If someone at work was writing blog posts with white-supremacist code, then yes, I would probably go to HR and they would probably get in trouble. Maybe they wouldn't be fired, but they would be placed on another team. And then the people on that team would find the blog posts, and the same thing would happen, and they would probably be let go at some point.
Because people that do that type of thing usually cannot shut up about it.
I think you should read DHHs recent non-technical blog posts (highlights like "As I remember London") and make your own mind up about that. Me and a lot of other people on the internet want nothing to do with it.
So let’s work off of that - expecting the entire internet to read the personal blogs of open source contributors before deciding which packages or modules to run is…not really a solution to the problem you’re putting forward.
Noam Chomsky: 'If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.'
Also, your solution doesn't solve your problem: your colleague won't stop to hold ideas that you don't like, nor his blog will disappear. If it's just a blog, he didn't harmed anybody, whereas you got him fired.
There's multiple levels of freedom of expression. You could argue, and people do, that the company has it's own right to freedom of expression, and wants to portray itself in the way it wants, and that necessarily involves deciding who they work with.
For example, if I told you that you are forced to associate yourself publicly with someone you don't like and don't want to associate with, then you might say I'm hindering your freedom of expression.
And this is missing the elephant in the room: white supremacy is fundamentally anti-free-expression. That's one of it's core tenants. So we have a little bit of tolerance paradox here.
If we allow those who oppose free expression to freely express that, then they express it by limiting free expression, then by allowing free expression we've actually suppressed free expression. So, it's tricky.
In case of a blog, it's separated from the professional life. The colleague can just behave normally and avoid political topics.
It's normal to hinder freedom of speech, up to a certain level in the context of the company: I would not like to be teached about Marxism-Leninism by the barista making my coffee.
It also allows people to separate professional and private life, just line sexuality: if you like latex parties, you can enjoy them without having to tell everyone or coming at work wearing latex. It allows collaborators of different sensibilities to work together. Your supremacist colleague may even then work with non-white people and find them nice and competent!
Last, you are projecting ideas: I'm sure that many white supremacists are pro-free speech, having experienced censorship. You clearly aren't.
> In case of a blog, it's separated from the professional life.
I mean, it might be, but a lot of bloggers don't do this.
> Your supremacist colleague may even then work with non-white people and find them nice and competent!
I feel like maybe you're not understanding what, exactly, white supremacy is.
> I'm sure that many white supremacists are pro-free speech, having experienced censorship.
Right, no, the ideology is fundamentally anti-free-speech and anti freedom in general. Believing some humans are inferior and deserve less rights just works like that.
You don't have to defend white supremacists, they're doing just fine politically and socially. Better than the people they believe inferior, I'd say.
> You clearly aren't.
Yeah yeah whatever, go explain to someone else how oppressed white supremacists are.
>Do you ask the political opinions of everyone you work with
they are the HR of IT ofc they do a ideological sniff test on anybody they even so much as talk to. Can't have anybody disagreeing in this tolerant space.
Everyone does an ideological sniff test of everyone they interact with. You don't want to be friends with wackjobs or racists or whatever, because the odds those people suck in other ways is very, very high.
I also hate the framing of "disagreeing" in these discussions. It's perfectly valid to distance yourself from people because you disagree, and this is something you yourself practice on a daily basis. That is just being human.
I worked with plenty of far-left people, some of whom justified openly during lunch a genocide against whites in South Africa. While I would have preferred not to hear this, I believe that they have the right to work in the same place as me.
Well there is no genocide against white people in South Africa - nice try, grok.
But even if there was - would you want to be friends with people you legitimately believe support genocide? If you say yes, you sound kind of pathetic. You don't have to do that, nobody is making you do that.
I don't want to be friends with people who cannot separate their personal opinions and friendships from their work opinions and colleagues.
Fortunately, I do not have to, because I am able to separate the two. The question you asked made sense only in your mind, because you cannot separate and compartmentalize two different things, and instead mix unmixable things together and create a complete unnecessary mess. This leads to a total mess in proposed solutions. Again, in your mind it makes sense, because a collegue's personal blogging FEELS like a betrayal of a best friend. Not good.
I mean, I would prefer not to work with crazy people, because they're usually also awful to work with.
I'm not saying they should be fired. What I AM saying is that of course people's opinion matter in your relationships. And that includes every relationship, even work ones.
Of course, in a working relationship, people's opinions on work issues matter greatly. It is weird and counter-productive to care about colleagues' personal political views while at work.
In my experience, the enjoyment of working with people and their professionalism does not depend on the awefulness of their political opinions.
Not being able to separate, to only work at work instead of pulling your personal life into it, is a sign of a bad worker.
I do speak from European (healthy work-life balance), but still pragmatic/efficient and free-speech point of view.
> meanwhile they will destroy your financial and private life if you so much as disagree with a made up pronounce.
No they won't. Who do you know, in your real life, that this has happened to?
Because I actually know a few different people who were fired for racist or sexist reasons. I've never met anyone who was fired because they won't use "made up pronouns"
I've seen actors and rich people claim this, but the thing is they don't just disagree with a pronoun. No, they're loud and obnoxious on Twitter and then their movie does bad and they get fired. That's different.
"I've never met anyone who was fired because they won't use "made up pronouns""
> Jordan Peterson lost his application to the Supreme Court of Canada this week for leave to appeal against the decision of the College of Psychologists of Ontario requiring him to undergo compulsory reeducation for various views expressed on social media, all of which were unrelated to the practice of psychology.
>The complaints which resulted in the college’s order were made by people who had never been his patients, and indeed, who had never met him. They were also mostly American and clearly politically motivated.
Compulsory, as in he can't refuse, otherwise they will take his license.
He raised to awareness when complaining about the compelled speech. People were saying that he misunderstood, that he is exaggerating, that there is not a totalitarian attempt to censor speech, that no such thing is going to happen, that freedom of speech is not under threat.
And what do you know, the exact thing he predicted would happen did indeed happen.
