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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

Whether you agree with her or not, when you are responsible for a multi-billion dollar brand based in San Francisco, appearing on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News without your employer’s consent is a career-limiting move.

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We need to change our society to make that not the case. The status quo is completely unacceptable.

Allowing a small number of people complaining on Twitter to silence opposing political views of people through pressuring their employer, is a stain on our culture and we need to find a way to change it.

It’s not just the extreme left which is most frequently engaged in mob mentality of suppression, cancel culture is also from extreme right: Carhartt’s boycott for instituting vaccine policy.

I have started seeing people that camp out in these echo chambers as uncompassionate, immoral and fundamentally dangerous people. Dangerous in the sense that they’re toxic for a peaceful democracy.

The "extreme left" is not doing this. Those of us who are over here are deeply concerned about civil liberties even of people we don't like. Just like the ACLU used to be, defending Nazis because if you take away their speech, who's next?

The suppression is coming from "moderate" liberals. They're the ones who captured the ACLU when they suddenly got lots of money and grew and became the anti-Trump league. I'm not a Trumper, but he's much less of a threat to civil liberties than those moderate liberals.

In the same way the ACLU has flipped, perceptions of a simple left/right divide need to change. Old labels don't make sense.

> It’s not just the extreme left which is most frequently engaged in mob mentality of suppression, cancel culture is also from extreme right:

Agree 100%. This is a bipartisan issue and our discourse is being dictated more and more by the political fringes.

You've chosen maybe the worst example to make this particular point. When you are responsible for the brand image of a company, making unauthorized media appearances is absolutely actionable, regardless of the reaction on Twitter.

It isn't new and it isn't going away. Employers have always exercised discretion in dismissing employees, and they especially exercise it for high-profile ambassador-like figures in the company. Public outcry (also not new), possibly amplified by media (again, not new), is just one justification they might use, and it's not the worst or most chilling among them.

There is no satisfying solution to stop this because of course we generally want businesses to be capable of responding to public pressure, though we might not always agree with the outrage or like the people it comes from.

> There is no satisfying solution to stop this because of course we generally want businesses to be capable of responding to public pressure

Do we?

The public pressure generally comes from a small but very motivated minority, that rarely reflects the opinions of the broader population.

You can change that in that you rise awareness that the "outrage" is infantile to a large degree. People can learn and most people don't believe PR statements anyway. The rules of PR are based on culture and aren't written into stone.

The point it shouldn’t be. When did SF become so intolerant?

It was also probably a career limiting move going around in 2020 trying to rally against school closures as literally the rest of the country was shutting down. You might have empirical data now, and you feel that your gut feeling was correct, but merely trying to justify this now with the knowledge of hindsight feels ironically shortsighted.

"Then, in October 2020, when it was clear public schools were not going to open that fall, I proposed to the company leadership that we weigh in on the topic of school closures in our city, San Francisco."

October 2020 -- not like it was April. Much of the country had at least some in-person schooling going on. It should have been at least discussable without saying she's racist and doesn't care if all the minority children die.

> You might have empirical data now, and you feel that your gut feeling was correct, but merely trying to justify this now with the knowledge of hindsight feels ironically shortsighted.

This doesn't sound like something a health society would want to embrace.

This woman publicly went against the establishment narrative, which is a dangerous play in modern America (see Joe Rogan e.g.).

Well, turns out, her views were generally CORRECT. She was right. The mob was wrong.

Or at least, her opinions were as valid as the rest of us, since we're watching in real time as the last two year's of covid hysteria are memory-holed now that they're deemed a political liability in the next election. IOW, "Trust the Science" has, therefore, been shown to have been mostly bullsh*t.

A healthy society would generally reward someone who was proven to be right, especially when they risked so much calling out that the emperor was naked.

But it seems like we've entered a period where, even if you're later proven to have been correct, the mere act of defying the mob, is enough to permanently cancel you. It is an unforgivable sin.

There’s a pretty wide gulf between having controversial opinions on hot-button issues and expressing them to your friends and family, and being in the line of succession for CEO (as well as the current brand owner) at one of the most well-known companies in America and going on Laura Ingraham without your employer’s consent to talk about your views.

There’s an old saw about “you can be right, or you can be married.” Being right isn’t everything. Perceptions, relationships, and influence matters - and the higher you are in the career ladder, the most impact you have. You have to think about that impact with all the stakeholders in mind. It’s not just about you - it’s about your fellow employees and others who you influence, directly or indirectly (to the point of being able to put food on the table) by your actions.

> without your employer’s consent to talk about your views.

Employers should not be allowed to control their employees speech, outside of their role of officially speaking for the company.

> There’s an old saw about “you can be right, or you can be married.”

If you are given your employment relationship the same value as your marriage, I think that's very sad.

She was correct if you don't consider children as a vector for COVID-19 transmission to parents and grandparents. Hundreds of thousands more people would have died if schools weren't shutdown before the vaccine was available.

Should schools still be closed now? What else should be closed still?

Should schools be closed so firmly now that discussion of the subject is racist? At what point are people even allowed to discuss it?

The guidance from the CDC has been relatively clear: closures depend on the state of the local hospital system and transmission rates. Closures that avoid overwhelming health systems protect medical staff, increase COVID survival rates, and allow people who need non-COVID treatment for diseases like cancer to have access. It has been that way since the beginning of COVID, and is part of the standard response for every pandemic in modern history.

The only person who has been bringing up racism is you. If you want to participate in a culture war by complaining about culture wars, go right ahead. If you want to discuss pandemic response, please join the conversation. Better yet, join the campaign to get people vaccinated. It will save lives and we can re-open more quickly.

> The only person who has been bringing up racism is you.

The article directly addresses her being called racist for considering opening the schools. There are multiple paragraphs addressing this in the article.

> If you want to participate...

> If you want to discuss pandemic response

> Better yet, join the campaign to get people vaccinated

Thanks for telling me what I should do, without knowing what I've been doing.

Every public figure has been called names. It comes with the territory and usually it's not worth mentioning. It's part of the deal and shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has decided to step into the public square. Some people fixate on that so they can get their 15 seconds of fame in the culture war game, others return the focus to the cause they are fighting for.

> Thanks for telling me what I should do, without knowing what I've been doing.

I can't read your mind. So far it's all emotions and no content, so hopefully you have been doing something more than that.

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