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Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

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Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#91

Post by sho »

gameswithgo wrote: post #55
sho wrote: post #46

What is crazy about the the situation in SF is that even 5 or so years ago if you asked me what the "echo chamber" there was echoing I would have said libertarianism and some kind of techno-utopianism. The takeover by the proscriptive far-left has been astonishingly rapid, and it is absolutely real. I also know people who have left, and many more who absolutely keep their political and even philosophical views to the…

I have no idea what SF is like, so in these discussions I never can tell if there really is an influx of insane, insufferable far left crazies, or if people who insist on remaining racist and keeping gays in the closet are mad that nobody is having that anymore. The latter is what I see in my own circle of humans but I live in Texas. I can say though that I've moved further to the left as I've gotten older, from a li…

> insane, insufferable far left crazies

Definitely this option.

And by the way, I've been increasingly wondering lately whether our blind insistence on labelling absolutely everything "left/right" or "red/blue" isn't doing our society real damage. I've never voted conservative my entire life but I have nothing in common with the far left and indeed fear them a lot more than the far right. We need a new vocabulary.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#92

Post by ryanwaggoner »

nodesocket wrote: post #50
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, and I left NYC for Nashville in 2015, and I’m moving back to NYC next week. Nashville itself is pretty purple, but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF, and I find it much, much more offensive (Roy Moore). There is not a (net) mass exodus from the Bay Area, hence the ridiculous prices. I moved to SF in 2006 and there were always people claiming it was on the verge of collapse because everyone w…

Nashville as you know is actually pretty liberal, but the biggest difference is that people here live their lives, are friendly to others, and that southern charm is a real thing. People in San Francisco are always so outraged and angry (mainly since Trump took office) and the media constantly feeds them things to be outraged about that they are perpetually angry. People in Nashville for the most part don't let polit…

We do not live in the same Nashville.

Not only is it not “pretty liberal” by any definition, people here aren’t any less political than people on the coasts, and they don’t “live their lives” any more, whatever that even means.

However, people here are less angry about Trump and the Republicans because they’re much more likely to have voted for him and support what he’s doing. They were plenty angry when Obama was in office.

Also, “southern charm” is real and nice at first, but in my experience it’s actually pretty shallow, cheap, and discriminatory. It’s mainly surface-level and primarily extended to non-poor white Christian conservatives. Minorities, immigrants, gays, liberals, non-Christians, and poor people are treated differently.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#93

Post by blattimwind »

ahakki wrote: post #88
dominotw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is it that Peter Thiel said previously about women voting? Respect for capitalism declined rapidly in the US after women gained the vote.

What’s your point?

None, he answered the (presumably?) rhetorical question.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#95

Post by [deleted] »

chillwaves wrote: post #81
darkmarmot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And possibly treason...

Not to mention money laundering. Look, the charges against Trump can be argued, what cannot be argued is the attack by Russia against our country and Trump has refused to say one single bad word about Russia, while simultaneously having a public record of praising Putin and getting financed by Russian oligarchs. This is a matter of public record and fact that is beyond dispute. Lastly, both houses of congress passed…

[deleted]

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#96

Post by [deleted] »

gameswithgo wrote: post #55
sho wrote: post #46

What is crazy about the the situation in SF is that even 5 or so years ago if you asked me what the "echo chamber" there was echoing I would have said libertarianism and some kind of techno-utopianism. The takeover by the proscriptive far-left has been astonishingly rapid, and it is absolutely real. I also know people who have left, and many more who absolutely keep their political and even philosophical views to the…

I have no idea what SF is like, so in these discussions I never can tell if there really is an influx of insane, insufferable far left crazies, or if people who insist on remaining racist and keeping gays in the closet are mad that nobody is having that anymore. The latter is what I see in my own circle of humans but I live in Texas. I can say though that I've moved further to the left as I've gotten older, from a li…

[deleted]

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#97

Post by door3 »

alexashka wrote: post #80
door3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was shadowbanned for getting downvoted too much for saying James Damore had terrible sexist opinions and should have been fired. Hackernews is predominantly right wing & conservative.

