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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’

#401

Post by shard972 »

andybak wrote: post #386
shard972 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice you didn't include Alt-right in there which at the moment seem to be political ideology on a big rise and in my personal opinion, I think it's generally less radical than communism. Consider though that one thing the alt-right will never accept is that racial diversity in the workplace is a net positive in itself. Whether it's true or false, it's just apart of the parcel. Now how would someone like that feel…

> being against racial diversity is racist That made me stop and think. I'm trying to imagine a picture of someone who is against racial diversity but isn't remotely racist and whilst I agree there's no logical contradiction inherent in that position I do struggle to think of a realistic portrait of such an individual. I might be missing something here but can you spell out this position for me in a bit more detail?…

Consider that this is the majority consensus in Japan and China. Imagine going to japan and saying "guys, this workplace is far too asian, what we really need here is some more indians, africans and arabs to get this workplace into the 21st century".

I think most people here could see that not going over well. Would we then think of china and japan as mostly racist?

I don't really want to get into racist/racial debate on HN, other than to say it's not some tiny opinion only held by white supremacists and neo-nazis.

That and you will find if you look into the research on race differences (eg: genetic influences on IQ) that these topics are not even close to be declared settled and are still hotly contested.

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

#402

Post by sciencesage »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #98
saget wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 questi…

The person you're replying to never said you can't be outraged. They just said being outraged isn't the only valid course of action. They never even said they weren't outrage, he/she never gave an opinion on the president.

Can we please stop it with these political comments made to provoke instead of discuss? If you want to vent your anger go post on reddit.

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

#403

Post by filoleg »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #196
dominotw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm this. Indians in SV are big trump supporters.

Mexicans too. But thats a global effect, immigrants usually vote anti-immigration - it seems paradoxical at first, but they have the the most to loose.

How is fixing H1B abuse by a few companies (Infosys and such) considered an anti-immigration stance? As far as I know, the proposed solution was not to reduce the yearly cap on H1B visas (which indeed would reduce the number of immigrants), but to put higher base requirements, so the quality of an average candidate is better and that qualified candidates don't waste years and years trying to just get the visa while being stuck in a legal limbo. If anything, the current H1B system is more inhumane, because qualified people are playing the visa lottery in hopes that they will not get cut by someone like Infosys who mercilessly spams the visa system with all the resources they have.

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

#404

Post by wyager »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #350
manfredo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the Bay Area and I have personally worked with (as in, on the same team with and working directly in cooperation. CEOs, founders, etc. are not included in this count), exactly one person who discussed their conservative views. This is in comparison to hundreds of liberals. Sure, you may be able to identify at least one person on variety of ends of the political spectrum, but I don't think anyone can sanely…

When the topic of underrepresented groups comes up regarding women and minorities, the reason given a lot is that “they’re not interested” or something along those lines. Why would that not be the same reason here?

I agree, this probably explains why there are fewer conservatives in software; they are less likely to want to work in software.

However, this isn’t actually the issue - the issue is that the (relatively small) population of conservative-leaning (or just not-entirely-liberal) people in SV and elsewhere cannot expect to speak their minds and also keep their careers. Even relatively milquetoast, vaguely conservative people like Brendan Eich are (evidently) at serious risk.

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

#405

Post by lagadu »

mlloyd wrote: post #283
Pixeleen wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Without knowing anything about the poster you're replying to, I'll take an educated guess: they're not a single-issue voter. Politics is far, far too complex for anyone to (responsibly) be a single-issue voter in my opinion.

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

#406

Post by 4bpp »

_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…

> It seems to me, from personal experience, that the people who feel alienated are the ones who bring politics to work in an overbearing contrarian way, seeking to cause offense under the guise of "debate," and then pretend to be shocked when people don't want to put up with their shit.

Like many other commenters in this thread, you choose a wording that would be more appropriate if the extent of the problem were obnoxious Republicans not getting invited to happy hour/their coworkers' birthday party/?. The type of situation that people complain about, whether it is accurate or not, seems to be more along the lines that if you are in the wrong half of Silicon Valley companies, being recognised as deviating from the obnoxious Democrat position on any issue of import may result in your colleagues organising to report you to HR and/or rile up a small city's worth of Twitter users to call for your company to terminate you or be boycotted itself, not to mention potential long-term consequences along the lines of easily googleable Medium articles with your name on them or entries in an unknown number of blacklists circulated to recruiters through activist backchannels. How accurate or common any of these are is completely up to discussion, but dismissing them as if any of what is alleged amounts to a normal and healthy free speech reaction just seems disingenuous.

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

#407

Post by dang »

door3 wrote: post #380
dang wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every side thinks HN is dominated by the opposite side. This is as reliable as clockwork. But the truth is boringly tautological: on divisive issues, the community is divided, like any sufficient sample of society at large would be. People with strong views simply notice the comments they dislike much more strongly. And sometimes they pass around links to their friends to 'prove' it—which proves nothing, of course, b…

I appreciate your comment and I think that you make a lot of valid points. Anyway my original account was certainly shadowbanned without warning (logging out and viewing my page made recent comments invisible), I assume bc I had -70 net comment karma. I don’t feel bitter towards the mods about it but am curious what’s up

You're always welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and we can look into it for you.

Edit: you're right about account karma. When it gets negative enough, comments get killed by software, which is close enough to shadowbanning that it would look the same externally. That case is rather rare and I forgot about it.

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

#408

Post by oh_sigh »

_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…

My observation at a big-4 SV tech company is that people constantly bring up anti-Trump and basically anti-conservative viewpoints, but very rarely do conservatives bring up anti-liberal viewpoints.

Thankfully, most people there don't talk about politics. Maybe 5% of the population are constantly bringing it up though, rarely in direct work functions, but in any other message board or forum.

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

#409

Post by spookthesunset »

newnewpdro wrote: post #316
_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…

> Work is for working; it's not a debating society, and especially not when the debating is done in bad faith. If this were actually true of the current milieu of tech employment in the bay area, I'd likely still be a willing and active participant in that workforce. Substantial energy is wasted discussing ideologies and arranging/having meetings on what are fundamentally social issues we're not realistically fixing…

> SJW

Ah the SJW boogyman. A quick way to get anybody with a functioning brain to dismiss everything you say.

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

#410

Post by sg47 »

mlloyd wrote: post #283
Pixeleen wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe their whiteness comes before their sexuality.
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