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Comment by cs1717p | Hacker News Reader

No, the only people you are making unwelcome are either:

1) those who don't know the time and place for their non community relevant outbursts ('meat is murder', 'homosexuality is a sin' are both irrelevant to 99% of tech or other industry community/work discussions) -- leave that for your vegan blog, or your church group.

2) those who are unable to behave courteously in the presence of someone they know holds differing views in some area they are passionate about. Just because I have read Jennys vegan blog, and know and disagree with her 'meat is murder' sentiment doesn't mean I can't work effectively with her.

People need to be able to separate their general leanings and passions from their commitments to a job or other community.

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Being a minority is not a general leaning or a passion. Knowing your superior wants you dead(white supremacists) or psychologically tortured(conversion therapy) or inherently doesn't believe in your competence(sexism, racism, what have you) is not something one just shrugs off.

Choosing to to be apolitical is a political stance. It would be nice if we could magically divorce people's work from their stance, but their stance will affect how they treat their peers and juniors- this is how patterns of oppression become systems. If a person has beliefs that women are inherently less capable of work, they will be unlikely to volunteer women for promotions or even see their women coworkers as having performed the work done. If a person has beliefs that black people are more violent or thuggish, they are unlikely to view that black coworker asserting that a technology requirement is utterly stupid in the same light as a white coworker asserting the same.

I should emphasize these are not conscious, malicious behaviors. We are taught things about our peers and these teachings change our views on the context of the work of our peers. People rarely consciously, maliciously try to prevent the advancement of a disenfranchised group. Instead, their beliefs of that group prevent them from seeing that a member of the group deserves advancement.

People do not differentiate from the contexts of their pervasive views on how they view every other person around them. They do not cease being sexist because their workplace claims to be apolitical. It merely means they no longer have repercussions within their workplace for their beliefs, regardless of the countless absolutely unprovable ways these beliefs bleed into work.

For each of the questions you have listed, there is opposite viewpoints of some (questionable) legitimacy:

White supremacists would argue that it is multiculturalists who seek the abolition of the white race through introduction of millions of high birth rate other demographics into white countries.

Pro-conversion therapy anti gay people would argue they are saving the individuals from mental problems, social difficulties, and other negative side effects of what they believe is a consciously modifiable behaviour.

"Racists" and "sexists" would argue that being aware of mean average behavioural differences in different demographics is not a negative thing.

However invalid these arguments may, or may not, be, it is not our job to attempt to generalise our expertise and judge anyone who holds a differing view.

Simple statistics says that there is at least one or two major issues which you are extremely passionate about, but simply mistaken. Same for me, same for anyone else.

That does not matter. As long as my opinions do not measurably affect my behaviour within a specific community, then it is not relevant. People should be judged by their individual actions within a given 'organism'/community/company/etc, not their viewpoints on tangentially related subjects shared with others in other communities.

Your logic is exactly what led to the exclusion of gays, blacks, communists, non christians, and other groups, in the 1950s and before.

You risk going so far in the other direction that you become exactly what you opposed.

All of your given examples are false equivalencies, as they assume that the desire to control the disenfranchised groups is the same as the real harm done to the disenfranchised group as a result of being controlled.

A person can change beliefs about how you should treat gay people. A gay person cannot change their homosexuality to accommodate anti-gay people, and trying actively harms them.

" As long as my opinions do not measurably affect my behaviour within a specific community, then it is not relevant."

I am arguing that, in fact, opinions supporting the disenfranchisement of minorities affects the behavior of a specific community. Please see my previous example that someone who believes black people are inherently violent is more likely to view a black coworker asserting that a technical spec is stupid differently than a white coworker doing the same. Also see my previous example that a person who believes women are less capable in code is more likely to overlook achievements of their women coworkers.

I don't understand what you mean by my logic excluded other groups, and then you lumped in inherent traits (race, sexuality) with beliefs about how governments should form (communism). Race, sexuality, and gender are not leanings or passions. They are things that people cannot change about themselves, things that they cannot avoid the brunt of any oppressive belief or behavior regarding.

