Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by _8j50 1452 days ago
No you do not. Let'e bob goes on a rant about capital punishment against aborters or incarceration for gay people once that is also repealed. How will you feel as a pro choice person or a gay person? Will you not feel hurt in the slightest and will it not affect how you work and interact with bob?

People like you must have always been in positions of power and priviledge. I have been at the other end enduring all sorts of horrific remarks and being forced to keep quiet to save my career. Now I look back at those jobs and the first thing I always remeber is how horrible it felt people saying ignorant and hurtful things day in and day out and being forced to listen to that or disagree and not get my contract renewed, and affect other political power dynamics that can literally ruin my life.

So please sir/madam, don't shit where you eat. Not everyone appreciates the smell while they eat.

1 comments

> People like you must have always been...

No need for these assumptions. Your argument is clear without them.

Maybe you and i would not respond the same way on the same situation, and that's OK. Personally, when i had coworkers that would say things that i consider totally indefensible, yes, it made me feel terrible and angry, but at the same time, i was at least glad to now know who i was dealing with. I knew that person couldn't be trusted, and how i should (avoid to) interact with them. This is especially true for me in the cases where such person is a superior, or when nobody else in the organization calls on their shit; those are start-to-look-for-another-job situations for me personally.

And, sincerely, i don't think banning such topics from work environments would work for these kind of cases. Those people will keep being the way they are and acting their shitty way when and where they feel they'll get away with it; you'll just may not know who they are, yet.

Disclaimer: i'm not from the USA, or a "first world" country, so it's very possible for our cultures and work environments where we've been to be quite different.

Sorry for the "people like you.." remark.

You say it would affect you do bad you might even leave a job. So essentially you are excluding people with disagreeable views from the workplace harming their ability to provide for themselves and family. That is categorically unfair and anti democratic. Instead of people changing their views peacefully you are threatening them this way and they will also need to use force in return. You only feel this way in my opinion because you have options and your views are in the majority. Many of your views at a point were unpopular.

I do not go to work to socialize or play politics. I am there to provide labor and services in exchange for money. Quite frankly, on just about any political topic my views would offend people on any end of the political spectrum because I like to think for myself instead join the hivemind and go with party propagnada. You want to take that libery away from me. You want to force me to agree with you or become unemployed, because the other end of the political spectrum will also feel the same way as you. You think what I said before about the hypotetical person bob is bad? Ok, what if Jane is a transexual working at a factory in the deep south, how do you think that person is treated? They won't hear nice things about transexuals I can assure you that and they may not be able to move either (and they shouldn't have to).

The phrase "don't shit where you eat" comes from the fact that disease spreads and wipes out civilizations when they fail to so that. In this case, the specifics of your politics are not relevant but that you are contaminating the workplace with politics and politics with the workplace. Using the power dynamics of the workplace to further your political agenda and allowing politics to decide who works where (which again, that is illegal under labor law of many countries not just US).

In the US as well I see this trend where leftists and rightists alike think it is a good idea to force people into their camp. If a person is on your side because you forced them, obviously their supposed views are fake. You get rid of bob, but his friend jack saw what happened to bob and will quietly try to get rid of people that disagree with hid and bob's views now. You brought political conflict to the workplace now.

> You want to force me to agree with you or become unemployed

What in the hell? I think i totally failed to communicate what i mean if took that from what i said.

I tried to say that it's a personal decision of mine to try to change my workplace if i learn that people i work with/for are completely immoral. Like, i don't wanna work with people like that. It's a personal decision. But i wouldn't want to force anyone to agree with me or anything of that sort. Sorry if it came out that way, i didn't mean to.