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by throwaway713 2425 days ago
I work at one of the companies often cited as having very left-wing employees, and my impression is that the media heavily overplays this.

I would instead say there is a small but very active group of employees that push a left-leaning political agenda, and most of these people tend to have non-STEM backgrounds (I don’t know why this is the case, but it is what I have observed). Most of the software engineers and data scientists that I work with do not really enjoy discussing politics (at least at work) and have views that lean more libertarian. Four of the people I work with are closet conservatives, and there are some issues I would say I am conservative on as well, but no one ever really brings these topics up at work.

1 comments

Not to poke too much fun but a non-STEM background could mean significant coursework in history, political science / theory, philosophy, and sociology or anthropology (which although sciences are usually mor colloquially implied by STEM).

So maybe non-STEM folks tend to lean left because they are better educated on the issues ;)

I’m a bit tongue-in cheek here, but, couldn’t resist :)

> So maybe non-STEM folks tend to lean left because they are better educated on the issues ;)

I totally agree with you, but would add the caveat that more education on social issues doesn’t mean more likely to be correct ;) (poking fun back haha)