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Comment by tps5 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you get it.

It doesn't matter what some guy posts on some message board (unless it's a threat, an incitement of violence, or something along those lines). It doesn't matter if he says he believes in "Gorean philosophy," whatever the hell that is.

What matters are his actions. If he's treating women disrespectfully then, by all means, throw him out. But he's allowed to believe whatever the hell he wants, and the idea that he should face repercussions for his beliefs is wrong, whatever age he was when he came to those beliefs.

Sure, there's going to be some correlation between holding misogynistic beliefs and inappropriate behavior toward women, but we don't punish the beliefs, we just punish the behavior. That's what makes this a free society.

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So often you get stories in which a certain type of person cries, "Thought Police!" as a way to deflect from the core issues, but... this really is an example of that. As you say, the thoughts you have and express on your own time, which in no way change your professionalism, are your thoughts, period. I can't even imagine the life I would have led, the friends and colleagues I would never have had if "What you think is unacceptable, regardless of how well you act," was some kind of standard.

I also wonder how the hell some people think minds are to be changed, if the way they want to deal with them is quarantine. Most of the time, you need have some mutual knowledge and respect between two parties for one to really reach the other.

Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?

No, but I don't see that as being remotely similar to someone who roleplays a bigot during sex. If I had a friend who liked to dress up like Himmler and get roundly spanked, I'm not going to judge him for it. If I have a friend who calmly remarks that maybe "Hitler really did nothing wrong," I'm going to be furious and horrified.

Lets really try not to judge people for their kinks, because they tend to be strange, inexplicable, and personal.

Again, when this letter was first posted, there was no mention of this being a sex thing. As far as well all knew, the matter was about actual misogyny, not kink.

Not the OP, but I definitely would not be ok with that. Making me wonder if such a person would be my friend in the first place because we'd clash pretty badly over that. If I found out I would probably try real hard to convince them of the error of their ways (according to me, at least) and if that was unsuccessful I'd stop being their friend.

There are big differences between:

1. Genocide and consenting adults choosing how they want to interact with one another.

2. Being friends with someone and being able to interact with them professionally.

The discussion as I understood it was centered on professionalism rather than friendship. When you do business with someone, you can and should take into account their publicly-known actions and public statements. Anything else is bad business.

However, when I do business with someone I don't know on a personal level, there is every possibility that person is secretly a Rape Nazi. My question is, is catching all of the Rape Nazis worth the cost of sacrificing all borders between the personal and the professional, between public and private life?

So far as I know, doing so is the only way one could guarantee that one never conducted any business with someone whose personal beliefs differ from one's own to an unsatisfactory degree.

What if one of your friends was a Communist?

They've murdered way more people than the Nazis, after all, and they're still a going concern.

Most of the various groups that call themselves "Nazis" or "KKK" consist of about five yokels who meet in somebody's garage. Communists still control entire countries.

So, how about it: is it okay to fire people for being Communists? If not, why not?

> Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?

Well put, I wonder would the signers be so vocal in support if he were a fundamentalist Christian that opposed abortion and gay marriage?

I'd work with the reanimated corpse of Adolf Hitler if he made good, well-documented commits.

Tolerance (noun): "the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with". Tolerance only counts for anything if it's an effort, if you have to grit your teeth and bite your tongue to make it work. Tolerance is meaningless if you only tolerate people who you consider worthy of tolerating.

I find it odd that many of the people who are so vehement about no-platforming and safe spaces are also strident advocates for a rehabilitative model of criminal justice. That seems profoundly dissonant - if you're a literal murderer I'll fight for your right to be re-integrated into society, but if you hold views that I find unacceptable I'll fight to ensure that you're completely marginalised. I don't see how more division and more antipathy is going to create a more inclusive society.

I do get it. That's why I started from the important of professionalism, of separating the professional from the personal. But I'm also pointing out the other side: that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing crosses the line. If it was just his beliefs we wouldn't know about them in the first place. But obviously, we know about them, which means it's not just his beliefs it's his statements.

If I went around on some other private forum and said "tps5 is sub-human and should be subservient to me" you'd have reason to say "I will not work with Pxtl and I'm disappointed that this project is working with him, his behavior is seriously not okay".

If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?

> If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?

If you didn't bring that into the workplace, yes. You can believe it and not act towards implementing it.

If you acted on that belief in a public or professional capacity, then that would not be OK. "Acted" need not be defined overly restrictively -- openly advocating for a specific policy or state of affairs, running for office on a specific platform, even openly declaring membership in an organization that seeks to enact your beliefs could all be construed as actions given the right circumstances.

If instead you were discussing your sexual preferences on a private forum, then I would owe you an apology for having invaded your privacy.

> If instead you were discussing your sexual preferences on a private forum, then I would owe you an apology for having invaded your privacy.

Yeah, the fact that the letter doesn't mention that this was a BSDM thing - that these statements are part of a sex-play thing and should be regarded in that context - is kind of frustrating. I don't think casual readers are expected to know what "Gorean Philosophy" is.

I mention this because last time I saw "comments came out from a public figure on a private paywalled forum" it was about holocaust denial and the commentator was a journalist.

This thing being a sex thing hadn't entered my mind at all.

I have given you an upvote, although I starkly disagree with what you're saying.

Your comment is greying out. HN's own petite version of silly distolerance - disagree, hence downvote. It isn't civilized at all.

Of course people will have tolerance for some ideas and expressions and intolerance for others. Of course! We tend not to like reddit-style jokes here, and downvote those. Who speaks up for the reddit-style jokers, though?

