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Time to Take a Stand

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Time to Take a Stand

#121

Post by smacktoward »

apsec112 wrote: post #85
jowiar wrote: post #11

This is meaningless grandstanding until: 1) YC voted Thiel off the island 2) YC establishes a policy of "take money from Thiel and you are toxic to us" Anyone in a position of power who took a look at Trump and didn't recoil with disgust needs to be exiled from civil society.

How many degrees of separation from Trump do you think people should go? "It goes without saying that if the people of Group X are staring at you demandingly, waiting for you to hate the right enemies with the right intensity, and ready to castigate you if you fail to castigate loudly enough, you may be hanging around the wrong group." - http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/

Thiel is not some distant nodding acquaintance of Trump's. He is a close advisor and Trump's lead point of contact with the tech community.

So how many degrees of separation? Let's start with "more than one, please" and go from there.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#122

Post by megous »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #55
facetube wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Christian Broadcasting Network no less. This is morally repugnant.

Yet we never heard from you during the years the Obama administration did the opposite... Syria is over 10% Christian, yet only 56 of the ~10K Syrians let into the country were Christian.

Misleading statistic. Compare the distribution of people who asked to immigrate, not the population of the whole country.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#123

Post by jsperson »

disantlor wrote: post #96
jsperson wrote: post #58

It makes me sad that politics has made its way to the top of HN. I'm relatively new here. One of the things I love about the community is that it has been something of an oasis over the past few months. This is in no way intended to denigrate the esteemed author or his thesis. I'm just disappointed that we're at this point.

fair but there are such things as moments in history where things go one way or things go another way and the results of that breaking point cannot be reversed. there is no oasis in those times

And that's why I'm sad. It's so bad that there can't be an oasis.

Again, not a commentary on the author or HN, but a commentary on society as it stands right now.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#125

Post by giancarlostoro »

a3n wrote: post #37
giancarlostoro wrote: post #14

I hope you mean "Peacefully Protest" I shut my eyes and ears once protesting becomes violent.

I'm not saying we're there yet, but, at the risk of waking Godwin, at what point in 1930s Germany would violent protest finally be OK? We'll start at "Never," and work back from there.

The issue with the Hitler argument is that he too lost an election. Start from there.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#126

Post by mozumder »

iaw wrote: post #109
mozumder wrote: post #74

You really do need to demonize Trump voters. Most of them are in favor of his horrible policies, and are malicious themselves. You're never going to get anywhere without recognizing the source of the problem.

> You're never going to get anywhere without recognizing the source of the problem. So... Demonize the voters that naively thought Trump would help them more than Hillary? What comes next after they're alienated? Pragmatically: where are we going to get with you proposed tactic?

You could actually do things to punish them, like boycott their states. Being punitive towards these criminals is perfectly valid.

Liberals have the wealth in the country that the Trump voters want. You don't have to give it to them.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#127

Post by hackerews »

_m8fo wrote: post #7

Why is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local electi…

How in 2017 is "calling a politician" the best way to stop an executive action?

Is the goal to DDOS these offices with phone calls in hopes these politicians will rile together and pass a law?

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#128

Post by grey-area »

a3n wrote: post #37
giancarlostoro wrote: post #14

I hope you mean "Peacefully Protest" I shut my eyes and ears once protesting becomes violent.

I'm not saying we're there yet, but, at the risk of waking Godwin, at what point in 1930s Germany would violent protest finally be OK? We'll start at "Never," and work back from there.

The 1930s were full of violent protest - running battles on the streets between gangs of thugs on both sides (red vs Brown shirts). It helped Hitler portray himself as the law and order candidate.

Peaceful but overwhelming mass civil disobedience and protest is better. The time for that is now.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#129

Post by TuringNYC »

ebola1717 wrote: post #50
beatpanda wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do we start holding people accountable then? Trump, so far, has done exactly what he said he would do. Are we supposed to believe the people who voted for him simply weren't listening?

Exaclty. Two of his biggest campaign promises were to build a wall to keep out Mexicans and to ban Muslims immigrants and refugees. The wall was one of his earliest campaign promises. I find it amazing that we're supposed to believe that the majority of Trump voters don't support at least one of these.

Note, this is far broader than the refugee ban initially discussed. The ban truly is a Muslim ban. See quote from Reuters -- it bans permanent residents (i.e. greencard holders.) Note that permanent residents have to pay taxes even if living overseas!

"It will bar green card holders," Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-gree...

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#130

Post by oh_sigh »

microtonal wrote: post #53
djrogers wrote: post #8

> In doing so, we should not demonize Trump voters—most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban. We need their eventual support in resisting actions like these, and we will not get it if we further isolate them. This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe, a moron, and not deserving of the franchise is not going to help anything. I didn't vo…

This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe Maybe they are not racist homophobes, but they voted a racist homophobe and his cabal into power. They knew that his was one of the expected outcomes. Voting is powerful and you are (co-)responsible for the outcome. If you don't want racist executive orders, don't vote for a racist. Simple as that.

Would you rather have a job and a racist in power, or no job and a person isn't racist in power?

I believe you are operating on a higher level of the Maslow hierarchy of needs than many people if your primary concern is about equality, and not about food, shelter, and a job.

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