to blows over software patents. Programmers are still in a bit of a weird spot with respect to the rest of the working class. Get fired from your job as a cashier at Walmart because of your opinions, you'll be lucky to find another job. Get fired from your job as a programmer because of your opinions, you'll probably find a better one even before your blog post on employer X firing programmers who are opposed to software patents gets a thousand points on HN. As a programmer, I just don't feel the same employment-insecurity a lot of non-programmers I know do. The main point of the matter is, the interests of employers and employees are not well aligned. Employers do not want employees to know what their coworkers or colleagues at other companies make. Employees benefit from having this forbidden knowledge. Employees would prefer to only be fired for direct, active malevolence towards their employer. Employers would prefer to fire anyone they think is a liability to their business. Employee beliefs matter because, as much as employers would prefer otherwise, employees are not cogs or robots who perform mechanistically. If you don't believe in software patents, how will that affect your performance at your job? Even if your employer isn't a part-time patent troll, but is extremely concerned about being sued by them, will you generate your fair share of defensive patents to be used as a shield for a few years? Or will you knowingly violate software patents you believe are bullshit, opening up your company to 10x the penalties should you lose in court?
- hellweaver666 15y ago
  Everyone is entitled to have an opinion and they shouldn't be ostracised for expressing them. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion, only opinions that you disagree with.
  - AkThhhpppt 15y ago
    Oh yes there bloody is: an opinion held in spite of overwhelming evidence.
- samth 15y ago
  Really? If someone at your job expressed the "opinion" that you, personally, should be chained and sold as property, and that they should be allowed to beat, rape, and murder you as they saw fit, that would be acceptable behavior at your job? Because that's what the OP was suggesting, except that they used the umbrella term "slavery" to refer to it.
  - derefr 15y ago
    I imagine that for most people in first-world countries who aren't avid studies of historical ignominy, "slavery" conjures connotations of indentured servitude, rather than complete autocratic determination over others. In fact, even if "slavery" was still something that existed in otherwise-modern countries (let's imagine the US never bothered to fight a civil war over it), you'd probably not be allowed to "beat, rape, and murder" your slaves--any more than you can currently beat, rape, and murder your pets.
  - kyberias 15y ago
    Yes, really. The OP did not really say that. OP used the word "slavery" and having opinions about slavery is totally different than saying that some specific person should be murdered. If someone at my workplace would support slavery, whatever that is by today's standards, I would probably feel that I don't want to work with that person. And depending on that someone's role, his employer might want to have a word with him and might ultimately have some good grounds for terminating his contract. But just having opinions are rarely a reason to fire someone. And that is just right (my opinion).
mistermann 15y ago
> but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. I agree it was a very sexist thing to write. It makes me wonder though: 1. Which is worse, hiring an all female serving staff (perhaps wearing uniforms that would be considered particularly attractive to heterosexual males), or acknowledging that you have done this by writing about it in your invitations? Is it inappropriate (always and everywhere) to hire only attractive females and make them wear "sexy" uniforms? If they had hired all females, but not advertised it, would people still be upset after they had arrived and seen that all the staff were female? I wouldn't be upset. But advertising it, or at least they way they did it, strikes me as offensive, but I don't know why. 2. I feel mentioning the female serving staff in this instance is inappropriate, but is it always inappropriate? Is it acceptable for a sports bar to mention their "Bud Girls" or whatever in their ad copy? I would consider this acceptable, but I don't know why. Is it because a sports bar is purely leisure, and a hackathon, while leisure, is (presumably) directly connected to your profession? I think what they did feels wrong, but I can't think of a good explanation of why it is wrong that is logically consistent with other acceptable norms in our society.
- cheez 15y ago
  FYI, there is an upscale restaurant where I go regularly for lunch that has only attractive women. (Not Hooters)
  - protomyth 15y ago
    There is a difference between a hackathon and a restaurant. There are actually restaurants that hire very good looking men also because they are going for a certain clientele. Sexuality sells a lot of things, but that's hormones and money. The problem here is that a goodly chunk of people expect the clientele of a hackathon to be developers. Developers are men and women who are professional. As much as sexuality sells beer, food, cars, etc., it is not a accepted selling point of professionals. Rather, it will get you in serious trouble in many professional environments. Now, it is revealed that this company's fantasy event is programming while being served beer by hot women. This basically puts them in the frat with a big no hire for women.
batista 15y ago
I think this is confusing two very different things. You are "entitled" to have this opinion in that (a) you shouldn't be locked in prison for stating this opinion and (b) I am not allowed to beat you up for having this opinion. However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired. So one is only allowed to have the "right" opinions? And who gets to judge that? If it's the majority, then what if a poll showed that most Americans are against, say, abortion or gay rights? (Or most of Utah residents, at a local level). If it's just some minority with power (the government, the PC police, etc), why should they get to say it instead of the majority? So, you're walking a very fine line here. He is entitled to think whatever, include slavery or the annihilation of mankind, and people should not only not put him in prison for it, but not even fire him for it. They can disagree all they want with him for it, though. Now, if he tries to put his slavery ideals to practice, that's a totally different matter. I think this is exactly analogous to this case. Sqoot could have held a successful hackathon if they didn't display their sexism in their ad copy, but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. That's why the apology rubs people the wrong way. Case in point. I am from a different country, and we would probably laugh at the very idea of the apology, not on the "sexism". Why something that's ok for, say, a casino or a sports bar (female waitresses) is bad for a hackathon? Because a coding marathon should be for both sexes? Well, aren't casinos for both sexes too? How come they get to have women waitresses? Also, who said the organizers of this PARTICULAR hackathon want it to be? Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal?
- i_cannot_hack 15y ago
  > Why something that's ok for, say, a casino or a sports bar (female waitresses) is bad for a hackathon? Because a coding marathon should be for both sexes? Well, aren't casinos for both sexes too? How come they get to have women waitresses? Also, who said the organizers of this PARTICULAR hackathon want it to be? I think it has a lot to do with expectations. People held the hackaton to a higher standard than, for example, a strip club, and therefore they are a lot more vocal about it when the organizers fail to live up to what was expected of them. > Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal? They have all the rights in the world to organize a hackathon the way they want it, but that also means that the general public has all the rights in the world to dislike it, i.e be outraged.

