Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

This kind of "everything is political" thinking is incredibly divisive and is literally the cause of the culture war tearing apart the US (not sure where you live) right now.

Plus, I straight-up don't believe it, and you've provided no evidence to support your claim.

> companies are made up of people, politics is the interaction of people.

conflates (intentionally or not) two very different kinds of "politics" - GP was talking about partisan politics, but you started discussing organizational politics. Unless you're claiming that all human interaction is intrinsically partisan...

Also, I don't believe the claim that all execs are unable to prevent their political opinions from leaking into their direction for the company. They're often motivated extremely strongly by money, and I'm sure that we all know of at least one person that is willing to compromise on their morals (-> political views) for money.

Finally, even treating the claim as true for the sake of argument - not all companies will push their own political agenda with the same strength, and it's entirely reasonable to avoid those that push harder.




> Unless you're claiming that all human interaction is intrinsically partisan

Basically, yes. Most people are out for themselves (which is of course partisan); those who believe in some other more altruistic model are operating under a philosophy that is also partisan ("We should be for others in addition to ourselves").

> They're often motivated extremely strongly by money

I agree; that is also a political position. When considering a company with that position, one must ask "Okay, so what is the most damage they could do in pursuit of the almighty dollar?" and keep an eye out for behavior fitting that (are they cutting corners, abusing workers, abusing resources in a way that pushes externalities onto other people), and make one's own decisions accordingly. There's a reason we have laws requiring declaration of activity.

> I straight-up don't believe it, and you've provided no evidence to support your claim.

That's fair; I assumed this was a given and didn't think it needed support because of observations of how things have gone in the past decade or so (as people have come to realize that there are consequences to the "just get along attitude:" things don't get better for those for whom getting along is not an option).

There's a lot of writing on the topic, but I might start with this if your focus is on how things have changed in recent years. https://daily.jstor.org/paul-krugman-everything-is-political...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: