Let's stop fighting and start figuring out how to properly handle deep social issues troubling the workplace today.

As an employee I want to make sure the company aligns with my ideas about equality and environmental protection. As a customer I don't want to do business with a company that doesn't. This is why it's important that a company takes a stand on these issues.

Also, it seems to me these things will not be applied equally. Will someone be told off for wearing a cross or a church group badge as much as someone wearing a gay rights ribbon?

Companies are the cause of many if not most of the world's problems and this feels like they're getting back to closing their eyes to them. I'm glad I don't work for Basecamp nor do business with them.

The whole point of 360 reviews is to collectively confront management when doing so 1-1 would be too awkward and risky. This list of changes here is honestly pretty suspect, and seems like the owners are trying to recentralize their power.

Not that most of them wouldn't be able to afford to

"Read all about how I refused Basecamp's buyout and spend a year snorkeling in Belize to make myself feel better"

Do they take 10% of profits and divide them equally among all employees? Contractors? Full time? Part time? Interns?

Does someone know how the profit share works?

1. This was announced on social media, apparently catching Basecamp employees by surprise.

2. Several employees (going by Twitter accounts) are looking to lawyer up or even exit the company.

3. This appears to be result of some long-running debate over a list of "funny" customer names. If so, the over-reaction shows a lack of maturity among the founders.

While Basecamp-the-company might be just an "apolitical" project/email set of apps, the founders - particularly DHH - are leaders in the Rails community and they also publish a number of bestselling books on management. These actions - whether well-intentioned or not - are both a middle finger to many, many people in the Rails community, particularly those in marginalized groups, and make one question their wisdom as management thought-leaders. Rails and ShapeUp are priceless marketing that have given their company exposure and goodwill other small companies would have loved to have, and this whole event has single-handedly killed that goodwill. It may result in the loss of key employees a company their size cannot afford to lose.

Furthermore, it comes across as hypocritical given DHH's frequent public tirades against Apple, monopolies, government lobbying, and support of controversial figures such as Glenn Greenwald. One rule for me, another for thee?

This is the kind of PR/HR disaster even an average newbie junior manager in a mid-size company would have avoided, and shows the danger of getting high on your own supply.

There's been a lot of new information published on what lead to this change that isn't getting nearly as much discussion.

This seems like one area that is usually unavoidable in tech companies.

The job people are hired for is not politics or activism. Also glad to see the weird new-age peer review crap and "soft" stuff eliminated, too. A lot of that is accumulated trendiness from the 90s onward.

I love the new policy and attitude, as its emphasis is more about the professional than the personality.

"You’re eligible to participate in profit sharing after two years of working at Basecamp. You’ll accrue one share per month starting on your second anniversary at Basecamp, and you’ll max out your shares at 10 years. We calculate shares based on months of tenure so there’s no unfair cliff between being hired in December vs January."

But it’s “distracting” when the rank and file talk politics in the office. Oooookay.

[1] https://m.signalvnoise.com/testimony-before-the-house-antitr...

Cutting benefits and calling it a feature. Amazing.

A lot of "work will set you free" vibes from this.

This is a very privileged stance. Stopping dialogue because it makes people queezy just means stopping change from taking hold at their company.

One of their 10x engineers is a nazi and got mad, I will bet $10 dollars

Also, posting this publicly feels like a very, very bad idea.

So BaseCamp as a company has no view on any horrible injustices as long as they don't hit their bottom line.

Really surprised that a firm that is supposed to be great at marketing seems to have taken no account of how a sizeable subset of their customers would react to this.

They also seem to have really upset some key members of their team.

Strange and on the face of it not an especially smart move.

"There are no plans to sell Basecamp or take the company public! But, in the slight chance of that happening, employees may be eligible to receive a portion of 10% of the value of the company if Basecamp is sold or made public. That 10% would be divided into shares, and shares distributed amongst employees based on their tenure at the time of the sale/offering."

still even with a 40% tax hit - i'd take a "cash benefit" over the piles of benefits i know i'm not using.

Basecamp pays SV salaries to all employees regardless of location.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp/

>2. No more paternalistic benefits. For years we've offered a fitness benefit, a wellness allowance, a farmer's market share, and continuing education allowances. They felt good at the time, but we've had a change of heart. It's none of our business what you do outside of work, and it's not Basecamp's place to encourage certain behaviors — regardless of good intention. By providing funds for certain things, we're getting too deep into nudging people's personal, individual choices.

The authors were not referring to benefits in general, but to a specific subset of them that seem to fit your definition well.

That’s annoying.

Someone else (and me too) had the same question

If you were not a evangelical Christian, you quickly realized you would not be happy working there

"Reminding people not to talk about politics and then moving on" doesn't really seem like a "punishment".

huh? their lives (and livelihoods) sometimes are at stake...

> cooperatives tend to last longer and are less susceptible to perverse incentives and other problems of organizational governance than more traditionally managed organizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

The question is, why make a big blog post about it in the first place? They can't claim innocence, since they followed Brian Armstrong pretty much to the letter, and have the walkouts to boot. So we can assume the attention was calculated.

Just look at how many posts on HN are now like "I want to work there!" Recruitment signalling accomplished.

The backlash is real, and to me the interesting part is it's semi-liberal tech dudes leading the charge.

BTW do you mean to say that bringing up issues of equal pay justify overt censorship as a "business decision"? Just asking because that was the issue I mentioned above.

