Baldur Bjarnason on the crisis at Basecamp:

A blanket ban on political discussions where there hadn’t been one previously only makes sense if you don’t trust the judgement of your employees. They demonstrated that they didn’t trust the employees’ ability to productively discuss the topic at work even when relevant to the task.

A blanket ban on political discussions, especially these days, reminds me of abstinence education. It’s too rigid to work and will erode any trust built up at the company.

At the same time, I’m not so sure the status quo is working as well. Here’s Dare Obasanjo (note: it’s a Twitter thread):

The blow by blow of how Basecamp’s all-hands meeting fell apart makes the argument for why discussing politics at work is unworkable.

A white conservative says white supremacy doesn’t exist, a Black employee gets upset and management asked to take sides.