[woodruffw]

> I suspect this is an anti-fragile position, i.e. exposed to varying stressors on a company's purpose, companies that follow this principle will simply sharpen their purpose and objectives and get better at it.

We might be inclined to ask ourselves what it would have looked like for lunch counters in 1958 to have done the same, and why that doesn't fly now.

[remarkEon]

I suspect these lunch counters would've had some very pointed questions about why the law was artificially constraining their potential customer base.

[jacobr1]

It shows the subjectivity and flexibility one has when choosing a mission and framing though. The mission could be "serve the best lunch lunch we can to good 'old souther white people" or more insidiously, to "... to real Americans." People have a amazing ability to self-rationalize and are going to do what they want to do.

Setting boundaries on an organization's objectives is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, because coordination is hard and any alignment helps, but it is just going to reflect to consensus of the leadership regardless.

[remarkEon]

Right, but that's sort of the point of this protocol statement, no?

If a founder of a lunch restaurant starts out by saying "hello everyone, I'm here to make the best lunches possible but only for southern white people" I suspect, given my experience with lunches on three continents and in 37 states in the US, that he is going to have a hard time finding people who would actually be able to make good lunches.

Which is the point.

This does two things: it focuses people on what the actual mission of their company is or should be, and it can expose the kinds of missions that are nuts, or counter-productive, or just plain bad.

[joshuamorton]

"We make sandwiches, taking a side on segregation is beyond the scope of our mission".

Which sounds fine, but Woolworth's chose not to serve Black Americans. This was legal[0]. With the benefit of hindsight, we can claim that refusing to serve Black people was indeed "taking a side", but there were places where supporting the pro-integration people was breaking the law. And refusing to serve Black people, until they staged sit ins, didn't appear to be taking a side, because it wasn't uncommon. It was the way most places worked.

Even the mission to "serve everyone a sandwich" doesn't require addressing segregation, you can have separate lunch counters and serve everyone. Perhaps that's fine, people at the time certainly thought it was.

[0]: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-...

[remarkEon]

>"We make sandwiches, taking a side on segregation is beyond the scope of our mission".

Idk, "we make [my edit: great] sandwiches", which sounds like a great mission, seems very much entwined with who gets to eat said sandwiches - especially if they're delicious. Since if you are denying certain classes the right to enjoy your awesome sandwiches, your sandwiches probably aren't that great to begin with.

If I steel man your argument about having segregated counter space - that they'd excuse the segregation because if everyone has separate counter space to eat the sandwich the underlying differences don't matter -, what I'm left thinking about is that, well, the experience of having a great sandwich also has to do with the environment in which you eat it. Who wants to eat a delicious sandwich when you have to sit at a crappy table, with crappy chairs and bad service? No one, that's who.

And then we're back to my original point about artificially constraining the market for awesome sandwiches.

[joshuamorton]

I'd think this proves my point: we're having a debate, without an obvious "victor" about whether or not a mission to focus on sandwiches without distraction would lead to fighting segregation.

You say that someone could justify that. I'm saying they could also do the opposite. My point is that a "mission-oriented" code of conduct if you will allows the people who set the mission (read: leadership) to set the ethics too.

Fighting segregation can be part of the mission, or not. But if it isn't, you can't work on it.

[remarkEon]

But there's nothing stopping anyone from starting the "anti-racist sandwich shop"?

[CryptoPunk]

Why would you work for a lunch counter with a racist mission? Boycotting is the correct way to combat it. If there's a law forcing lunch counters to segregate, then the problem is in the government, and the correct way to counter that is political activism.

[woodruffw]

The observation is that (1) people are willing to excuse environmental racism as long as they don't feel personally responsible for it, and (2) the environment of business is optimized for ensuring that individual employees do not feel guilty for their small roles in larger wrongs.

It's hard to blame someone who's just trying to get by for taking a job, and I'm not especially interested in levying blame. What I'm more interested in is ensuring that people feel able to lodge their complaints about injustices.

[CryptoPunk]

I don't follow. Can you explain why choosing to not work for or dine at a racist lunch counter, instead of work there and then complain to management about their racism, is ignoring the problem?

People should be political about which missions they support. What I think is wrong is accepting a position at a company knowing what their mission is, and then using one's position at the company to push for a different mission while castigating others in the company for not doing the same. If media reports are correct, this is what happened at Coinbase, as a handful of employees refused to work unless their CEO made a political statement about the issue of alleged systemic racial injustice against black Americans.

As for lodging their complaints about injustice - that's vague. Injustice in the workplace? Nothing in the protocol discourages that. Or injustice in the wider world? The complaints should be lodged with the relevant parties, outside of the workplace.

[woodruffw]

> I don't follow. Can you explain why choosing to not work for or dine at a racist lunch counter, instead of work there and then complain to management about their racism, is ignoring the problem?

It isn't! It's strictly better to boycott than to abide.

The observations are as follows:

* Boycotting is, for a multitude of reasons, not always a reasonable option for individuals

* Companies are aware that some of their best potential talent won't work for them unless they emphasize at least some social good

* It's not especially surprising that people who are attracted by the promise of some social good want more, and are upset or angry when they realize that their company's ethical stances are superficial or self-serving

* Conversely, it's not especially surprising that companies that aggressively pursue "apolitical" positions are the ones that are perhaps the most objectionable: defense contractors, financial companies that benefit from organized crime, &c, and find themselves in the company of employees who actively favor the company's unethical positions

To be clear: it's a double bind for companies, and it's always been one. I wouldn't want it any other way!