Hacker News Reader

Comment by swat535 | Hacker News Reader

> The tech industry is all politics all the time

.. This is a comical generalization of an entire industry which spans beyond US..

I have worked in plenty on companies (big and small) where politics was simply left outside of business and everyone was fine with simply discussing the actual system design, infrastructure and data models.

Employees were simply not permitted to attempt to convert others to Christianity or initiate flame wars regarding abortion laws.

There is a time and a place for politics and a business setting is just not it.

I think this is a great move by Basecamp and I hope more companies follow. At a minimum, their stance is now crystal clear and there will be high cohesion between employees and management.

View on HN

System design is often inherently political as well.

How do capture gender in the database?

That's a political debate. Do you care that you can't correctly store 'foreign' names? Political.

Do you offer Catalan too when you translate to Spanish? Political.

Do you include disputed territories on your countries lists or allow people to enter 'other'? Political.

Privacy protection? Political.

Systems are shaped by political debate and in turn shapes it. Your decisions will have a political dimension whether or not you like it.

And that is before considering all of the internal cultural and behavioural issues that are inherently political.

As for Basecamp, I think they've set themselves up for further conflict and turmoil. If I was there and hadn't quit yet, I'd consider it now because such a huge departure will destabilize oth.the company and internal culture for a long time.

My team could professionally and empathetically discuss each of the issues you outlined, but that doesn't mean I raise discussions about whether voting for certain candidates is a case for the-end-justifies-the-means. I don't understand how a good-faith reading of an "activism on your own platforms" policy leads to "we can't discuss the data modeling for people's names anymore." This strikes me as a case of false equivalence.

> I don't understand how a good-faith reading of an "activism on your own platforms" policy leads to "we can't discuss the data modeling for people's names anymore." This strikes me as a case of false equivalence.

I suggest you read up on the politics of the use of names in the context of slavery in America as a starting point for understanding why names has a long history of being inherently political.

It sounds like you think all tech companies just make stuff for consumer websites.

There are quite a few that don’t interact with global customers and literally never have to even discuss those things.

I've worked across a wide range of companies in tech for 25 years, so no, I don't. But I've also yet to work for or with a single company where tech decisions were not inherently political.

E.g. I had a contract to do a communications system to relay debug mapping data from an autonomous submersible. For a military research institute. It was inherently political because I had to consider if I was ok with working a project that might end up being used in armed conflict in the future my code certainly wouldn't).

Or when I worked on code to maintain the quality documentation for a systems integrated that delivered backend systems for the police. I had no problems with that, but I might have if it'd been somewhere where the police had a worse reputation than in Norway where I did that job.

I've worked on billing systems where we had to decide on anti-fraud measures. Sounds non-political, until you realise it often involves broad blocks that stereotypes behaviours based on factors that very easily ends up effectively profiling users.

I could list many more. I've yet to work on a single software system where the higher level architecture did not involve consideration of political issues whether explicitly, or implicitly. I'm sure there are some, but I think there are far fewer than you imagine.

Do you consider a farmer’s decision to sell food to the public political since he could be feeding terrorists?

Pencils can be used to write manifestos that result in countless deaths. Is the pencil manufacturer responsible for that?

I worked for a company that had train control systems as a product. How do you suppose that was political? Do you think we should have spent more time considering that maybe we shouldn’t have been making trains safer because we could accidentally save the next Hitler?

Parent offered since terrific examples. The least you could do is give an example of a company unaffected by politics. Frankly I'm skeptical of your line of reasoning but happy to entertain it.

I don’t think they exist because even something as simple as “changing master to main” gets pushback because “political”

It’s a name, it’s generally not hard to change, and if it makes someone happier why not main is shorter to type! But people still push back against it for.. reasons

But people still push back against it for.. reasons

It's pretty simple, actually

Person A: We need to do thing X

Person B: Why?

Person A: Because I am morally superior to you, and I say so

You really don't understand why person B would push back against tacitly accepting that they were the moral deficient? It's the same reason people dislike vegans who say "for moral reasons", they're asserting that everyone around them is immoral, and people find it obnoxious.

Im sorry but I really don’t follow. How is asking making any moral judgements? Your either reading into what people say and not handling your own discomfort very well or making assumptions on what person a would say? When this first came up I too asked why:

“Because it reminds people of slavery which is still fresh in the minds of many and makes some uncomfortable”

“Oh, Ok” changes it and moves on with her life

Another way of looking at it is “why not?”

Because it reminds people of slavery which is still fresh in the minds of many and makes some uncomfortable

Well, "main" is like "mainmast" of the sailing ships that brought the slaves over.

See, once you start this game, it never ends. The master in "master branch" was never anything to do with slavery - and everyone knows it. No one in the world equated committing to master with endorsing slavery, but that is what you are accusing them of. Same as master bedroom and master's degree and mastering a skill and countless other examples. And why is "master" problematic but not "owner"? After all the common term was not "slavemaster" but "slaveowner" remember. Shall we do branch owners or code owners or file owners next?

