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

341–350 of 414 posts

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#341

Post by Delmania »

AlexB138 wrote: post #337
Delmania wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this election is not about a difference of opinions over the fundamental issues. It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is…

Or the fire bombing of a GOP headquarters and physical assault of Trump supporters at rallies. Both of those are significantly more serious than people saying mean things on twitter. I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for either candidate, but your examples are incredibly one sided.

I won't comment on the physical assault, but I do know there are no identified suspects in the firebombing. It's a bit premature to blame Trump's opposition.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#343

Post by [deleted] »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #327
paulv wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're playing the "you moved the goalposts" game. This started with your intellectually dishonest claims about Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd. "States' rights" is a dog whistle phrase for racism.

No, I did not. Why don't you provide the full quotes, in context? You didn't even provide a source for your quotes. Convenient. You have absolutely no room to be calling someone else "intellectually dishonest". Edit: if this "1998 interview" exists, Google appears to have no knowledge of it.

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#344

Post by alexbeloi »

maratd wrote: post #48
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…

> 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…

>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.

* Job: agreed

* board seat: disagreed, board members are elected to represent the shareholders, companies voice their political opinions through political contributions. If those opinions aren't reflective of the shareholders, then that's a valid reason for their removal.

* public event: agreed.

* private event: disagreed. Distasteful to do something like this, but private events are private events.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#345

Post by Turing_Machine »

ceejayoz wrote: post #338
Turing_Machine wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I did not. Why don't you provide the full quotes, in context? You didn't even provide a source for your quotes. Convenient. You have absolutely no room to be calling someone else "intellectually dishonest". Edit: if this "1998 interview" exists, Google appears to have no knowledge of it.

> Edit: if this "1998 interview" exists, Google appears to have no knowledge of it. It's always interesting to me how technologically literate HNers suddenly forget how to use a search engine when they don't want to acknowledge a point. It took me like 15 seconds to Google. Bottom half of the page: https://books.google.com/books?id=UjO6L2hv0mIC&pg=PA341&lpg=...

Oh, I found that one, but the quote isn't sourced there either, and this appears to be a hit piece biography of Thurmond. Even taking it at face value, the quote is grossly taken out of context, just as I said.

"I don't have anything to apologize for. I don't have any regrets. I may have said some things that I could have left off, because I favor everybody receiving equal treatment. Race should not enter into it. It's merit that counts."

In any case, I'm not trying to claim that Thurmond wasn't a racist, no matter how much you'd like to pretend that I am. Strom Thurmond absolutely was a racist. So was Byrd. Both later denied it (Byrd with his "change of heart", Thurmond with his "state''s rights" argument). But, oddly, only Byrd's denial is given credence. Why?

Edit: given the full, in context quote, the source appears to be: http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/1998/07/13/met_233245.s...

Which also says: "U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., no longer supports racial segregation." So much for Thurmond never having repudiated it. That's literally the second sentence in the piece.

"Intellectual dishonesty", indeed.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#346

Post by AlexB138 »

Delmania wrote: post #341
AlexB138 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the fire bombing of a GOP headquarters and physical assault of Trump supporters at rallies. Both of those are significantly more serious than people saying mean things on twitter. I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for either candidate, but your examples are incredibly one sided.

I won't comment on the physical assault, but I do know there are no identified suspects in the firebombing. It's a bit premature to blame Trump's opposition.

The words "Nazi Republicans get out of town or else" were spray painted on an adjacent building. Are you suggesting someone who didn't oppose Republicans, and their candidate, did that?

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#347

Post by dragonwriter »

AlexB138 wrote: post #346
Delmania wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't comment on the physical assault, but I do know there are no identified suspects in the firebombing. It's a bit premature to blame Trump's opposition.

The words "Nazi Republicans get out of town or else" were spray painted on an adjacent building. Are you suggesting someone who didn't oppose Republicans, and their candidate, did that?

It wouldn't be the first false flag attack in a US political campaign in recent memory. (See, e.g., Ashley Todd.)

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#348

Post by paulv »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #327
paulv wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're playing the "you moved the goalposts" game. This started with your intellectually dishonest claims about Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd. "States' rights" is a dog whistle phrase for racism.

No, I did not. Why don't you provide the full quotes, in context? You didn't even provide a source for your quotes. Convenient. You have absolutely no room to be calling someone else "intellectually dishonest". Edit: if this "1998 interview" exists, Google appears to have no knowledge of it.

> You have absolutely no room to be calling someone else "intellectually dishonest".

* You did know that Clinton called Byrd a "friend and mentor" but didn't know that Byrd repeatedly & profusely apologized for his racism.

* You did know that Thurmond "apologized" for his racism but didn't know that Thurmond didn't really mean it.

* You call me out for not providing a source (which ceejayoz provided below) but ignored purephase's request for you to provide a source above.

Not to mention that we started this thread with your (incorrect) claims about Byrd + Clinton but now we're talking about Thurmond.

Convenient. Maybe next time you should try googling for a few minutes before you press submit.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#349

Post by quonn »

The right way to do this would have been to simply drop the association with YC and give a minimalistic explanation when somebody would ask.

But this would not have served the actual purpose which was to attack Thiel (YC is just collateral damage). This should have been done in some blogs posts, possibly on the personal blogs of the participants of this project.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#350

Post by dredmorbius »

bruceb wrote: post #330
sdenton4 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having Thiel on the board is a statement that intolerance based on race, gender, or religion is tolerable by yc. This in turn chills applications from startups working on problems not relating to white western males.

YC gets what 4k applications? You think founders are not going to apply to YC because of who Thiel gives money to? Seems unlikely.

People are known to take principled stands.

Which is what this conversation's about.

Post reply on HN