Replace "Thiel" with "communism" and much of this article (and many of these comments) could be taken from the 1950s. McCarthyism is unacceptable from the right or the left.
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Shame on Y Combinator
111–120 of 1001 posts
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#112It puzzles me how come in USA people are considering only 2 candidates to chose from. At this stage it looks like people are not voting for the candidate they agree with, they are choosing the candidate they disagree with the most and then voting for the other one. This is only 1 step better than how it used to be in USSR where people had an option to chose essentially only 1 party. (sure officially there were more p…
It's an inevitable result of winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting. This video explains the situation very well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Short of revolution, we aren't ever going to see a representative democracy here, because the two parties in power have us perfectly divided 50/50, and the status quo benefits them both greatly.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#113I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. It is entirely possibly that some people support Trump because of his crass and divisive rhetoric, and it's also entirely possible that some people support Trump because of his stance on trade. Is it really anyone's place to demand that another voter change the list of prio…
Peter Thiel is doing just fine. If Y Combinator walked away from him, he would not be hurt or marginalized or ostracized in the least. This is not about persecuting people who vote for Trump.
But to support Trump with an enormous sum of money _after_ Trump has revealed himself to be willing to resort to borderline anti-Semitic slurs, to welcome the support of the white supremacy movement, to call for locking up his political opponent, to threaten the free press, to call for an end to Bill of Rights protections for accused criminals, to pre-emptively claim that the election is rigged, that voting fraud is rampant and to encourage his supporters to intimidate voters, to promise to ban an entire religion, and to brag about sexual assault in professional situations is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating. Whatever other positions Trump might have that Thiel supports, these things are part of the package. Trump is not just a normal candidate. He's a true threat to our democracy.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thiel's support of Trump shows that Thiel is a sexist and a racist. If YC wants to attract startups with founders who aren't white men, this is a problem. If startups in YC want to attract employees who aren't white men, this is a problem.
Or Thiel might think that Hillary is a worse option than Trump? Maybe. Who knows. You should ask him. Pretending to know why he votes for Trump is just wrong. You assume what he thinks, his state of mind, etc. Idunno, maybe you should consider accepting that supporting a person does not equate to being that person nor does it imply that both hold the exact same beliefs.
I don't need to assume anything about what he things. Trump is clearly, unambiguously and objectively a sexist racist xenophobe. Human rights provide a line a lower bound of values we all agree on must not ever be crossed, Trump does so eagerly.
Nothing can justify this.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#115Thought experiment: Would it be any different if we replaced Donald Trump with Hitler? Should a company dissociate with a business partner/board member/investor because he supported an extremist's political campaign?
Comparing political candidates to Hitler is a rather lazy thought experiment.
Wasn't Hitler a political candidate as well?
I wouldn't go so far to say that Trump and Hitler are one and the same, but you can draw similarities in the rise of nationalism in both campaigns and their impact on the electorate.
Even if Hitler isn't used as an example (it is a rather extreme one), say David Duke ran for president and Peter Thiel donated to his campaign. Would YC cut ties with Peter then?
I'm just curious to know where YC thinks the line is, and if there is even one.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#116I wish that more smart people would not demonize either party and instead analyze and dissect each platform and weigh the potential benefits and consequences of them. It is much more convincing to read actual facts about the platforms, and it's a lot more constructive. With the brain power here, we might even be able to make constructive suggestions and possibly even influence either party's policies so that regardle…
The problem is that Trump doesn't offer much in policy, even when it comes to policy he actually talks about and this doesn't just affect the things he wants to keep secret from ISIS. He also contradicts himself quite a lot and when he touches upon policy in his talking points it's often times questionable whether he's even aware of the actual policies he's referring to and to what degree. There is just no basis for…
This might be a good strategy. What good does it do? People generally evaluate a candidate on policy last.
On the other hand, the best changes would be the most controversial, so probably wouldn't help his campaign.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#117Replace "Thiel" with "communism" and much of this article (and many of these comments) could be taken from the 1950s. McCarthyism is unacceptable from the right or the left.
McCarthyism was not about firing rich people for donating massive amounts of money to public political candidates. There is no similarity here.
So, none of the Hollywood writers who were blacklisted were rich? And none of them donated time or money to Communist causes? The intolerance is almost exactly the same.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#118You Americans (at least I think the majority of you are Americans) are getting quite ridiculous arguing over this.
Supporting a political candidate is a personal choice, one that is given to every eligible individual in a democratic state. Calling for someone to be fired or sever ties with them over political choice is retarded and counter-productive.
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#119Thought experiment: Would it be any different if we replaced Donald Trump with Hitler? Should a company dissociate with a business partner/board member/investor because he supported an extremist's political campaign?
Or, without saying the H word, what if Thiel was openly a white supremacist, member of and contributor to the KKK? Would that be completely okay? Would that be "just politics"?
Re: Shame on Y Combinator
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
McCarthyism was not about firing rich people for donating massive amounts of money to public political candidates. There is no similarity here.
So, none of the Hollywood writers who were blacklisted were rich? And none of them donated time or money to Communist causes? The intolerance is almost exactly the same.
No one dislikes Trump more than me. But you can't divorce 40% of the country.