This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I work for the federal government. OPM is called the government's HR, but they're more like the government's HR policy group and each agency has it's own HR that handles day to day things. So OPM sets a rule like all time cards will use code 10 for work time and 20 for annual leave etc so each agency can hire software that complies with OPM's time reporting standard and they can get competitive bids, but day to day at each agency the agency HR will onboard employees and write policies that take OPM standards and apply them to the agency's needs.
In a corporate world this is more like an industry orgnaization suddenly deciding they need a copy of your last weekly progress report (because every single bureacracy I have ever been involved with requires employees to report to their manager their progress) on things and those go up the chain at higher more general aggregation. And yes that might be legitimate if htey want to flood congress with them for some reason but when it is it's going to be accompanied by support from all the member corporations that yes this is different but we will benefit from doing this.
There's also a bunch of not classified but private information which carries penalties if it's disclosed. Most of this can be shared but it requires an agreement between agencies where they agree how the shared information will be used and protected. So it's not just writing a summary of activities it's writing a summary of activities that is approved to send outside of any of these agreements.
It also caught every agency head flat footed which is why you see directives to their line employees differing and sometimes flip floping.
Further and this is the part that really upsets me, it violates OPM's own policies about using this email address which are supposed to include a note to employees that all responses to the email are completely voluntary and employees are always able to opt out by ignoring the email. Requiring a response violates the Privacy Act (congress makes all sorts of rules that limit the executive in various ways) which is why government employees move so slowly, especially on new things they have to make very very sure they aren't violating any of those rules.
This seems too absurd to be true but it's apparently not even the most absurd bit of this law. The federal government is restricted from collecting PII on its own employees, which includes mere names and email addresses, without it being necessary to accomplish a purpose authorized by law or executive order.
The federal government is not one single organization. If you work for the VA or the USPS, you have as much right as any other US citizen not to have your PI (yes, even just your work email) handed over to the FBI or the IRS without going through proper authorization.
That expectation doesn't exist in the private sector. The boss is expected to have access to everything you do on company devices.
If Alphabet wants to import all of Waymo's email comms for training Gemini, they have that right.
Or if they suspect employee X is barely or not-at-all working, they can dig around without needing to check with the employee first.
Maybe it would make sense to place limits around criminal investigations, but not giving the employer carte blanche to view the data generated by their employees on company devices is just hamstringing the employer's ability to manage its employees.
This is total bullshit. Your line manager and probably anyone above you within your department in most cases has access to everything you do, but outside your department this is not the case at all. Internal firewalls exist in many companies for many, many departments, especially where legal, compliance, auditing, HR or similar issues are concerned.
They do, but the way this would presumably happen is that someone at Gemini would ask someone above them at Alphabet if this was possible, this senior manager would then decide and then they would inform someone senior at Waymo that they should co-operate with Gemini and send them X tranche of data, and this would get passed back down the chain of command to whoever actually would do the work of facilitating the use of the data. What would absolutely not happen is that someone senior at Gemini would just email a low-level data manager at Waymo saying 'please send us all your email comms'.
The point of this is that Trump might have the right to request any piece of data from within the government, but Musk/DOGE are not automatically vested with his powers simply because they were appointed/created by him. Kash Patel (for example) does not answer to Musk, he answers to Trump. If there is to be a request for information on what all his employees do, then it has to go up the chain to Trump and down again to the FBI.
At least at my job, which is a large company but not government large, people generally know who the CEO's lieutenants are. If one of them asks for something directly, beyond verifying it's not a phishing attack, and unless I needed to push back because I knew it was going to break something, I'd just do it and send a note to my manager.
Email is almost never used here, nearly all comms are internal chats on our own platform, so phishing is pretty unlikey.
And if the CEO or his lietuenants wanted to look at all my emails, they'd just ask the department responsible for that, without any need to justify themselves. They can also look at everything on my phone, they can even view a live stream of my desktop.
Fair enough, though that's generally at odds with what I've experienced.
Even in this case though I don't think Musk is firmly established as being more Trump's Lieutenant than any of his Cabinet appointees. What powers he has actually been vested with and how they interact with department heads seems pretty unclear, so it's pretty understandable that the latter don't want to set the precedent that Musk can now take decisions for them or act over their heads. I have to imagine that in your or anyone else's workplace that if anyone was doing anything on this scale they would never do it without at least consulting/warning the heads of department. If someone working with (but not actually on the instruction of) the CEO sent an email to everyone in finance saying 'send me X information on your productivity or I might sack you' without even informing the CFO (or COO or whoever) the latter would usually be justifiably furious.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why?
Because J Edgar Hoover and Nixon abused it.
More options
Context Copy link
Why should a government agency need permission to access your data? I guess that's a question whose answer hinges on your opinion of the government and what its limits should be. But if you're okay with the FBI and the IRS and the NSA looking up anyone they want any time for any reason, sure, then federal employees should not be immune. Or are you arguing that by virtue of being a federal employee, you should not have the same privacy rights as other US citizens?
Why should the executive not be able to look up employee PI like emails.
Just like my CEO can look at my email and give it to anyone they damn want to in their company why can’t the president do the same?
It's not the President asking for the information, it's an anonymous email from OPM. Which, contrary to what people keep saying, is not the "HR department" for the federal government. They have zero authoriity to do this. Musk does not have unlimited authority, transferable to whoever he has sending emails from OPM, because Trump told him to "be more aggressive."
If they are executing a request from the President, the President needs to say so.
The President can presumably ask for anyone's .gov email address, but that's not what's happening here.
Sure you can say those things. It doesn’t make it true. Again you are suggesting that the OPM (an executive department within the WH) can’t get employee emails?
Are you sure they have zero authority?
Clearly the OPM can get emails because they spammed every .gov email they could get. I am sure that the OPM does not have the authority to demand activity reports from other agencies or threaten to fire people outside the OPM itself.
That's assuming we're actually following the law, that is. If you're asking me "Are you sure they can't get away with doing whatever Musk wants them to do because lol", no, I'm not sure. You can certainly take the position that laws are just words, words, words. It seems to be a pretty popular sentiment right now. May the victory you think this is prove to be so. I have doubts.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link