Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 414 posts

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#81

Post by hprotagonist »

untog wrote: post #65
supergeek133 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention "single issue voting" has become a huge trend in this country. Do you know any friends who are LGBT who will vote democrat just because of gay rights, but on any other day of the week are fiscally conservative? I'm sure there are more than one of those people voting for Trump because of some issue they disagree with Hillary on, or some single issue they disagree with Trump on.

What you're describing seems only natural to me. Very few people sit entirely within the spectrum of one of the two parties - they have to evaluate both and see which has the most pluses. If you're gay, the Republican party is threatening your ability to get married and live without discrimination, so I can believe that might seem more important than relatively minor shifts in economic policy.

Except, I guess, if you're Peter Thiel, who stands both to be discriminated against but also to get massive tax breaks in a Trump presidency.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

yadongwen wrote: post #73

> this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence. There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? What you believe could be different from others. People can choose different perspectives to see and understand the world. We should encourage different ideas and voices. This post could be downvoted to…

> There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence?

In very many cases, that is quite overtly the case.

> What you believe could be different from others.

Right. And hatred (racial, misogynistic, and otherwise) and violence are among the areas where those differences can be found within the electorate.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#83

Post by timehastoldme »

hood_syntax wrote: post #23

I am disappointed with Thiel's decision to donate money to Donald Trump, but I don't care what Ellen Pao or her organization thinks about it. It's their prerogative, but I laughed at the tagline 'Sometimes hard decisions aren't that hard after all'. I don't believe an attempt to pressure outside parties into severing business ties with someone because of their questionable political judgement should be treated as if…

Or it's a stand against a movement which opposes their moral principles. To Pao (and, to the extent that it matters, me), D. Trump's movement is so vile that any prominent supporters of it waive their right to being tolerated. I am sure you'd agree that doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported Strom Thurmond, Viktor Orban, or Mao Zedong; it's just a matter of how bad D. Trump is.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#84

Post by CN7R »

I question the integrity of the author who wrote this article, but if people truly have an issue with Peter Thiel donating to the Republican candidate, then just stop giving him money—blacklist him, not YC. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Better than disagreeing with someone spending their money, why don't people collectively donate to the other candidate then? That's not the conclusion the author comes to and hence in my opinion this seems to be a company taking advantage of a situation for free PR.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#86

Post by georgemonck »

this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence.

I think some "both-sides-ism" is in order here.

From the perspective of the right, the left is also advocating hatred, violence and is also trying to do an end-around to thwart democracy. Consider:

- The riots we've had in four different cities, riots that occurred before the facts of the case were even known, and which white people were being specifically targeted for violence -- http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-pro...

- Michelle Obama's support of Beyonce's Black Panthers homage at the Super Bowl (if you are unfamiliar with how destructive the Panthers and the movement associated with it were, you can start here https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history )

- The left's strategy of "electing a new people" -- favoring mass immigration from Mexico because it will help push liberal policies. This was stated openly in Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" and you see articles all the time about it (for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/... )

- The continued scapegoating of "white men" and "structural racism" as being the source of problems for minorities, even when you do a deep dive on the statistics and the situations that is clearly not the problem.

- Selective enforcement of the law, going after Republican associated people in groups, such as the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin ( http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame... ), the IRS going after tea party groups, or the adminsitration trumping up charges against Peter Thiel's Palantir company

There are serious issues at stake, and a lot of bad behavior on both sides. The only way a two-party system works, is if when one party wins, it doesn't try to punish people who supported the wrong side.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#87

Post by InclinedPlane »

maratd wrote: post #48
archagon wrote: post #26

Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. Pao is right: "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Quite literally at times! (I might give a pass to the people following the party line or acting on incomplete information, but Thiel knows exactly…

> To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves. I vehemently disagre…

What would you do if David Duke was on the board of directors for your company?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#88

Post by jackfrodo »

supergeek133 wrote: post #35
jackfrodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of knee-jerk dismissal that made me lose respect for the reddit community. What she's saying resonates with a lot of people, especially marginalized ones, and for that reason alone she's worth hearing out.

The problem is one side of that is ALWAYS marginalized, right? The difference is she's pulling support because it's her side this time.

Is one side always marginalized? Maybe in political matters you could frame it that way, but I don't think that's the case in most tech-related discussions. This is the fairly narrow case of discussing diversity in tech.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#89

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

dfabulich wrote: post #9

There is clear precedent for YC taking a political stand by uninviting investors. Only five years ago, Paul Graham was willing to uninvite investors from Demo Day based on their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supportin... Paul asked, "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good invest…

Making money as an entrepreneur and making money as an investor are very different skill sets.

If you're smart and gritty and lucky enough to make a fortune with a start-up, then you probably have the minimum brain cells necessary to decide whether an investment opportunity is half-decent. Win some, lose some, nobody sees the difference because most of your wealth is either still in the company you worked on or is professionally managed, so there's little chance you will ever actually have to work again, and the public will still view you as a "winner."

To me, conflating entrepreneurs and investors - especially investors in politics - is about as silly as asking Hollywood celebrities about U.S. foreign policy.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#90

Post by HaloZero »

blfr wrote: post #62

At Project Include, our mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in the workplace. “Everyone” means all groups to us, but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate. And you denounce... Thiel? Hillary Clinton made material contributions to starting two seemingly random wars in Libya and Syria with hundreds of thousands of victims. That doesn't count as funding violence? What about her suppor…

Most sitting presidents and secretary of states in the past 50 years have had to call for violence against other nations. It's part of the role and maybe she's made mistakes. But there's a difference between Secretary of State allowing an airstrike and being a owner of a company inciting others to violence.
Post reply on HN