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At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
181–190 of 418 posts
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#182Honestly, 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 has there been so much hate towards simply holding different opinions
It's been worse in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Define "rational". If you mean "Can someone justify those beliefs to themselves through a logical chain, while allowing for personal belief systems", then yes, of course, there are plenty of non-evil reasons a rational person could hold those.
However, you can still have irreconcilable differences in belief systems at an existential level.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#184Earlier 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.)
"Amazing, really, that people think less of you when you specifically say you think less of others (which is the core conservative stance.)" And here you are, thinking "less of others" in the very same sentence in which you decry it.
I didn't decry thinking less of others - that would be hypocritical because I publically and loudly think less of anyone who supports the GOP and/or Tories (check my comment history). I do decry people who bleat about being thought less of when their own stance is thinking less of people - it's your petard, your lookout.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#185I'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…
> If you can't understand why people are treating you so badly for political opinions, maybe it has less to do with you being a conservative and far more to do with being a supporter of a vile, reprehensible, defective human on the world's biggest power trip.
But it's possible to be a conservative and not a Trump supporter. In fact, I'd argue that because Trump is not a conservative and his platform (what there is of one) is not conservative, that a Trump supporter by definition is not a conservative.
Granted, the person in the article was a Trump supporter and the article itself conflates "Trump supporter" and "conservative". Since you consider yourself overall conservative and seem to revile Trump, clearly you should be able to understand the difference between holding a conservative political ideology and being a Trump supporter.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#186Earlier 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.
> Wasn't the passivity and meekness of the opposition the exact reason fascists were able to rise relatively easily in the intrawar period?
No, it wasn't. I can't speak to what passivity would have caused, maybe things would have been even worse in Germany, but we can't really know, because 'passivity and meekness' didn't happen.
From around the time hyperinflation started, Weimar Germany was torn apart by openly violent factionalism. There was no significant period where fascists propagandized and recruited freely, or even did so without violent opposition. Bear in mind that the Beer Hall Putsch saw 16 Nazis and 4 police officers die, plus a large number of arrests.
The Sturmabteilung, the Nazi paramilitary arm, was only one of many streetfighting organizations pushing to violently resist and silence its opponents. The RotFront was a famous paramilitary group advocating total communist revolution, which led major actions against the SA. The Stahlhelm were reactionary, monarchist conservatives who opposed the Weimar government, communists, and Nazis. The Iron Front were center-leftist paramilitaries whose 'three arrows' logo represented opposition to fascists, communists, and monarchists alike.
All of these groups engaged in extensive streetfighting and propagandizing, and everyone who wasn't the SA hated the Nazis. There was no shortage of anti-fascist violence in Germany - most visibly in the early thirties, but beginning well before that.
The lesson of interwar Germany isn't that tolerance breeds fascism. It's that streetfighting violence can fail completely. Fighting Nazism with rocks and clubs was tried, to no effect - it turns out that beatings neither dissuade nor deconvert people. In the end, the violence which solved the problem was a war, which proceeds on rather different lines - it changes views by killing people with said views.
I agree that there are plenty of ideas worth fighting for. But the claim that passivity is what enabled fascism in Germany is factually false; passivity simply wasn't the state of affairs in the Weimar period.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#187Good. I hope they stay isolated until they see some light or fade away.
I moved right into the thick of them, 77% of my neighbors voted for Trump the "pussy grabber" who's had over 3000 lawsuits from small businesses trying to collect money on work they delivered, all just to spite "libtards" and after just a few years ago when they were yelling about how immoral "Gay Marriage" is and even voted for a State Constitutional amendment to deny LGBTs that right because it would "Dilute the sanctity of their marriage".
I've endured their calls to "Put prayer back in school" and scream "Run those protesters over with your car". In fact, just yesterday on FB one said "I really want to shoot those protesters." and I know for sure this person hasn't ever been near any of those protests, hasn't spent a second being inconvenienced by a protest.
The idea that I should sit silent in the hurricane of hate they constantly blow is silly, and whiny, and disgusting.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not seeing hatred towards people for arguing over correct levels of import taxes Sure you are. You see someone vote for Trump and immediately assume it must be because they're an evil, ethically flawed person who inexplicably hates love, sunshine and puppies, whereas perhaps they mostly care about taxes. You even did it in this post. Your thinking is knee jerk and shallow, and it's people like you that are causin…
How is it knee-jerk and shallow? If you voted for Trump you either directly support Trump's social policies or you don't think they were abhorrent enough to not vote for him.
And everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton supported starting a war with Russia, a nuclear power?
No?
But that was her policy - the "no fly zone" that could only be implemented by shooting down Russian jets, or perhaps people have forgotten.
In contrast Trump wanted to make peace with Russia.
So maybe I can assume anyone who didn't vote Trump has a racist hatred of Russians.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#189Honestly, 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.
The mentality that if you are not with us then you are against us has nothing to do with "people should have lesser rights, or be treated differently". Quite the opposite.
I would love to hear from some third-party voters about how they were treated by the left after the 2016 election.
Re: At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
No, I can't. And it really isn't up to my imagination either. If this 'rational' person has a 'rational' argument for wanting to ban Muslims or gays then let's hear it because I can't imagine it. Yes, you will get pushback on that.