[khalilravanna]

It doesn't help that politically in the US we have a movement to justify immaturity as a form of "freedom". Add to that the whole "echo chamber" effect which they've seemingly formed a perfect specimen of, and it's a perfect storm for a void of tact and, really, humanity. Woof.

I will say reading about all of this makes me even more gung-ho about focusing on this stuff as we grow our current company. There are so many implicit biases even if I'm not a horrible tech-bro. I think we're really good about this stuff but things change and we can always do better.

[GW150914]

Freedom is incredibly important, but people need to be clear what they want freedom from. Freedom from tyranny? Sign me up. Freedom from government censorship? Yes please. Freedom from having any standards, basic decency, and accountability for how we exercise our freedom? Eeehhhhh... no thanks. The freedom to speak for example isn’t the freedom from criticism or reaction.

[lucidone]

North American culture is increasingly interpreting freedom as a freedom-from as opposed to a freedom-to, as in, I am free from being an adult as opposed to I am free to be an adult.

[kadendogthing]

Often it's "freedom-from" consequences. North American culture has a bad habit lately of focusing on people's responses to language/actions than the actual subject's language/actions in the first place.

"Yeah, sure this person did X, but why did people have to react like Y. What a bunch of snowflakes!"

It's extremely toxic, idiotic, and immature. It IS slowly seeping into professional environments. I personally don't abide by it in my teams. You are given creative and professional freedom, this is a privilege and power and with it comes responsibility. If you demonstrate that you are not willing to take this responsibility seriously I have no problem letting you go. We're a good solid company, we pay really well, and we work on cool stuff. Sexism, diet-racism, showing up late to meetings, randomly calling out after half off wine on Wednesdays, isn't tolerable.

I am not old (at least I don't think I am). I haven't hit 30 yet. But I personally feel like the above things seem to be happening in greater and greater frequency and it all comes down to a "freedom-from consequences" attitude.

Americans have a culture (at least a professional one) problem and we don't seem to be willing to discuss it, in my personal view. Maybe it's just constrained to the software development field? Though from what I see from my finance peers I don't believe this to be the case.