Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions • Hacker News Board

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#111

Post by yuvadam » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

mootothemax wrote: post #75

Hang on - Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much? How on earth is that not the argument for dropping him? From another angle, how on earth can you trust someone's advice if they truly and honestly think like that? I'm honestly shocked YC can champion women founders while having someone like this involved as a partner. Just shocking. And so, so disappointing.

> 'the extension of the franchise to women has rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron'

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#112

Post by ivraatiems » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #110

ivraatiems wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering whether there was precedence for something like this. If there is, then I think YC should distance themselves from Thiel now. I agree with those who say he's a long-term harm to the industry; I do take issue, generally, with dismissing someone over their personal politics, but sometimes those stances create problems in the company that can't be overcome.

I think you're correct that this might be a case of something the business needs to distance themselves from but they shouldn't try to take the moral high ground and at the same time vilify a man for his political views.

I'm not sure how else they would justify it.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#113

Post by bluedino » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that someone can be 'blacklisted' in tech because their stance on an issue isn't aligned with the majority of the community, or they have voiced an opinion for or against a political candidate.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#114

Post by masklinn » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

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…

> No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them.

Get off your high horse, Thiel is not going to be destroyed if YC distances itself from him, bloke's got "fuck you money" a hundred times over, nothing could "destroy" him short of institutional assault, and even then possibly not.

And you're advocating for tolerating intolerance whose end-result is the destruction of tolerance.

> I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.

So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance? Against a billionaire shovelling money to white supremacist and fascist ideologies to boot?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#115

Post by wehadfun » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #10

> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe. Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qata…

Its not so much about Trump, its about what he represents. If the U.S. Pres can say things like ban muslims, fc married women and grab them by the then it must be ok for us all to do it. I think people fear being in a society where racism/sexism is tolerated or even encouraged by the U.S. government. Does not matter what he has done. We are worried about what other people who feel empowered by him being president will think they can do

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#116

Post by sulam » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

natrius wrote: post #16

Cleaving off 40% of America is not a recipe for progress. When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot less . Our culture of progress has become entirely about excluding dissenters until they submit, and it's not working anymore . We've given up on convincing the people who have all the weapons, and now we're going to start hurting them econo…

There are two larges groups of people who are voting for Trump regardless of anything he does (as he said: he could shoot people down on 5th avenue and these people would still vote for him). The largest group of them are Republicans who will always vote Republican. My beef with these people is that I wish they were a little more loyal to our country's values than they were to their party, but fundamentally I've got no real problem with them.

The second group are all white nationalists. They honestly believe that Obama is a Muslim, that Jews control the banks and media, that immigration is bad for the country, etc.

These people I have no problem with blacklisting.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#117

Post by 551199 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

And people with this kind of thinking are considered to be the good guys? SNL writer Chris Kelly "How bout instead of an “I Voted” sticker, everyone who votes Trump gets to wear a scarlet T for the rest of their lives?"[0]

Seriously pause to think that.

This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. At the same time there are Wikileaks collusion, media enabled terrorism, GOP, and some shady doings of agitating violence by the Democrats shown in today's leak. None reported by the msn[1]

[0]http://archive.is/NiRJ4 [1]http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corr...

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#118

Post by exolymph » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #76

maratd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In short, you say "people who support that sort of witch hunt" are intolerant, and that there is no place for them here. So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved. Another matter of interest is the nature of the power imbalance of lack of same. The original witch hunts, McCarthyism, and other struggles…

Yeah, "destroying a person for their political views" does not apply in this case at all. Peter Thiel is a BILLIONAIRE.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#119

Post by drivingmenuts » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

funkysquid wrote: post #105

"donating $1.25 million is a lot more than speech" It's somewhat easy to argue that someone should not face professional repercussions for their support of a candidate. It's harder to argue that they should be able to donate 463x what a typical person might (assuming a generous $2.7k not using Super PACs).

Thiel is a billionaire. If the worst things that Trump and his followers have advocated for come to pass, he most likely won't face any consequences that people of lesser means will.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#120

Post by ruddct » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #10

> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe. Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qata…

Yes, it is worse. It's far worse.

Clinton has been in politics for almost her entire career as a prominent, high profile figure. She also has an affiliated, massively successful charity organization. If you imagine peoples' social and political connections as a graph, hers is very, very large, with her organizations interacting with pretty much every state and VIP entity out there.

Now, imagine you're running the Trump campaign/Breitbart and you have to come up with some Clinton-bashing narratives. Gold mine! Just start picking random connections from the graph and inventing narratives about her being corrupt. Easy peasy.

Here's the problem: Clinton has been investigated for these allegations and a jillion other things many, many, many, many times. By many, many, many people. Publicly. And the results of the investigations have found... basically nothing. They've found a person who is good at their job, a person who is wildly competent despite making a few shitty judgement calls from time to time. But her graph is so large, her connections so huge, that it's easy to keep spinning up these new, mostly false/unproven narratives.

Trump, on the other hand, has a history of abuse, a history of stoking racial resentment, and a history of calling into question the entire foundation of our democracy (freedom of press, elections, etc). These are real opinions that he has right now. Not some conspiracy-stoking narrative concocted about a career politician.

Saying that the list of well-investigated, thoroughly debunked Clinton conspiracy theories is equivalent to actual, real hate speech is, pardon the language, bullshit. Hate speech is hate speech, racial and sexist statements the same. YC needs to take the right stand on this, given the precedence.