Another way of looking at it is “why not?”

Why not leave it as it is then? Why step onto a never ending treadmill of arbitrary changes for change's sake?

Anyway I'm not trying to convince you here (I get the feeling that that would be pointless) I am merely explaining to you the behaviour you have observed but don't understand the motivation for.

Slippery slope much? I don’t see anyone bothered by or complaining about main, except those who don’t want to change it, and no ones ever said anything about owners. A large number of people don’t like master and if I can make someone’s life a little better with such a small change I will. Times change, language changes.

If you won’t do so that’s fine, but be honest why you won’t, your arguments keep changing first it was their “moral superiority” And now “where will it end/its change for changes sake” which both sound like excuses to me

If you won’t do so that’s fine, but be honest why you won’t, your arguments keep changing first it was their “moral superiority” And now “where will it end/its change for changes sake

What are you implying that my "honest" reason is, of course you are insinuating that I am a closet racist. And it is just change for the sake of being able to demand a change, if you are being honest, you get a vicarious thrill out of the power you get and the sense of superiority it gives you and you won't stop, and we both know it.

lol no that didn't cross my mind. more that its seems the idea of renaming master -> main makes you uncomfortable for some reason and your not dealing with it well. You keep bring up morales and now "superiority" - none of which crossed my mind because i don't think like that and wrt master/main all i care about is changing it for those who want it nothing else but it's real clear these are important to you and this discussion centers around those themes for you.

You keep jumping to extreme conclusions and assumptions which is kinda hilariously sad as that's what you accuse "the other side" of doing

i don't think like that and wrt master/main all i care about is changing it for those who want it nothing else

What you are missing - because I never mentioned it, and I should never have to mention it - is that I actually am a BAME or a POC or whatever. Not only does the word "master" not make me feel uncomfortable, noone ever bothered asked me if it did before starting to agitate for this change. Now you may be one too, I don't know, and feel free to change it to anything you want in your own repos if a word upsets you so much (and you should rid yourself of all other problematic words too, like "owner"). But don't kid yourself that you're doing it for the benefit of the wider BAME community. And don't kid yourself about your reasons for telling everyone about it.

You don't speak for all POC just like i don't speak for all queers and never would be so presumptuous to assume my opinions are shared across the community. So just because you didn't care or want it changed doesn't mean others didn't ask for it.

> don't kid yourself about your reasons for telling everyone about it

You really seem to have a hard time grasping that there was nothing more to it other then being raised as a concern by POC so i just did it and moved on with my life. The only reason i mentioned it was to use it as an example of how hard it can be to escape politics entirely in the workplace and this entire conversation has really hit that point home.

This entire thread is kinda the point. I feel like I've wasted days of my life reading about master versus main. Even went and converted my biggest open source projects to "release" myself cause I typically work on develop then push to master and tag as a release. So to me master is "most recent release". In my head it was always like "master recording". It's not even "main" cause work is being done on develop and the release branch gets it last. I honestly don't care either way, didn't bring it up at work, and no one else did either but the virtue signaling with this is just toxic. Your implication that someone not wanting to change their branch name makes them inherently racist is super toxic. It's just gate keeping being woke. You don't have woke enough points if you don't do this, that, and the other thing.

Also does a single POC represent their entire race? Isn't that itself racist to think that way? In any population you'll find people who can claim to support literally anything.

You've really derailed this discussion in a disappointing way.

can you elaborate and explain why you feel that way?

Topic of conversation: Can you have an effective workplace where you can any discussion related to politics?

Where you've taken us: You shouldn't call your main branch master

> “Oh, Ok” changes it and moves on with her life

Except this isn’t how the fantasy plays out in real systems. This breaks builds, readmes, packaging, etc and takes a non-trivial amount of time to fix.

> There are quite a few that don’t interact with global customers and literally never have to even discuss those things.

What are some of the few?

For all of those issues you can dryly resolve them by selecting whichever choice maximizes profit. By eliminating moralizers from its ranks, Basecamp can now make decisions that only consider profit.

That would also be a political choice. And in many cases there isn't going to be a choice that maximises profit without taking into account the PR effect of choices, which again devolves into politics.

The idea that any organisation can be apolitical is fundamentally flawed. At most you can enforce the (political) choice of pretending you're not political by shutting down discussion of it and leaving it exclusively in the hands of the executives and board. This appears to be the avenue Basecamp has taken. They are free to pretend that's an apolitical choice, and we're free to point out that it's bullshit.

> That would also be a political choice

Obviously, but that isn't my argument. My argument is that when you create a culture that approaches political decisions from a profit perspective, it is easier to make a profit.

> And in many cases there isn't going to be a choice that maximises profit without taking into account the PR effect of choices, which again devolves into politics.

This is wrong. You are conflating understanding a political position with believing in a political position. Understanding a political position doesn't require you to believe in it.

I get the sense that people that want to make everything political would not enjoy the adversaries they would bring without company protection.

Common sense seems to be a rare quality these days. Obviously if it's necessary to do the job then you talk about politics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com