Not talking about politics is itself a political position (in favor of status quo).

Depends. We’re a small, very international startup and have a super strict “no politics” policy. Politics and work are not a good combination when you’re employing people from all over the world.

But I would not consider it a political statement to adopt this policy.

I think it exists two different general ideas of what politic mean.

For some (including me), politics are, following the oldest definition: 'how do I and fellow humans organize ourselves to live together' this often leads to a belief that everything is politics (for me it's true, but it's a belief, not a fact).

For other, I think that when they say politics, they think of geopolitics and partisanship, which is fair, because it's how politicians and political journalists themselves define politics. For this group, hopefully, not everything is politics.

So to me, this disagreement about wether or not all is political is often semantic rather than ideologic.

The disagreement is semantic and irrelevant in the sense the question at hand usually is which topics and opinions are forbidden at work.

The disagreement is semantic and relevant in the sense people who say no politics at work believe their categories of politics and not politics are obvious.

The disagreement is ideological in the sense ethical concerns about products or customers are designated political often.

Politicians, political journalists, and people who say no politics at work do not define politics as geopolitics and partisanship.

Your statements are incoherent. Politics is decision making and power relationships within groups of people. It is 100% a political statement to adopt this policy as it exercises power over a group. You cannot function as a group without politics. "Where do y'all want to go for lunch" is also politics, as it involves group decision making and power relationships (Do you go to the vegetarian place? Do you avoid the spicy place?) It's a completely banal decision but it is still politics.

If what you want is a "don't piss off your coworkers by discussing topics unrelated to work that you know will annoy people" policy, that is fine, but don't pretend you are not engaging in politics.

The politics of saying "no politics" is that you are drawing some line that separates some political issues into "politics" and others into "not politics". Because to truly avoid all politics is impossible; even if you believe banal, purely intra-personal politics are not political so much of the basic organization of a business & capitalism are politics. "Should we allow remote work" for example is a deeply political question that ties deeply into discussions about the rights/value of neurodivergent & disabled people in the workplace. To say 'I don't believe in God' is a deeply political and dangerous statement in some parts of the world, but fairly banal where I live. To contrast, in Indonesia, it is technically _unconstitutional_ to not believe in a "one and almighty God"

I wish people were at least honest about "no politics" to mean "lets avoid to unsafe, potentially divisive issues relative to our geographic location, and take the basic tenets of neoliberal, capitalistic society to be assumed". And yeah, that is a more than reasonable policy. Its a difficult policy in international spaces, because its very hard to not trespass that line when political contexts differ so strongly across the globe

> The politics of saying "no politics" is that you are drawing some line that separates some political issues into "politics" and others into "not politics".

I find someone's heuristics for deciding which category a statement falls into chiefly turns on if they agree with the statement. If they agree with the statement then it is not political, and if they disagree, it's political.

> take the basic tenets of neoliberal, capitalistic society to be assumed

Well, then any discussion about an illiberal oclocratic executive (such as 47's) should be fair game...

The word “politics” is vague, and that only makes banning political discussions worse if it only becomes political when the higher-ups don’t like it.

Say your company has a possibility of working with some client company who is directly or indirectly involved with cause X. If it is “political” to talk about not working with them because of X, but it is “not political” to talk about working with them, then you see what I mean.

It doesn’t have to be a destructive conversation: one employee might say we should avoid them, but you might say we need to work with them because we need the money now and can drop them later when we are in a better place. Other employees could talk how cause X is not that unethical for reasons. If someone balks at a point of view incompatible with theirs and is incapable of expressing a viewpoint in a way that respects other views, maybe that someone is not mature enough and next time your HR can avoid that type.

Many people that ban political discussions miss the irony that it's a political decision.

Yeah exactly, the same people who shout the loudest about "everything is politics" and want to talk about it at work would go apeshit if someone at work said "I'm not comfortable with abortion", etc. HR would quickly be called and shut them down.

First, “no politics” is not a political statement to me, more of an implicitly adopted political position.

Personally, if I have a personal political position and my colleague has an opposite one, I don’t see why we can’t talk about it. If you have a workplace rule about no politics during working hours, you better have this rule for all non-work discussions at work, or I personally would feel uncomfortable.

— If politics talk happens at work too much and affects productivity, then it is a problem, but then it is a problem with any non-work topic.

— If it causes heated debate, ruins morale, and makes people dislike each other, then it is a problem, but then it is a problem with any topic that causes heated debate. For some people it’s golf, for some philosophy, for some music. How many topics should be banned?

Are you from the US? In the last 15 years it has become impossible for two people to reasonably disagree over political positions because of how much vitriol is thrown around on the attention markets—even if both individuals themselves are rather tame. When having an otherwise normal political opinion makes you a racist bigot or a beta cuck because the opposition is so determined to get their way at any cost, no, you can’t just talk politics at work and have a cohesive team. Someone will feel oppressed.

