Shame on Y Combinator • Hacker News Board

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#391

Post by anondon » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #304

dlss wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. The level of virtue signaling demanded gradually increases until no one is left in the community. This invariably happens because the question you're asking ("does intolerant belief X threaten society?") has no absolute answer, so there is always a higher leve…

If you do not believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, then, while I implore you to reconsider, I am content to agree to disagree. But you might take that disagreement up first with Paul Graham and Sam Altman. They do not agree with you. They aggressively don't agree with you. They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're ver…

> I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel.

I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. It raises some important questions:

-Do you stop endorsing and associating with everyone who supports Trump? Where do you draw the line logically?

-Why can't people with opposing views work together and agree to disagree on the elections and let the votes speak?

-I imagine Trump haters and Hillary haters have very strong reasons,facts,opinions and speculative thinking to backup their claims that the other candidate is a threat to democracy, will start WW3, corrupt practices etc. This should lead to well informed debate as it seems to be happening here but without calling for distancing from person X for endorsing a different candidate. What will you achieve by distancing people based on differing views? A monoculture? Differing views and discussion on the views is one of the things that makes a democracy work.

I believe Sam is right on this. It's Thiel's money, he can support whichever candidate he wants (it's legal). His views differ from Sam's and PG's, and people seem to extend it to YC as an organization and call for distancing Thiel from YC. It achieves nothing, and if anything weakens democracy.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#392

Post by dlss » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #304

dlss wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. The level of virtue signaling demanded gradually increases until no one is left in the community. This invariably happens because the question you're asking ("does intolerant belief X threaten society?") has no absolute answer, so there is always a higher leve…

If you do not believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, then, while I implore you to reconsider, I am content to agree to disagree. But you might take that disagreement up first with Paul Graham and Sam Altman. They do not agree with you. They aggressively don't agree with you. They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're ver…

Our disagreement isn't on the question of Trump's existential threat status, it's on the question of what should be done about it (incidentally, the same disagreement you seem to have with Sam Altman and Paul Graham).

If you have a different solution than tossing out the heathens, I'm all ears. In Sam's blog post the solution he decides on is continuing dialogue. While this may be an imperfect solution, it seems to me a less imperfect solution than purging, as that generally results in communities being destroyed.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#393

Post by rasabatino » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

What a load of bullshit. If an investor of a known Republican centered industry, let's say a gun manufacturer, donated 1.25M to Hillary's campaign, Marco would be saying praises of him while the people in the gun lobby would be calling for that investors head.

This election cycle has brought the worst out of everyone in the US. I regarded people like @sacca and @marcoarment in a much higher esteem before this began.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#394

Post by kevinmchugh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #250

tptacek wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting excluding Trump supporters from employment.

"First they came for the Billionaires, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Billionaire. Then they came for the..."

You know who "they" refers to in the original poem, right?

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#395

Post by scandox » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

Bit off topic: does $1.25 million really seem like that much money? I mean I accept it is a huge sum of money in a normal context, but in this context (donations to political parties) is it really exceptional?

I mean I've heard of wealthy men losing multiples of that at Poker.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#396

Post by speeder » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

spraak wrote: post #367

ThomPete wrote: post #127

Marcos understanding of this situation is extremely telling for a fundamental problem with many americans relationship with politics. Most only get involved around election. After that their political interest is non existing. It's easy to get lured into the idea that politics is a simple choice between the moral good and the moral bad, that the choice is simple and that there is a one to one relationship between wha…

I see you wrote words here but they're not really saying anything.. what is your point then? What really is at stake here? If racism and sexism aren't* just that, what are they? Who is this excluded group you're talking about? > he has some very important points which needs to be addressed and discussed What are those points then? Please, let's discuss them *Edit

I don't live in US, and I think Trump is a terrible person.

But if I lived in US, I probably would still vote for him.

First, some points of why to avoid voting Hillary and voting in any of the other candidates (including the weaker ones).

1. Hillary should be in jail, specially after the home e-mail server.

2. Hillary foreign policy style caused hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.

3. Hillary want to make that foreign policy even stronger, Hillary's and her friends and employees rhetoric about Syria suggests she is fully willing to outright attack Russia military there to ensure her goals, risking a WW3 scenario.

