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

#241

Post by plandis » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

vgh wrote: post #210

plandis wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pragmatically speaking, supporting Republicans who hate gay people because you don't think the government should be in the marriage business has the exact same effect as actually trying to block gay marriage: straight marriage is allowed; gay marriage isn't.

This is the exact us-vs-them mentality that we should avoid. "Republicans [...] hate gay people" "[If you're not on my side you're on theirs]"

It's not an us vs them mentality. Traditional marriage is a core Republican Party platform.

> Foremost among those institutions is the American family. It is the foundation of civil society, and the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman. Its daily lessons — cooperation, patience, mutual respect, responsibility, self-reliance — are fundamental to the order and progress of our Republic. Strong families, depending upon God and one another, advance the cause of liberty by lessening the need for government in their daily lives. Conversely, as we have learned over the last five decades, the loss of faith and family life leads to greater dependence upon government. That is why Republicans formulate public policy, from taxation to education, from healthcare to welfare, with attention to the needs and strengths of the family. [1]

Hate, dislike, enmity, love. Call it what you want but the end result is that the Republican platform explicitly calls out marriage between a man and a women good, between two people of the same sex bad and pragmatically they support taking away the rights of gay people.

Also, just so we are clear. Im not saying all Republicans hate gay people. There are definitely some who do and those are the individuals that seem to drive the platform policy.

[1] https://gop.com/platform/renewing-american-values

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

#242

Post by ubertaco » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

stult wrote: post #232

tboyd47 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason why voting machines have curtains. If you resent people judging you for how you vote, just don't tell them.

I think the reason this is all coming to a head now is that it's harder to hide your opinions, or rather it's easier to unintentionally air them to a broader audience than you might prefer. Social media makes it too easy to inadvertently make a political statement. See elsewhere in this thread where a commenter mentions being unfriended by people for congratulating his sister on her wedding to another woman. It's eas…

See also: Brendan Eich, who was booted from his job at Mozilla because someone went digging to find his personal voting record and found something they didn't like.

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

#243

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

lkbm wrote: post #193

plandis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not pro-life, but I feel like if I thought abortion was actually murder of babies , I think I'd probably hold my nose and vote for whoever had the best chance of ending that practice. (Though, I also believe that would be Clinton--banning abortion is less viable than proving effective sex ed, and probably not hugely more effective.) Similarly, if I had spent much time in Libya, I might consider holding my nose an…

> Similarly, if I had spent much time in Libya, I might consider holding my nose and voting for the candidate who didn't work hard to create that situation.

I have a friend who grew up in a country that was the subject of a rather messy US intervention back when he lived there. He's socially liberal on almost every level, but voted without hesitation for Trump. His explicit reasoning was that he found Trump less likely to start lasting, Iraq/Libya style interventions, and believed the death toll of such an action would outweigh literally everything else.

There wasn't really much to argue there. It's not as though he considered Trump's comments acceptable, it's not like he didn't understand the importance of protections for trans people, he just saw everything else as smaller than tens (or hundreds) of thousands dead and millions displaced. I couldn't really disagree; honestly I'm frightened by the indifference of much of the left to our trail of destruction abroad.

The only question dividing our votes was what decisions we expected Trump and Clinton to make on foreign wars. It really was the biggest issue going for both of us.

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

#244

Post by seba_dos1 » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:51 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #214

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…

What does conservative mean? Some people say that conservatism includes things like gun rights, support for anti-immigration and lower taxes. As well as Christian values, which for a decade or two, has meant something around abortion, homosexuals, and recently transgenders. What are these viewpoints that are claimed to be conservative in nature? I have read the Texas GOP platform. Is that representative of conservati…

This. When I read stuff like "his conservative support for free speech" the only thing that comes to my mind is excusing hate speech by appealing to freedom of expression, and generally the "tolerating the intolerance" issue. I'm from Europe though, so maybe my point of view on what "conservative" and "liberal" means differs from American one, so an explanation would sure be handy.