> A person can change beliefs about how you should treat gay people. A gay person cannot change their homosexuality to accommodate anti-gay people, and trying actively harms them.

I think your claim here has a high likelihood of inviting a very unproductive (and potentially offensive) debate. I'm going to try to counter it in a different way while explicitly acknowledging this fact.

I think your focus in this claim is on the wrong subject. I don't think the parent's argument relies on your claim about the capability of changing beliefs versus sexual orientation being false. From my perspective, people have the right to personal beliefs which can be considered repulsive. People do not have the right to engage in violent opposition or oppression. I think that, if an individual is not actively campaigning for violence against another group, their personal beliefs about that group should be an inalienable right, no matter how ugly or wrong we think they are. If they are making people uncomfortable in the office, this becomes an issue of professional conduct, not one of personal beliefs. Frankly, I would consider virtually all political discussion one way or the other to be inappropriate in an office setting, and an unfortunate practice which only persists because generally only the opinions politically expedient for the organization are actually expressed.

If we step back from the problem of gay marriage and abstract this to opposing beliefs, it becomes very difficult to allow some beliefs and disallow others while retaining fairness and real diversity of opinion. We can stop people from engaging in violence against others or from using the office to discriminate against others. But we cannot cultivate an environment that filters out all the Wrong opinions while allowing all the Right opinions.

As long as my opinions do not measurably affect my behaviour within a specific community, then it is not relevant.

The point is that people's opinions always affect their behaviour (very often unconsciously).

So what?

Judge people on their behavior and results at work, not away from it.

> Knowing your superior wants you dead(white supremacists) or psychologically tortured(conversion therapy) or inherently doesn't believe in your competence(sexism, racism, what have you) is not something one just shrugs off.

Those examples indicate a violent agenda or an inability to separate private views from the workplace. That’s not the scenario the parent is talking about. The parent is talking about a situation in which someone has nonviolent, extremely opposite views from your own, and does not soapbox these sentiments in the workplace.

I submit that this isn’t a qualitative difference, it’s a categorical one, and that your examples aren’t comparable to “merely” politically controversial or unsettling opinions.

Please read the rest of my post regarding how sentiments supporting the disenfranchisement of minorities does affect the workplace even if one does not soapbox it. While I agree that minor differences such a diet and similar should not affect the workplace, I believe the op is too broad in their approach and net implications they may not desire which I am pointing out. Unfortunately I believe that based on their response they also do not mind what I’ve pointed out.

> psychologically tortured

Many (most?) religious believers believe that non-believers, or people of different faiths, will be justifiably tortured for eternity (or maybe just a really long time).

This is not equivalent to the actual torture that goes into conversion therapy.

Well, sure, if you already know you're right then you can just safely ignore everything that's wrong.

Obviously I was writing from the POV where it's not obvious what's correct (and indeed I personally don't think either belief is obvious).

If any of the religions that believe in hell is true, then the actual torture of conversion therapy is literally nothing in the face of divine damnation.

>> It would be nice if we could magically divorce people's work from their stance, but their stance will affect how they treat their peers and juniors-

This isn't necessarily true. People have for years been able to divorce personal or politic beliefs from their work and not let them impact their professional life.

> If a person has beliefs that women are inherently less capable of work, they will be unlikely to volunteer women for promotions

Is that an evidence based statement or supposition?

Might they be more likely to volunteer the women in their team for promotions?

If you like someone but think they are a bit useless I've found you tend to help them significantly more and try and raise them up.

One thing I have noticed in several tech companies is that what is or isn't the time or place for a non community relevant outburst is determined to a surprising degree by the contents of the outburtst. A VP of Engineering making anti-Trump comments (in a context without other relevance to the business or matter at hand) at a company all-hands is deemed relevant. A person of similar rank making pro-Trump comments would have been treated very differently.

People are very bad at separating the personal from the professional. Indeed, many people seem to think it's their right to use the one to advance the other.

I felt alienated by that VP's comments. Not because of their contents, but because he felt so free to abuse his position.

Off topic, but could you explain where that vegan hate is coming from? I‘ve met lots of vegans, and none of them have ever said anything like your quote, and none of them have ever told me that I should stop eating meat.

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