Agreed. I'm not sure why that's a big deal though?

If you don't drink coffee, are the other employees getting compensation via their free coffee? Coffee can really add up.

I honestly believe that the real solution is treat everyone the same, and to demand from everyone to do the same.

When your solution includes distinction, you will never get rid of the distinction.

Ultimately I identify as myself and that encompasses a small collection of things where I feel intensely vulnerable but also very secure in knowing that, relating to my experience of growing up, abandonment, attachment, my mental health, and so on. Attacking those aspects of my being is likely to hurt me, and is the point where I would decide whether this person needs to be present in my life or not.

So I would speak out strongly on the topic of depression and suicide, for example, because part of who I am - my identity - is that I tried multiple times and survived each time, and that long-term state of depression significantly changed who I am.

If someone made fun of me for being some bleeding-heart liberal whenever I talk about compassion or some spiritual experience? whatever...I don't care. It's not for everyone.

But yes, there were likely other solutions to try before this one, including but not limited to: not blogging about whatever solution they picked.

Discussing career related political activism at work - such as unionization, or fair pay, because it actively affects you in the workplace - is fine to me.

However, woke politics, like gender equality, abortion, or some other trending topic that is unrelated to your workplace, should be discouraged. Things like that are more akin to religion - it's private, and should be kept off the workplace. Do it in your own private time, with people who also want to do it in their private time.

Stop being the language police or we'll never make any progress. Tolerance, generosity, always assume the best of someone.

Straight white could simply meant mostly white or mostly straight and white

Not sure how appropriate it would be from a US context, but say Bernie-bros and Clinton / Biden supporters.

If I donate to Candidate X, I'm taking her economic and her social policies at the same time.

In practice, this means that many large companies have to choose between issues they support. Microsoft may want lower taxes from Republicans, but they also want easier immigration and gay rights from Democrats.

If a company takes only an economic perspective, they may end up doing something morally repugnant to their workforce or customers, which turns a social issue into an economic one.

But it’s a valid question more broadly as well, and some of the other answers have been dismissive.

In general it is unwanted by people who prefer to be treated (and to treat others) as individuals rather than group members. People who want to interact with others based on individual qualities and merits, irrespective of group associations (especially immutable characteristics like height, skin colour, hair colour, etc).

I believe this (for now) still represents the majority of people in the US, and probably in some other countries as well.

See what happens if you spend more than any trivial time on the job doing something else other than what you were hired for!

I just miss high quality political debate. What we have how is just name calling and tribalism.

While I wish my work environment allowed me to express my views as everyone else does, I do genuinely appreciate hearing other side, and I’ve certainly gained valuable perspective on some issues this way.

As the other reply from atonse mentioned, I would love an environment where ideas can be discussed (and even disagreed with) but with mutual respect for each other as people with differing life experiences.

I think we mostly have more in common than most of us think, and I think we would all have a lot less hate, a lot more shared understanding, and ultimately better outcomes at work and at home.

There is also a portion that tracks your sleep habits, but it requires you to enable the Bedtime feature on the iPhone, which I don't want to do.

Hard cancellation is when you get others to gang up on them and go to HR to try to get them fired. Afterwards, you publicise whatever got them fired offline in the hopes that they become 'radioactive' to employers and so that they and their family fall on hard times.

I'm a little confused as to why people don't understand what "cancel" means in this context. Isn't it quite a popular topic nowadays? Is it possible that they're claiming ignorance, because they want to argue against the meaningfulness of the term?

But it would also mean people who belittle or demean others because of their gender. Or people who belittle, demean, and bully people with less experience.

One of PayPal’s founders once bragged that they declined to hire an engineer because they said they liked to “shoot hoops,” and PayPal was not a company where people liked to “shoot hoops.”

All of that would be “cancelling” people too, by your definition, and it’s all just as worthy of discussion.

Your argument is basically "my relationship is political because I am gay". I disagree. I think that reasonable people understand that your marriage is not political. Acquiring your right to marry was political, but exercising that right is not. If someone doesn't understand this and interprets you referencing your husband as some political statement, they are wrong, and I expect most HR departments would realize that if push came to shove.

As an example, a couple months ago at the start of a dev meeting, my boss made a joke about a protest organized by business owners in the area urging our governor to open up businesses. It was covered as a largely conservative group.

Here’s roughly how that went:

Boss: “Doesn’t seem like a chance of this lockdown ending with all of those morons protesting this week”

Coworker A: “Yeah, it’s scary how many of them think the virus doesn’t exist”

Coworker B (imitating conservatives): “I’ll just shoot at the virus with my gun”

Everyone laughs

Coworker A: “The problem is they’re just not educated. If only we could steal their kids away and take them to some private education camp”

Boss grunts with agreement.

Coworker B: “Or they should just be prevented from having kids at all”

Coworker A: “Maybe it’s for the best that they’re the ones that will die off. Natural selection at work.”

Everyone laughs. Then the meeting starts.

It escalates so quickly, in an awkward “half joking” way, that at no point to I feel able to jump in and provide perspective that many of them feel their livelihoods are threatened. That maybe we’re lucky that we haven’t missed a paycheck. That maybe they’re protesting not out of ignorance, but rather perspective we don’t have.

Sometimes it’s simpler - my boss jokes that a neighbor put up a Trump sign and he “always thought they seemed like inbreds”, or a coworker questions why his friends daughter is dating a conservative who “hates women”.