by samth 15y ago

kyberias 15y ago

> However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired. I think this opinion is wrong. If one expresses his opinion about slavery, he should not be fired. Now that you had this wrong opinion about opinions, should you be fired? From work? From Hacker News? Anywhere?

saalweachter 15y ago
While I generally subscribe to the Utopian ideal that good ideas should be able to triumph over bad ideas by virtue alone, there are probably both times where it is inappropriate and appropriate for someones opinions and beliefs to be relevant to their employment. Scenario A, normal job, no customer interaction, non-manager, but an irrepressibly talkative fellow. Likes to talk to his co-workers about how awesome slavery is. Co-workers have complained that they're tired of hearing him, you've talked to him, he keeps talking irregardless. Scenario B, customer-facing job. It comes up at the company picnic that the employee thinks slavery was really awesome. You haven't yet heard him mention this to a customer. Scenario C, manager. One of your underlings, in charge of a hopefully-diverse group of under-underlings, expresses his pro-slavery opinions to you.
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  A more relevant and recent example is whether you support software patents. Those opposed to them rail against those in favor of them pretty hard. Some are now making hiring decisions based upon that. Should I not be allowed to express my views on software patents simply because you don't agree with them? You'd like to paint it as a black & white issue, but I don't see it that way. Sorry for the liberal use of pronouns there. But there's an extremely worrying trend to me whereby it's no longer okay to disagree or have an open discussion about certain topics that the HN mass has decided their stance on. Most of the time I, and many others, just bow out and let everyone here virtually pat themselves on the back as each professes the moral high road they've taken. It defeats the point of having an open forum or discussion on an article. It's our equivalent of political rhetoric.
  - kls 15y ago
    You did a very good job of illustrating the slippery slope that we open up when policing ideas and the issue being where do we drawn the line.
  - saalweachter 15y ago
    Detour from the main point: as a programmer, I'm pretty OK with programmers and programmer-employers coming to blows over software patents. Programmers are still in a bit of a weird spot with respect to the rest of the working class. Get fired from your job as a cashier at Walmart because of your opinions, you'll be lucky to find another job. Get fired from your job as a programmer because of your opinions, you'll probably find a better one even before your blog post on employer X firing programmers who are opposed to software patents gets a thousand points on HN. As a programmer, I just don't feel the same employment-insecurity a lot of non-programmers I know do. The main point of the matter is, the interests of employers and employees are not well aligned. Employers do not want employees to know what their coworkers or colleagues at other companies make. Employees benefit from having this forbidden knowledge. Employees would prefer to only be fired for direct, active malevolence towards their employer. Employers would prefer to fire anyone they think is a liability to their business. Employee beliefs matter because, as much as employers would prefer otherwise, employees are not cogs or robots who perform mechanistically. If you don't believe in software patents, how will that affect your performance at your job? Even if your employer isn't a part-time patent troll, but is extremely concerned about being sued by them, will you generate your fair share of defensive patents to be used as a shield for a few years? Or will you knowingly violate software patents you believe are bullshit, opening up your company to 10x the penalties should you lose in court?
hellweaver666 15y ago
Everyone is entitled to have an opinion and they shouldn't be ostracised for expressing them. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion, only opinions that you disagree with.
- AkThhhpppt 15y ago
  Oh yes there bloody is: an opinion held in spite of overwhelming evidence.
samth 15y ago
Really? If someone at your job expressed the "opinion" that you, personally, should be chained and sold as property, and that they should be allowed to beat, rape, and murder you as they saw fit, that would be acceptable behavior at your job? Because that's what the OP was suggesting, except that they used the umbrella term "slavery" to refer to it.
- derefr 15y ago
  I imagine that for most people in first-world countries who aren't avid studies of historical ignominy, "slavery" conjures connotations of indentured servitude, rather than complete autocratic determination over others. In fact, even if "slavery" was still something that existed in otherwise-modern countries (let's imagine the US never bothered to fight a civil war over it), you'd probably not be allowed to "beat, rape, and murder" your slaves--any more than you can currently beat, rape, and murder your pets.
- kyberias 15y ago
  Yes, really. The OP did not really say that. OP used the word "slavery" and having opinions about slavery is totally different than saying that some specific person should be murdered. If someone at my workplace would support slavery, whatever that is by today's standards, I would probably feel that I don't want to work with that person. And depending on that someone's role, his employer might want to have a word with him and might ultimately have some good grounds for terminating his contract. But just having opinions are rarely a reason to fire someone. And that is just right (my opinion).

