The 2016 Election

#1

Post by firloop » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

The 2016 Election
blog.samaltman.com

Re: The 2016 Election

#2

Post by sanjeetsuhag » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

> We shouldn’t start purging people for supporting the wrong political candidate. That's not how things are done in this country.

Amen.

Re: The 2016 Election

#3

Post by 1123581321 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

Thanks for clarifying your support, Sam.

You mentioned you'd like to understand Trump supporters. Have you considered asking people in your network to confidentially contact you to explain, and then publishing the anonymized findings? With your reach, it seems like you could really help build this bridge you want to see exist, and the results would probably be interesting to read.

Re: The 2016 Election

#4

Post by sethbannon » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

Bravo to Sam for the endorsement and for calling Trump out for what he is.

On the issue of Peter Thiel, for those of you that believe it's wrong to fire someone based on their political actions, is there any limit? If David Duke ran for office, or the Ku Klux Klan fielded a candidate for president, and someone gave a high profile speech endorsing them and supported their campaign with a million dollars, would it still be wrong to part ways with that person?

Re: The 2016 Election

#5

Post by sp527 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

> of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator).

This is precisely where your whole argument fell apart. If money is speech (and SCOTUS tells us it is) and Thiel donates over $1 million to Trump's campaign, then he effectively is saying what Trump is saying.

Money talks. In our society, it's almost always even louder than the calm reasoning of a rationalist.

Re: The 2016 Election

#6

Post by lhnz » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

  > We should all feel a duty to try to understand the roughly
  > half of the country that thinks we are severely misguided.
  > I don’t understand how 43% of the country supports Trump.
  > But I’d like to find out, because we have to include 
  > everyone in our path forward.  If our best ideas are to
  > stop talking to or fire anyone who disagrees with us,
  > we’ll be facing this whole situation again in 2020.
  > 
  > That kind of diversity is painful and unpopular, but
  > it is critical to health of a democratic and pluralistic 
  > society.  We shouldn’t start purging people for
  > supporting the wrong political candidate. 
  > That's not how things are done in this country.

This impresses me. That is exactly what I was trying to explain to somebody else in the other thread, and I was starting to feel like it was a position that nobody else held.

Re: The 2016 Election

#7

Post by marbletiles » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

YC: Happy to cut people off over SOPA support.

YC: Can't bring itself to even censure a billionaire who only works with them "part-time" for supporting actual hatred and sexual abuse.

I await this thread filling up with "but how you can be tolerant if you don't tolerate intolerance?!" and other Phil-101 Do You Sees

Re: The 2016 Election

#8

Post by Koshkin » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #2

> We shouldn’t start purging people for supporting the wrong political candidate. That's not how things are done in this country. Amen.

> the wrong

This should be written in double quotes.

Re: The 2016 Election

#9

Post by ryana » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

So does Sam denounce the previous actions of YC banning companies who supported SOPA from demo day?

Either YC is an organization that takes political stands or it's not.

Re: The 2016 Election

#10

Post by mc32 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

Why would Sam not go for a third party who was less problematic? There are third party candidates available. Is it because they are unlikely to be elected? If so, this thinking keeps on trapping us into voting for the least bad of the bad.