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Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

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Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#121

Post by gist »

mlinsey wrote: post #92

Trump is uniquely dangerous and I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his...if that would do anything concrete to reduce Trump's chances of winning the presidency, by even one epsilon. I don't Thiel doing office hours for YC companies gives him any sort of tactical advantage he could parlay into assisting Donald Trump's campaign, though I'm willing to entertain arguments otherwise…

> I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his...

But why only prominent? And if not where does this go? Do you now ask anyone who does business in any way shape or form (vendors, employees, YC applicants, the cleaning crew etc.) what their political or personal views are and then cut ties with them as a result? Or is the line arbitrary "we know it when we see it". Kind of like a boycott?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#122

Post by Normal_gaussian »

sigmar wrote: post #58
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…

> "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Also to this point: Trump has been attempting to delegitimize the election. This is very dangerous. If he has evidence of "rigged polling places", he should share that evidence. But inciting myths is dangerous for our democracy.

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

As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence?

Again, as somebody who isn't all that familiar with the state of the states isn't the choice between a moron and someone who is systematically immoral?

Either way, its a sad state of affairs.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#123

Post by [deleted] »

yuvadam wrote: post #111
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...

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#124

Post by exolymph »

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.

I dislike Thiel very much and think his politics are utterly wrong, but this:

> Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much?

Is a vast oversimplification of what he wrote.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#125

Post by InclinedPlane »

masklinn wrote: post #114
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…

> 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…

> "So you're perfectly fine tolerating intolerance but you can't tolerate the intolerance of intolerance?"

I wish there were such a thing as HN gold, that sums things up perfectly.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#126

Post by M_Grey »

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…

40% of America is not interested in Trump. 57% of America isn't even voting, and significantly less than half of the remainder are supporting Trump. Of those, you'd be a bit thick to assume that more than half are doing it out of any meaningful support for him, rather than ideology or despising the alternatives.

As for, "people who have all the weapons", unless they have tanks, an air force, a navy, and AA capability, they're still just idiots with popguns who were already joining militias and similar groups en masse over the last 8 years; appeasement does not work.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#127

Post by InclinedPlane »

exolymph wrote: post #118
braythwayt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For values of "destroying" equal to "refusing to do business with".

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#128

Post by ZenoArrow »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #38
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…

>is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar Your premise is bogus. There's no reason to think Hillary Clinton is personally responsible for an increase in weapons sales, especially considering that such sales increased across the board under Obama. >Hillary voting to invade Iraq Her own floor speech before her vote said she was voting yes precisely to give Bush leverage…

> "Your premise is bogus. There's no reason to think Hillary Clinton is personally responsible for an increase in weapons sales, especially considering that such sales increased across the board under Obama."

Was that during the period when Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State or in the period when John Kerry had that role?

In any case, the sad part is people having to defend one of two subpar candidates in this election to justify their position. Aside from a minor miracle where a third party candidate steals the race, we're going to be stuck with a shitty US president for the next 4 years. Can we at least try to come to terms with that before it happens?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#129

Post by notJim »

sctb wrote: post #99

> The Nazis and white nationalists that have rallied to him are a lost cause. It's important that we avoid deliberately inflammatory statements like this on controversial issues—they serve only to disrupt already-sensitive threads.

Which part is inflammatory? Are you saying white nationalists haven't rallied to him, or that they are not a lost cause?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#130

Post by debacle »

darklajid wrote: post #93
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…

Out of curiosity: What were your feelings about Brendan Eich? I wasn't really part of that debate, but I seem to recall that ~everyone~ here and elsewhere called for him to step down. Then again, cultural differences and nuances especially around potentially offending stances might make this seem more similar a case than people from the US would agree upon - I'm arguing from afar and in a language that is still hard…

> ~everyone~ here and elsewhere called for him to step down.

Many, many people did not. Many people said that it was unfair, and a witch hunt. Many people, myself included, also did not speak up.

Theil may have good reasons to donate to Trump. It's really none of our business. A society who is continually drawing lines in the sand is no society at all, and Ellen Pao is the last person anyone should be giving any attention to on the topic.

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