Is that my cue to explain “actually, I’m a conservative but believe strongly in women’s equality” or “hey, just because I have strong feelings about the 2nd amendment precisely as a means for women and minorities to protect themselves doesn’t mean I’m a bigot or an inbred?”

To be fair, I have not outed myself as either a conservative or LGBTQ. Maybe they would think twice about what they say if I do. Maybe these are perfectly innocent jokes using a form of hyperbole that I’m just not getting.

But I’ve also had plenty of conversations with friends and family along the “I wish gay people would keep it to themselves” and “kids need a mom and dad”. In those cases I’ve always felt able to have a discussion advocating against their ideas without feeling like my tires would be slashed in the parking lot.

There is no connection whatsoever between diversity and building product. Note: you haven't tried to explain your claim there is, just implied it's obvious, probably because you can't. I've seen people try to honestly intellectually defend a connection between employee diversity and product design before, and it's always a joke. You get anecdotes about face recognition not working on black people (reality: the software in question just had trouble with low contrast images and also struggled with white people's faces). And that's about it. I can't recall ever seeing someone actually argue that more women == better product because, well, that's a pretty sexist thing to believe isn't it? It implies men have no empathy, or that there's a universe of product requirements women will only tell to other women, etc.

If discrimination is happening against an individual and you work with the management chain to resolve it, that's not a political act, because you aren't attempting to radically remake the entire organisation for everyone (politics), but only address the specific problem that was actually observed.

No, its not, it avsolutely is not.

> You can be a big activist outside of work, no one is saying you can't be.

Limiting the scope of activism always serves to protect the status quo. The fact that the imposed limit is itself limited does not make it neutral.

And as long as we continue assuming the worst in people that we disagree with, the problem of polarization will remain. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt and assume, until we have evidence to the contrary, that they just want to encourage a sane, low-stress work environment?

It, by definition, does not favor the status quo. Staying silent on a topic may be against the status quo, or it may be for it. That by definition makes this neutral.

>No, prohibiting pushing isn’t neutrality, its favoring the current state.

No it's not as explained above. Pushing may be for or against the status quo, and prohibiting pushing by this logic means neutrality. The status quo may be under threat by staying silent, or the status quo may not change by staying silent. That is neutrality.

You're essentially creating a non-falsifiable here by just assuming that "silence = for status quo".

>Yes, the a particular scope is being excluded.

Except nothing is out of scope, just time and place. You still have unlimited scope outside of work.

>That’s the excluded scope.

That's not a scope. You're company is not limiting your scope, you agreed to be there, during business hours, to conduct business.

>Sure, if the conservative position is not the status quo and the progressive one is; your preventing both (and others) from being heard, adversely impacting all that are not the status quo.

Yes, which in the long run means no one side is being heard or pushed over others... True neutrality.

>To the extent your “alternative” is true, its not an alternative, just a specific case of what I initially described.

Exactly, and it proves my point. The net of it all is neutral. QED.

And if that manager happens to also be jerk? Or even just not like me very much and want cover to get rid of me? They’ve got it.

It has nothing to do with whether or not you and I think it’s unpolitical. Enough people believe that it is so it is. This is the part that’s such a huge problem.

But I do have to paint "conservatives" for lack of a better word with that brush based on specifically mask and COVID vaccination responses.

I don't ascribe all anti-intellectualism to the right. Essential Oils, Vaccinations causing Autism, Healing Crystals, and Chakras are all anti-intellectualist science-denialism with a profoundly leftist tint.

But you have to admit that the people downplaying COVID, effectiveness of masks, and saying they are unlikely to take a vaccine are generally conservatives. And when this is the most prevalent subject of news in the world today, it ends up influencing people's perspectives.

People bring politics and emotion. If your customers or staff are people, it is more effective to be able to discuss their issues directly without contorting yourself into a "just focus on the work" correctness.

But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. Clearly, without any context, if ever a word were to be said about this hypothetical scenario, it would be inherently political, and you would already know from which side. So, clearly, you’ve also already ascribed politics to this anodyne chitchat.

But I also think it’s disingenuous to leap from “banning political discussions at work” to “the LGBTQ family has to pretend they don’t exist”. If culture is such that people discuss what they did with their significant other or family over the weekend, then setting an environment where everyone is welcome to discuss that freely falls on leadership.

Somebody finding fault with that is going to have to be dealt with by HR the same way you might deal with a person who constantly shames everyone else for eating sugary donuts every morning - an opinion they can keep to themselves, without attacking or threatening others.

I’m not saying the line is always easy to find, but it’s not nearly as complex as most make it out to be.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Basecamp is not at all saying people should not reveal, let alone actively hide, their sexual orientation, gender identity, or anything like that.

I think anyone else at the company who considered such a thing political and tried to tell that person or the chat that what they're doing is political would be the only individual who's violating the "no politics at work" policy (perhaps in addition to other policies, too).

I understand your concern in general, here, but I don't see any reason why "gays are gonna get told to stop mentioning their husbands like we used to" is a thing that would start happening as a result of this policy change at Basecamp. I very strongly share your opinion that a conservative person who would do such a thing is deeply in the wrong, but I don't really think I see how it would apply to this particular situation.

I don't think "banning political discussion" at all carries the implications you're concerned about at most companies, and I think if it did happen at such a company it would be the thing that's violating the policy.

