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Comment by Xeoncross | Hacker News Reader

This is fantastic, with a quick check every day I feel like I'll be ready to dialog with coworkers about whatever the latest news is.

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Just ban political discussion on company communication channels and the problem is solved

Interested to hear what you think is "Political" vs "Non-political".

Don't get into a bunch of dramatic fights in company slack, don't get on your soap box and post your political opinions, don't publicly endorse politicians or parties. Just work at work and use your own time to be an activist

Agreed. Continually upholding the stance of owner/renter and master/serf is such an obnoxious and persistent view that so many of my coworkers have, just stop! We're here to work, not do political ideology stuff! Always pretending like it's not a big deal does NOT help! Private property existing or not is a political opinion, and I'm glad we can agree that assuming a stance on it does not belong at work.

Few people do that. But politics isn’t separable from a workplace or any other area in life. Sooner or later someone raises something tangentially political and off you go. Could be (in the US…) something as dumb as who goes to what bathroom. Or whether the git branches must be renamed. Or whether the recruitment applications should be anonymized. Or whether it’s appropriate that the company PAC donates to candidate X.

I agree it’s good to avoid politics until that happens rather than bringing it up at the coffee machine. Keeping it to a minimum should keep most unnecessary drama out.

Company politics is probably just as bad.

Politics per Wikipedia:

> the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.

The problem is the reaction to covid19 has made virtually everything political. Can I go to the office? Am I forced to (illegally) share my medical records to do so? Am I skipped over for promotion because I’m not oppressed enough by society (so the company has to oppress me as retribution)?

These are political questions BECAUSE it’s how we govern the company. Imo it shouldn’t be the case, but this happened in every community, company, organization, etc.

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