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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#981

Post by HelloNurse »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #874
HelloNurse wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking there is a lot of good in "what Trump has said and done", that his horribly racist, sexist and insane opinions and ideas are an acceptable price, and that Clinton would be a worse president is a legitimate opinion, but comparing Clinton's reckless behaviour to Trump's reckless statements is not. Forgiving past errors isn't the same as accepting future policies. Imprudent and illegal use of email is only a mi…

Did you really just write "Imprudent and illegal use of email is only a mistake?" My lying eyes must be deceiving me! Not only did you just write that illegal acts are "mistakes," but you also placed political opinions over the legality of actions. You effectively declared that political rhetoric is worse than actual illegal activity. Go commit a crime 1/100th of the scale of HRC's and see if the uncaring justice sys…

Pragmatically, political "rhetoric" is more important than crimes. For example, which candidate is more likely to maintain a good relationship between USA and Mexico? Not the one who wants Mexico to pay for a great wall. It doesn't depend on how illegally and immorally they behaved in the past.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#982

Post by xaa »

7Z7 wrote: post #979
xaa wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When those ideas have abhorrent real world consequences...why would we not criticize the people who hold them? I'm an academic. Academics frequently come up with ideas that have, or would have if implemented, abhorrent real-world consequences. If you're a liberal, think hardcore, Heritage Institute supply-side economics. If you're a conservative, think Karl Marx. It is perfectly legitimate, and healthy, to criticiz…

That's all well and good, in the dreamy theoretical lands of academia. But when ideas turn into actions, and the actions have been seen before and we know the consequences, can we not criticize those who now promote them?

Can we? Of course. Should we? I am not so sure.

There are two possible kinds of ideas you could be talking about. One is ideas which have truly been tried before and have been actively and soundly rejected by the vast majority of the public. Let's call these "discredited" ideas and use as an example slavery, (some kinds of) eugenics, or flat-earthism.

Then there are the ideas that you may feel have no good evidence behind them, but are still controversial in the public. Many economic ideas are in this category.

For truly discredited ideas, I think the best response is to ignore these people, as they are usually not thinking clearly and it doesn't help anything to spend more time on the issue. For the ideas which are still controversial, the logic I stated above still holds. The ideas themselves should be vigorously attacked using evidence, but not the people.

I think this principle goes far beyond academia. I just used it as an example of reductio ad absurdum: it seems obvious that we wouldn't want to penalize academics for doing their jobs, which is making up and testing new ideas that may be wrong. But the idea of tolerance for holders of diverse opinions -- and the reasoning for why it is important -- is a cornerstone of classical liberalism and played a key role in why the Founders set up the country in the way they did.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#983

Post by adrienne »

tptacek wrote: post #479
genericpseudo wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the end consequence of tremendous cowardice from a lot of people over a long time, starting with the owners and administrators of Hacker News. HN has – through inaction – smirkingly enabled alt-right/NRx/GamerGaters to parody-thru-libel liberal positions on equality for a long time; supporting Peter Thiel is in the same vein. That's made Hacker News racist, sexist, and (worst of all for this crowd's self-imag…

I am as troubled as you are about the uptick in overt racism and sexism on HN. But I know and trust the moderators of the site, and this is a conversation I have had with them too, and I don't have any better ideas on how to deal with it than they do. The bigger problem is that the (very large) community of reasonable nerds who care about bigotry has largely abandoned Hacker News. In doing so, they've conceded it to…

This is the thing i don't understand, and you say it a lot. Why should we reconsider? We are clearly not welcome here. I read and comment every once in awhile, certainly, because i have a certain attachment to horrifying trainwrecks -- but i don't delude myself that i'm doing anyone any good, including myself.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#984

Post by adrienne »

fizixer wrote: post #776

The size of this thread, and the split of opinions, is a clear indication to me that this goes beyond the single decision of "Whether or not keep Thiel on board". I would like to bring your attention to that bigger issue (sorry if this comment is useless to you in making up your mind about Thiel). I consider myself a transhumanist, a futurologist, a technologist, that sort of thing. I got into this about 3 years ago.…

You know Alvin Toffler wrote about this exact thing in 1970, right? Kinda famous book called Future Shock. This isn't some bold new insight you came up with because you're just so much smarter than everyone else.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#985

Post by throwaway1892 »

I disagree with Marco on the fact that keeping Thiel at YC is against diversity. Sam Altman is accepting to work with someone with opposite political views, which require a lot of courage.

How can you stand for diversity if you refuse to accept to work with people who have different opinions (and opposing opinions)?

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#987

Post by chillingeffect »

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…

> no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions"

First sentence of Wikipedia article:

Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction. [1]

You're advocating societal sanction against Peter Thiel for his political opinions.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#988

Post by rudolf0 »

malchow wrote: post #657
ivraatiems wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the campaign of a presidential nominee (Hillary) is recruiting the homeless and mentally ill to cause violence at Trump rallies Citation very VERY needed. James O'Keefe is not an acceptable - that is, truthful - source. [1] > The tolerant left is on some radical moralistic high ground right now and it's far more dangerous than any words Trump has said. You need to unpack this. I don't understand how any ideolo…

The O'Keefe video[1] shows extended primary source material of named Democratic operatives bragging about recruiting the homeless to deliberately cause violence at conservative events, including providing scripted words. You may not like the editing, and there could be material edited out that redeem the Clinton operatives 1-5%. But not much. At least by my lights, the evidence is quite damning. [1] https://www.youtu…

Foval and Creamer are disgusting, but it remains unclear how much power they had in the DNC at large and if Hillary was aware of any of it. From the undercover recordings, they seem to me like megalomaniacs who see themselves as Machiavellian gods or something, which is a common theme for middle-managers overstating their reach. Maybe it'll be revealed the upper tiers were aware of what they were doing, but it also seems plausible they were self-initiated.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#989

Post by internaut »

thothamon wrote: post #827
smsm42 wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy. I still can't think why a sane person would believe that. I mean not rhetorically claim it in a bout of electoral frenzy, but really genuinely believe it. Not that Trump has a disgusting personality or would be bad president or has this and that flaw, but that he will actually single-handedly ruin the democracy. I mean,…

There are many historical examples of countries with legitimate governments that were taken over by a demagogue or tyrant. You can't imagine a sane person could fear the same outcome in the United States? Democracy has to be re-earned in each generation. If you just depend on past victories, you can absolutely lose it.

> Democracy has to be re-earned in each generation.

Democracy has existed for 100 years in most Western states!

In fact the majority of economic and social progress in Western states did not occur in democracies, but under constitutional monarchies with parliaments and an aristocracy.

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