211–220 of 646 posts
I think a lot of the problems with the YC/Thiel discussion stems from the difference between how people view it: is it a political disagreement, or is it an ethical disagreement? In a "normal" election, this would be pretty cut-and-dry: it'd primarily be a political disagreement over taxes or something, and letting someone go because of their political beliefs would be viewed by many as being pretty extreme. Many peo…
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 stil…
I think in this situation the limit hasn't been reached; with 40+% of the nation's support, the Trump movement isn't fringe. Additionally, many voters intend to vote for him for politically expedient reasons, such as capturing 3 Supreme Court justice appointments for Republican judges. Despite the objectively horrible viewpoints advanced by the Trump campaign, they do not approach David Duke's viewpoints. From some p…
And Peter Thiel might be one of them.
Could I please, pretty please with a cherry on top, have one sanctuary that isn't infested with "Vote for X, because Y is unacceptable"? It's already been done everywhere else ad nauseam.
On a serious note, discussion of the Thiel/Trump topic has been flagged and reposted many times this past weekend and finally permitted to remain on the front page. The HN commenter community has been overwhelmingly interested in a statement from YC regarding this controversy. I share your wish that political party advocacy stay off of the HN front page. Yet we were both drawn to this article and commented on it. I don't know the right solution to this.
> 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…
> That's not how things are done in this country. Tocqueville, almost 200 years ago, begs to differ: "I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.... in America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases; but woe to him if he goes beyond them." [1] What's changed…
This has been more recently termed as the "Overton Window"
> 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…
Candidates A and B are for or against (noted as O and X respectively) the following: Issue: A B C D E F G A: O O O X X X O B: O O X X O O X Noting that they both agree on three issues, disagree on three issues. I have to weight each of those issues to determine which one I am actually for. While I disagree with Thiel's conclusion this year, I have to presume he's done the same sort of analysis (he's not an idiot, he'…
Being well educated and successful doesn't mean he acts rationally at all time. Some persons get extremely passionate and dogmatic when it comes to politics. I'm just speculating but maybe Trump's personality and style appeals to him in an irresistible way.
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 stil…
While I disagree with Peter Thiel's support of Trump, I believe that he is a very smart man, and quite qualified to be a partner with YC. To fire him over his political affiliation would be petty censorship. It's easy to look at somebody like Trump and see the racist, sexist, and xenophobic parts. These attributes aren't naturally shared with Trump's supporters. As Altman said, it would be different if Thiel expresse…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You made the comment I was going to make. Though I would have included the following too: > The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us. We should talk to each other more, not less. When it comes down to it.. its bec…
>its become clear to me at least that a large percentage of the country simply put, is not 'getting ahead' - the anger that drove the Trump and Sanders campaigns is very real and must be solved if we are to prosper. The key there is that they _feel_ like they're not getting ahead - a very different thing than not actually getting ahead, and much more dangerous.
I certainly wouldn't try this tact with your significant other.
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.
May your vote bring you everything you hope for in proportion to the extent it is made wisely and with only good intentions in your heart.