Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
Because the US is in the middle of a cold civil war that's heating up fast. Denying your enemy employment and therefore bankrupting them is remarkably effective.
1st International Cyber War
Bankrupting your enemy is mostly effective at further radicalizing them and inspiring violence.
That attitude would make this "cold civil war" a hot war.
Still, I'm optimistic, because I have seen softening after the recent incidents of violence, and some mainstream rejection of leftist extremism.
For example, this CNN article treating the plight of their ideological opponents with sympathy rather than gloating.
Dan Carlin is right [1]. People have completely lost their minds. Whether or not someone has the same political beliefs as you is not an indicator of whether he/she is a good or bad person. This kind of thinking is reductive and scary.
Trump may be a monster, but whatever happened to treating fellow human beings with dignity and respect? Everyone is the end result of a specific upbringing and a specific environment. People don't necessarily vote one way or another out of malice or hate.
[1] http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-317-shades-of-...
What are colleagues allowed to talk about, exactly? If we "just don't talk about politics" the end result will be everyone talking and engaging less on any mildly controversial topic (which now includes "the game last night"), and since this cannot be avoided, they will simply talk and engage less altogether.
I don't think that's acceptable, so I don't think "keep politics out of the workplace" is acceptable.
(And what if you are a journalist, coal miner, wind turbine installer, or any number of professions that is in some way involved with the government or politics, which a non-trivial number of jobs?)
Given this political climate, which isn't changing soon, and given the business need to work together toward common goals, then no, we can't let politics into the workplace. At all. Even if it means that we need to skip talking about the political aspect of last night's game.
Extreme ideologues have ruined it for everyone. This is why we can't have nice things.
We should not fear politics and people discussing politics. We should be fearing those extreme ideologues.
Don't ostracize political discussion. Ostracize acting like an extreme ideologue.
If someone walked in with a young earth creationist hat I would similarly question their ability to think critically (and have a hard time not just categorizing them as stupid). Is this really about politics?
It's not because they're 'conservative', it's just given access to the same available information some conclusions are just weak and it's reasonable to lose respect for people when they hold them.
Not the guy you were replying to, but I can't say the same. I know plenty of smart conservatives, and plenty of smart republicans, (some of whom may have voted for Trump), but of the very few Trump supporters I know, I would definitely not say they're among the smartest I know.
An even fewer number of times have I talked to someone with a MAGA hat, and every single one of those times the hat's owner has said something blatantly ignorant, racist or sexist.
Are there smart trump supporters? I'm sure there are some. Do I feel like I'm losing anything by not associating with them? No, not really.
Hillary's cheat against Bernie and her shaming of Bill's victims is the primary reason I find Trump the best choice.
So you'd have to call me a Trump supporter. I think if you find the above arguments stupid, we'd have a disagreement.
The mistake is concluding it based on this type of scant information.
You treat it like any other unknown. You investigate deeper. If you work with the person for a while, you'll know his reasoning abilities far better than the information you gleaned from that hat.
>If someone walked in with a young earth creationist hat I would similarly question their ability to think critically (and have a hard time not just categorizing them as stupid).
And yet I've worked with a young earth creationist who was the best coder in his team (the rest of whom were not creationists). From my general experiences in life, his example is not much of an outlier.
Science Nobel laureates have believed in stupid things, as did many well known mathematicians of the past. Given that, why would you question his abilities?
People in the past did believe stupid things, but it's also a mixture of what information was available to them at the time to reason about. Some ideas that may have been the best option at the time should be discarded today given that we know more. I'd think if you brought those people from the past to today they may discard some of their ideas (though changing your mind is hard).
It's not that a creationist can't be a good programmer - people seem to be able to apply their reasoning abilities selectively and I've met smart religious people that jump through crazy hoops to justify why they're religious. It is a data point against them though and it would reduce my impression of their intelligence.
Possible, but unlikely for any beliefs they hold dear. And thinking that other people stick to crazy beliefs because they are less smart than you is a great way to end up with a lot of crazy beliefs yourself. After all, why would you ever question them? You're too smart to believe something crazy!
"Science progresses one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck
Part of the way of doing that is trying to evaluate what evidence is available and update how you think accordingly. It's when people refuse to do this that it's a problem (or worse when they think they're doing it, but really they're just trying to come up with 'evidence' for what they already believe to be true).
It should be a struggle towards whatever is true - not trying to prove what you already believe to be true.
