Taking this hypothetical in good faith how can it possible that one can work with a co worker who believes they are subhuman? A co worker who hates me for writing code they don’t like makes things like 360 reviews dicey, but a co worker who literally wants my death would make me concerned for every pr and 1:1.

What makes you think you aren't working with a group of such people now? I take comfort in not knowing the opinions and life philosophies of my coworkers. I need to compartmentalize some things so that I can continue paying my bills.

If you learned that you definitely were working with such a person, would that not color the relationship?

Definitely? As in they don't know how to keep their opinions to themselves? That seems to be a separate issue and employees should be coached on this to ensure harmony and prevent witch hunts.

I'm a left wing liberal and atheist but many of my friends are far right conservatives. The easiest way to avoid conflict is to not engage. I learned that when I was in high school.

I mean Im not currently in that situation, and my post is genuinely saying I don’t know what I would do if I was. I can’t imagine being okay with it. Like every interaction with that co worker would become suspect regardless of apparent innocence.

I'm saying, how do you know they think this? If they're bringing it up at work then it's a problem. But if their beliefs aren't brought up at work then how do you even know? If you're hanging out with people from work when you're off the clock then I don't think anything said or done off the clock should affect anything going on at work.

Genuinely: does this mean there are ways someone finds out that a co worker wants them dead that are more acceptable? I can’t imagine a scenario where how I found out would make me somehow okay with it? Like even if I found out by accident, during a drunken happy hour, maybe by an accidentally coming across their Twitter or something, I still can’t imagine being able to go to work and not being affected.

Yeah that's fine. If they didn't make any threats and they aren't harassing anyone then so what? People are allowed to believe whatever weird thing they want as long as they don't act on it. If you didn't find out in the workplace then it's none of your employer's business and they should leave it be. Unless this person is doing something that gives bad PR to the business then I don't see why it's an issue.

I'm waiting eagerly for the day when these people discover that religions and religious people exist

Well that’s the thing. Now I don’t know if any interaction I’ve had with them is because of me as a person vs me as a dehumanized thing. Was that nitpick in my codebase…? What about that comment in my 360 review…? Was I left out of a shoutout intentionally or was it just a slip of the mind?

If I find out my coworker is a Nazi, then I'm going to be extremely uncomfortable around them even if they don't say Nazi shit at work.

What if they're my boss? How can I trust them to treat me fairly, when they very literally support the genocide of me and my family?

Why do you think that if someone — again, very literally — wants to murder me, that won't affect the way they treat me or discuss me when I'm not around?

If the worker has swastikas on his FB page fire him immediately and inform the FBI.

I think what we are discussing here is more nuanced in nature. As in someone has an opinion on issue of the day and someone else feels that political issue defines them. It could be homelessness, taxes, or something else.

If someone interrogates me about a political topic I might tell them my opinion or I might tell them I haven't thought about it. Of course someone may get very very angry about the latter.

> If the worker has swastikas on his FB page fire him immediately and inform the FBI.

In the United States, it isn't illegal to be a Nazi, so I don't know why you would contact the FBI or what you expect they would do about it.

We’re not really talking about more nuanced things. I know “Nazis” is a logical extreme, but we do have a bunch of them around and they do really support my murder. When I say “I”, “me” and “my” in that context, I do mean “I”, “me” and “my”.

The most common example of what we’re talking about is LGBTQ+. It’s essentially a mainstream conservative position to try to legislate trans people out of existence, for example. That’s “nuanced” in the same way that slavery was “nuanced” 150 years ago — it‘s clear what’s right and what’s wrong, but there are a lot of bigots going to bat for the wrong side.