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Comment by ciarannolan | Hacker News Reader

> But for some employees, working at an activism focused company may be core to what they want, and we want to prompt that conversation with their manager to help them get to a better place. Life is too short to work somewhere that you aren’t excited about, and we’re happy to make that a win-win conversation.

> We won’t:

> Debate causes or political candidates internally when unrelated to our mission

> Expect the company to represent our personal beliefs externally

> Assume negative intent, or not have each others back

> Take on activism outside of our core mission at work

I wish more companies would take this position. I go to work to build great things and work with great people, not to talk about identity or partisan politics.

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I'm sure you and others realize this, but it bears repeating: everything is political. If you want to work and not talk about the politics of your work, or the politics of the general world, that's basically signaling that you you are okay with the status quo.

This is not necessarily a _bad_ thing, but in this world it is impossible to be apolitical. The only thing you can be is okay with the status quo.

> everything is political.

Everything is not identity politics or partisan politics. "Everything is political" is the very definition of newspeak and it's sophistic.

I updated my comment with this language, because I agree.

Of course people will come out of the woodwork to talk about how "my very existence is political" or some other nonsense. Ie. exactly the kind of thing I'm glad Coinbase is banning at work.

Since you seem to have some respect for Orwell's ideas, you might be interested to know that "everything is political" is a view Orwell personally endorsed in his writing[1]:

> In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

Every time we decide to act or not act in the public sphere, it has political implications. That doesn't mean it's specifically partisan or identity politics, but it is nonetheless political. Choosing not to speak up about something is just as much a political decision as choosing to speak up.

[1] https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...

It seems like deciding to promote cryptocurrency isn’t accepting the status quo, it’s choosing a political cause to work on?

This isn’t a cause I’d want to spend any time on, but it is trying to make a change.

I fundamentally disagree with your position. It's totally reasonable to be unsatisfied with the status quo, while still believing that talking about your politics and/or dissatisfaction at work is ineffective or counterproductive.

I agree that everything is political, but a wise person chooses their battle carefully. You can't fight everything wrong in the world at the same time, people have different priorities, and there's nothing wrong about separating your day job and your political discussion.

In the end, few of us can be Nelson Mandela. We rage against social injustice, but in the end we still expect to be paid and sleep under a roof we own. So, in a sense, all of us are "okay" with the status quo, up to a certain degree. There's no shame in knowing your own limit.

I can discuss my favorite types of Italian food with friends without being "okay with the status quo". I don't think this is political at all.

In fact, operating in the status quo has absolutely no bearing on approval of the status quo.

That argument works when people say things like "I don't like to be involved in politics" -- because like it or not, merely being a member of a democratic society is a political act.

However, everyone still has a right to engage with society in the manner that they choose. Expecting everyone to analyze every action for political ramifications is simply unrealistic. On balance I suspect my political views align with the people I work with, but I explicitly prefer not to discuss politics at work.

As a progressive, it's easy to imagine this from the progressive side: corporations could be powerful agents of change with the goal of moving society forward. However, there's certainly a nonzero number of atheist and progressive folks who work for Hobby Lobby. "But they should just work somewhere else!" you say. Why? And what if they can't?

A conservative Christian can work side-by-side with a progressive atheist at a great company and change the world together. That's the power of liberal capitalism.

Should the line-height on the landing page be 1.0 or 1.2

> I go to work to build great things and work with great people, not to talk about politics.

It's hard for me to imagine any topic of discussion internally at Coinbase that is not political. Often in these situations, defense of a status quo becomes "non-political", while any suggestion that a better method might exist for doing something (especially regarding custody of assets precisely designed to be beyond state control) is "political".

Even if everything is political, some topics don't need to be discussed inside the company at all.

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