Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 418 posts

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#101

Post by neom »

vgh wrote: post #62
neom wrote: post #4

I think this is all circles of America right now. I'm a typical social leaning west coast tech dude and I cannot be pragmatic in my conversations and points about the state of affairs because I'm immediately a supporter of this that or the next thing. Constructive public discourse is dead?

One cannot even seem to have 'conservative' stances on one thing and 'liberal' stances on others. And, no, I'm not libertarian either. The US had a great opportunity to elect a third party last time around, yet decided to dig in its heels more on candidates that were unpopular and take out their spite against 'the other side'. So you can't even debate an issue. You have to take a 'side' on an issue.

Totally!!! It's wild. I feel like growing up it was normal to identify as say a very social leaning fiscal conservative. These days if I say everyone should be allowed to be married and everyone should be allowed to carry a gun, I'm likely labeled the opposite view of the person I'm talking with (I don't re: guns, to be clear). Very strange times.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#102

Post by vgh »

Frondo wrote: post #49

My heart goes out to those lonely people. I think, though, the reality is that politics (and concomitant voting choices) has consequences on the lives of others, and this pattern of some social isolation is in turn a consequence of that. It isn't Star Wars vs Star Trek, it's whether Jim the SRE can marry his long-term boyfriend Mike, or whatever. It's not just politics. It never is. Votes make a difference in people'…

I think this is still a false dichotomy. Some of us just don't want the government subsidizing marriage at all. Why should any dual-income pair get tax benefits? I say this as a married person.

The thought I'm guessing at the time was to encourage new families to build up society, but not even all straight, married couples are doing that. Why not just take the government out of the equation and let anyone declare any kind of relationship status they want. It's not like I have to take part in it.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#103

Post by jfk13 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #53
nxsynonym wrote: post #19

>>“Work is work, and not everything needs to be about politics,” he said. While he sees liberal colleagues who sit nearby don’t seemingly need to filter their comments, he’s decided it’s not worth engaging, adding “I don’t want to be known as that guy who wants to argue with everybody.” As someone who falls on the Liberal side of the spectrum, this bothers me more than almost anything else regarding modern day politi…

> If you mention you are a conservative or hold conservative views, [many of which involve punitive action against the least well off / most marginalised in society] > you are aligned with the worst of the worst and anything you say is inherently wrong. Amazing, really, that people think less of you when you specifically say you think less of others (which is the core conservative stance.)

What a narrow-minded parody -- no, perhaps "deliberate misrepresentation" would be more correct -- of what "conservative" means.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#104

Post by mfringel »

jnet wrote: post #39
staticelf wrote: post #3

Honestly, I am not the least surprised. I don't know if anyone is really. Because never before has there been so much hate towards simply holding different opinions. People actively share "if you like x you can remove me as your friend" shit on facebook, companies fire people for expressing their political views and media companies "choose a side" more then ever. And don't tell me Google isn't. Just look at Youtube w…

When I see posts in my facebook feed that say unfriend me if you believe x, I always unfriend them even if I don't believe x. If you are not tolerant of different points of view I really don't want to be your friend.

Who has that left you with?

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#105

Post by Cuuugi »

MBCook wrote: post #65
jimbokun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here is a sterling example of the level of political discourse to which we have sunk. The post you reply to doesn't even list any specific political opinions, yet you already insinuate this person is a racist bigot. Well done.

GP is not insinuating that person is a racist, they're pointing out that some 'political' views are really hard to be civil about. For exactly that reason they stir up very strong feelings. I've seen strong feeling (but relatively civil discussion) about topics like handling North Korea or immigration. Things like taxes tend to be far more civil as GP pointed out. There was absolutely no need to call GP a bigot.

Well obviously there's far too many instances to go into great detail, but the Democratic strategy for the past few decades is to call most conservatives strategies racist.

That's certainly rarely the case, and next to never the intention.

All i say, and ask is that you think to yourself, is this really racist? or do i just want to vote democrat now?

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#106

Post by staticelf »

bgun wrote: post #55
staticelf wrote: post #3

Honestly, I am not the least surprised. I don't know if anyone is really. Because never before has there been so much hate towards simply holding different opinions. People actively share "if you like x you can remove me as your friend" shit on facebook, companies fire people for expressing their political views and media companies "choose a side" more then ever. And don't tell me Google isn't. Just look at Youtube w…

"Never before" is a very shortsighted statement. I know we in tech like to think that mass/social media is pushing the limits of the human psyche to think and do things our ancestors' primitive brains would never comprehend. But there is no way to objectively say that we're especially worse off these days - just that we're as human as ever.

What I mean is that it's very easy to sent hate to other people and group up due to internet and social media.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#107

Post by diego_moita »

feedjoelpie wrote: post #18

"At conservative oil companies, those who disagree on politics say they're isolated" Okay, see how utterly useless this "controversy" is now?

I believe you're 200% right.

But, unfortunately, the irony is that the same mechanism that isolates conservatives on SV and liberals on oil companies is working here to isolate your good sense in Hacker News.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#108

Post by austenallred »

chrisabrams wrote: post #2

I grew up in Texas but worked in Silicon Valley for a few years. One of the toughest adjustments was going from a small conservative town to a major liberal populace. It was astonishing the number of people who got angry _at me_ for having a different opinion then they did. At one workplace I saw two coworkers get into a fist fight because the liberal was "offended" that the conservative differed on a viewpoint. Go t…

I moved to San Francisco from a small, deeply red town. I'll just say this - I think even that small town would be more tolerant of liberals than I felt when I worked in San Francisco, and I'm not even really that conservative (just economically). The leadership at the company was very reasonable, but the politically active folks terrified me, and didn't just think that those that held conservative viewpoints were misguided, but that they were actively evil. There's a big difference.

I didn't vote for Trump, but I know many, many good people that did. I made the mistake of mentioning that once and somehow that turned me into a pro-Trump spokesperson. I can do that for the sake of a rational conversation, but I somehow ended up being the Trump supporter spokesperson despite the fact that I can't stand the guy.

I think the current level of political discourse is downright dangerous.

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#109

Post by jimbokun »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #87
jenkstom wrote: post #36

You should try being liberal in a red state. I've had people try to run me off of the road for an Obama sticker before. It's not social isolation here, it's straight up aggression.

You are aware of what you're doing and the reactions it will incite. What do you think happens to parked cars with MAGA stickers in California? Well you don't have to wonder, there are more than enough "social experiments" on youtube documenting this subject matter.

"You are aware of what you're doing and the reactions it will incite."

Kind of like the girl who wears a mini-skirt and gets raped?

Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated

#110

Post by vorotato »

classybull wrote: post #75
anbende wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anger at another perspective might be argued to be reasonable. There are some pretty abhorrent perspectives in the world. Getting into a fistfight with someone because they hold a different point of view, no matter how heinous, is absolutely and unequivocally unacceptable. The idea that there are points of view (not actions or laws but ideas) that warrant violence is a large and growing problem.

Not to Godwin it or anything, but... Wasn't the passivity and meekness of the opposition the exact reason fascists were able to rise relatively easily in the intrawar period? Personally, I think the concept that there aren't ideas worth throwing a punch over is equally as repugnant as saying you should punch anyone you disagree with.

The position "Your people shouldn't exist", or "Your people shouldn't be in this country" to be specific. Tolerance to all but the intolerant. This is because if we tolerate the intolerant, they'll just eliminate tolerance, and then nobody will get to express their views.
Post reply on HN