Edited by @pushcx: Added a timecode to the part of the video that’s previously been on-topic as @itistoday noted in the comments below.
Edited by @pushcx: Added a timecode to the part of the video that’s previously been on-topic as @itistoday noted in the comments below.
wooof. Can I just say this is a big bummer of a title.
People getting mad at you for having a controversial opinion is an unavoidable reality. Being fired for literally any reason in an at will employment is the norm, not the exception. Business owners inject their political views into their business on a constant basis. The first place I worked had a morning prayer built into the meeting. The second place I worked had an after work event that “wasn’t mandatory” but you were expected to go to, which was basically an hour long video of why fracking was okay. For context neither of these businesses had anyyyyyything to do with religious or ecological things. If I had spoken out I would have been fired, and trust me it would not make the news. If you’re going to make an article about this, at least have it be about the real issue which is capitalists having too much power.
FTR I liked the title. :P
That’s definitely something worth talking about too. What I found interesting about this video (and topic) is the level of insanity the grievances/debates have reached.
I think we shouldn’t in a professional setting allow for intolerance. We shouldn’t permit religious intolerance against Christians, and we also shouldn’t permit intolerance against transgender people. You have the right to freedom of speech in a private setting, but if your opinion is against solidarity, then it is against the workforce. Solidarity means standing up for whoever is attacked no matter how we feel about them. When damore came out against his female colleagues, he was attacking solidarity. A business owner will often use these anti-solidarity messages as a way to drive down everyone’s pay. Or they’ll do things like “Ah a woman is worth less, so we pay her less. We hire more women because we can now afford more workers. Now let’s fire all the men”.
So if you care about reducing corporate power banding together is critical, and the first step to banding together is accepting solidarity. We cannot make any meaningful progress without it.
To be clear, this is not the only reason I am against discrimination. I’m also against it for ethical reasons. It’s just the reason that everyone should be against discrimination
Except that isn’t what he did in the memo.
And appeals to solidarity are a lot easier when, say, open racism and throw away hottakes aren’t openly accepted as the standard of discourse by one side.
In fear of invoking angersock I’m going to let this one cool down. I don’t think appeals to solidarity are ever easy but without them we are divided and of course we will lose.
I like how this gets downvoted as “off-topic” while this, this and this (same topic) got upvoted.
See, ya’ll do have a cultural problem. On topic.
Two of the three stories you linked to also have a significant number of off-topic downvotes, so maybe people really do think this class of content is off topic.
Those were on topic because they were centered on tech (though they each got a number of off-topic flags nonetheless). This is not.
Edit: Chatting with itistoday, he gave a timecode for where they talk about Damore that I’ve added into the link.
Thanks, and for whatever reason the link isn’t pointing to the timecode, which is at 34m17s, so here is a direct link to where they talk about Google’s James Damore case.
It’s also relevant/interesting banter/convo for moderators on social media to consider, IMO. Those in “tech” are increasingly finding themselves now to be stewards of what is and isn’t socially acceptable.
I’ll note in this that he puts emphasis on NLRB confirming they could fire the guy. Technicalities and ideal world aside, you can get fired for about anything or nothing in many (most?) states. This is double true if your company has a bigger legal team than you. Companies led by conservatives do it all the time. I have plenty of first and second hand accounts of that which will never be in one of these talks since they don’t look for them. Republicans, the conservative party, also are fine with workers not having rights in the first place (i.e. “at-will employment”) while owners/shareholders get all kinds of special treatment. So, some guy getting threatens his company’s image with them trashing his career. That’s totally normal for big firms. The ability to do that is certainly worth fighting but this isn’t new or just anti-conservative.
The first, good claim was where guy in red said something based in culture would be easier to democratize than something based in biology. Trying to quickly refute that made me go back and forth in my head a bit. This one is worth some deep thought on since it seems to have a lot of truth built into it. I think religion, which he brings up later, weakens his argument a bit on culture being so much more amenable than biology given conservatives of several groups will go with words from anonymous sources on paper or other influencers in day-to-day life over actual evidence of what people do any time or day, especially from biology research. I think him making culture seem more malleable than biology is weak given they reinterpret biology or other sciences using their cultural views. Changing data to fit one’s theories isn’t science: it’s supposed to work other way. ;)
Note: The reproducibility crisis, fraud, lack of checking, etc shows quite a bit of science operates as a religion as well. They deserve to be called out, too. If you see “science” here in positive light, it’s about those actually taking hard looks at stuff responding to peer review.
The woman on the left mentions people get fired or worried about it because they dared to have a different opinion which was (conservative traits here). What she leaves out is these types were protected for all kinds of unsubstantiated, annoying or screwed up opinions for a long time with folks truly different (eg liberals, gays, blacks) taking the damage from them. Often still true. Declassified documents even had the U.S. government sending teams to infiltrate them, get them to break up with spouses, dangerous experiments, and sometimes murder with stuff like syphilis or uranium. Then, in some places, the power structure has shifted where people of different beliefs have reversed whose the outsiders with the penalties so far being financial or social ostracism. Not as bad as those before them but certainly bad. The logical conclusion in a fair discussion is bringing up both systematic oppression of unusual ideas (or even decency) by both conservatives and liberals to show how universally damaging these patterns are. Then, one presents methods to counter that when both (all) do it. That they’re focusing on one as aggressor and one as victim says this move might be propaganda similarly to the subset of liberals conservatives call SJW’s. Bonus points for her bringing up religious as a form of victimization when church-backed laws are denying people rights in states everywhere with the older ones actually advocating murder of atheists or pagans with rocks to head or fire to body.
Best part of this video for me happens when woman in the middle talks about whether we should question beliefs or be obedient/sensitive. That starts here. She describes how she teaches things with expectation that people will question everything about them to learn. However, when she got texts on feminism, whatever those were wanted unquestioning belief with straight-up insults or making villains out of people who asked questions or otherwise rejected the core doctrines. That’s a real problem that applies to more than feminism which I’ve fought here on this site usually on the liberal side where disagreement equals some evil or in this case some BS by conservatives that’s setting them up as victims instead of people with often-aggressive views folks disagree with or react to in typical ways. I agree, though, people should ideally always be able to disagree with your views in a rational manner analyzing what they’re built on, the truth of that, the truth of what follows, traditions, reforms, and so on.
Preferably, we make this something that can’t get us ostracized from our social circles, workplaces, etc. I’ve seen specific people do better than average here and elsewhere on these things where I know it can happen in smaller groups or incrementally. We better know it’s not going to happen in the big picture, though, because the ingroup vs outgroup mentality is probably… biological! It’s an inherent weakness of how the mind works across most of the human race that we must accept will keep all this going. You see this when they, like most groups, don’t falsify the very beliefs they’re presenting even as they talk about falsification of beliefs. That they and their opponents have this weakness… like all of us… means it’s even more important to legitimize disagreement, eh? And yet, the same trait is why each groups’ sides that are highly emotional and/or dogmatic don’t want to allow that. They want all disagreement silenced in some way. (throws hand up) What can be done… (other than call out each sides’ BS when it shows plus encouragement of better paths)
Corner case in undeleting - it doesn’t also apply any edits in the form. I’ve added it.
I did flag this off-topic, personally. While I’ve always been a supporter of total free speech[1], and while I’m not comfortable with the direction free speech is going those days, I don’t see how this is related to tech or the culture around it in any way.[1] as opposed to “free speech” where people mean “I (myself) should be able to say what I want while others should shut up” (on both side alt-right and/or SJW)Edit: after @pushcx’s edit of the story, with the timestamp, this comment is now false (and I removed my flagging)