4. Hillary is clearly in the banks pockets, and will help them cause whatever 2008-style crisis is next, even if unintentionally.

-----------

Now some specific Trump points.

1. Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to US, this is very attractive to a massive number of poor men, that currently are just out of the labour force to the point of not even counting in unemployment statistics anymore.

2. Trump, despite being a unstable madman, also made clear he thinks US foreign policy should be related to leaving other countries alone and stop meddling, US is in serious need of a president that believes that, because all the presidents in the last 30 or 40 years were interventionists.

3. Trump wants to fix several social and economic problems of poor rural americans, unfortunately this topic is huge by itself, and I can't explain in detail, also I am not sure Trump knows what he is doing, but he wants to do /something/, differently from Hillary that called these people "deplorables" and think laws should be made harsher and 'punish' them more for being 'oppressors' of women and blacks.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#397

Post by d7oaks » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #127

Marcos understanding of this situation is extremely telling for a fundamental problem with many americans relationship with politics. Most only get involved around election. After that their political interest is non existing. It's easy to get lured into the idea that politics is a simple choice between the moral good and the moral bad, that the choice is simple and that there is a one to one relationship between wha…

I disagree. I think Marco’s point, which I strongly agree with, is that donating to Trump goes beyond just supporting a political candidate that you don’t happen to agree with. The fact that Trump has some valid policy ideas is completely besides the point. Amongst other things he is inciting racial and ethnic hatred, undermining trust in American democracy, encouraging violence and legitimising sexual assault. When you donate to Trump you are supporting this behaviour just as much as his policy ideas. This is the problem and is what is completely immoral in my opinion.

I think I should also mention that I am not a US citizen and do not live in the US so I speak as an outsider here.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#398

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #204

ThomPete wrote: post #127

Marcos understanding of this situation is extremely telling for a fundamental problem with many americans relationship with politics. Most only get involved around election. After that their political interest is non existing. It's easy to get lured into the idea that politics is a simple choice between the moral good and the moral bad, that the choice is simple and that there is a one to one relationship between wha…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#399

Post by tptacek » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #376

tptacek wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is losing their employment in this discussion. Thiel doesn't even have equity in YC. His part-time partner status is a marketing arrangement, a co-endorsement. All that Sam Altman is being asked to do is to reconsider endorsing Thiel. Meanwhile, all sorts of misconceptions are behind the appeal of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a monster. I do not think reasonable people are required to change their behavior to…

>Donald Trump is a monster. Such thoughtful discussion backed by so many supporting arguments.

You think this a damning argument. But no reasonable reader thinks we couldn't blow the thread up to 1000 more comments, each choc-a-bloc with vivid details, about the terrible flaws of Donald Trump.

The reason I'm not taking the bait is that the debate on this thread isn't about Donald Trump, and I'm not going to help you muddy the waters.

No, I mean what I've said repeatedly. If you support Donald Trump, or even just think he's no worse than Hillary Clinton, I'll agree to disagree with you and move on. But Sam Altman does not agree with you. Sam Altman compares Donald Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin.

The debate is about whether Altman can continue to endorse an important member of Trump's campaign while still believing that Trump is an existential threat to democracy. If Altman is sanguine about a Trump presidency, his support for Thiel is understandable. I don't think that he is.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#400

Post by grandalf » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #323

ceterum_censeo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What repercussions? The situation strikes me as asymmetric: no matter what action Altman or Graham take they will be heavily criticized; for Ptacek, the worst would seem to be disagreement with his well-reasoned dialogue. It seems unfair to force this to become a very public conversation.

Sam Altman has so much money that he divides his time between multiple McLarens. His "reserve fund" in case of emergencies is ten million dollars. Altman need never work again in his life. That's not me, especially after my two teenage kids go to college. I'm a startup founder. Not only that, but I'm a startup founder that just last year considered attending YC during the summer session after Altman invited me (and,…

> If you think I have nothing to lose by antagonizing Sam Altman

Altman's handling of this Thiel situation suggests that he'd handle it gracefully and would not hold it against you, out of respect for your personal beliefs and out of respect for your acting in a principled way, even if he disagreed with your conclusions, etc.