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

201–210 of 414 posts

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#201

Post by hiringmanager »

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.

I am Gay. Hillary Clinton is on the record her entire career as opposing gay marriage. Trump, when questioned what he would do if he found out an employee was gay said "it makes no difference".

As far as I'm concerned, the Clintons (Bill signed the "Defense of Marriage Act" in the first place) are the anti-gay ones (and add Obama to that too)

Not all of us are gullible to the blatant pandering and fear mongering democrats engage in.

While during the Bush years there was some stupid asinine anti-gay rhetoric from Bush, nothing was even attempted.

But it was the Clintons who banned gay marriage. That's all when I stopped being a democrat.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#203

Post by Alex3917 »

untog wrote: post #101
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…

IMO, you can even disregard all of Trump's dirty laundry in this calculation. He is openly calling into doubt the result of this election before it's even happened, asking supporters to intimidate voters, and suggesting the entire election is "rigged". He is attempting to undermine democracy in the country and I'm not sure you need a single additional reason to object to anyone who supports him. Thiel, of course, doe…

> He is openly calling into doubt the result of this election before it's even happened

As we all should, since many/most electronic voting machines don't even have a paper trail. How is it that so many standard liberal positions from five or ten years ago have somehow now become ultra conservative?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#204

Post by untog »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #183
untog wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Not really, no. Hillary has made some questionable choices, but I don't think that makes her any more or less "systematically immoral" than Trump - she just has a longer record, because she actually has political experience. For example, both Trump and Clinton were in favor of the Iraq war. Trump got to backpedal and pretend other…

That's an odd side line to take it on. Surely it is much better to consider her history as a whole? As far as I'm aware isn't she quite the supporter of what I am assuming we would both consider fundamentally immoral regimes across the world?

Define "supporter". Politics is dirty, and often involves doing business with not-nice people in order to achieve goals. That doesn't mean you support them, just tolerate them. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but this how the world works.

It's hardly as if Trump is any different, when you look at his attitude towards Russia, and that's before he's even gotten any political power.

About the only way to avoid this would be to elect an entirely isolationist President who refuses to talk to the outside world, which isn't really an option these days.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#205

Post by braythwayt »

bitewhite wrote: post #169
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…

"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". No, OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong. The statements "Thiel should be fired because of his political views" and "Thiels's political views should have no place in a civil society" a…

I think the second half of your comment is aligned with the second half of mine, so I will just reply to the first half of your comment.

  > OP's statement is unambiguously saying that exclusion on
  > the basis of political ideology is, in any form, wrong.
There is exclusion, and there is exclusion. The essay does not discuss stripping Mr. Thiel of his citizenship. It discusses doing business with Mr. Thiel, and the claim is that not doing business with Mr. Thiel on account of his support for Mr. Trump is a form of exclusion, and by your summary, that is wrong.

There is no more extreme position than claiming that all forms of "political ideology" are equally valid, and that all forms of "exclusion" are wrong.

Some people's political ideology calls for the murder of innocent civilians. I gladly refuse to do business with them, and I reject the notion that it is wrong to exclude them.

Likewise, as I pointed out, not all forms of exclusion are equivalent. If we say that all forms of exclusion are wrong, you rob me of my free will. You force me to buy advertising from Reddit or Stormfront. You demand that I work for Mr. Thiel. Or to sell my products to the RNC... Whether I want to or not.

This is the exact same argument as the one for religious freedom. Must a baker bake a cake for a lesbian couple? If so, we deprive the baker of their freedom of choice. If not, we deprive the couple of equal treatment.

We cannot grant one right without depriving somebody else of another. So in the end, we have to apply some judgment, we have to pick some line and say that things on far on this side are wrong, things far on that side are right, and things close to the line are vexing questions that must be debated.

I personally can accept arguments that in this particular case, it is ok to do business with Mr. Thiel, or arguments that in this particular case that it is not.

But the unambiguous argument that all forms of political ideology must be protected is not one I support, and nor is the one that all forms of exclusion are unambiguously wrong.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#206

Post by untog »

rtx wrote: post #189
untog wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an outsider looking in, isn't Hillary's history in advocating hatred and violence? Not really, no. Hillary has made some questionable choices, but I don't think that makes her any more or less "systematically immoral" than Trump - she just has a longer record, because she actually has political experience. For example, both Trump and Clinton were in favor of the Iraq war. Trump got to backpedal and pretend other…

Aylan Kurdi is dead because of Hillary.

Are you saying the current Syrian crisis is entirely attributable to Hillary Clinton and no-one else in the world?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#207

Post by lhnz »

archagon wrote: post #181
lhnz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But on the other hand Clinton also doesn't have a squeaky past. When it comes down to it, you either (1) just let people vote for the candidate they prefer, or you (2) fight dirty by: censoring them, massaging negative narratives about their behaviour, lobbying their financial backers to stop supporting them, and eventually see if you can deny voters their right to vote for them (or try to force the candid…

I strongly believe that there is no dirtiness in saying "your candidate is repugnant and we want nothing to do with his high-profile supporters". Sorry about lobbing in a Godwin, but I feel it's appropriate here. I've been watching a lot of WWII documentaries lately and it struck me just how excited and happy Germans were to see Hitler come to power. Before going to war, he was considered by many around the world to…

It's not dirty to merely express yourself, but it still might have unintended consequences.

If you lose, and they turn out just to be a TV personality that is ineffectual politically it will hurt your credibility.

And, if you win, maybe the republican party falls apart, and four years later you are up against a real hard-right party, like is seen in some European countries.

I am personally far more worried about what will rise from the Alt-Right's ashes when he loses, than what will come to pass in the strange future in which he wins.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#209

Post by 551199 »

masklinn wrote: post #185
551199 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016'[0] [0] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928

> You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. 1. Trump was not hammering anything, accusing Hillary for Bill's infidelity has never been a hammer over the 20 years it's been used (in fact it's usually backfired). The strategy was flopping as irrelevant even amongst republicans. Reminder: Bill is not running for president. 2. Kenneth Star…

Clintons say they are running as a team. You can't take the good without the bad.

You say women that have settled in court or accused of Clinton of sexual assault should not be believed. BUT Trumps alleged should be believed. Hillary stated all rape victims have a right to be believed.

In your mind should we or should we not believe women saying they have been raped?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#210

Post by debacle »

Delmania wrote: post #197
debacle wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. That happens every time. > Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. This also happens every time. > On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported. Eco-terrorists vote too. > T…

> Being receptive to free speech means being receptive to free speech, full stop. It is a pillar of our country, and regardless of how incendiary you view anyone else, this is a country where the KKK, fundamentalist groups of all flavors, Nazis, etc, are all allowed to exist and that's important. It is perhaps one of the greatest misconceptions that free speech means all speech is protected. Libel, slander, and sedit…

I'm not sure how that conflates with anything I wrote?

Also, while sedition is illegal in the US, seditious speech is not (there is clearly a gray area there).

Post reply on HN