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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#581

Post by duncanawoods »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #394
duncanawoods wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

Of course. I also know it started as a left-wing workers movement that moved to the right to gain favour of the wealthy capitalists required to fund its growth which included seizing control over the media.

As a European looking from the outside and more than aware of this history, I see the media goose-stepping to the tune of one campaign which uses it to stoke up moral outrage about their opposition of which this story is a current symptom. The candidate that rhymes with history is not the chaotic/offensive TV personality.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#582

Post by Kazamai »

Really naive to think that supporting a political party and supporting Trump are the same. Of course, Peter Thiel does not support the BS that Trump says. It would be a huge contradiction coming from the same man that took down Gawker. If there was no single reason why people are supporting Trump, it is American's version of Brexit, by voting Trump people are protesting the massive economic chaos in the USA. They aren't hoping Trump will fix it. The opposite, they are hoping Trump will fail miserably, which will effectively hit the reset button on the American economy.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#583

Post by sqeaky »

dlss wrote: post #428
wybiral wrote: post #383

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. Personally I must have missed this. How did the downfall of the Atheist community in the US happen and who was hunting witches?

Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett wrote books, participated in debates, and basically reimagined atheism as a political movement. Then the question of social justice's role in atheism split the community in two via progressive purging. Splitting the community resulted in movements with significantly less political capital, and the main thinkers moved off to other projects. It's fairly political, so even though a…

I think you read the atheist situation incorrectly. When any group grows so large it splits. There are more atheists in the US than ever and the polls indicate that number is growing.

The majority of atheists never had the goal of maintaining one large political power base, and the authors you mentioned mostly wanted adults to stop believing in fairy tales and wanted little to do with political power.

I don't see any failure in atheism other than the amount of time it is taking to gain societal acceptance in the south, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#584

Post by jshevek »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #377
maxxxxx wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans love to moralize and punish each other. Instead of saying that they think somebody is wrong they like to make the other person into some evil person who can't even be argued with because they are so evil. That's why there is no real political discourse but just people screaming at each other.

I think its the anonymizing nature of the internet. We're not evolved to communicate digitally. Its going to be a rough road here on out for the human race.

I agree with your first two sentences, but I think we'll figure this out within another generation.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#585

Post by dalore »

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…

Yes. This is the similar point about Brexit. When the Brexit vote was on, instead of seeing that the Brexit leave people had some points that they wanted address, the remain people vilified them. Making sure that none of the points they wanted to get across was address. This furthered the gap and caused the divide.

The people who voted Brexit leave were disillusioned voters who think the current system is bad and their voices weren't being heard. But the remain camp instead of listening to them, pushed them away. The leave vote was a form of dissent from people who were upset with the current system. Yes they might have been racists amongst them, but they courted people who were excluded.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#586

Post by ythl »

s_kilk wrote: post #511
anondon wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

> I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. Is it though? Let's take it a bit further: would YC be expected to continue to endorse, say, a confirmed and outspoken Fascist? How about someone who had donated to organizations with an explicit, stated objective of reducing the rights of women and minorities? Or supporting a political organization which intends to carry out et…

> Are we to believe there is no line to be drawn, anywhere on this continuum?

The problem is that the line being proposed here separates roughly 50% of the population of America, possibly more. You are basically saying "I know that even though I may technically be in a minority, my moral convictions are so strong that I must impose them on you and deter you from your way of thinking by any means necessary, even if it means firing you from your job."

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#587

Post by anExcitedBeast »

zimpenfish wrote: post #411
rfrank wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"hasn't been a single shred." http://www.g-a-i.org/u/2016/08/Report-Skolkvovo-08012016.pdf

Worth pointing out that GAI was co-founded by a STEPHEN K. BANNON which, coincidentally, is the same STEPHEN K. BANNON that runs Breitbart and is currently the campaign chairman for DONALD J. TRUMP. Possibly not the most unbiased of sources, I think.

Every political research product is funded by someone with an agenda. GAI, Brookings, Cato, Heritage, take your pick.

Funding should always be considered, but is not cause to discount otherwise valid methodologies and findings.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#588

Post by fareesh »

matt4077 wrote: post #531
hueving wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. A bit childish, considering the slot the candidate is running for is not in a dictatorship. If you think Trump could convert the US to a dictatorship, I would like to see the evidence supporting this.

Nobody ever ran for the Presidency of a dictatorship, that's kinda like their defining feature. I'd point to Putin, Erdogan and Victor Orban as current strongmen who were elected democratically and slowly transformed their countries towards authoritarianism. The parallels are undeniable: a bit of hatred against the "other", a lot of complaining about the media (and calling for laws to stop their "lying"), the hyper-m…

From what I understand of the US Constitution, there is a very good degree of separation of powers along with checks and balances to make this very difficult to implement in a practical sense, and would necessarily require both houses of congress as well as the supreme court to all be complicit in the act, thus requiring more than just one immoral person to pull off.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#589

Post by mathattack »

There's an interesting dichotomy when people talk about this election. The same folks who accuse Trump of being divisive, then demand folks break ties with all Trump supporters.

I detest Trump, but I understand a certain aspect of his followers. (I know several intelligent Trump followers. They do exist.) Their core premise is, "We want to push Reset on the crony capitalism in Washington, and if it takes a terminally flawed candidate to destroy the establishment, so be it." In this light, things like "He's never done the job before", "He's a Pervert", "He lies a bunch" don't hurt him. And when Republican leadership abandons him, it strengthens his cause. (Yes, there's racism too, but let's leave that to the side for now) Yes, Trump is reprehensible, but you can appreciate that the disaffected are rallying behind him with "Let's not have 4 more years of the rich bailing themselves out and bringing cheap competition in for our jobs."

YC can join the Facebook drama queens who unfriend people with opposing political views, but that's childish. Better to engage the opposition, and allow people to support whatever politicians they want out in the open.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#590

Post by Senji »

tptacek wrote: post #215
dlss wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > the fundamental principle that no matter what in a democracy everyone have the right to say and mean what they want without having to fear the repercussions > This is not a principle, let alone a fundamental one, in any democracy or any other kind of society. While this is literally true, I feel the need to point out that increased restrictions on speech, and increased repercussions for speech seem to correlate s…

Exposure to criticism is not a "restriction on speech".

Agitating for people to be fired based on pilitical affiliation is not "criticizm". If you think it is consider how you would feel about it when you are on tbe receiving end.
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