Opposing the explicit carve out of 25% of a recruiting pipeline specifically for HBCU candidates, for example, does not imply one is racist.

> - Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either)

Would be illegal, strawman.

> - "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?)is- this is something they'd have to decide, however it should be framed as "we're going to <political event> this weekend, want to join?". On the other hand, if they're incorporated in a place where being gay and gay marriage is fully legal, I don't think gay pride can be considered political any more than independence day, in which case, of course it would be allowed. Someone responding by saying "ugh, gay people make me sick", OTOH, should be censored under this rule.

> - Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?)

- not political, however, if someone responds by saying "ugh, I hate the military, you guys are terrible", that would be political and they should be warned to simmer down (I say this as someone who does dislike the military - but I don't think that gives me the right to say nasty things to people who have escaped and are trying to move on).

> - One of our new clients is a controversial group/business/etc, what should we do?

This is a business decision and should be discussed in that context. It probably shouldn't get discussed in the casual slack channel regardless of this rule.

Try examining this post again but in good faith rather than trying to poke petty holes in it - by which I mean, assume that they are trying to reduce division in their company instead of assuming their end goal is censorship.

If course, maybe it will turn out to be a bad thing in the end. But I don't think we'll reach that conclusion by listing minor problems with it.

How about Jodie says, "No thanks"

"Aw, why not?"

"Not really my thing"

"What, do you have a problem with gay people?"

I mean I see that as likely as any outcome from that conversation starter.

No actual union will encourage or allow union business on company forums, for example. If you want to talk to Jodie about marching in a parade, give her a call or message her offline.

I’ve worked for employers where it is illegal to discuss politics with their systems. Honestly, it made for a great work environment... I don’t need to know or care whether you’re a Baptist minister, a drag queen or both in your spare time. I just need to work with you.

Veteran here. Yes it is. It's identity politics, especially in hyper liberal areas. I'll express some thoughts I have around this.

Some veterans, especially campaign veterans which are a protected class, will struggle when being introduced to the workforce. When I got out, shortly after a year long stint in Afghanistan and subsequently more combat training, I was given a class called SEPS & TAPS. TAPS is an acronym here, but let me remind you foremost of what "taps" is.

Taps is the bugle song played every night at base. When taps plays you are under military order to stand at attention and salute the flag. Taps is a reminder of those who lost or sacrificed their lives that day. It is a daily reminder that your choices are often dangerous ones much less ones that don't just involve your life. For that minute, you are relegated to appreciating their sacrifices in utter silence.

In my course (SEPS & TAPS) the first power point we received covered a page filled with telemetry data about Marines you didn't want to be. The drunk, the drug user, the domestic abuser, the college drop out, the person with anger problems. I wish I had screenshot this slide because words cannot capture how uphill that battle would seem. When I finally did get out, I realized why all these shocking statistics make sense. I've heard people talk about "hero worship" and I'm from the South where veterans have a decent reputation. Where Southerners probably do give a lot of credence to the military because most of the military is generational servitude from the Midwest and the South, likely due to a perceived lack of opportunity in many areas. Hero worship is little more than lip service to veterans though. The real substantive outcome of me getting out was watching all my friends lives reset, facing a lack of opportunity (again), and more bills, pressures, and externalities like school all while trying to return to being a normal human being. It was immense and for a time my life would fall apart in one way while bounding forward in another. It felt like I was literally Flubber, and it was killing me.

If you've followed my posts on this forum life is okay now. But I can see why veterans may need a group at work where they can be veterans or talk about issues. What I don't agree with is if these groups tried to influence the work force. I wouldn't agree with them sending out lecturing messages about veterans or memorial day, even if they're right. I wouldn't be comfortable with them making statements for the veteran community. I wouldn't be okay if they set hiring parameters on top of what is required by law.

I also understand there are people who hate veterans. Some people at work I actively ensure that I don't bring up being a veteran, that I'm particularly good at marksmanship, that I've been to Afghanistan (or any sub-experiences thereafter). No amount of advocacy that a veterans group can do will change that person's mind. I cannot overcome people who equate military service with fascism, nationalism, or even the train of thought that leads people to believe all or most veterans are conservative. I can't fix a broken mind like that; only personal experiences that challenge the thinkers opinions will, which means likely, one day, some veteran will be on the other end of that. Maybe someone like me who can listen to a dissenting view that feels dehumanizing, but maybe not. That's just the way personal growth goes; thinkers don't really plan on who or how their minds will eventually be changed. I accept that reality as a fact of life. I embrace it to some degree and actively work to avoid it in another.

So, is that group political? Yes, but there are things they can choose to do that are decidedly more political and that is where you'll get disagreeance from me as a member of said group.

EDIT: I see this is being downvoted. It's a genuine good faith question, and if you've downvoted, I'd love to know what you see as unconstructive about this comment. I'm sure the HN community would not be so petty as to downvote it out of pure ideology.

"if your not christian you shouldn't work here"

This is a false dichotomy.

It is analogous to people who say "love it or leave it" with regards to patriotism for a country.

In my experience, when I hear a person say "if you don't like X about what Y does, find a new Y", I also find evidence that they often lack the ability to observe without judgement. Because of this, they may lack compassion.

Would you say the same thing to someone who doesn't have much leverage to find a better job?

I wonder, would you tell them "to just deal with it"? Or would you simply admit that there are many paths to addressing issues?

There are people in the world that are rule-followers to a fault.

