For one, it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink. Many people who didn't vote for Clinton or Biden are effectively in career hiding. Threatening someone's job over their beliefs/opinions is very effective censorship.
The right of free speech protects against government retribution. It does not protect private individual / corporation retaliation. This is why you have secret ballot - so no one can retaliate against you for someone you’ve voted for.
People are demanding access to an audience like it's a right, and saying their votes don't matter if they can't reach an audience. It's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink.
Have you ever tried it?
FWIW, coworkers in my org pushed for a blacklist of words we’re not allowed to check into the codebase within the last year. I raised my counter opinion. I did so respectfully. Today, there’s no blacklist, and I still have my job.
Btw my presidential vote was a write-in for Bernie Sanders as president with Yang as running mate. Laugh if you like. I’m vaccinated; I wear a mask wherever the property owner of whatever establishment I’m in requests it (e.g. signs posted on the door), and omit the mask where not. I think my governor’s recent mask mandate is a mistake because we could already navigate the problem organically with the above approach, and anyone who wasn’t previously respecting an establishment’s masking policy isn’t going to respect a top-down legislative one given there’s no intent of enforcement.
People will disagree with my political opinions. And if they want, they’ll downvote me to communicate that. But I’m confident I won’t get banned from HN for stating these in the unusual event that it’s relevant to the discussion, much less that any future employer of importance is going to comb through here and decide against hiring me because I respectfully put forth an opposing political viewpoint.
Eh, the anti-PC example is anti-progressive though. I didn't want to elaborate my comment with lengthier political views since HN usually isn't the place.
But here's a right-leaning hot take to drive the point home: 18 months into this pandemic and I've never once had any input into the policy response. I thought the agreement was "I get the vaccine, I get to live my life as normal". Now that policy changes (mostly state-level) are flipping that, I regret getting the vaccine: I'm in a low-risk demographic and I just gave up my most powerful tool in influencing policy decision. I won't make that same mistake with the booster shots Biden discussed earlier today: I won't be getting those until my policy leaders actually serve me as a constituent.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink.
Still confident that GP is wrong about that and I won't lose my job or livelihood by posting this.
EDIT: To be clear, this not evidence in favor of the comment you were responding to: "There is a trend of certain dominant power in all of these countries that is quashing all opposing voices". As far as I can tell, supporting things the majority of society disagrees with has always been ground for career repercussions in the "land of the free" (as it is in the rest of the world).
For the same reason I wouldn't put a Biden/Harris sign on my gun store in rural Missouri, I would probably keep my mouth shut on abortion if I'm the CEO of a video game developer.
Your job is to make other people money. If you become a liability you're not going to have a job much longer.
Context and the multiple roles of a person, is why people get upset over this.
I agree with you. As a CEO, estranging any significant section of the market is not a good career move!
But amongst their friends, family, [insert other social circle here] their comments may not be a big deal.
As a non-public persona, I say expletives at work(as an employee) that I wouldn't want my child hearing(as a father). I can get away with it because the two worlds don't collide.
But once you have a public persona - like being a CEO - your worlds are merged into one. You don't get to have a "personal opinion" because your public persona cuts across all boundaries and your comments will be judged in the context of a public majority opinion.
Having a "public" persona is no joke. Take it seriously and expect that non-majority opinions will get public blowback so there better be a good reason for them!
