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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’

#421

Post by acjohnson55 »

Fins wrote: post #285
acjohnson55 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously there's the political inner circle, who operate with privileges the regular people don't have access to, but I'm really talking about the experience in the places ordinary people tread.

And I also do realize that one is simply not allowed to be openly destitute in a place like Havana, as it would discredit The System. By the same token, I think we kind of discredit our own.

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

#422

Post by gameswithgo »

_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…

>Peter Thiel has been more politically vocal than most, and he is vocal about things he knows to be unpopular. He can't be surprised that people who disagree with him are also vocal. If he can't take the heat he should stay out of the kitchen.

He has to put up with people thinking he is an asshole. We the proletariat have to put up with the people he can buy into power, which affects our livelihood, health, the future of our society. If I had the money to sue him out of existence, as he is wont to do to others, I would.

Fuck him.

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

#423

Post by WaxProlix »

manfredo wrote: post #415
s73v3r_ wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not doing the exact same thing?

No, not at all. Being tolerant of political views means accepting political views from a broad spectrum. This is being co-opted by some to reframe tolerance as being actively intolerant towards disliked views. The latter is intolerance attempting to disguise itself as tolerance. There is no tolerance paradox. For example, people's ability to advocate for the repeal of the 1st Amendment is protected by the 1st Amendme…

Do you draw the line anywhere? Like, planning murder is illegal right? Openly advocating the destruction of life and property are illegal - why would calling them a political belief change that? Certainly some actions aren't viable political beliefs, no?

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

#424

Post by manfredo »

manfredo wrote: post #233
_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…

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…

Realized I didn't actually post the end-note:

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california-preside...

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

#425

Post by wpietri »

dcow wrote: post #300
mlloyd wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument here is that intolerance wants to have a voice. They feel persecuted because people don't view their intolerant viewpoints as points to be debated but rather ideals to be shunned. This all stems from the sexist Ex-Google guy who is butthurt that he can't write a sexist manifesto at work and have his co-workers debate him on the science, but rather be fired and ostracizedfor expousing discriminatory views…

The argument here is that people like you label anything you don't agree with as "intolerant" and justify social lynching of the ideas based on your likely angry or frustrated emotional assessment. This didn't start with James, although that's one of the more popular incidents. Disagreeing with operational policies that are based on politically charged ideas that we need to correct for the inequalities in outcomes ra…

No, intolerance is a specific term of art here, not just anything lefties don't like.

For example, look at the US right's decades-long pursuit of anti-GLBTQ policies. Gay people mostly just want to be left alone to live their lives. the US right wants to use the power of the state to discriminate against them. It went so far in California that Prop 8 specifically rewrote the constitution to strip the right of equal protection from gay people.

That is intolerance.

Also, "social lynching" is just a ridiculous term. The US has a long history of actual lynching, which is the extrajudicial murder by hanging, mainly carried out by intolerant racists. What you apparently mean by "social lynching" is people exercising their freedoms of speech and association by critcizing or not being around people whose ideas and behaviors they think harmful to other people.

As first-amendment champion Ken White, aka Popehat, often points out, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. "Speech has consequences. Among those consequences are condemnation, vituperation, scorn, ridicule, and pariah status. Those consequences represent other people exercising their free speech rights. That's a feature of the marketplace of ideas, not a bug."

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

#426

Post by sseveran »

strangeloops85 wrote: post #229
_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…

Yeah I don't get it either, especially the "feeling alienated" part. Does that include being feted and having a respectful discussion with your liberal friend and old colleague, Reid Hoffman, on the Stanford campus on Jan. 31 of this year, moderated by a very sympathetic Niall Ferguson? With laudatory words and praise from the President and Provost? https://news.stanford.edu/2018/02/01/cardinal-conversation-r... Look…

Mrs. Clinton won college educated voters by 9 percentage points which is not exactly a super majority.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trump...

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

#427

Post by moonka »

hateduser2 wrote: post #272
moonka wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social platforms are largely ways for people to plaster information across the nation. Just look at how Twitter is used these days.

You admit in your own writing that this is a new way to use twitter. And this wasn't twitter anyways. Most social media platforms have support for blasting things across the nation and support for more private info. You'd have to be insane to actually argue (and it seems thats what you're doing) that Peter Thiel was trying to tell the nation he was gay.

>You'd have to be insane to actually argue (and it seems thats what you're doing)

I think it's unlikely we'll be able to have a productive conversation. Have a good day!

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

#428

Post by dragonwriter »

sterlind wrote: post #419
tomp wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that (1) politics is multi-dimensional, (2) trans-issues are far too unimportant for Trump to actually care about and (3) US has good enough legal system that there's approximately 0 chance that Trump can actually do anything agains trans people (I mean he can't even manage to ban foreign Muslims).

Have you been following Trump's DoJ, and the military ban? You're simply uninformed, he can and has been doing things to harm us. Our legal system is fragile and it's not at all clear that trans rights will win the day.

> Have you been following Trump's DoJ, and the military ban?

Or his education department? For something that isn't a priority, his Administration is acting strongly, broadly, and consistently on rolling back trans protections.

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

#429

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

titzer wrote: post #310

I'm 37 and, God, people treat me like I'm a dinosaur. I've been programming C for 25 years and it's hard to relate to young people who don't know what a machine register is. We can argue about it, I can get downvoted, whatever. I moved out of the Bay Area after 5 years, and to be honest, the divide between where I am and where the ideological center of Silicon Valley has drifted just continues to get wider. It has li…

>> Silicon Valley is overrun by techno-utopians.

That's what it sounds like to me too. I find it particularly hard to reconcile claims of liberalism, or even libertarianism, with an industry led by Google, Amazon and Facebook, companies that basically make money by running roughshod over their users' privacy.

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