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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’

#211

Post by jnbiche »

idlewords wrote: post #195
_skel wrote: post #169

I don't get it. I grew up in Silicon Valley and I work in tech, and so do many other people I know. They run the gamut from far-left socialists to libertarians to own a bunch of guns. They have all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and religious views. Some of my most libertarian/pro-gun friends have not been shy about their political views and it hasn't hurt their tech careers at all. They are far more welcome here than l…

Thiel spoke on national television at the National Republican Convention. He made the choice to bring his private political beliefs into the public sphere, and has no grounds to complain for catching heat for them.

This has been downvoted, but this is an important distinction that our legal system even recognizes. There's a qualitative difference between a "public person" (like Thiel) and a "private person" like some random co-worker who doesn't tour around doing speeches and writing opinion pieces.

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

#212

Post by sebleon »

_skel wrote: post #169

I don't get it. I grew up in Silicon Valley and I work in tech, and so do many other people I know. They run the gamut from far-left socialists to libertarians to own a bunch of guns. They have all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and religious views. Some of my most libertarian/pro-gun friends have not been shy about their political views and it hasn't hurt their tech careers at all. They are far more welcome here than l…

> If he can't take the heat he should stay out of the kitchen

Exactly, that's why he moved away.

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

#213

Post by eadmund »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #142
dang wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I was clear earlier, but the simplest explanation for why you get downvoted is that you have a history of posting flamebait. When an account does enough of this it gets subject to software penalties as well. If you want to commit to using HN as intended, which means scrupulously avoiding flamebait, snark, flamewars, name-calling, and all the rest of it—then you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com a…

I don't know what the averages are, but reviewing my comment history, seems to be more upvotes than downvotes. I don't post comments on HN to stir the pot. I post comments on HN in the hope of getting other perspectives. A comment with a downvote and a reply is more valuable than a comment with upvotes and no replies. It's not like I can redeem HN points for cash and prizes. I think I can do an OK job of not being an…

> I think I can do an OK job of not being an asshole, but I honestly have no idea what is or isn't going to piss people off or classify as flamebait here.

I wish that there were some sort of metamoderation system. I downvote the mods whenever they post about abusing their power, but I don't know if that even has an effect, or if moderators' posts are immune from downvotes.

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

#214

Post by jfaucett »

cowmix wrote: post #193
_skel wrote: post #169

I don't get it. I grew up in Silicon Valley and I work in tech, and so do many other people I know. They run the gamut from far-left socialists to libertarians to own a bunch of guns. They have all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and religious views. Some of my most libertarian/pro-gun friends have not been shy about their political views and it hasn't hurt their tech careers at all. They are far more welcome here than l…

If these people want to know what it is like to be "stifled" in the workplace, be an atheist or lefty in Texas.

Really? (warning anecdotes :), When I lived in the south east (Alabama / Georgia), I didn't notice any stifling because I was an atheist. Sure, you had to deal with people's super religious fundamentalist beliefs which got expressed all the time, but my barrage of dissenting opinions didn't get any backlash, except for the "prayer for my lost soul" which did happen on occasion.

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

#215

Post by jnbiche »

friedman23 wrote: post #146
wpietri wrote: post #78

> they feel people there are resistant to different social values and political ideologies This is just bizarre to to me. I moved here from the Midwest, which I found stifling. There's a far greater variety of social values and political ideologies (not to mention backgrounds and interests) here than pretty much any place I've lived. The main hostility I see is to intolerance, but that's hardly surprising given SF's…

> This is just bizarre to to me. I moved here from the Midwest, which I found stifling. There's a far greater variety of social values and political ideologies Really? Because the only values I've heard expressed have been standard democratic talking points and once in a while far left ideologies.

> Because the only values I've heard expressed have been standard democratic talking points and once in a while far left ideologies.

You've not been around much of SV if you've not run into a libertarian, or an anarchocapitalist. Either that, or you've made the considerable error of confusing their values with "standard democratic talking points".

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

#216

Post by unapprovedviews »

makewavesnotwar wrote: post #9

Likening people to Thiel is ridiculous. He is personally facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump and being a speaker at his rallies. Nobody else in the valley did anything as absurd or unnecessary. And if he thinks he'll fair better in LA, I think he's sorely mistaken once people start recognizing him en masse. But to my point, this article seems to be generalizing an outlier to make its point. Everyone is b…

> facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump

thus further proving the headline

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

#217

Post by refurb »

askafriend wrote: post #70
superquest wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"openly supporting" the winning presidential candidate isn't "absurd".

Yes it is. When you support Trump, you support his vile brand of leadership. The majority in this the country do not support this man or his ideas. They simply don't. The base that supported him and made this presidency possible is collapsing by all reported metrics (as in they are literally dying off, and younger people neither support Trump's ideas nor are they as religious). So while Trump's base may have squeezed…

Let me guess, you don't know any Trump supporters?

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

#218

Post by ignoramceisblis »

makewavesnotwar wrote: post #9

Likening people to Thiel is ridiculous. He is personally facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump and being a speaker at his rallies. Nobody else in the valley did anything as absurd or unnecessary. And if he thinks he'll fair better in LA, I think he's sorely mistaken once people start recognizing him en masse. But to my point, this article seems to be generalizing an outlier to make its point. Everyone is b…

> Everyone is being alienated everywhere because the country has a leader who is actively polarizing the populous

No. That is the fault of mass media corporations (and now, also thinly-veiled "grassroots" organizations). It's quite simple to pick and choose quotes from individuals that can be construed as offensive ("superpredators", anyone? The list goes on), craft a narrative, and put them on the national stage. This is what these organizations do, at the expense of other issues. You will not find a more powerful, more influential reason for the division this country is experiencing. It is these organizations and those who profit from them the most that are most responsible.

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

#219

Post by wz1000 »

sho wrote: post #178
wz1000 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Interesting, especially since I am not American and I think I have a pretty good idea of what "far-left" means. Care to explain what you think it means? I use it to describe any political ideology focussed on equality of outcome and legitimacy through elimination of self-judged "oppression", which is IMO as good a definition as any as the communist disasters of the 20th century.

Most "far-leftists" tend to view liberal identity politics as a distraction, or a way for the ruling classes to promote infighting and discord, occasionally handing out scraps to keep the proles occupied.

Leftists aren't really bothered about whether the CEO or President is black or white or male or female or transgender, but by the fact that any single person is allowed the wield the power that a CEO or President can yield. Many of them also reject reformist politics.

Black Panther Party member Fred Hampton(As good an example of a "far-left" American figure as you can find) can probably explain it better:

> We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

> We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.

> We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun!

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fhamptonspeech.html

A good rule of thumb is - Anything done by multi billion dollar corporations is probably not leftist.

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

#220

Post by anigbrowl »

Covzire wrote: post #103
tomcam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was supporting Trump absurd?

Have you ever noticed that that phrase "I may not agree with you, but I'll defend your right to say it to the death!" (heard it a lot after the 2003 Iraq Invasion) is almost universally applied from Right to Left and almost never the other way around? That to me is a great indicator for which side is much more authoritarian.

heard it a lot after the 2003 Iraq Invasion

People on the left strenuously objected to the invasion of Iraq as a criminal waste of human life, and for commentators on the right to say they were defending freedom (including the freedom to criticise their ongoing war) was a specious argument, to put it mildly.

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