Maybe it's the strange notion that having an opinion that doesn't hurt anyone should lead to getting fired that's the problem... The irony is not obvious so here it is: You want Damore to be ex-communicated from Google, for having an opinion you disagree with. People of HackerNews have decided to ex-communicate YOU, for having an opinion they disagree with. (Assuming that's what happened on HackerNews, and not that y…

My values aren't "everyone should be able to say everything in every space everywhere without any consequence!", and I don't think even the most radical free speech libertarian would believe that. In either hackernews or at Google, if you started arguing for Holocaust denial, you can bet you wouldn't last long, no matter how hard you defend yourself with "free speech". In all spaces, there are rules of acceptable and unacceptable discourse. I am no more pro or anti free speech than anyone else, I just have different ideas of what the boundaries of that speech should be.

What concerns me most is equality of all people, and liberation of all people from systems of oppression. James Damore furthered an oppressive system (patriarchy) by perpetuating sexist ideas that attacked and hurt women at Google. With all the stuff about free speech or whatever, the opinion that he wanted to advocate for was nothing more than old school sexism: women are on average worse engineers because of their biology, so any discrepancies of outcome is a result of their natural inferiority, not broken social and economic structures. Is that really a valuable, constructive opinion that should be inside the marketplace of ideas at Google? What kind of company culture does that lead to? One in which discrepancies and injustices can be rationalized and justified through "innate differences" and where women who experience sexism and discrimination would feel more uncomfortable expressing their concerns.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#98

Post by ryanwaggoner »

saget wrote: post #87
chillwaves wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media "feeds" us stuff to be outraged about? You mean factually reporting the news? There is real and severe damage that is happening to our country and our standing in the world. The regressive politics will have consequences. Even if you are a fan of Trump's policies, the White House is chaos, we essentially do not have a president. Imagine a real crisis hitting, and what this White House would do. It's incredi…

You just proved his point. You replied as an outraged person that is angry about the Trump presidency. It's perfectly ok to go about your life without mentioning Trump in half of your conversations. For the average person, there's nothing that can really be done until the next election. You can be angry about Trump but don't go around thinking the only correct way to life is being outraged about it.

Give me a break. They didn’t bring up Trump, the person they’re responding to did. And it’s intellectually dishonest to claim that you can’t be outraged no matter what level of harm or danger or betrayal of your values is occurring, or that means you’re a media puppet.

The better question is: why aren’t you outraged like so many others?

And if the answer is that you don’t care or you agree with the policies in question, then perhaps the outraged people should justifiably ignore your condemnation of their outrage.

It’s ridiculous for me to claim that all conservatives were only anti-Obama’s policies because the right-leaning media whipped them into a frenzy, and it’s just as unfair and intellectually dishonest to do that to the left today.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#99

Post by wz1000 »

sho wrote: post #46

What is crazy about the the situation in SF is that even 5 or so years ago if you asked me what the "echo chamber" there was echoing I would have said libertarianism and some kind of techno-utopianism. The takeover by the proscriptive far-left has been astonishingly rapid, and it is absolutely real. I also know people who have left, and many more who absolutely keep their political and even philosophical views to the…

> The takeover by the proscriptive far-left

Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means. Liberal feel good minority appeasement by billion dollar multinational corporations is as far from "far-left" as you can get.

Re: Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

#100

Post by rhapsodic »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16

The thing is, if you like private property and private contract, this is what can happen to you. If you think any company is within its rights to police speech, then you agree that it's fine for Google to exclude conservative or libertarian speech. Nobody owes you space for your views. Your place, your rules. Their place, their rules. That's the deal.

>The thing is, if you like private property and private contract, this is what can happen to you. If you think any company is within its rights to police speech, then you agree that it's fine for Google to exclude conservative or libertarian speech.

Then why do people go on so about the so-called "Hollywood Blacklist" whereby private entities refused to hire people who supported Communism?

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