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

Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

elaineou.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 307 posts

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#61

Post by Niksko »

Helloworldboy wrote: post #35
ej_campbell wrote: post #19

The cherry picking of this article is extreme. A company chooses to not employ someone based on a multiple page essay and this article takes a sentence and tries to make it look ridiculous.

You should actually read the multi-page article. And not the version hacked apart by tech "journalists" to remove the citations.

Citations are worthless when the reasoning that is citing them is shoddy. If you cite things, it makes the facts that you're referencing true. It doesn't make the logic of your argument true.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#62

Post by fmihaila »

woodruffw wrote: post #39

For better or worse, popular society has become a lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize…

> "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles.

I find it highly unlikely that a black woman in charge of Inclusion and Diversity at a most socially progressive company would blow into that particular dog whistle.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#64

Post by toomuchtodo »

jonathankoren wrote: post #50
toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the greater concern are weaponized codes of conduct in an at-will employment environment. If you can’t say something without losing your job, you’re not free to say something. You can take every effort to respect someone else, not allow any of your behavior to be construed as harassment, and still be out the door because someone objects to or is offended by what you’ve said.

You’re always free to say it. What you’re talking about is being free of other people exercising their speech to denounce it. Let’s be honest here. What these folks want is the ability to insult and attack people with impunity. That’s not what free speech is. It never was.

I’m talking from an employment perspective where your wage is on the line.

The Supreme Court has ruled in the US that there is no exception to free speech for hate speech. If this is not preferred, your argument is with the judicial branch or Congress and a constitutional amendment, not me.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#65

Post by AaronFriel »

It's interesting that lists of the verboten keep rising to the top of Hacker News. If this keeps happening, it would only be rational to believe these things aren't verboten and their authors (whose work keeps rising to the top of link aggregators like this) aren't writing in good faith that they were.

In fact, isn't it - to a degree - virtue signaling to write that one thinks it's such a shame that these verboten things are so verboten as to write an article enumerating them and describing how verboten they are?

And yet, ctrl-f, "virtue". Ah, there it is.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#66

Post by jfoutz »

tzs wrote: post #29

> If San Francisco residents really believed that sea levels were rising, they’d have all sold their homes by now Anyone who says that is, frankly, unobservant. We have government bail outs for people who live in areas that frequently flood due to things that have nothing to do with climate change, such as normal rain and hurricanes. Many of these areas flood almost predictably, yet we keep providing government suppo…

I really like the idea of park insurance. We will completely reimburse the full value of the destroyed property. But it’s a national park now.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#67

Post by vbtemp »

I'm glad it mentions H-1Bs.

Similarly to identity-conservatives, for whom belief in global warming is heresy and tax cuts are gospel, I believe there is a similar phenomenon with identity-progressives around immigration, in this case specifically the H-1B program. There seems to be some belief in its sacred power that is not to be questioned and not to be curtailed.

As I see it, big businesses - not least the major tech companies - are loaded with incredibly bright, incredibly well-compensated staff. These companies can figure out solutions to the toughest scientific and technical problems, can create new markets when regulations shift, and change the world. They sure as sh*t will figure out how to adapt if immigration policies change and the H-1B program is reduced. As it stands right now, to me it seems - by and large - a handout for companies to get mid-range IT talent enslaved to them for a fractional price of what they'd pay an American.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#68

Post by JSONwebtoken »

woodruffw wrote: post #39

For better or worse, popular society has become a lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize…

This post is a dog whistle.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#70

Post by dionidium »

insickness wrote: post #43
electrograv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: How does New York compare on this spectrum? I had the impression that the political atmosphere there is very similar to California. I loved New York City when I visited, so I’m very curious to learn more about it from this perspective. If you don’t feel safe talking about it publicly, feel free to email me (you can track it down via my account). I wish I didn’t have to say that last sentence, but thi…

In NYC, coming out as a Trump supporter is a cardinal sin that will lose you friends.

In my first month in NYC I was yelled at by someone I'd met in a bar because I didn't do enough to stop my mother from voting for Trump. [0]

[0] My mother didn't actually vote for Trump, but this woman got the impression that she had and was appalled that I hadn't done more to stop her.

Post reply on HN