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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’

#281

Post by wz1000 »

sho wrote: post #259
wz1000 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

I have no idea what you just said. Care to provide me with your promised definition of what "far-left" means?

"far-left" doesn't mean any singular thing, but a few characteristics I can think of are:

- Rejection of capitalism and private property

- Opposition to all forms of social hierarchy

- Rejection of electoral and reformist politics

- Revolutionary, often militant program

- Explicitly communist or anarchist in nature

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

#282

Post by bobbytherobot »

This last election was not normal. (Or it was more normal than we want to admit.) In my first-hand experience, I saw Republicans in the Bay Area spending money and time trying to stop Trump from being elected. These are not Republicans in name only, these are people who serve in the local GOP, people who worked in the George W Bush White House, people who believe in free markets with all their soul, people who want to drastically change the government. They hated Trump.

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

#283

Post by mlloyd »

Pixeleen wrote: post #248
tempz wrote: post #188

There is a linguistic sleight of hand at work here: 'libertarian' and 'left' is not what is happening in SV. These terms have been hijacked by the identity politics cartel. The SV political and ideological climate is all about pidgeonholing you into 0.01-0.3% segment ('left-handed bisexual javascript expert'), then maintaining these segments and manipulating the fractured society into neoliberal directions. It is obv…

You're telling me! We transsexuals are a great example, having been co-opted in recent years to make liberals/postmodernists look good. We are just too convenient of a packaged identity now that gays are not a big deal any more. I feel for Thiel, he may be a "public person" with his commentary, but his sex life is private. Everybody knows that you are not supposed to pry (most of us just want to move on with our life…

Completely aside from this, how can you support Trump while knowing that he doesn't support you and his VP actively fights against LGBT rights?

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

#284

Post by fouric »

enraged_camel wrote: post #261
tomsthumb wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I have seen a coworker strongly imply that someone is a white nationalist for suggesting that it’s possible to be a non-racist republican.

One can be a non-racist conservative, in the sense of wanting a smaller government and less regulation. However, today’s Republican Party is undeniably racist, and supporting them also makes one racist in my opinion. This is especially true since today’s Republican Party is not actually conservative. One cannot want smaller government while simultaneously supporting a drastic increase in immigration and border securi…

"undeniably racist"? I'm curious. Do tell more.

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

#285

Post by Fins »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #228
friedman23 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s also a problem that nobody in the city seems very much to care about Because all the rich people living in the North West part of the city are completely insulated from it.

That can't quite be true, given how central the Tenderloin is within NW SF. Which reminds me of an interesting experience I had. I was living in NY, and took a trip that had me spend about 8 days each in SF and Cuba. It took me a couple days to put a name on a feeling I was experiencing in Havana. I realized that it was the dissonance of the staggering inequality plainly in the Union Square area of SF I was staying a…

Really, in Cuba, like in old USSR and other communist countries, you just don't see the inequality, which is far greater than anything that ever existed in the US. It just goes off a lower baseline.

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

#286

Post by XorNot »

muninn_ wrote: post #24
didibus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't there prerequisite to a discourse? Like all parties coming together with open minds. Having the intent to seek the truth, not an agenda to win. Using reason and rational thinking over your emotions. I think lately we're not meeting those qualifications, so maybe it is best not to engage, since discourse would not be productive.

Which could be a fine solution, except one or more groups still are making rules which affect the lives of all of the other groups. So disengaging means letting other groups you may disagree with dictate parts of your life.

Welcome to civil society. Learn to play ball and compromise since the alternative is from what those refugees are escaping.

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

#287

Post by s2g »

Pxtl wrote: post #276
enraged_camel wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can be a non-racist conservative, in the sense of wanting a smaller government and less regulation. However, today’s Republican Party is undeniably racist, and supporting them also makes one racist in my opinion. This is especially true since today’s Republican Party is not actually conservative. One cannot want smaller government while simultaneously supporting a drastic increase in immigration and border securi…

You don't have to be racist to support the modern Republicans, but you do have to decide that racism really isn't a deal-breaker for you.

Which is pretty much the same thing.

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

#288

Post by webkike »

alexryan wrote: post #275
webkike wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting for an openly sexist person is extremely controversial. I don't find "I hated Hillary so I just didn't vote" controversial at all.

To claim that voting for the candidate who actually won the election is controversial is not rational. In my estimation this kind of intolerance is exactly WHY so many people voted for him despite his flaws.

I think it's highly controversial considering how split the country is on the issue. It wouldn't be controversial if say, 80% of the population voted for him. But they didn't. Half the country did, which is precisely why it is controversial.

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

#289

Post by idlewords »

sturgill wrote: post #273
idlewords wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And when did Brendan Eich make public comments? When he privately donated to a cause? You can be dismissed from leading a company today by privately supporting conservative causes. And there’s very little threat of a liberal CEO being dismissed independent of his private/public statements. I have no desire to speak to any particular political subject in this forum; but it’s incredibly disingenuous to pretend this onl…

I am speaking specifically about Peter Thiel. You and I probably agree about Brendan Eich.

I also agree that tech companies can be a difficult place for constructive political debate (or even agree-to-disagree conversations), and I do not think this is a good thing.

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

#290

Post by sho »

dragonwriter wrote: post #264
sho wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you two are being just as tribalistic as the people you complain about You might be right. I just don't know what to do about political discussion these days. The punchline is, in case you didn't see any other posts by me, is that I've never not been on the left. In my defence I'll address a few points. The cannabis and DACA issues were not contemporaneous with the president's election, so exclude those. Trump prom…

> The cannabis and DACA issues were not contemporaneous with the president's election, Trump, during the campaign, said he would immediately terminate DACA if elected, and also (by the end) had reversed his earlier position of leaving marijuana legalization up to the states, in favor of reinforcing prohibition. So, both were active issues in the election. > Trump promised, disingenuously, "bigger, better" healthcare.…

Ok. This is definitely going "into the weeds" as they say.

I'm not a US citizen and probably didn't follow all of this stuff as closely as you. Maybe Trump getting elected was literally worth crying over. I'll concede the issue.

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