At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by austenallred » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:06 PM UTC

plandis wrote: post #153

austenallred wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

In my opinion, some of the policies of the Republican Party seem downright evil to me. Restrict the civil rights of gays and Muslims (Trump himself stated that he was going to start a Muslim ban, he asked people to make it legal but the intent was very clear and stated by Trump several times: Muslim ban). They also want to restrict information on the internet which seems pretty evil to me (modern day book banning). T…

I don't agree with those policies, but can you imagine any non-evil reason a rational person would hold those beliefs?

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

#172

Post by classybull » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:06 PM UTC

tchaffee wrote: post #121

classybull wrote: post #8

Aren't these the same sort that will moan ceaselessly about the ludicrousness of "safe spaces" and "snowflakes"? I don't particularly care. You're free to speak your mind. You're not free to force people around you agree. Either get over it, or move on. I hear welding is an in-demand industry and I bet they'll find more receptivity to their viewpoints there.

> I hear welding is an in-demand industry and I bet they'll find more receptivity to their viewpoints there. Nice job making sweeping generalizations about an entire industry. If this type of bigotry were based on skin color, we'd call it racism.

Its not bigotry. Its demography. Bigotry would be me, upon hearing someone is a welder, asking them why they voted for Trump. Demography is the realization that welders work nationwide, multitudes in rural areas, multitudes in traditionally conservative industries such as oil and gas, and therefore a person is much more likely to find people who share political culture than in an industry that is clustered in major coastal cities.

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

#173

Post by tristor » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:06 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #149

kbsletten wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, most of us conservatives have a core stance of "don't trust anything you care about to the government." Nothing more, nothing less. Liberals love to parade out the worst of us because then no "reasonable" person wants to be on that team. To be honest, I don't want to be on that team, but I'm not going to give up because I really believe there's a better way. Better to vote my conscience and try to improve t…

> Liberals love to parade out the worst of us The Republican Party. > try to improve the party reputation I'm afraid you've got quite a way to go there.

See, now you're just being a troll. The person you replied to gave you a well reasoned response and you're being flippant in return. This is not the level of discourse I'd hope to see on HN.

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

#174

Post by diego_moita » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:08 PM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #131

diego_moita wrote: post #28

I don't understand why is this surprising. Has there ever been any group of primates/hominids where deviating behavior isn't frowned upon? Every group prizes social cohesion. When a behavior looks threatening to that cohesion it is a natural defense for the group to isolate such threat. It is a necessary part of its survival, like an organism reacting to parasites, infections or offending threats. This reaction even…

The problem might be the hypocrisy of the situation a.k.a. Free speech until you say something I don't like.

I agree. My point is that when reason and instinct collide, instinct wins most of time.

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

#175

Post by chrisabrams » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:08 PM UTC

Shish2k wrote: post #147

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…

> Go to Texas and I'm sure you can find the opposite if you are looking for it I went to Texas and wasn't looking for it - but the first bar I walked into had photos of Obama and Hillary duct taped to the urinal for people to aim at :P

Was this in Dallas? If so I know which bar you speak of..

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

#176

Post by feedjoelpie » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:08 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #107

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.

I can't believe we're suddenly having a moral crisis about business cultural politics... over the fact that a guy was fired for arguing in part that historically discriminated-against groups are underrepresented because of biological unfitness.

Political business monocultures have been a thing since forever. Dial the clock back a little and you have bosses pressuring you to campaign for Nixon. Dial it forward again and you have CEOs starting meetings with prayer. Dial it forward to today where one dude gets fired for arguing Nazi race science, and suddenly we all have to chat.

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

#177

Post by zimpenfish » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:09 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #168

zimpenfish wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

" (which is the core conservative stance.)" Except that it isn't. People conflate all sorts of ideas about particular issues with the larger overarching political ideology. It's entirely possible to be conservative, be pro-gay marriage, pro abortion, pro legalization of marijuana, etc. There are some specific issues which the conservative ideology does fall squarely on, such as a resounding no to universal healthcare…

> the majority of political violence occurring in the US is being done in the name of liberal ideologies

Gerrymandering, Voter suppression, bias against POC, denial of bodily autonomy for women, denial of basic rights to LGBTQ - all done in the name of conservative ideologies.

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

#178

Post by peoplewindow » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:09 PM UTC

te_chris wrote: post #152

peoplewindow wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really don't tend to be more civil. The only reason it may seem like that in America is that the USA has never really attempted to cut its deficit. Go look at political conversation in the UK and you'll find large numbers of left wingers / liberals foaming at the mouth about how the government trying to balance its budget is the same thing as hating people, killing them, that austerity is unthinkable evil, that…

"Go look at political conversation in the UK and you'll find large numbers of left wingers / liberals foaming at the mouth about how the government trying to balance its budget is the same thing as hating people, killing them" I see you've listened closely to them and engaged with their arguments.

You don't believe me, huh.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/15/recessions-h...

"Recessions can hurt, but austerity kills"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/20/engels...

"The victims of Grenfell Tower didn’t just die. Austerity, outsourcing and deregulation killed them"

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/commentisfree/2017/ap...

"The cause of death that dare not speak its name: austerity"

Politicians that aim for a balanced budget without raising taxes = murderers is an exceptionally common refrain from the extreme end of the British left. It's hard to engage with their arguments because I don't share their basic axioms, namely, that they tend to assume there are no tradeoffs in life, and in particular, they tend to assume that tax revenues can be set to more or less any level without any negative side effects.

Of course, if you argued that the Guardian is no longer really representative of mainstream left-wing opinion in the UK I'd support you on that, but I pointed out the extremism of the Guardian on HN a week or so ago and got downvoted a lot ... lots of Guardian readers here I think!

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

#179

Post by tvanantwerp » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:09 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #25

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…

If someone is "simply holding different opinions" that people should have lesser rights, or be treated differently because of how they were born, then we shouldn't really be surprised that people are upset by that. I'm not seeing hatred towards people for arguing over correct levels of import taxes. I'm seeing it because they're backing politicians who are actively causing harm to real human beings.

First, I think part of the problem is that many people assume that any disagreement is equivalent to total disagreement. That is, if you don't agree with me on arbitrary position X, you must not agree with me that we shouldn't feed babies to hippos for sport either. Vocally disagreeing with Nazis is fine. Spiraling toward "people who disagree are Nazis" isn't.

Second, I work in tax policy. There is absolutely hate between many people who disagree on taxation.

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

#180

Post by djsumdog » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #162

I've voted for GWB twice, Obama once and opted out for his reelection. I consider myself an overall conservative, albeit fairly liberal on some issues. I too have faced condescension and derision for some viewpoints I've expressed, and that is annoying and I think it is a general problem with US politics. But Trump is different. He's incompetent. He's hotheaded. He's terrible for diplomacy, and has alienated many of…

I really don't think this is helpful or very HN like. You may hold all those opinions about him, and you may be right, but 60 million+ people voted for him, just like 60+ million people voted for the other puppet. It doesn't mean either of those groups is stupid.

And it's important to note much of our perception is based off the particular news media we watch and they way they cut up content. If you go back to the Bush days and watch The Daily Show/Colbert make fun of him, and then watch the actual video the clips are taken from, you'd be surprised at how much the narrative changes in order to get a joke.

Obama predator droned people for eight years and spent every day of his presidency at war (while winning a nobel peace prize). The rush to demonize trump often ignores that the last president didn't do anything better. He just spoke more elegantly.