1. Say your partner has a life threatening emergency and you must drive them to the hospital. Do you run a stop sign if there is no cross traffic? Rule followers might say no. However, a higher standard of ethics might say that saving a life is more important.

2. Say your company has a policy that says "don't talk about your concerns about the company on the message board". Let's say you have concerns and have raised them via "proper" channels but the result in unsatisfactory. Do you raise them more generally? Rule followers might say no. Wise people weigh the issue and consider the pros and cons.

The world is about actions and consequences. In my view, that is what the rules tell you. The rules don't always simplistically define ethics. Rules, like any formal system, are not adequate substitutes for guiding principles and conscience.

They clearly didn't. Saying that was dumb would be the understatement of the week.

Who asked for that, though? This is precisely my point: my existence is being conflated with “approving every aspect of how you live.”

That’s the entire problem, right there. People can and will and do cause problems for LGBT people in the workplace just for existing, for saying boring things like “my husband and I went to the movies.”

If your reason is the former, I’m curious how far you would take that. Is there any conceivable case where the company should not do business with some organization or government because of political issues? And if your reason is the latter, then shouldn’t the company try to be upfront (at least internally among employees) where it stands on these issues?

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/08/954710407/at-google-hundreds-... ("Google Workers Speak Out About Why They Formed A Union: 'To Protect Ourselves'")

https://www.wired.com/story/how-kickstarter-employees-formed... ("How Kickstarter Employees Formed a Union")

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/02/following-unionization-gli... ("Following unionization, Glitch signs collective bargaining agreement ")

I admit there's still much work to be done with regards to tech organizing.

But I don't believe that's why American gays have been experiencing more and more support. It is not persuasion by equity, but simply by asking people what kind of future they want to live in. Gay life also also improved among EU peers for the same reasons.

Politics is the negotiation of power, and yet strangely, gay people have been able to achieve wins at the negotiating table simply by asking, often without leverage. Sometimes people will listen to your story and simply agree.

Germans voted for a specific right. American's do the same all the time. Germans still do not have some blanket right for every worker to control company policy.

Or what is legal. So many people don't assert their rights because some random piece of paper (or online form) told them they can't, when it would be completely unenforceable in a local court.

You made my point?

If there was a woman on that team it says even less good things about Apple that they shipped without it.

But: Apple's diversity report from then [1] says they were 80% male in tech, so while the assumption might be serious, I don't think it's unreasonable.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5949453/no-surprise-apple...

Without these "oh politics is sin" things, the bosses saying no might require them to justify it. Instead they can now weasel their way out of this kind of stuff, and basically shield themselves from criticism on this front, even if people internally might want to change [0]

Lots of conservative ideology is around this, trying to turn some subjective defense of beliefs into like... some objective rules about not doing X/Y/Z (basically maintaining the status quo). I'm not saying the decision makers are conservative, but that's what the result is going to be here.

(tbh I think there are good reasons to minimize discussions about current events into places where people aren't forced to be exposed to them at work. I know I don't want to, just cuz I'm already exposed to it a lot. But there's a difference between banning politics talk and just asking people to keep it in certain areas IMO)

[0] https://basecamp.com/about/team they don't have the engineering/non-engineering split here, but 50-odd people and they have 3 Dans + 3 Jasons. There are definitely companies with more absurd balances and the people at Basecamp probably would like to see improvements! But this kinda stuff makes it harder.

The point is to explicitly not politicize these conversations and instead talk and relate on a human-to-human level

I live in a country where the differences are handled almost the exact opposite to what is done in the US. Instead of spreading positive discrimination that reinforces the idea that we're all different and actually promoting communautarism, we believe that our differences are fundamentally a private matter and when we want to build something together we leverage our common interest and values. It's all idealistic but in practice our racism isn't as widespread and brutal as other places, which is why I'm convinced it is the right way to follow

Look at this very thread. Just a few posts above this one is a guy who says he works at a firm where 40% of all recruitment efforts have to be for female engineers. Those sorts of policies are everywhere. That's actual, concrete discrimination. Firms put bonus pots aside for women, they set up competitions and career opportunities from which men are banned. Men are being barred from board positions and top executive roles all over the place.

At the last place I worked, after firing the head of sales the CEO announced at a company all hands that the next head of sales had to be a woman, and that's why the firm had been without one for so many months. It's of course illegal but the agencies that enforce these laws are run by people steeped in identity politics, so they aren't enforced. When one was finally located she turned out to be wildly incompetent. In the first management offsite she got up and said she had no idea why anyone bought our product. She didn't mean this in a "the product is bad, I'll shock them out of denial" way. She meant it in the sense that she really didn't understand what the product actually did (it was a rather obscure product for software developers). In a sales meeting with a customer she started trying to convince the customer not to use our product, apparently without realising she was doing so. The prior male head of sales had been fired simply for displaying low energy, this woman is of course un-fireable despite demonstrating repeatedly she has zero understanding of the companies products!

That same company invited a third party training company to use the offices at the weekend to run programming classes. These classes were open to everyone except straight, white men. I kid you not, that was the actual rule. If you were a white male you were expected to bring social media evidence that you were gay. Like, photos of you making out with other men or something like that. The justification for this was to keep the lessons "safe". Myself and my (gay) manager went to HR to complain, the head of HR spent 30 minutes trying to defend it. There was no apology and nothing was done about it.

