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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#881

Post by Chris2048 »

pron wrote: post #749
Chris2048 wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He hasn't "become a politician", it isn't proposed "for a while". > I'm not wondering why supremacist views sometimes takes hold We were talking about "various racist and misogynistic ideas", not "supremacist views". Are you talking about any view you see as subjectively racist/misogynist, or only specific ones? > Marie Antoinette's mistake wasn't not working in the interest of her people Antoinette's famous comment…

> We were talking about "various racist and misogynistic ideas", not "supremacist views". Are you talking about any view you see as subjectively racist/misogynist, or only specific ones? There is not much room for subjectivity when extreme views are concerned, certainly no more than in any other moral question. Either you think an equal power distribution among the races and the sexes is a desirable, high-priority go…

> There is not much room for subjectivity when extreme views are concerned, certainly no more than in any other moral question

I'm not sure what you mean by "moral question". I mean the difficulty in deriving someones intent. for example, som people would see "voting for Trump" as "extreme view" and "racism".

> Either you think an equal power distribution among the races and the sexes is a desirable, high-priority goal or you don't

There so much about that that isn't binary. 'Priority' is one, continuous dimension. Implementation is another.

> Trump's movement is certainly much more supremacist

More supremacist? You don't think that's binary?

> Here we come to the question

No we don't, here we come to the conclusion that your comparison of the SV tech crowd to a 17th century French monarch is a poor one; You spun this out to another issue yourself.

> It has been firmly established

Again with the weasel terms. Who, when, how?!? Even 1 + 1 = 2 needs a basis

http://tinyurl.com/1and1is2

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#882

Post by thatswrong0 »

jazzyk wrote: post #729
thatswrong0 wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This opinion makes zero sense to me. People are allowed to have opinions, and people are allowed to criticize those opinions. If you're going to publicly support something (like, say, with a million dollar donation), you should expect public feedback about said support. There's no suppression of the freedom of speech happening here - Marco is expressing an opinion about an opinion. By your logic, we should accept all…

Criticizing/arguing is fine. But expelling Thiel from YC (a company which has nothing to do with politics), because of his views, is a form of punishment and discourages others from expressing their political opinions, in fear of the same happening to them. So, it is suppression of free speech, through actions (not words) designed to intimidate.

That's still not suppression of free speech.

I know this is cliché, but freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence. I can exercise my freedom of speech at my employer and repeatedly say terribly insulting and disparaging things to my coworkers. My employer can then fire me. Would you say my employer is suppressing my freedom of speech?

The answer is obviously no. I still can speak freely, just not while voluntarily associated in a contract with my previous employer. I wouldn't say my coworkers intimidated me into being fired by my employer - I brought it upon myself by saying terrible things.

I see that as the same thing as this Thiel situation, except it's even more public. Instead of just insulting coworkers, Thiel is publicly (implicitly) (to some people) (in a large way) supporting discrimination and sexism. I'm not saying I would necessarily expel him, but I would have serious reservations about working with someone who could possibly do that, even if it's somewhat unrelated to the job.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#883

Post by deeth_starr »

xaa wrote: post #740
edanm wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll tell you exactly why I think Trump is dangerous to democracy. He is acting in a way that has historically, as far as I remember, led to the downfall of democracy in other countries. Things he is doing in that vein: 1. Saying that he'd put his political opponents in jail. 2. Saying that the election is rigged. 3. Encouraging the idea that if he isn't elected, the election was illegitimate. These are the facts. If…

Not GP, but I share his general viewpoint. My response would be: 1. I do not believe he would actually be able to do this (like the wall). Thankfully, unlike other aspects of our government, our judiciary is generally functional and independent. I think what he is really saying here is something like this: "HRC should have been indicted for the e-mails. The FBI director and AG are both Obama appointees. Bill Clinton…

>>1 I'm impressed by the 9th dimensional re-reading of "You'd be in jail" if he were president. I know your God Emperor loves that you help him complete his sentences and also tie his shoes.

>>2/3 Sure, Trump is a fact-based kind of guy! So after he cries fire in a crowded theater let's trust he's the the guy trying to stop the mob. /s

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#884

Post by ben0x539 »

pcwalton wrote: post #828
rfrank wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol snopes

I'm going to say again what I said yesterday: I'm really unhappy that this is what passes for discourse on HN now.

