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Comment by tayo42 | Hacker News Reader

What's with the cynicism in this posts? They're trying to make a point and bring awareness. Who cares how hard it is. At least they're doing something.

To give them credit they're making a political statement at work when we're told not to talk politics at work.

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Because they're being hypocrites: they're not putting skin in the game, they're not resigning, they're just virtue signaling. So they don't actually care about what FB is doing.

This is why they're being dismissed while Tim Bray received mostly applause.

That might be true, but their act brings awareness and does pr damage which is something.

This is not 0% or 100% stuff. 1% is alright here, 99% is alright too. However you feel about this issue, you can participate in any amount you'd like to, and that is ok.

They dont have a god-given right to have all their actions applauded just because they work for a FAANG. For many people this amounts at best to an empty gesture, and at worst a hypocritical take because if you were OK with all the fiascos of that terrible terrible organization you wont get now brownie points by setting today a BLM signature in your OOO reply.

Yeah this comes off as overly cynical, they don't have to burn facebook to the ground to make a point. I don't see how something no matter how small is just like doing nothing. Their actions made the news. Realistically you cant just go quit your job. People do have tipping points, maybe this is finally it. Maybe enough people are finally coming together and uniting around this cause. Maybe they thought they could make change before, we don't know what was happening behind the scenes. Humans are complex creatures especially in social situations, i think its harsh to judge them like this. Your post is one of the posts assuming a lot and making very cynical statements for no reason.

Politics are extremely divisive (definitely in the US at this point).

Why is bringing them to the workplace a good idea? I mean we always talk about inclusion. What about people who have diverse political opinions.

Talking about any issue should be encouraged, especially in the workplace. Heck, how many hours do we spend there? [0] Our lives do not stop at some door or sign-in page. Yes, reality is much different. But we should strive to hear all voices, especially in times of divisiveness. Shouting is a lot better than punching. And if that doesn't show how far we are down this slippery slope ... man oh man.

[0] Yes, this gets complicated. Yes, it has been complex for a long time. Yes, law is mostly settled on this. Yes, lawyers are expensive.

"Bring awareness" to the internal functioning of their private corporation?

Don't work there. Quit.

People don't support what they're doing but don't think that's as strong of an argument so they use different tactics to try to minimize these actions.

What statement are they making by taking paid vacation? FB employees have more vacation days than they can use currently.

On Reddit there were a lot of "why don't they just quit their job" comments. I am just rolling eyes really hard. To be fair, when I was younger, before I had all these adult responsibilities, that would have probably been my answer as well.

It's still true though. Engineers, specially, have had the power of voting with their CVs for a long time. The only reason Facebook is able to pay ridiculous salaries today is because engineers voted with their CVs continuously for the past 10 years.

Reddit's been terrible lately. the "discussion" on there is dominated by extremes and immaturity, im worried it's not just young kids that don't know better. A rant for another time though...

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