I think it's sad that so much time and effort is spent spinning in circles when we could make so much more progress if we were collectively able to fix these issues with how we think.
Biblical literalists have no regard for empirical evidence.
You mention scientists having stupid beliefs. Scientists develop evidence-based explanations of phenomena through experimentation using available tools. Our tools are obviously imperfect; thus, imperfect observations are made and imperfect explanations can form as a result.
Biblical literalists, on the other hand, don't even try to ensure that their beliefs are supported by empirical evidence.
People have argued that this behavior of biblical literalists is limited to issues relating to their religious beliefs only, so as long as their professional responsibilities don't encompass issues relating to their religious beliefs, there's no problem.
Unfortunately, the beliefs of biblical literalists encompass a wide range of issues. If I run a renewable energy company, do I really want to take a chance by hiring a biblical literalist who might now, or someday, believe that his unsubstantiated god wants humans to use fossil fuels[1] or that climate change isn't real because his unsubstantiated god promised to not flood the Earth[2]? No, thanks, I think I'll pass.
[1] http://dailysignal.com/2017/10/20/trumps-epa-chief-charts-ne...
[2] https://www.politico.com/story/2010/11/shimkus-cites-genesis...
In matters of their expertise. I'm guessing your fellow coworker is not a biologist.
If you think most scientists apply this to all their beliefs, then I think you should spend more time amongst them. Virtually every physicist I worked with in a top 10 school had some stupid belief that was easily invalidated with a few days of research. For me to judge their analytical abilities based on silly beliefs they have would be saying more about my abilities than theirs.
They're provably wrong by very short chains of reasoning. That's not the same as provably stupid. Even very smart, educated people can hold beliefs that are completely bonkers though a combination of cognitive dissonance and misinformation. For a very prominent example, take a look at how Steve Jobs dealt with his cancer [1]:
> Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for medical intervention for nine months,[117] instead relying on a pseudo-medicine diet to try natural healing to thwart the disease.
And that's setting aside the apparent confusion in this thread between intelligence and morality. Just because someone holds a stupid belief, doesn't mean they're a bad person, a threat to their coworkers, or unable to do their job.
I think some conclusions are stupid based on the available information. When people hold a lot of stupid conclusions or a few really strongly I doubt their ability to think critically in general.
When someone has a different conclusion than I do, I'm curious about what reasoning lead to it, but often it's not an attempt to understand what's true based on available evidence. It's usually a conclusion they have for other reasons (identity? group association?) and they either can't articulate why they think the way they do or they retroactively come up with stuff that already fits their answer. The conclusion came before the reasoning about it. It's not about figuring out what's true.
This is a problem outside of politics - it's a problem with how our minds work by default and how people think.
I suggest these men do the same. Move to Dallas or New York or somewhere where conservatism is a little more appreciated. Move to Denver or Atlanta. Find somewhere that feels like home, where there are other conservative techies. Claiming the victim status as a white man in the most expensive city, in the highest paying industry comes off as a little entitled, at least to me.
People don't really change their minds when you call them a racist, fire them, etc. When I am talking to a liberal who I know wont try to cause problems for me (like getting me fired), I will ask lots of questions.
Why do you believe X? What facts support that opinion? I believe Y because ..., where do you think the flaw in my logic is? Why do you think value A is more important that counter-value B?
It's really depressing that someone such as yourself, who has known what it is to be descriminated against for what you think are reasonable beliefs, would perpetuate the same against others.
If you think someone's views are wrong, then ask them why they think that. At worst, you'll get a better insight into how to point out why they are wrong. At best, you'll have a chance of convincing them that your position is better.
When I meet informed conservatives, I quietly rejoice because it's so interesting to talk to them. One of my best friends is also a "free market" type guy and we get along amazingly well, even when we talk politics. However, I haven't found many educated people who out-and-out support Donald Trump, and those I have found often express very caustic beliefs that get in the way of polite or fulfilling discussions. Hence, I just don't do it. There's a level of "coming to the center" that those people just won't do with me, so it ends up devolving into a series of fallacies that just don't need to happen.
I've also had some bad experiences with family members who support Trump and are super emotional, vocal, and resistant to any discussion about him either on the policy- or simple behavior-level.
IMO there is a hidden wedge in politics between people who are willing to engage with their opinions and others who will take your beliefs in the worst possible context. It's not necessarily a right-left thing, or even a centrist/extremist thing either. I've had some of the most enlightening discussions about politics with people that are super extreme in their progressivism, communism, or conservatism, because they are so knowledgable about political philosophy or the data supporting their beliefs.