Work is about making money. Politics is a distraction unless there’s an issue that directly affects the business. Then it’s fair game. Like this one. Many teams of individuals will have to figure out how to navigate this situation so discussing it in context is apropos and can be done objectively.

> When having an otherwise normal political opinion makes you a racist bigot or a beta cuck because the opposition is so determined to get their way at any cost

If someone calls me a racist bigot or a beta cuck, that is a problem. That problem also has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with someone not being emotionally mature enough or equipped to handle a discussion with someone who has different views, or someone having a mental breakdown.

I am not from the US, but I had enjoyed some reasonable conversations with people from the US (among other countries) with very different views, and I was never called names. There are awkward moments when you have to hear something you don’t agree with, but that is most of life if you ever interact with people.

The key is to be like an HTTP server: liberal in terms of what you can accept, but strict with what you put out there.

> Work is about making money.

You have just thrown another political position into the mix, I hope you realize that?

> It has to do with someone not being emotionally mature enough or equipped to handle a discussion with someone who has different views, or someone having a mental breakdown.

Any moderately sized company is practically guaranteed to have a few people like this. So getting into these discussions has a high risk of becoming an HR issue as tempers flare and conversations become vitriolic.

There's also the issue that the company founders and leadership have political opinions of their own that might inform company policy and any political opinion to the contrary may be perceived as pushback from a "troublemaker".

> getting into these discussions has a high risk of becoming an HR issue as tempers flare and conversations become vitriolic.

Here we can forget that IRL face to face people are much less likely to be offensive to each other. If they get to literal name calling and aggression, sure, that’s an HR issue, HR gets paid to sort this out, doesn’t it? I don’t see how politics is different from any other topic on which people can have strong opinions.

> There's also the issue that the company founders and leadership have political opinions of their own that might inform company policy and any political opinion to the contrary may be perceived as pushback from a "troublemaker".

That is why “no politics” is somewhat dishonest. In my view, either blanket forbid all off-topic talks, or don’t censor by topic and handle fights if they arise. There can also be softer guidelines about how to behave at work without an actual ban of any topic.

Or censor by topic specifically and honestly.

I agree with your ideal. I used to be one of those people who would just talk about whatever in any context assuming everyone was mature enough to have academic discussions and not get personal. Political viewpoint is a protected class in the US. But we all saw what happened to James Dramore. Real consequences for holding a political opinion that allegedly made him “unemployable at Google” where his politics were so threatening to the established order that Google just couldn’t operate with him in the mix. You’d think G has the most mature employees… and either they do but humans are just toxically unable to hold differing opinions, or they don’t and therefore have to maintain a safe space for the comfort of their sensitive workers.

The silliest part: what was his thesis? Well that using race and gender based quotas during hiring and leveling made Google less competitive. Certainly not a privileged white male tech bro just barreling through the company on a racist bigoted spree leaving tears in his wake. There is more interesting discussion to be had here about how the Civil Rights Act has been weaponized in the US and companies feel they have a legal obligation now to prove that their systems don’t yield “unfair distribution of protected classes”, or whatever the actual wording is. And how that is at odds with a world where you can openly discuss politics at a company without fear of falling afoul of the Chief Diversity Officer (ffs, there are executives installed to maintain the order now). And related: just look at how pockets of people respond to Trump’s second term insisting that he’s a fascist dictator and anybody who doesn’t see it is a de facto fascist. But I digress.

Nobody wants to bet their job on being on the losing end of a kafka traps and thought terminating clichés.

I am torn.com player which is a MMORPG as far removed from politics as can be. But when large part of dev team are ukrainians that were suddenly unable to work from clearly political reasons you can't ignore it.

How do you define politics? For example, are employees allowed to be LGBTQ? Are they allowed to mention their relationships to colleagues?

Being straight is also pretty much political at this point. With the way it's being slipped into the culture (all that trad stuff, images of lifestyle to aspire to, etc.) and has become (has always been perhaps) a part of political messaging and campaigning, heterosexuality is political. Even within the heterosexuality itself and its expressions, there's still politics - "what's the right way to do it" and such. (not saying this like 'oh those poor straight people' but just that, it is all, all political)

For what it’s worth, I completely agree, I just thought LGBTQ was a clearer example because of how different it is seen in different parts of the world, and how it is at the same time an inescapable part of many people’s identity.

For a lot of people on HN, a ban on politics discussions in the office is impossible because we have to deal with software licenses.

One might argue that it's even more important to discuss international politics these days, considering how interconnected the world is and how so many countries seem to be facing many of the same issues.

You would have been cancelled if you said this between 2014 - 2019 at the peak of it all.

At least now you can say it out now without being downvoted into oblivion.

No it’s not. It’s a position that comes from experience of knowing that it’s a complete waste of time because nobody’s mind is being changed.

