141–150 of 307 posts
This post has 195 points in an hour, and it is currently #20 on the front page. Why isn't it higher?
You can say any of those things in Silicon Valley. I mean, people might make some judgments about you. But that happens whenever you state any opinion, especially if it isn't the mainstream. I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. They're used to other types of people remaining quiet on certain topics -- especially topics related to race, gender, and sexuality. And that's…
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I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good t…
> Voices are being silenced. I think we've got to be cautious in defining what "being silenced" means. Because I see a world in which people are saying all sorts of things out loud. There was a protest with a bunch of people waving Nazi flags in a public park in Virginia a few months ago. I don't think people are being silenced. I think community norms are shifting quickly in many parts of the country and, again, it'…
Science Denialism is just the new community norm, I guess.
Furthermore, this isn't a new thing. One of the other things "you can't say in Silicon Valley" is that black people are only fit to be slaves to white people, but if anyone's out there shaking their heads and clucking their tongues about how great it'd be to be able to say that if it weren't for those terrible lefty PC liberals always SJWing up the place, do you wanna be associated with them? It turns out that being openly racist in that way is, to most people in most parts of the country, really unacceptable.
Also, I've noticed that when these discussions come up, nobody ever talks about the "stuff you can't say" in more conservative parts of the country. Perhaps part of the reason people out here in the Bay Area are so "intolerant" is because so many of us have suffered consequences for what we say--or even what we don't say, but just what we are--when we've lived in other parts of the country. Try putting a "Black Lives Matter" bumper sticker on your Prius, drive to rural Alabama, and strike up conversations about your strong support for Obamacare, abortion rights, and gun control. Then get back to me about how gosh-darn friendly everyone was to you.
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 t…
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> "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.
The point of a dog whistle is to say something with a secondary meaning that escapes some part of the audience. When that part of the audience starts using the dog whistle, the goal has been met: they're using it in good faith, while the original user is still signalling the secondary message. That's why "family values" works so well as a political slogan -- nobody is against "family values" in a superficial sense, a…
> nobody is against "family values" in a superficial sense, and half of the population understands that "family values" is really code for "christian values."
If half the population is christian the other half is probably also not completely oblivious to what that other half understands by family values.
I think the best way to overcome this "dog whistle" problem is to appropriate it and steal it. "Family values" -- "good, we want to have gay, transgender, happy and safe families and we love our family values".
"Diversity of thought is more important?" - "Yes it is, and we find that people of different ages, races, genders, nationalities, educational, social and economic background end up with the best diversity of thoughts and ideas so we go out and actively recruit accordingly". What I see tech companies doing is being very vocal about diversity then turning around and recruiting young white men from a few top universities. Or saying women should be equal but then paying them less. Or covering up harassment and abuse (thinking of Uber here).
I can probably add a few more to this list: "Income inequality is not an actual problem" "The affordable care act was bad for America" "It would be beneficial if we got rid of all government guaranteed loans for university tuition" "People should be allowed to own automatic weapons"
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The point of a dog whistle is to say something with a secondary meaning that escapes some part of the audience. When that part of the audience starts using the dog whistle, the goal has been met: they're using it in good faith, while the original user is still signalling the secondary message. That's why "family values" works so well as a political slogan -- nobody is against "family values" in a superficial sense, a…
I see your point, but somebody losing their job in the blink of an eye for expressing their thoughts on a sensitive subject in good faith just because other people are trying to hijack the English language seems like an overreaction, no? That's what the OP, Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman, Tim Ferriss, and many HN posters here are pointing out.
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You think this is a dog whistle? > “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said. > ”Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the p…
See my response to 'fmihaila below. I want to be clear: it's bad to fire people just for expressing a different opinion. But that's not what my comment was about -- it was about how, as a society, we've learned to detect and avoid conversations that are probably faithless.