What about not doing it at work, since that is not what anybody is there for?
I think what may happen is that it'd go underground. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It may be a kind of secret reason to cause strife between employees.
It would have to be supported as a broader part of the company culture. No discussing things that aren't relevant to work. A "We're here to work and that's it." kind of policy.
When I lived in Berkeley everyone felt very free to start a conversation about politics with any random person they happened to encounter. Nice people, but that can cause fatigue. My current Midwestern corporate work environment is basically the opposite of that: someone can talk about politics but if they're speaking in a group or to someone they're not very close to, they're going to get a funny look and they'll generally take the hint and drop it.
I don't know what our employee handbook says about all that but it's being handled at a different, social level. It's not perfect (my boss's boss occasionally makes bizarre political jokes which would cause a little trouble if they made people feel stepped on, instead of amused) but I suspect we should regard actual company policy as just a fallback for dealing with this sort of thing. Mostly, people just need to exercise some social discretion as part of the corporate culture.
If there's one thing I recommend everyone to do is just listen to the other side and at least TRY to see their perspective even if you disagree.
President Obama was quite fiscally conservative.
Republicans are in no shape or form, fiscally conservative. They are anti-tax. But they'll happily spend the seed corn on defense, or rather, on right wing socialism.
http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2014/10/20/are_...
Ending quote:
>The bottom line is that the CDC data makes it very difficult to argue that conservatives and liberals share equal blame in the anti-vaccine war. Anti-vaxxers are clearly more associated with the political Left.
I would tend to agree the left's leadership, however, tends to be less anti-science.
To pretend otherwise (to justify murdering it) is just plain denial.
Ron Paul. Gary Johnson. Bob Barr. Et cetera.
It was used to criticise liberal anarchism (Proudhon) because it was not socialist/egalitarist enough, and later inspired Marx (who built his theory of communism with anarchist fundation). So people in US that call themselves "libertarian" could change their names to "communists cousins", really.
Someone can certainly vote for a candidate like Trump and not be pro-discrimination, but that person is saying they are willing to accept discrimination for the sake of the policies they do agree with.
That is certainly their right, but you can't act shocked when the marginalized groups and those who support them have a negative reaction when they find out you support candidates who want to take away their rights.
> that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change.
That's not a voter who has the luxury of setting aside their own livelihood and making discrimination (against strangers) a deal-breaker.
It's interesting how the full quote played out. Trump supporters assumed the deplorables she was talking about was a smear against them personally, rather than identifying with the 2nd half of the quote.
But then they also never heard the 2nd half of the quote as much as the 1st.
....still, an incredibly inpolitic statement.
Unfortunately, NeverTrump conservatives like him are few and far between. Sadly, the majority of conservatives I've encountered have completely sold out their principles to support Trump.
I think everyone realizes intuitively that there is far more nuance to the world than what we type in a small comment box. I personally don't even have a sufficient vocabulary to constantly describe the nuance -- hedging every phrase in every statement just makes for muddy reading.
Another point, most of our grandparents were by today's standards homophobes, racists and misogynists, should we be shaming them too? How about people living in isolated parts of the country or other countries where these opinions are still popular? When I was growing up as a kid in Syria, I remember talking to people who were totally into islamism, if it weren't for my tolerant parents, I could be holding the same beliefs today. Here's another reason for not shaming people for their opinions, most of our opinions we hold for accidental geographical or parental reasons. Shaming people for where they were born or who they grew up with has a name for it, what could it be? Discrimination.
But, there are naturally areas where we all agree: guns, some other economic stuff, etc. So those opinions go completely unchallenged, where it'd be healthier to have liberal people to test those opinions.
It could auto-reply to the super common things:
- Didn't read the article
- Why can't I downvote
- Title doesn't match the article
- No asking for upvotes
I'll talk about emacs and vi instead of politics; what could possibly go wrong?
As a person who tries to uphold gentlemanly behavior, which boils down to trying to make people as comfortable as possible, imagine I found a vi echo chamber, perhaps a vi oriented IRC channel or web discussion board or vim editor marketing team mailing list where in excess of 99% of the people there were avid vi users.
It would be quite rude of me to discuss emacs in their little non-emacs echo chamber. Its simple politeness.
