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The 2016 Election

blog.samaltman.com

121–130 of 646 posts

Re: The 2016 Election

#121
post #33

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

I am always skeptical when somebody takes his personal opinion as the metric to tell the world what right and wrong is.

Could you say what it would mean to have an idea of right and wrong that isn't an opinion? What would it be if not an opinion?

Re: The 2016 Election

#122

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

There's a degree of separation you're missing. SOPA is a specific belief, Trump is a person who has many beliefs. Person -> SOPA Person -> Trump -> Sexism/Racism/etc Thiel doesn't support Trump because he's racist/etc, he does it in spite of that. That doesn't make Thiel right, however it is an important distinction. If Thiel said or did anything racist/sexist/etc, he'd be out of YC. It's a slippery slope to start fi…

>Thiel doesn't support Trump because he's racist/etc, he does it in spite of that.

How do you know that?

Re: The 2016 Election

#123
post #56
post #5

> 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 rationalis…

Agreed. This is crazy: 1. A rich and powerful person parroting Trump's evil statements --> ban from YC. 2. A rich and powerful person helping put Trump in a position to turn his evil statements into reality for an entire country --> No ban from YC.

> 1. A rich and powerful person parroting Trump's evil statements --> ban from YC.

Has this happened yet?

Re: The 2016 Election

#124
post #5

> 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 rationalis…

Endorsing Trump or Clinton isn't the same as saying you agree with everything they stand for. It is simply saying that you believe they are a better candidate for the position than the opposition, and unfortunately I feel like this election has turned into a "lesser of two evils" for many people I talk with. Nobody fully endorses either candidate's beliefs or ideals, but they definitely know which one they like the least for the job.

In that regard, donating really isn't saying much. It is simply saying "I think Trump will do a better job as president than Clinton."

That all said, I have no idea what Theil's political beliefs are so he might really agree with everything Trump says, but you can't infer that off of a donation to his campaign.

Re: The 2016 Election

#125

As much as I hate Trump, I'm kind of hoping for him to win. Fundamentally, I think that 4 years of Trump might be better than 8 years of Hillary. Also, if Hillary wins, the DNC won't have to change. If Trump wins, in 2020, they will be forced to nominate maybe someone like Sanders. Trump winning will also really underscore how broken the US political system is and I'm hoping that him winning could be a catalyst for s…

I have been saying this for months.

I would prefer 4 more years on congressional deadlock to the dystopian nightmare that Hillary will unleash.

Force the DNC to address its shortcomings, and push a real progressive in the next election.

Re: The 2016 Election

#126
post #95
post #6

> 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…

What I don't understand "even more" than that (literally, by the numbers) is how 49% of the country is registered independent and yet keeps voting Democrat and Republican. Worse yet, 76% of the country "wants to see alternatives" in the debates...but still keeps voting Democrat and Republican. Even if people agree to buy into this whole "this election is special" premise, I think people would be well within their rig…

What third parties? Would you rather have the libertarians or green party? Maybe a party or candidate with even less of a track record?

Neither offer a sane way forward.

Re: The 2016 Election

#127

Sam, just so you know, many of your sentences could exchange Trump for Hillary and be exactly what Trump supporters I know say. Especially this one: > [Hillary] shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if [she] becomes our president. Other sentences would just exchange antonyms and not make it sound any better. You call Trump isolationist, they ca…

I don't think he's trying to convince anyone with this post. I think he's very honestly saying that he doesn't understand why someone would support Trump, and if you don't understand the support then you certainly can't make a persuasive argument.

Re: The 2016 Election

#128
post #6

> 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…

This is what demagogues do, they raley and gain power through uniting groups of people over fear. The extreme political tactics by the GOP lead to the scenario we have today, and Trump is building off of what the GOP laid the groundwork for over the past 40-50 years.

Re: The 2016 Election

#129
I am officially endorsing Donald Trump for president.

I doubt my endorsement, coming from an anonymous commenter on HN, has much weight but I'll put it out here for one reason in particular: As a message to anybody else who's feeling the same but feels that even announcing something like this will cause you to be shamed.

Re: The 2016 Election

#130

> I will continue to try to change [his grandmother & Thiel's] minds. I can get behind that. > of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator sama should address the weird things Peter has said about women voting.

He didn't say women shouldn't be able to vote. He said that giving women the right to vote has eroded some of his libertarian ideals, because women tend to oppose those ideals. Which is a true statement.
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