If you really want to share ideas, and they're not well-received here, you can either refine/modify your ideas/delivery, or go somewhere else.

Complaining about downvotes, though? Man, there's a reason that's specifically called out in the guidelines.

> If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?

Yeah, it's okay.

I would say that, because we are coworkers, you are obligated to treat me respectfully, whatever your personal beliefs. If you treat me poorly, and I complain, the issue is the fact that you treated me poorly, not your whacko belief system.

If this guy behaved improperly towards women, then I have no problem with him being "removed from the community." But posting X whacko opinion on Y message board should not hurt you professionally. That applies equally to racism and holocaust-denial and whatever other fringe beliefs you can come up with.

I'm not sure it's possible to have certain views and maintain a respectful workplace environment, full stop.

To make an extreme hypothetical: You have a white supremacist coworker and a black coworker. The white supremacist always treats your black coworker with respect, kindness, and compassion. She also openly admits that, nothing personal, but she believes black folks are inferior and should be expelled/exterminated. Ask the black coworker, is he being treated poorly?

What's the resolution in this situation? If he knows how she feels, but she is nice to him, how do you propose resolving that?

Why is she openly admitting it? If she brings it to work that's the problem.

What if she were out marching with a white power rally on the weekend, and the black coworker happened to see her there?

What's that going to be like on the following Monday? If asked, in this hypothetical, is she supposed to lie?

"So, Jean, I saw you at a white power rally...you were holding an effigy of a hanged black person...what's that about?"

Or, contrive any situation in which her views on her black colleague (i.e. that, although she treats him with kindness and respect, she considers him subhuman and would like to exile/exterminate him and everyone who looks like him) were brought into the workplace.

If the white supremacist coworker doesn't bring up her white supremacist views at work, ever, and treats her black colleague with kindness and respect, at work, but outside the office does not conceal her views, and when asked directly does not lie about them ("Yes, Jim, I'd kill every black person if I could"), how do you resolve the tension that's going to arise from that?

Tell the black colleague, "Jim, don't ask Jean about her white supremacy."? How's Jim supposed to feel about working with her, knowing what he knows about Jean?

I think the line is "undue hardship". There's a legal precedent that the accusation of accommodation of religious beliefs causing undue hardship "generally requires evidence that the accommodation would actually infringe on the rights of co-workers or cause disruption of work" [1] -- I'd argue the same goes for any personal belief system. In this scenario Jean is an asshole but I don't think it causes Jim undue hardship if she never discusses it at work. Jim has no legal right to like his coworkers, nor does Jean have to be liked. However, if she hung a Nazi flag by her desk it would be a different story.

1. https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/foia/letters/2009/religionhandshak...

I would like to find out what people who have been traditionally been the target of white supremacy groups would say to your reply. I would like to know if they would consider it acceptable, given the history and context of white supremacy and the violence toward minorities that it's led to.

I wonder if they would be OK with, "well, Jean marches with a group calling for your extermination, and you know, throughout history, there's been a lot of violence from them to people who look like you, but since she doesn't bring it up at work, deal with it."

I think I'll ask around with my POC friends, in that ham-fisted way white folks always end up asking about these things ("So, I don't want you to speak for all people of color, but ... I'm hashing something out on the internet with some stranger who's probably also a hetero white guy, and ...").

My hunch is, knowing your coworker wishes for the extermination of your people would be considered hostile and unacceptable, especially by those people historically targeted by white supremacist violence, even if she's nice to your face. Like, I imagine you'd have the same tension with a card-carrying nazi and a Jewish colleague who lost family in the holocaust.

I like your assumption that I only have this opinion become I'm insulated from it. What if I were a homosexual who's had conservative Christian and conservative Muslim coworkers? It's not a hostile environment as long as each group treats the other with respect.

To be clear: I think card carrying Nazis are abhorrent and would rather not interact with them. I also thinking banning them from an apolitical volunteer group where they do not volunteer their views is wrong.

Well, yeah, I did make that assumption, and I will do so again the next time I talk to someone on the internet who defers to rules and tells hypothetical minorities to just deal with hypothetical white supremacists. Based on the conversations I have had in the past, both with people who endure this stuff and people who are insulated from it, it really sounds a lot more like you're insulated from that situation than someone who's had to deal with it. That whole response sounds lacking in empathy for the people who, hypothetically speaking, endure having coworkers wish for their expulsion/death.

Also, in the hypothetical, we were talking about a workplace, not a volunteer group. As for whether card-carrying nazis should be allowed to join apolitical volunteer groups, I think that each group can surely decide for themselves, and this is exactly where a code of conduct would apply, e.g. "nazis welcome" makes it clear up front that nazis aren't going to be uninvited for their views. Then everyone else can make the call whether they want to be involved with the Drupal-with-nazis fork or the Drupal-without-nazis fork.

Because a workplace is fundamentally different. In the US an employer can fire an employee for any reason, they also have no obligation do to fire any given employee for their views. It's kind of a moot point.

You know a lot of people who have worked with Nazis? If you do I feel bad for those people but it doesn't alter my views. Claiming your position is the moral high ground doesn't really lend any credence to your argument.

I care less about whether he is full gentlemen and more about whether I can be promoted into leadership position if he is decision maker. If there is ambigous situation between me and college being given responsibility, will I have disadvantage?

That is I think where that theor breaks. Sex jokes making dude can still be more fair then respectful gentleman wit bias.

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