Further, there are entire segments of political groups who just want to assume your beliefs like a political straw man so they can denigrate you.

It’s an unhealthy waste of time and that doesn’t truly hit you until you invest the time in talking to an otherwise rational person, provide the closest thing to proof of your perspective in a situation and then watch them deny it anyway.

> it’s a complete waste of time because nobody’s mind is being changed.

What you said can be true if you approach the discussion with an attitude of “I want to change everybody’s mind” instead of trying to get to some agreement and truth.

Not only stating an opinion is compatible with a constructive discussion that could lead to a mutual adjustment of opinions—in fact, stating your opinion is a precursor to having a discussion that can change it.

> It’s an unhealthy waste of time and that doesn’t truly hit you until you invest the time in talking to an otherwise rational person, provide the closest thing to proof of your perspective in a situation and then watch them deny it anyway.

The magic happens when one person realizes that another, obviously sane in every other way person can think very differently about topic X. Repeated exposure to alternative views from other people in your circles leaves no alternative except to adjust your own opinion on topic X.

Thing is, it’s tricky or impossible online. Aside from a handful of well-known people with some reputation or infamy, most of us only know each other as handles with no context. On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog or a basement dweller who lives with his parents and could never hold a job. Meanwhile, access to a group of like-minded people is always at your fingertips when you are online. However, when you are in a company of people who clearly are similar enough in what they achieved, in their choice to work for the same company, maybe good in their software engineering skill, etc., it makes their opinion something that may count.

Not being able or willing to freely exchange and consequently converge on opinions with people whom you routinely meet in real life, and only discussing said opinions in your respective online bubbles, strikes me as a path to having more and more divergent, incompatible, extreme opinions (which I rather suspect might have been happening a lot in recent years).

> Repeated exposure to alternative views from other people in your circles leaves no alternative except to adjust your own opinion on topic X.

I have not found this to be true when it comes to politically aligned beliefs.

Maybe don’t always just take their word for it. Some (most?) people will continue to express their view vocally, but the fact of encountering an opinion from someone they otherwise find a reasonable and sane person will cause introspection and adjustment, and maybe in a different group they would express an adjusted opinion. Most people are always affected by others (excluding sociopaths or other unusual cases).

In person when you can communicate tone and know there is a level of mutual trust, I would generally agree.

Over the past few years I’ve even begun to wonder about that though.

>> No it’s not. It’s a position that comes from experience of knowing that it’s a complete waste of time because nobody’s mind is being changed.

I think the issue is that when people debate someone, they want to "win" by having the other side accept defeat. You are right, that rarely happens, especially in politics.

However, as someone who has participated in countless formal debates, I'll share a secret: your goal in a debate isn't to convince the person you're debating. It's to convince the audience. And that happens quite frequently, even if it's not immediately visible to the debate participants.

That is certainly a valid point, especially in formal debates.

You don't need to completely change someone's positions for it to be worthwhile. This is a thread about something that has directly to do with HN's usual tech topics, and it would be hard to not talk at least a bit about the political aspects.

Incorrect, not talking about politics does not signal any political affiliation.

I think the "everything is political" statement is technically correct but practically useless. In the workplace the discussion is mostly about allowing or disallowing politics that are irrelevant to the business.

Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

New or improved technologies shape communities.

Ignoring that is a political statement as well.

Just see how online media has changed discourse, how Amazon changed retail business, how business analytics change the way businesses work, how always being connected changes relations, ...

When developing technologies one can be Wernher von Braun "(where the rockets land and whether they contain explosives is) not my department" or one can consider consequences.Both are a political position, with consequences.

>Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

So what stance does The Art of Computer Programming take on communism?

Knuth in the wake of the Iraq war and the Abu Ghraid crimes asked some "Infrequently Asked Questions" which are of course highly political. He kept this page linked on top of his home page. And in 2022 he wrote a postscript with more political questions.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/iaq.html

I didn't ask about Knuth.

I asked about the book. Everything is inherently HIGHLY political, thus this should be an easy question.

Perhaps you are exaggerating. At least, my original comment was “not talking about politics is a political position”, not “everything is HIGHLY political”.

However, yes, some people would say that, for example, almost everything is political to some degree. I don’t know if I agree with them entirely. In case of Knuth, they would probably say that the choice of what to write about in the book (just like the choice of whether to be a computer scientist in the first place) cannot be divorced from his politics. Like the choice of someone to work in nuclear science or environmental science or “anything that pays good money” is informed by individual’s political positions. “Politics is water” is a great metaphor.

Between the four books there is a lot of paper being printed, with chemicals which have to be sources somewhere.

But a bit more serious there are different angles to this:

One is that the formalization Knuth did, is basis for the way other research on computer science has been setup.

His work on TeX as part of writing the books has great impact on how scientific reports are being written, which themselves have consequences.