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

#245

Post by jazzyk » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #142

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…

Back in university, I had a flatmate that was pro-Bush. He wasn't unintelligent. He was getting his masters. He was a good guy and generally progressive in his views. He actually had pretty well laid out arguments as far as what he saw as best for the country and policy with the continuation of the Bush administration over Kerry. Both myself and my other housemates didn't understand it at the time, but I didn't lose…

You are absolutely correct - there has been a collusion of both political parties in the US to serve the globalist elite. With plenty of "useful idiots" among us to look at you (and me) as if we had two heads and argue that we have a "choice".

Unfortunately, it will take years (if ever) for most people to realize this.

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

#246

Post by peoplewindow » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #165

vorotato wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You describe the Paradox of Tolerance: for a tolerant society to exist, it must be intolerant towards intolerance, or the intolerant slowly dominate. This is the paradox enabling many to blindly say Antifa is a racist or fascist organization. No, they are the intolerant side of tolerance laying down the law. Without them, any tolerant society devolves slowly to fascism.

It's not a paradox, it's just doublethink.

The key is to realise that the "Antifa" agenda has nothing to do with tolerance, regardless of what they claim.

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

#247

Post by calebgilbert » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #127

Wow This slid off the front page fast. It went from #1 to #33 in the time it took me to brush my teeth while I get ready for work. You can tell an article hits home when people are flagging it to death to hide it.

Said 'flame war detection' services are amazing on how consistently they skew toward silencing any right of Chairman Mao posts.

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

#248

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:54 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #224

TeMPOraL wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maybe you voted for him because you thought he's just purposefully saying stupid shit and none of that is serious, because you thought he won't get elected anyway, and this is a good way of expressing your disappointment with the US politics in general? Or maybe you didn't vote for, but voted against (I hear some studies say this is the primary way people vote, btw.)? Or maybe you had some other reason? I could i…

judging someone by the sole data point of their choice in the voting booth, without knowing reasons for it, is one of the most stupid kind of thinking imaginable I'd call that holding them accountable and I only know how they voted because they told me. Also, I'd put hating people for the color of their skin, the sexuality, their religion, ... as much much stupider.

> I'd call that holding them accountable

You only get to do that after you understand their reasons, which you can then judge.

> and I only know how they voted because they told me

It doesn't work like that. People don't generally run around, telling everyone who they voted for. It usually comes up in conversations, where the person who divulges their choice don't expect to get hated for it.

> Also, I'd put hating people for the color of their skin, the sexuality, their religion, ... as much much stupider.

I agree with that (maybe not with the much much part, because to me it seems to be a similar kind of stupidity; different flavours of the same bug in thinking). This doesn't invalidate my point though. People should not do either of those things.

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

#249

Post by tchaffee » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

classybull wrote: post #172

tchaffee wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

You just don't know what you are talking about with your guesses and assumptions about the industry. Welding has a lot of union members. Union members traditionally voting for liberal politicians.

> multitudes in rural areas,

Where are you getting that stat? Most of the big construction projects are near urban areas. And for the remote jobs they are usually bringing people in, not hiring locals who generally aren't qualified for the work. Some welders do a lot of travel.

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Welding&utm_medium=cpc&utm_sou...

> therefore a person is much more likely to find people who share political culture

If you really want to better understand the mix of political views in that industry, join a welding forum and go to the "off-topic, politics welcome" board and you'll see just as many people complaining about illegal immigrants as you will people correcting the misconceptions about immigrants. Trump? Plenty of Trump supporters on welding forums, but just as many people there predicting buyer's remorse and complaining about how Trump is an awful president. The shared political culture that you are imagining doesn't exist.

If you want a softer term, it's certainly uninformed prejudice. You made a guess about the political leanings of an industry based on your stereotype of a working class person and you were wrong. That's ok, but don't dig yourself even deeper by going into greater detail about your wrong assumptions.

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

#250

Post by tboyd47 » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

ubertaco wrote: post #242

stult wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason this is all coming to a head now is that it's harder to hide your opinions, or rather it's easier to unintentionally air them to a broader audience than you might prefer. Social media makes it too easy to inadvertently make a political statement. See elsewhere in this thread where a commenter mentions being unfriended by people for congratulating his sister on her wedding to another woman. It's eas…

See also: Brendan Eich, who was booted from his job at Mozilla because someone went digging to find his personal voting record and found something they didn't like.

What happened to Eich is another issue entirely. The article is about people getting into political arguments with their co-workers and then getting upset when those co-workers don't want to be their friend anymore.