How many words should one have to use to question snopes' credibility before it comes acceptable discourse? :(

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#885

Post by yellowapple »

Translation: "Shame on Y Combinator for not punishing someone for supporting a candidate I don't like".

I don't like Trump, either (in fact, I rather strongly dislike him), but that doesn't mean I inherently dislike his supporters just because they happened to pick one of two evils in this shitfest of an election.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#886

Post by lotharbot »

fullofit wrote: post #499
fullofit wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the fuck is it even legal to donate $1.25 million? Thanks Citizens United.

Downvoted by people who believe the amount of speech you can have is proportional to your bank account balance.

if you read Citizens United carefully, you'll see the point of the decision is actually the opposite. The wealthy can afford whole media companies, and otherwise have a great deal of ability to put information out into the general public, without ever stepping afoul of election laws. But, as has been in precedent in US law since at least the 1790s [0], groups of people also have the right to be "united for a special purpose" [1]. "[T]he individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons" [2]. This applies to "[unions], associations of manufacturers, retail and wholesale trade groups, consumers' leagues, farmers' unions, religious groups, and every other association representing a segment of American life" and "It is therefore important -- vitally important -- that all channels of communication be open to [those groups] during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community" [3]. That's what Citizens United established. Here's a key snippet from Kennedy's majority opinion:

"wealthy individuals and unincorporated associations can spend unlimited amounts .... Yet [under the Austin decision] certain disfavored associations of citizens — those that have taken on the corporate form — are penalized for engaging in the same political speech .... When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful."

[0] The Rev John Bracken v. The Visitors of Wm & Mary College, 7 Va. 573; 1790

[1] Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 1886

[2] Scalia's concurrence, Citizens United v. FEC, 2010

[3] United States v. United Auto Workers, 1957

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#887

Post by lotharbot »

smt88 wrote: post #131
projectileboy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't have a problem with a private company, such as YC or a production company, firing someone for publicly donating a massive amount of money to a political candidate. McCarthyism was different because: 1. Many of the people who were fired, blacklisted, or persecuted were only suspected communists. 2. Somewhat related: if any of the blacklisted people were rich enough to do so, they didn't publicly donate their d…

> "Many of the people who were fired, blacklisted, or persecuted were only suspected communists"

would it have been OK to fire, blacklist, or persecute them if they had been actual communists, then?

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#888

Post by dang »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #630

To be charitable, you're full of shit. Does Hillary encourage violence at rallies? Does she stoke resentment at minority outgroups for political gain? Does she threaten to imprison her political opponents? Is she preemptively calling the election fraudulent and encouraging polling place intimidation and violence? Also you mixed up "kind" and "degree". The difference between them is, in fact, one of kind. Sure, she's…

> To be charitable, you're full of shit.

You can't comment like this on HN. Please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong someone is. Commenters here should post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12735736 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#889

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway_415 wrote: post #797
Zarath wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the normalization of hatred against an even larger portion of the population, those that support Trump? Speaking of uprising, ever think that Trump is a reaction to the marginalization and demonization of a certain subset of the population?

Oh just realised you only have 3 posts none tech related. Back to DailyStormer for you my friend.

[deleted]

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#890

Post by splawn »

jshevek wrote: post #728
pif wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following the USA campaign from far away, I hadn't yet heard of similar examples. Could you please elaborate a bit, or just post a link? Thanks in advance!

My assessment is based on (a) personal conversations with scores of strongly left-leaning people, as well as (b) many hundreds left-leaning blog posts, videos, left-leaning podcasts, and the like. Some of this evidence pre-dates Trump's involvement in the election. Tangent, but related: I've noticed a very strong correlation between (a) those that think racism is exclusively "prejudice plus power" and (b) those who c…

Go ahead and link to those blogs... otherwise it sort of sounds like you are just making baseless assertions. My experiences seem to be the exact opposite of yours. I wonder if its a regional thing? I am in the south. "racist", "rural" and "republican" are almost synonyms from what I have seen.
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