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Time to Take a Stand

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Time to Take a Stand

#131

Post by tadasv »

methehack wrote: post #42
_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…

I think Mr. Altman is largely addressing tech CEOs here and urging them to make public statements. The actions you list are great for you and me, but he's mostly not really talking to us. Supporting quotations from the post (because evidence): "The tech community is powerful. Large tech companies in particular have enormous power and are held in high regard. We need to hear from the CEOs clearly and unequivocally" "A…

Only small companies can take a public stance and they won't for numerous reasons. No large company will ever take a political stance like this. There's too much at stake. I've been saying this for a long time. US is a capitalist country, it does not matter that it's been built by immigrants.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#132

Post by mschuster91 »

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.

> I find it amazing that we're supposed to believe that the majority of Trump voters don't support at least one of these.

I'm taking a guess at this one, but many people believed this was just the usual pre-election bla bla and that he wouldn't follow through with such an unreasonable idea, given the obvious financial (wall) and legal (Muslim ban) challenges. They only wanted someone who promised to listen to them again after decades of globalization left them behind, and got a monster as result.

What I'm really afraid of: given the horrendous stuff Trump has done in a week, what will he have done in the next 1450 days?

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#133

Post by ryanx435 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #90
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I don't like Trump, but fighting him isn't worth going against the very principles we fight for. People have a right to their beliefs, even if their beliefs are stupid. If not, than what kind of country are we?

I'm not sure of any nominal principle that says we have to do business with, work for or to invite to things people who behave abhorrently. That Thiel can get a table at a restaurant in SV proves all the talk about changing the world tech leaders do is so much nonsense.

It's crazy that you can't see how hypocritical you are: you ate literally saying that restaurants shouls ban thiel because he supports a person who bans people. Look in a mirror once in a while, buddy

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#134

Post by m_fayer »

facetube wrote: post #17

Donald Trump and Steve Bannon's blatant disregard for objective fact is reckless and dangerous. Go too much further and talent will begin to divest from the United States for moral reasons. Your move, America.

I'm already seeing this in Berlin. I know multiple engineers and academics who have abandoned career moves to the US because they "don't want to live in such a toxic environment."

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#135

Post by Scirra_Tom »

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…

> most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban

Source? June 2016, 48% of Republican votes strongly support a ban on Muslims entering the U.S:

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6ecRKMebsPAFHon1HVC86QbFYTg...

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#138

Post by oh_sigh »

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.

It bans some Muslim immigrants and refugees.

I don't recall seeing anything about Indonesians being affected, or Indians, or Nigerians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, etc.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#139

Post by jordigh »

jsperson wrote: post #114
jordigh wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only afford to ignore politics for as long as it ignores you. This no longer ignores us, because it's affecting our friends, our companies, the pool of tech workers that make up the intelligence that builds Silicon Valley. This is entirely comparable to when Jewish scientists were first getting barred from getting positions in German universities. We are now seeing the much-publicised case of an Oscar-nominat…

I haven't been ignoring it at all. I read the news sections of the NYT almost in its entirety every day. Same with USAT and WashPost. There's a big difference between ignoring it and wishing that wishing that I wasn't immersed in it.

I understand. It's sad and alarming that this is happening. But it's too late to wish that we could ignore it.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#140

Post by myblake »

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…

Absolutely! There's some folks who aren't going to be persuaded and love what Trumps doing, but there's a large group of people who tried to convince themselves this was just campaign rhetoric, or who just disposed Hillary, or who are conservative Christians and pro life but who do missionary work and help refugees. Collapsing anyone who supported Trump into "deplorables" won't help change their minds next time an election comes up. Convincing them that he's dangerous and doesn't represent their values however very well might.
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