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Everything is part of the real world. Would you go to a mattress company and demand that they make it harder for your political opponents to get a good night's sleep?


No, I wouldn't, but I don't know how that is relevant. If a mattress company refused to sell mattresses to gay people, I wouldn't do business with that mattress company, and I would also approve of employees of that mattress company taking part in political activism to oppose that practice.


I guess I don't see how the response is relevant. If Coinbase refused to sell cryptocurrency to gay people, I'd be all in favor of employees and external political activists saying they should - and Coinbase agrees, they don't expect to be apolitical with respect to the actual work that they do.


Wouldn't be the first time a mattress company got involved in that space. Casper sponsors the Slate Political Gabfest podcast, or used to at least.


I dunno, but I bet in the long run the mattress company that allows internal debate outperforms one that silences it.


I just don't see how yelling about complex and emotional social issues could help a company build good mattresses.


Because activism is more than yelling about complex and emotional social issues, even if that’s the way you perceive it.


Is there anything between yelling and forbidding all discussion?


To some degree. It's very possible for employees to have polite discussions over the lunch table about political topics, and to the extent Coinbase is trying to prohibit those discussions I'm against it.

Is there a way to have employees say e.g. "the company needs to endorse suchandsuch political slogan" or "the company needs to oppose suchandsuch candidate" without yelling? I don't think so.




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