Its interesting that the original social network that being amateur radio had a variety of explicit and assumed codes along the lines of discussion will not involve political or religious topics. Also freemason lodges ban religious and political topics. Any technology that advances enough, eventually bans discussion of politics and religion or descends at absolute best into something like CB radio or graffiti or even worse, the cesspool that is twitter.
In America left wing politics is implicitly a religious belief and right wing politics is explicitly religious (generally Christian) so merely banning individually politics or religion isn't going to permit discussing the other. Also religious belief was arrived it by indoctrination and propaganda not reason or rational thought, therefore no change will occur via reason or rational thought or calm discourse. Presumably that's how the world was centuries ago, leading to the amateur radio code from the (19)10s and ancient freemasonry etc. Everything old is new again...
"Managers and supervisors can now legally require their workers to participate in politics as a condition of employment. For instance, in most states, managers have the legal right to mandate worker attendance at a political rally for a favored candidate—and fire or punish workers who decline to participate."[1]
"On August 14 th 2012, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney visited an Ohio coal mine to give a speech attacking the energy policies of opponent Barack Obama. A campaign stop such as this one might not seem that unusual in the midst of a heated presidential election. But this event was different, as the owners of the coal mine had told their workers that attendance at the rally would be both mandatory and unpaid." [2]
"Private employers can distribute materials that tell all their workers the company's positions on political issues. And if your boss were to send an email urging you to attend a rally for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton this weekend, because electing his favorite candidate is 'essential for the future of the company,' legal experts say he'd be within his rights to do it." [3]
[1] http://prospect.org/article/employer-political-coercion-grow...
[2] http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ahertel/files/empmobilpop.p...
[3] http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-boss-politics-at-w...
Its worth noting its not limited solely to one side.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...
If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue against them will atrophy.
There's a layer of semiotics that's important to any outward appearance. Wearing a swastika but saying "Nonono it's a Hindu symbol of fertility" probably wouldn't go over well. Nor would saying "Well I didn't like the Holocaust but I really did think the Nazis had some good ideas about things". Similarly, wearing a hammer and sickle shirt will get you into trouble in more conservative places.
The MAGA hat's obviously on a different level than that, but it does explain some of the reasoning. That hat in particular represents (sometimes fanatical) appreciation for a man that liberals believe is doing immense harm to our nation, it's citizens and its image via racist, reactionary and backwards-looking politics. Because of far-right extremists, I get scared when I see that hat, to me it signals some form of white supremacy that I need to stay away from. So yes, wearing it at work might make people uncomfortable.
Of course, many people believed that the previous president was doing immense harm to our nation, its citizens and the world at large … but I don't think many were fired for wearing their Hope & Change or Yes We Can hats …
> Because of far-right extremists, I get scared when I see that hat, to me it signals some form of white supremacy that I need to stay away from. So yes, wearing it at work might make people uncomfortable.
And yet people have no problem whatsoever bringing stuff expressing the opposite viewpoint into the workplace. It's normal to hear people expressing moderately- and far-left opinions in the workplace. It's not to hear them express even centrist-right opinions.
FWIW, I don't subscribe to pretty much anything a MAGA hat conveys, and I didn't vote for the current president.
FWIW I occasionally express centrist positions at my left-leaning job, I don't get fired or reprimanded. Nor do I get reprimanded for advocating for socialism. I don't think anyone would be either for expressing conservative positions. Maybe I'm naive.
They might, however, face social sanctions or get in an awkward debate if they were arguing that two people on my team should not be allowed in this country as immigrants, or that my gay coworkers shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else. There's obviously going to be a clash of beliefs and they should recognize that. Similarly, if any of us were to make sweeping generalizations about white people, it'd be awkward for the white people on the team, and it might spur a big debate. No one likes to feel attacked, especially at work, so we learn to feel out what's allowed or what's out of bounds and then work with that.
Without a doubt, if one of my coworkers came to me and said "Look, I like working with you but you have to stop shit talking conservatives at work" I'd be more mindful of it and avoid making it awkward. I'm not sure why these men feel that they aren't able to do that.
http://www.businessinsider.com/voted-for-obama-youre-fired-2...
http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/another-case-of-bein...
http://httpjournalsaolcomjenjer6steph.blogspot.com/2013/02/f...
https://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/8_bosses_who_screwed_their_...
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2013/01/utah-fired-for-supporti...
Oh, and a bonus:
http://shoebat.com/2015/04/28/teacher-in-georgia-declares-to...
