[lcw]

If you are an international company you have to discuss these things. You literally have to discuss them for legal risk reasons, but us for cultural reasons. For instance, if you are a US company do you honor Crimea as a Russian territory... A lot of companies avoid working with the region altogether because of their acknowledgement of politics.

Another example is if you are a US company do you work with China knowing you will have to share your Chinese users data with the Chinese government. These are political and moral conversations that are decisions that should align with the companies values thus they HAVE to be discussed.

It's delusional to think you can avoid personal politics completely in a business. Basecamp is picking and choosing what is appropriate, and that's really the issue. It's an emotional response from their employees based on inconsistent behavior of management.

[bongobingo]

Hey guess what we're doing right now? We're discussing the issues of Crimea, Russia, and China... and we aren't getting political about it. Incredible. Maybe impossible?

>If you are an international company you have to discuss these things

No, you don't. These are business discussions. You discuss the issue, not the politics behind it. You do it professionally because you are a professional adult making business decisions. You leave the politics of it for Twitter on your own free time.

>It's delusional to think you can avoid personal politics completely in a business.

It's delusional and absurd to think that you need to bring politics into any discussion at work.

[lcw]

I don't understand the nuance of what you are saying. Focusing on the political issues is inherently political. One of the most common phrases you hear from a politician is "let's get back to talking about the issues." Yes they are business decisions but they are also political. If you choose to work with a country or not. It's not based on money alone, but also your leadership's values that are guided by their political compass. These aren't algorithmically driven decisions. These are human beings coming from diverse backgrounds making political decisions for how to increase the power of their company on the world in a way that that they can live with from a morality perspective and at the same time trying not to alienate their employees. I don't understand how this isn't political in nature.

[bongobingo]

> Yes they are business decisions but they are also political.

No, they aren’t. You’re trying to make them political. This is entirely of your own doing.

Take housing. It’s too expensive! Many people would agree. We can talk about houses being expensive without someone detailing the conversation by injecting politics into it. It devolves into politics when you try to let other people know why YOU think housing is too expensive. You are the one injecting politics into conversation where it isn’t needed, and absolutely isn’t wanted.

If you want to talk about politics go get a Twitter account.

[anon7725]

Something tells me that Russia/Crimea and China are not the subjects of months-long, all-consuming bonfire threads within US companies.