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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#311

Post by 7Z7 »

lintiness wrote: post #217
jaypaulynice wrote: post #178

I'm not a Trump supporter, but all the YC shaming is terrible. You're advocating for dictatorship where only one political view matters. Wikipedia: "A dictatorship is a type of authoritarianism, in which politicians regulate nearly every aspect of the public and private behavior of citizens."

so much fear of reprisal that you have to qualify with "I'm not a Trump supporter". political discourse here is as bad or worse than it is anywhere.

>so much fear of reprisal

That's a bit dramatic. It wasn't fear of reprisal, it was disclosure of bias.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#312

Post by jchiu1106 »

Shame on you, Marco Arment, for calling for someone's head because you don't like their political position. Whatever happened to the land of "I disapprove of what you say but I'll defend to death your right to say it" or "Give me freedom or give me death"? Or it is, as it turns out for you, that it's the land of the free only for people who agree with you?

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I applaud YC's decision not to sever ties with someone because of their personal opinion. And Marco Arment should feel ashamed for trying to oust people with different political opinion than his and undermine the cherished principle of freedom of speech.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#313

Post by jackmaney »

twelvechairs wrote: post #283
tptacek wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is in fact not a fundamental principle of democracy. There is no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions". What is a principle of liberal philosophy, though, is that we should be tolerant of the beliefs of others (in the sense of not intervening to suppress them), including intolerant beliefs, until those intolerant beliefs th…

> There is no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions" Its called freedom of speech/expression. Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights uses very similar words "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference..." The idea is pretty tracea…

The First Amendment of the US Constitution (ie the relevant law at play here) mentions nothing about freedom of consequences from speech. And that is a good thing. The idea that such a freedom should exist is laughable.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#314

Post by adrianratnapala »

Ok it's true if you cut off dealings with anyone who supports the a candidate you hate, then you are not violating any laws worth obeying, let alone the US constitution.

You are merely being a dickhead.

Do we really want to live in a world all ordinary aspects of life a reduced to a grand show of public piety, and worse, one where we compete to show our willingess to punish the heretics?

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#315

Post by Overtonwindow »

Threatening someones job, or pushing for exclusion based on their political beliefs, is a dangerous precedent. This tactic has been used to exclude people for their gender, race, and sexuality in the past. I don't care if the person working with me is a neo nazi or a hillary supporter or a Trump whack job. As long as they do their job, and dont' do anything that infringes on my ability to get my job done, I don't really care. Leave other people alone and let them believe what they want to believe.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#316

Post by rtpg »

Bartweiss wrote: post #234
rtpg wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the alternative to denouncing outright support for racist and sexist position is accepting it as normal political speech, which sounds worse. There's this trope that attacking this position doesn't harm (or even helps) Trump, but polling has shown the contrary. The scandals involving his comments about women, about the muslim veteran, his mocking of a reporter with disabilities, have always been followed by drops in…

Denouncing, sure. But what we're seeing is a push to fire, exclude, and not engage with Trump supporters. Think of how many people insist that they don't know a single Trump voter. That's not something which hurts his candidacy. It convinces his supporters that they're under attack (they literally are), and encourages people to keep silent rather than admit that they like any of what he says. Ignoring him might have…

Right, polling shows that 95% of Romney Voters are voting Trump (or at least this was the case a couple weeks ago), so excluding everyone is a bit much. There are many degrees of support to be given, as well.

Thiel is not just a Trump supporter though, he's a major donor. Out there doing fundraising and fullheartedly defending Trump's positions through money. At what point do you have to actually take responsibility for your actions if not after writing a million dollar check? At what point does SV decide that having someone materially supporting a fascist as a major player in the community is not super hot?

Fun side note, there was some polling done that showed that Americans are now extremely unlikely to date someone who supports a different political party.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#317

Post by mcphage »

thght wrote: post #85

Shame on you for blaming Y Combinator. If it was 1.25 million for Clinton you would probably praise Y Combinator, no? This feels more like a clash between your personal political preferences and Mr Thiels's. You are just blaming Y Combinator to inflate this story, trying to get more people on the Clinton side. Shame on you!

If it was $1.25 million for Clinton, there would have been no complaint. If it was $1.25 million for Mitt Romney, or John McCain, or even George W Bush, there would have no complaint. Donald Trump is a different and unique circumstance, as Sam Altman and Paul Graham repeatedly claim in their writings, but do not follow through with in their actions.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#318

Post by jaegerpicker »

ThomPete wrote: post #293
jaegerpicker wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Trump's and by extension Theil's actions have a very real set of consequences has NOTHING to do with democracy. The government is not taking action against them, we the people are. The very idea of democracy is that it's the expressed will of the people, filtered through mechanics to make it possible to administrate. In this case the will of a great number of people, including Marco according to the post, is rem…

And just by that you became what you claim to be against. I am not for Trump or for Hillary, i am for the right to have a discussion about bigger issues without being painted as a supporter of biggotry which only serves to detract from the issues this country has. But i guess that makes me the naive part here.

That's a fallacy, taking a stand against bigotry in no way makes you a bigot. There is a huge difference in refusing to support a person or a business on moral grounds than trying to copt the government of a nation to enforce bigoted believes. Trump is clearly advocating just that, using the the government to enforce anti-muslim restrictions.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#319

Post by dogma1138 »

smt88 wrote: post #74
dogma1138 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. There is a good reason why we have separation of power and why we have a complex political system in which even the president needs political capital to do things. That said i think it's highly unlikely that there will be such hypothetical candidate that i can agree with on 99% 90% or even 50% of th…

> Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. We don't know what powers the Executive Branch has now or will have. It evolves. FDR drastically expanded the power of the President, and he almost took over the Judicial Branch by appointing a bunch of new Supreme Court justices. The next POTUS will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice and possi…

Like the other poster mentioned FDR might be a good example for checks and balances rather than some unfettered expansion of power.

While we might not know what power the executive branch will have in 50 or 100 years we know what power it has now, and we know what power it can have in 4 years unless you really think "Emperor Trump" is a possibility.

Also while POTUS does appoint chief justices they still need to be confirmed by congress.

And regardless of what is going on neither branch of government can go against the constitution, at least not to any major extent before being reigned down.

P.S. It's more than likely that the US had presidents recently that had pretty negative opinions about a certain population including women, I would refer you to the Nixon tapes to see just how "disgusting" a president can be in a private environment. And while I'm fully aware that Nixon is one of the least loved presidents I don't think he was an outlier, just some one who got caught.

P.S. I don't support Trump, I'm not an American, I don't understand how Trump even got into the race in the first place yet alone became a nominee, but I do not support any type of political oppression and thought policing.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#320

Post by [deleted] »

sagichmal wrote: post #176
msandford wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So stuff against Trump is proven 100% for reals and stuff against Clinton is mere allegations? Hmmmm. I'm not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but I do find it fascinating how easily people manage to rationalize things. I'm sure there are TONS of folks who would decry a person for being a climate denier who would then perform the exact same mental process to 'overlook' whatever problems exist with…

> So stuff against Trump is proven 100% for reals and stuff against Clinton is mere allegations? Hmmmm. Well there's obviously a spectrum but I think it's absolutely inarguable that Trump's foundation is a tax dodge and that Trump is transparently corrupt; and I think at worst you can say that Clinton made some bad choices, but yes absolutely the allegations against her are without proof. > I'm sure there are TONS of…

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