If that would hurt someone's feelings so much to be a "hostile work environment" then that's the same problem shown by right-wingers getting incensed over Colin Kaepernick. There are a lot of publications out there, left and right, that try to fan flames more than they try to inform, and we need to get past that.
But, in the short term, I'd take it as a kindness if we could just stop talking politics at work. I don't want to hear you whining twenty minutes every day about Trump, and that's coming from someone mostly in the "the democrats are too conservative and centrist" camp.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-fran... - very long, but a very interesting look at some potential perils
Got the hat? Wear it and defend your ideas. I am open minded and rational, or at least I think I am. But if you think I'm stamping out heresy because I don't tolerate bigotry, tough.
BTW, my paternal grandfather was an illegal. Paid his taxes. Stayed out of jail. The grand kids, at least on this half, have been amazingly successful and contributed a lot to the economy, society and our national defense.
How you want to react is your business, but again, you should be aware that it's going to impact how effective your fight against those views is.
> I don't tolerate bigotry, tough.
> No, I'm not going to imagine anything.
You just did, man.
I'd be afraid to express my views around you, as anything that approaches conservatism will be labeled as "Bigotry", and therefore "not tolerated".
Whos knows what opinions you are throwing under the bus. Best to not risk it.
It is perfectly rational for someone to not express their opinions around someone who is going to misinterpret them.
Thats the problem that people are dealing with. That you will incorrectly assume things about what someone believes, and then use whatever organizational power you have against them.
But i guess "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" therefore they deserve to be fired for your incorrect assumptions about their beliefs, right? (even though this is illegal)
There is no way of knowning what you will or will not do or what powers you will or will not use against them.
That's essentially saying that people have to agree with the whole platform or none of it.
As an example, there are many liberals who voted for Obama and did not agree with all aspects of the platform (healthcare reform or military policies). Would wearing a "Yes, we can" shirt/hat be offensive, then?
That kind of argument seems very reductionist.
Finally, the very format of your question is problematic, for two reasons.
First, making claims that someone is trying to offend by wearing a slogan is what is referred to as "attribution of intention". Instead of having a dialog about it, you're concluding the person's intention. As someone who has often been on the receiving end of that (I'm sure we all have on divisive issues), that is very offensive.
Second, this type of reasoning is what I often call, "From ignorance comes uncertainty." You are indirectly admitting you cannot understand any other reason someone would act in a certain way, and then imply you know the "true" reason.
Usually such statements are phrased as "I cannot think of a good reason X would do it, therefore it must be because of Y".
I'll grant that you did not use this exact template, and if your question really was borne out of curiosity, I apologize for my own "attribution of intent". But I do hope I have given you something to think about on the topic in question.
He did, however, run on a platform that was about escalating a conflict in another part of the world, and did implement it, and many people did end up being killed, which is a lot more than what Trump did.
If I have to get a read on someone before I directly interact with them, their wearing of a MAGA hat will give me a bunch of useful going-in assumptions, just like any other political insignia worn as clothing.
Where we disagree is this:
1. You don't have to get a read on someone before interacting with them. That path is the path to stereotyping.
2. We disagree on whether those going-in assumptions are useful.
The burden is on you to “give him a choice”
If someone is wearing a Boston Bruins jersey in public, I think it's reasonable to believe that they're a fan of the Boston Bruins hockey team. I _could_ ask them if that's the case, or if they're a New York Rangers fan that's wearing it ironically, but that would (probably) be wasted effort, because I have a good idea of the answer I'm going to get.
It seems reasonably straightforward to apply that to other team insignia, especially one that is so clearly affiliated with a specific political leader, and their political outlook.
I am lucky to be a citizen. Were I an Iranian green card holder visiting family abroad when the first Muslim travel ban was implemented? I would now be facing losing my job and my home. A transgender member of the armed forces now? Facing losing my livelihood in a matter of months. An undocumented immigrant who is the only support for his documented family? Now the entire family is homeless and fatherless.
At best this argument applies to Hillary/Obama through some hand-waving abstract argument about environmental regulations and international trade agreements that ignores economic opportunities created by their policies. Someone banned from their livelihood because of their identity has no recourse.
I imagine this is probably how closeted gay people felt for a long time, and still do outside of places like the Bay Area. It's poetic justice. The playing field will probably wobble back and forth for a little while and white conservative men will learn to play by the new rules - claiming victim status is as good a place to start as any.
I guess you are talking about big issue politics when you say they don't belong at work, because it is absurd to say that people shouldn't consider the political consequences of the things they create or actions they take on behalf of their jobs.