This stuff is routine, it is daily life. It passes by without notice. If even one of these things happened in the reverse direction at a large company it'd make international news.

It's this kind of poisonous ideology that Basecamp are trying to expunge from their firm with this announcement, and what can the average man do but applaud? Who doesn't want to just come to work and have peaceful relations with their co-workers, regardless of race or gender? Only leftist activists, and which firms really need them? They're far more trouble than they're worth.

In some ways I agree; we're all shaped by adversity and experience. But I don't think you can ignore the incredible lack of people from black or hispanic backgrounds in tech either. The goal of increased diversity in entry level hiring is advanced by the suggested HBCU recruitment drive. Supporting it doesn't preclude recruiting from other talent pools.

I'm not following your use of the word. I think we may have different ideas about what it means.

From Wikipedia:

> Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.[1][2][3]

Where did tyingq say someone else was a hypocrite? They didn't.

Bob: "... my husband..." Fred: "oh" Bob: "What?" Fred: "nothing" Bob: "Okay..." Fred: "....i think i'll go finish my lunch at my desk" Bob: "hey don't forget to finish that code review for me later" Fred: <acts different in subtle and plausibly deniable way with Bob from now on" Bob: "Hey, do you have a problem with me being gay?" Fred: "DON'T MAKE THIS POLITICAL" etc.

You fundamentally misunderstand what I’m trying to say, though: it’s not that the new policy explicitly says “gays must hide again”. It’s that a large number of people think “being gay” is political; any mention that you are gay is inherently “throwing it in their face,” and so a policy banning “political discussion” gives significant cover to those who’d like to pretend gay people don’t exist. They can claim, legitimately in many people’s minds, that hearing about someone’s “sexual preferences” is political speech.

Of course it all feels contrived and silly, because popular opinion is legitimately (yet slowly) moving toward the position of “gay people existing is not political.” But we are far, far from that position today. The things I’m describing are not a fever dream, but things that actually still happen to LGBT people in the workplace.

No, HRs responsibility is to make sure that legal liability for unlawful discrimination does not get imposed on the company, consistent with other corporate goals.

Actually mitigating discrimination may sometimes be the mechanism for that. Helping management create a smokescreen around acts of discrimination and find pretexts to force out people likely to discredit that smokescreen are also sometimes ways HR does that.

Mistaking HR for your advocate rather than management’s is a dangerous mistake.

At a minimum, they’d need to stop accepting employee referrals (how can they tell if the referrals biased?) and take over the technical interview process.

Also, what happens when an exec elsewhere in the company discriminates against someone? Will HR have the power to unilaterally fire the exec? The CEO? The chairman of the board? How would they even detect the discrimination?

Sadly, declaring that one division of a company will eliminate discrimination doesn’t work. You need the whole company to pull together, though realistically, that won’t work either.

Society as a whole has to decide to solve the problem. Looping around to the article, one of the political parties passed hundreds of bills to disenfranchise minority voters; arguing that minorities should have basic rights is (in the US, at least) politically controversial.

Charitably, I hope the goal is to force my values on the employees, and silence dissent (no bigoted discussions at work).

Invoke Godwin’s Law, and… Done.

Not sure that’s such a good example. When something is painfully obvious to everyone, the suppressing statistics only leads to more resentment, conspiracy theories and political unrest (or support for far-something groups).

A good example is terrorism in Europe. You can be pretty sure that if the race/religion isn’t mentioned, it’s not white & atheist/christian.

Re the specific example: I'm not from the US, so a fundamental right to guns (or even just much in the way of gun culture) is culturally "weird" here. I didn't intend to suggest that this would be weird/off-limits to all companies everywhere. Which is kind of the point again: find what works for the topic for your people.

I'm sure discrimination is banned at Basecamp.

So you have to look at the data, gather the facts, and force the issue:

---

Is everyone fairly compensated?

Yes

But, it looks like a woman is paid 20% less than a man for the same position. Is everyone fairly compensated?

Yes. (Insert sexist reasoning here).

Are women compensated the same as men?

No.

Why is that fair?

---

You could repeat this same thought process for so many other examples, where the general concept of fairness is rooted in inequality, bias, and prejudice.

Basically some people see affirmative action of any kind as anathema, and they get angry and insecure when these things are suggested, and people respond in turn. So I see how this could become a source of conflict.

But I don't think all those groups of people need to take part in the construction work.

It'd be nice with more diversity in tech. So please don't misunderstand. I just think that there are other better examples of how diversity is good.

(Usability testing: Testing early prototypes I suppose -- it's not that easy to redo, say, a car, once it's in production.)

> keep getting complaints because their doorways are only 5'11" high (ideal for 99% of women's bodies),

That thought makes me feel upset! (Although I'm not a human. But I am tall) Thanks for a good example

To your point though: Chicago is decent, but arguably less so than SF.

so if you have a business case for recruiting different kinds of people (who currently don't get recruited), then that's not a political agenda. If you can point to evidence that the recruitment team is missing out on great candidates because of some systemic mis-identification.

But if you are suggesting that it would make the world a more equal place to hire those different people, even though they currently would not be hired, then that's not a great business case, and thus, becomes a political agenda.

This just simply isn’t true.

Well fuck them. Mentioning your partner is not political, it's conversation. They are the ones that make it political, not you. This borders discrimination in my opinion.

If they are showing prejudice or treating you unfairly it is them that should be reported. It must be a pretty fucked up workplace for the opposite to happen?

