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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’

#431

Post by FeepingCreature »

nabla9 wrote: post #244
downandout wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that among this crowd, simply saying "I voted for Trump" or "I hated Hillary so I just didn't vote" is considered "controversial" and worthy of personal and professional backlash.

How is "I voted for Trump" (and I don't regret it) not controversial? I understand that there are many people who voted for Trump, but that does not mean that the opinion is something that should be considered being in line with the norms of the free society and far past conservative viewpoint. (Not in the sense that you have no right to your opinion, in the sense that person having that opinion loses the respect of…

Voting for the candidate you prefer should always be considered in line with the norms of free society.

That is, you know. One of those norms. A rather important one, too.

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

#432

Post by majormajor »

Lotta comments here about anti-Trump stuff.

Do we really think Trump's candidacy and presidency would've been well received by the west coast in 2012/2013 instead of 2016/2017?

I don't think so. Just about everything he said that's been treated as wildly offensive and uninformed the last couple of years would've been no more well-received four years earlier.

Heck, you don't even have to be on the left to believe that rejecting white nationalism is why California turned blue in the first place: https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-...

I think those on the right who don't reject Trump should reflect on how he's changed the Republican party.

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

#433

Post by hueving »

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…

>super-majority

>definitely a large super-majority

Don't use phrases like this without defining them in concrete terms and providing stats. If 1/3 of the people supported Trump in those categories, opposition could easily be counted as a super majority but that would significantly weaken your case. Ignoring and belittling the views of 1/3 of your group is not really acceptable in other contexts.

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

#434

Post by metaobject »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #149
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…

10-12 years ago, there was no tech in SF. Zero. It was mainly financial companies or workers for Levi's, Gap, etc. All the best tech companies were in South Bay. It was Twitter, Zynga, Yelp and quickly followed by Uber, Airbnb, and all the other cool startups that brought tech into SF and probably the cause of that shift. SF started giving tax breaks to tech companies in the late aughts, and then it started the huge…

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. SV has been host to tech companies (for the varying definitions of "tech") throughout the decades, from early processor and PC companies, video game companies, early internet companies, and Web 2.0 companies.

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

#435

Post by redthrowaway »

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…

Hell, just look at HN. This place was pretty damned libertarian not five years ago. The sea change to identity-driven progressivism has been swift.

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

#436

Post by andybak »

shard972 wrote: post #401
andybak wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 debat…

> Would we then think of china and japan as mostly racist

Actually yes. I don't think that's far-fetched by our standards. And on the whole I'm quite proud of the distance we in the West have travelled on this issue.

However - the reason we're where we are is because slavery, colonialism and immigration have rather forced us to confront the issue in a way that other nations have not needed to.

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

#437

Post by door3 »

manfredo wrote: post #379
s73v3r_ wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is it? I've never witnessed a Bay Area tech company state that their under representation of women and minorities is due to a different distribution of preferences in these groups as compared to men and whites & Asians. On the contrary, in some tech companies doing this appears to be a fireable offense. Also, the point is not that less conservatives are in tech companies is the issue. I am under no illusion that prob…

What does conservatism mean to you? When you say 'conservative', what beliefs are you describing?

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

#438

Post by kelukelugames »

andybak wrote: post #375
s73v3r_ wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 like this line of argument. Conservatives have learnt to use the language of social justice as a strategic weapon against liberals. So the same strategy should work in reverse. The endgame hopefully is that intellectually dishonest strategies from all sides become discredited.

hahaha I can't wait for some Valley employee to write a paper on how biological differences between democrats and republicans...sorry, "average biological differences" causes different distributions.

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

#439

Post by altoz »

_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…

Not surprising:

Nearly everyone from Silicon Valley that's progressive/liberal thinks there's no problem or that the problem is something else.

Nearly everyone not fitting the description above thinks there's a problem and that it alienates them.

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

#440

Post by dcow »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #357
dcow wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing, that's pretty damn central in the US too. The problem is that's not good enough for some people. In the US, legally, we treat everyone equal. However, we're (in theory) a meritocratic society based on survival of the fittest. The modern "far left" ideology is interested in equal outcomes for everyone and defines any statistical dependencies they perceive, and anyone who doesn't support correcting th…

> In the US, legally, we treat everyone equal. Even if you start with the premise that no laws explicitly target any race/gender/etc, it doesn't automatically follow that everyone is treated equally under the law.

Agreed.

The parent comment is asking why the idea of equal opportunity is seen as far left. I am trying to explain that everyone pretty much agrees we should have equal opportunities, and explain that the debate has now become about whether we enforce/regulate the distribution of wealth and jobs such that society ends up statistically "equal". And that this is a very controversial and political topic and has nothing to do with racism despite the rhetoric employed at both extremes of the horseshoe.

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