mistermann 15y ago

> but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. I agree it was a very sexist thing to write. It makes me wonder though: 1. Which is worse, hiring an all female serving staff (perhaps wearing uniforms that would be considered particularly attractive to heterosexual males), or acknowledging that you have done this by writing about it in your invitations? Is it inappropriate (always and everywhere) to hire only attractive females and make them wear "sexy" uniforms? If they had hired all females, but not advertised it, would people still be upset after they had arrived and seen that all the staff were female? I wouldn't be upset. But advertising it, or at least they way they did it, strikes me as offensive, but I don't know why. 2. I feel mentioning the female serving staff in this instance is inappropriate, but is it always inappropriate? Is it acceptable for a sports bar to mention their "Bud Girls" or whatever in their ad copy? I would consider this acceptable, but I don't know why. Is it because a sports bar is purely leisure, and a hackathon, while leisure, is (presumably) directly connected to your profession? I think what they did feels wrong, but I can't think of a good explanation of why it is wrong that is logically consistent with other acceptable norms in our society.

cheez 15y ago
FYI, there is an upscale restaurant where I go regularly for lunch that has only attractive women. (Not Hooters)
- protomyth 15y ago
  There is a difference between a hackathon and a restaurant. There are actually restaurants that hire very good looking men also because they are going for a certain clientele. Sexuality sells a lot of things, but that's hormones and money. The problem here is that a goodly chunk of people expect the clientele of a hackathon to be developers. Developers are men and women who are professional. As much as sexuality sells beer, food, cars, etc., it is not a accepted selling point of professionals. Rather, it will get you in serious trouble in many professional environments. Now, it is revealed that this company's fantasy event is programming while being served beer by hot women. This basically puts them in the frat with a big no hire for women.

batista 15y ago

I think this is confusing two very different things. You are "entitled" to have this opinion in that (a) you shouldn't be locked in prison for stating this opinion and (b) I am not allowed to beat you up for having this opinion. However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired. So one is only allowed to have the "right" opinions? And who gets to judge that? If it's the majority, then what if a poll showed that most Americans are against, say, abortion or gay rights? (Or most of Utah residents, at a local level). If it's just some minority with power (the government, the PC police, etc), why should they get to say it instead of the majority? So, you're walking a very fine line here. He is entitled to think whatever, include slavery or the annihilation of mankind, and people should not only not put him in prison for it, but not even fire him for it. They can disagree all they want with him for it, though. Now, if he tries to put his slavery ideals to practice, that's a totally different matter. I think this is exactly analogous to this case. Sqoot could have held a successful hackathon if they didn't display their sexism in their ad copy, but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. That's why the apology rubs people the wrong way. Case in point. I am from a different country, and we would probably laugh at the very idea of the apology, not on the "sexism". Why something that's ok for, say, a casino or a sports bar (female waitresses) is bad for a hackathon? Because a coding marathon should be for both sexes? Well, aren't casinos for both sexes too? How come they get to have women waitresses? Also, who said the organizers of this PARTICULAR hackathon want it to be? Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal?

i_cannot_hack 15y ago
> Why something that's ok for, say, a casino or a sports bar (female waitresses) is bad for a hackathon? Because a coding marathon should be for both sexes? Well, aren't casinos for both sexes too? How come they get to have women waitresses? Also, who said the organizers of this PARTICULAR hackathon want it to be? I think it has a lot to do with expectations. People held the hackaton to a higher standard than, for example, a strip club, and therefore they are a lot more vocal about it when the organizers fail to live up to what was expected of them. > Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal? They have all the rights in the world to organize a hackathon the way they want it, but that also means that the general public has all the rights in the world to dislike it, i.e be outraged.