Revolting from your company is called quitting. So go ahead and revolt if you want.

If believing that both companies and workers should have the freedom to set their own terms for how they want to operate within the bounds of the law is authoritarianism then I will proudly take the label although of course, this is directly inverting the definition of authoritarianism.

No, they couldn't. Feudal peasants (i.e. serfs) were tied to the land and were NOT free to leave. In general, their lords controlled every aspect of their lives, including who they were permitted to marry.

Being a serf wasn't quite as bad as being a slave (for instance, serfs generally couldn't be sold away from their families, as they were attached to the land), but it was pretty damned bad nonetheless.

At any rate, drawing a comparison between a feudal serf, owned from birth and tied to the land, and a software engineer who could likely have a new job by the end of the day (particularly coming from a high-profile shop like Basecamp) seems rather disingenuous.

This is the issue I have when discussing these matters with certain people. When everything is presented in such stark black-and-white terms there's little room for discussion.

A Basecamp union organizer who was the only one to decide to join their own creation of a Basecamp Workers Union would already be 3 times as successful as the Google union on a per-capita basis.

I don’t think the “coercion” perspective is the most convincing argument, personally: but there really isn’t much of an alternative to employment. The fact that the US has starving children speaks to how little of a social safety net we actually have.

I guess while I wouldn’t personally use “coercion” in a debate about this stuff, it’s also somewhat of a reasonable argument when you consider the alternatives. It’s just very ... meta.

"Do the bidding of an employer or be forcibly denied food and shelter" sure sounds like coercion to me.

I would prefer that corporate policy not give them this new, shiny tool to harass me.

The problem, in this instance, isn’t the banning of political speech per se - rather it is that the ban can be cruelly weaponized against regular speech you just don’t want to hear because it offends your own “political views.”

That’s going to remain true as long as anti-gay views are legitimately held by a mainstream political party here, which is very much still the case today.

I’m not the one making it an identity politics / label issue; I’m saying “these policies are cover for mean people to reduce me to just a label and then weaponize that against me.”

This blog post by Basecamp is excellent. What a fantastic company it must be to work for. It's too late now because I'm starting my own company and am fully dedicated to that, but part of the reason for doing so was the feeling that there weren't enough (any?) companies with these sorts of policies in the world. I'll add Basecamp to the small list of software firms I'd be willing to work at in future.

Should a woman only be hired because they're a woman, even if they're a poor engineer? That seems way more sexist than the alternative.

To be fair I would expect more female engineers to show a benefit in the retention rates of female engineers so I think this initiative could be net positive for the company but I also doubt the people pushing for this are being data driven.

> When it comes to discussing specific experiences that minorities face, however, you should defer to the experts in the area who have lived their entire lives being in the seat of discrimination.

We all appreciate attempts to understand and empathize with us. You can go very far by talking with us and trying to place yourself in our shoes, but we don't appreciate it when you talk over us, attempt to silence our voices, or, case in point, put words in our mouths and exaggerate our points beyond recognition.

Please try and engage this topic in good faith and not through pedantics and wordplay. If you fundamentally disagree that the victims of discrimination should have the loudest voice in the matter, I'd love to talk further.

If you were in the middle of a meeting to plan a new product launch and suddenly announced "I'm getting married this weekend!" what kind of reaction would you expect? People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment and to get back to work. If you kept on trying to turn every discussion about work back to how it relates to your upcoming wedding, they'd eventually get annoyed and write you off as an obnoxious weirdo, and they'd be right.

To take a few hot-button issues from today: what if you’re Black, and a police officer racially profiles you on your way to work? What if your trans child is taking puberty blockers, or playing sports? Forget taking specific stances — is it acceptable to even let on to your coworkers that these things are happening in your life?

> it needs to turn into a "you're a jerk" debate.

I think you don't see the political part because you're not a jerk, which is a fantastic thing.

I'm saying "a large chunk of people are jerks and have historically used these kinds of policies to be jerks to me and others like me, so it's probably a bad policy." The problem is that sometimes the jerks have support. Sometimes the managers are jerks as well. Sometimes their managers, too.

It happens. I don't like it, it shouldn't happen: but it happens.

Somebody discussing their plans and related challenges may have political notions attached, but the “right and wrong” are not the focal point.

If someone responds with “good, gay marriage is wrong”, you’ve clearly crossed into political debate, and opened the line for personal attacks.

If someone responds with “everyone who’s against this is a Nazi”, you have also done the same.

If, instead, the response is centered around the person’s own experience (“I’m sorry to hear that, I know some family with a similar struggle”) then it’s fine.

It’s not terribly different if you’re discussing being disappointed that your insurance rates went up.

“Sucks that we have to pay $75 more a month” is fine. Adding that “it’s all because of Obamacare” crosses the line.

I don’t see the line being that difficult, it’s just that most people on BOTH sides take these statements as their cue to start engaging in their political debate, usually abandoning all subtlety and nuance while gathering the pitchforks and drawing warlines.

People forget how much diversity of opinion there is, from gay couples against marriage, to Christian supporters of gay marriage, to libertarians who don’t support any state recognized marriage at all.

Same goes for taxes, HUD approved appliances, EPA regulations, etc.

Name a political debate, and I’ll give you people I’ve met or worked with who don’t fit into the media-prescribed boxes.

