Comment by AuthAuth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AuthAuth | Hacker News Reader

Interesting but boring approach. I think he weighs the social positives to low and the consequences of disagreement to high.

Lets take politics at work.

If you talk about politics and everyone agrees then you know you are working along side aligned people. Which is good and it can be fun to talk politics and see why people think the way they do.

If people disagree thats fine. If theyget mad thats on them. You can always retreat to only professional interaction and if they want to break that by being petty or mean then the manager can sort that out. If your views are so insane you are getting kicked out of groups then you should probably reconsider why you hold those views or why you work with these people.

As for looking professional, do you want to be a robot or a human? Of course your boss would rather you be a blank robot who just gets on with work but they are hiring a human and humans are allowed to express themselves.

> If you talk about politics and everyone agrees then you know you are working along side aligned people.

You state that as it it's a a truism. There are many times when having a group not be homogeneous allows for a greater breadth of knowledge and consideration to be brought to bear on a topic.

The point of being professional is that it's a way to allow people that may be very different to coexist and function together, sometimes to great effect.

There is no work-relevant knowledge I'm missing out on by avoiding Republicans

You can be a professional and disagree. You can also get to know the people you work along side on a personal level and that involves sharing ideas.

> If you talk about politics and everyone agrees then you know you are working along side aligned people.

Except you don't know this. People depend on their jobs. If they're the only one who holds an alternate view, they may not figure it worth it. Why risk alienating yourself and potentially be seen as less likeable, which might put your means of income at risk?

In an example of that from academia[1], 88% of college students said they had pretended to hold beliefs they didn't have in order to protect themselves socially or academically.

[1] https://thehill.com/opinion/education/5446702-performative-v...

If they want to supress their views to protect from alienation thats fine and kinda of a good thing. Sounds like talking politics has prevented someone from sharing their abhorrent views maybe the next step is them considering why they are afraid to share their views and stand behind them.

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