And then there is all the consequence while implementing technology. How optimisations by better algorithms enable data mining, replacing manual labor, ...

Now of course impact differs. Not everybody is building V2 rockets (as well as Saturn rockets) like von Braun did, but there are many wheels in the machinery.

I myself am a small wheel in building database engines. The software is used by sports clubs to manage their members, shop owners to manage their inventory, companies to run their ads and air craft carriers to replicate strategic data across the ship, so that if one part is damaged, the other can still operate. If I were to leave, the organisation would continue developing, but the work has impact.

That’s a very narrow redefinition of both technology and politics, and even there it’s only a step away from discussions about how automation affects millions of jobs, how daily lives are shaped by what’s allowed by the software which large companies or governments build, or how amassed data can be misused in ways which wouldn’t be possible without efficient algorithms.

Is communism the only political topic? Or does whether or not The Art of Computer Programming talk about accessibility in software not constitute a political opinion?

> having discipline to not pollute unrelated conversations with your politics

Discipline isn’t found in hiding. Someone who cannot discuss politics without polluting conversations isn’t disciplined, they’re unpracticed in conversing and thinking through their views.

Things are often inherently political.

> You can believe something without proselytizing.

You can talk about politics without proselytising. Why should discussing a topic even invoke the words like “belief” and “proselytising”?

Not only stating an opinion is compatible with a constructive discussion that could lead to a mutual adjustment of opinions—in fact, stating your opinion is often a pre-requisite to having a discussion that could lead to it being changed.

The magic happens when person A realizes that another, equally sane person B can think very differently about topic X. At that point, the person A has to either 1) write the person B off as crazy (not so easy when that person is obviously sane in every other way), or 2) realize that there may be something to it and ever so slightly adjust own opinion on topic X, or at least become more tolerant.

Not being able or willing to freely exchange and converge on opinions with people whom you routinely meet in real life, only discussing them online in your respective bubbles, is a sure way to having only more and more wildly incompatible and divisive opinions, and I suspect it is exactly what has been happening in recent years.

It's in favor of not having relationships break down in your community/company.

Only a small percentage of people are able to handle fundamental disagreements calmly and without it bleeding over to other interactions.

Will the SE and sales guy work as well together if the former knows the latter donates half his commission money to organizations that help kill babies?

I have friendly relationships with a few people who have political opinions some of which are opposite to mine.

> Will the SE and sales guy work as well together if the former knows the latter donates half his commission money to organizations that help kill babies?

A friend of mine is a vegan. Anywhere he works, to him, most of his coworkers not just help kill conscious beings that have self-awareness and feel pain, they literally eat them. Does this mean talking about what you have for lunch should be banned? Does this mean he should throw a fit any time he talks to a non-vegan?

Incidentally, we sometimes have good debates about the nature of consciousness, the effectiveness of individual veganism on reducing suffering, utilitarianism and deontology, vegan food options, etc. I feel being converted and I don’t mind it.

> Anywhere he works, to him, most of his coworkers not just help kill conscious beings that have self-awareness and feel pain, they literally eat them. Does this mean talking about what you have for lunch should be banned?

You're making the opposite case of what you think. Your Vegan friend is avoiding taking about politics constantly because they're not bringing up the fact that everyone is consuming the flesh of innocent animals every time they go for lunch. If they started talking about the politics and beliefs of veganism at every meal shared with coworkers, I think it would have a negative impact on those relationships.

Turning the question around, will the SE and sales guy work as well together if the former knows the latter donates half his commission money to FSF while the other is hard advocate for commercial software?

Politics are across all layers, including at technology decisions.

but letting > the SE and sales guy

never find out about their shared passion is kind of cruel, too?

It's not uncommon for one side to come out with their position/interpretation/belief whether it's passion or not.

Maybe at a work function, team party, conference, etc.

It’s really a question of time and place. There are many foundational topics in life, such as politics, religion, and philosophy. But it’s not always helpful or appropriate to discuss them in a particular setting.

That said, HN already has an extremely wide range of subject matter, so I wouldn’t say politics should be out of place here. It can, though, become a divisive distraction that disrupts other conversations, so I can appreciate that some limits are needed.

> People trying to ignore politics are like fish trying to ignore water.

Like fish, most people do ignore it until it turns foul.

Ignore politics entirely maybe, but people who are tired of hearing the exact same extremist reductive opinions over and over again everywhere aren't necessarily ignoring politics. Yes we know it's all because conservatives are fascists and corrupt and Russian agents and liberals are communists and in bed with the Chinese, etc., not caring to hear about it again is not surrendering the battle of good vs evil.

For me, ironically, the worst casualty of "politics" infiltrating everything is... politics. I mean the respectful and reasoned discussion of politics. Not that it was ever in great supply, but now it is non-existent.