Most importantly, people have seemingly forgotten that whether you agree or disagree with the cause, it’s entirely possible to just be supportive of your fellow humans for the sake of wanting them to be happy.

And I really don't understand why your sexual preferences should be known to/by your coworkers either.

Having recent returned to a corporate work environment I am amazed at how much time is spent focusing on these things instead of, you know, running the business and generating shareholder value.

I'm not sure how to fix this broader problem - or what else I could/should have done there (other than leave for greener pastures)!

But be careful of anything touching on long-term trends...

The issue of anti-asian quotas at major american universities is absolutely a legitimate one that needs addressing.

Here's why it's a little bit more complicated than just: "Let's just remove all criteria for university admission besides high scores. That won't discriminate against asians and be a true meritocracy".

Because then, the amount of poor people getting into university would absolutely plummet, and the socioeconomic divide between the classes in the US would only grow further. Being able to do well on tests is a privilige based on having time to study, the money for tutors, and other factors. There is obviously a pure raw talent aspect, and the geniuses of the world might get in regardless of their race or poverty level. But there is not enough geniuses in the world. Most University student bodies are average and slightly above average humans. There has to be some way to promote balance in the student body - racially, economically, culturally. And right now, Asians are disproportionately pay that burden. It should be worked on, and improved.

But you should in no way conflate this problem with university admissions with "pink quotas" for hiring diverse groups of talent. The companies that are the most promoting the idea of improving their diversity through initiatives are the largest and richest tech companies. They do so not just because it's beneficial to the bottom line, but also because they can AFFORD to be choosy.

Joe Blow Software Co and Fizz Buzz Sandwiches aren't putting in diversity goals in their hiring strategy. They wait for people to come in to apply for jobs, and hope that they can get someone to cover a shift before the end of the week that isn't a drug addict.

Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft do it because they know that on any given day for any given position they're going to get 100 resumes, and they have what can only be described as a "loosely scientific" approach to weaning them out to 40 that can be phone screened, 5 that will come onsite, and 1 that will be hired. (Numbers are made up but are close to the real ratios).

Everything from the phone screen onward is data driven, meticulous, and kept to a strict quality bar. But the intake process has a lot of randomness, a lot of flexibility, and THAT is where the companies focus to say "Why don't we actually try to interview more women, and minorities for a change. What's the worst that can happen? We phone screen 50 people instead of 40, and so our "onsite efficiency ratio" drops from 12% to 10%.

There is no quota. There are goals to improve these numbers. But there is no quota in the professional world.

I don't really think that is unfair, but then I think the whole system of elite university admission is a total disaster for equity.

Again, I'm not questioning your heart, but I do think that words are powerful and words are how the society group think evolves.

I’m from a Muslim country, and among Muslim Americans same sex relationships are taboo. While Muslim support for same sex marriage crossed the 50% mark a couple of years ago, it’s completely rejected within the community itself. (Almost no Muslim Americans identity as LGBT, and virtually no mosques will perform same sex marriages: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....) But the many Muslim Americans who oppose same sex marriage don’t oppose the “existence” of gay people. They believe, consistent with their religion, that marriage is for procreation and government sanction should only be extended to heterosexual relationships. They are also probably ignorant on the issue of sexual orientation being an innate trait. My aunts don’t want to grant government sanction to same-sex relationships, but it’s unfair to say they’re a danger to the “existence” of gay people.

Everything else being equal, sure.

and prefer to be hired and rewarded only for that reason.

Why would anybody who knew they were talented and got hired or promoted, assume it had to do with anything other than their talent?

The social justice diversity, equity and inclusion is a political stance that instead of seeing individuals see groups of "oppressed" and "oppressors" which is a recipe for a less productive work environment. These unchosen group identities are political tools and not descriptive of an individual.

It is possible to recognize that a certain groups of people on average face more obstacles and barriers, without equating individuals with the groups they belong to or vice versa.

The resources and tools you mentioned are useful and good, but there's something different about supporting each other directly.

The real issue is that this is only a problem in one direction: nobody complains when someone says “my wife,” and some people definitely complain when someone says “my husband”.

It definitely gets made about sex, and gay sex specifically, by the people making the complaint. They’re the ones making it about sex and not leaving it alone as a conversation about one’s spouse.

No, I think not. Look here:

> When you form a student-led committee on anti-bullying but mysteriously exclude all the victims

That's, what's the right word, changing the analogy into madness.

I said like this: "Not only group X can have good ideas about something"

and you seem to believe that that means: "X must be silenced" -- that's weird, to say the least.

I never said that, and I don't think that, and I feel surprised, maybe a little bit ill, that you somehow misinterpreted what I wrote, that much.

> They are more dangerous because they often see themselves as kind, empathetic and intelligent - often believing that they can detect and solve deeply complex, emotion-rooted problems such as racial discrimination simply by thinking about it

I suppose there are such people.

> have been silenced and told to shut up

I feel sad for the cases when that's happened to you and others

> our voices do weigh much more than yours

That's odd, you start writing "our" and "yours" as if you now believe that I'm in some antagonist group, just because I said "not only X can have good ideas".

I'm happy that my friends who look different than me, different skin color for example, don't think like that. We think about each other as "we" together, not as "us" and "them".

I think it's good to end the conversation here. In any case I'm probably not replying any further. And if you did reply to this, I think that that reply would misinterpret something I wrote, but I wouldn't reply and point out what that misunderstanding was about.