Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 901 posts

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

#511

Post by tanilama »

manfredo wrote: post #467
door3 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

These terms are ambiguous and have fluid meaning. But in general, anything on the Republican party platform, or supported by a substantial portion of Republicans or self-identified conservatives, is something I would consider part of mainstream conservatism. Quick examples include: * That affirmative action should be illegal or more heavily restricted. * That unlawful residents should be removed from the country, eve…

How is meritocracy conservative exactly? I worked in a big tech company in Bay Area, and it is empathized in my hiring training session heavily that we are not afraid to miss good people but we are afraid to end up with bad ones. Not agree with far-left opinion != Being conservative.

A lot of my colleagues who happily brand themselves as liberal, all think unregulated illegal immigration will cause problem, I don't think there is any chance they will self identify as conservative.

As an individual I might agree with some of the points, but disagree with the rest, like I all for more restrictive gun control and think it is due to an outdated law. It is indeed a problem itself to force people into two buckets and create a us-vs-the-world mentality.

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

#512

Post by [deleted] »

merpnderp wrote: post #246
_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’ve had a colleague straight up say everyone who isn’t standing up to Trump or agrees with any of his policies is a Nazi apologist.

[deleted]

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

#513

Post by s73v3r_ »

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…

I don’t hear the tech companies saying it, but go into the comment section here on any story related to those things, and it will definitely come up as a very popular opinion.

And not too long ago, hell, even currently in some places, it was considered a mainstream conservative view that gays should not have the same rights to marry. If a person holding that view were to work at, say, Grindr, I would absolutely expect them to receive push back on it.

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

#514

Post by PeterMikhailov »

manfredo wrote: post #467
door3 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

These terms are ambiguous and have fluid meaning. But in general, anything on the Republican party platform, or supported by a substantial portion of Republicans or self-identified conservatives, is something I would consider part of mainstream conservatism. Quick examples include: * That affirmative action should be illegal or more heavily restricted. * That unlawful residents should be removed from the country, eve…

What welfare? Welfare got repealed by Bill Clinton in the 90s. Can you point to this welfare you speak of?

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

#515

Post by ameister14 »

mrtesthah wrote: post #323
guelo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative propaganda has learned from the left how powerful victimology, feeling persecuted, is. White resentment is through the roof when I talk politics with a lot of my white friends.

White resentment becomes possible only when one ceases to care about facts. (Ex. http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/reports/cerd.pdf )

While some of it may be correct, that's a pretty terrible paper to use as evidence of anything, not only because it's incredibly biased but also because almost all of it is based on explorations of case studies. I have read a lot of these and contributed to some: it does this because it's pushing policy objectives. It's also from 17 years ago.

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

#516

Post by ameister14 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #510
ameister14 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What you think is the threshold where political opinion can become personal? When your family is deported? Hilariously enough, Clinton and Obama deported far and away more people.

Trump deported more people already living in the US ; Clinton and Obama deported more at the border, by enough that total deportations were higher.

Actually, Clinton deported more in both ways. We weren't counting people deported at the border as deportees at the time.

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

#517

Post by dragonwriter »

PeterMikhailov wrote: post #514
manfredo wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These terms are ambiguous and have fluid meaning. But in general, anything on the Republican party platform, or supported by a substantial portion of Republicans or self-identified conservatives, is something I would consider part of mainstream conservatism. Quick examples include: * That affirmative action should be illegal or more heavily restricted. * That unlawful residents should be removed from the country, eve…

What welfare? Welfare got repealed by Bill Clinton in the 90s. Can you point to this welfare you speak of?

> Welfare got repealed by Bill Clinton in the 90s.

AFDC got replaced with the more restrictive TANF as the primary federal-funded welfare program in the 1990s by the Republican Congress with Clinton’s support, but welfare was not repealed.

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

#518

Post by dang »

sebastos wrote: post #266
mnm1 wrote: post #122

Great. He should get the fuck out then if he doesn't feel welcome. While some people might tolerate the kind of scum like Thiel, I think it's good that SV doesn't tolerate. There's plenty of other places Thiel and people who feel like him can move to. The area will be better off with people like him gone, IMO. Most open minded liberal people with half a brain aren't going to move to bumblefuck, usa for the same reaso…

Your vision for the future of America sounds incredible, how can I sign up? Seriously, I had never thought about it before but just dividing everybody up into high-school cliques that openly loathe each other, with no pretense of a common societal fabric... you should give speeches. This is a message people need to hear. Can I find any more of your writing on this topic? I, and I'm sure many others, want to hear more…

Please don't feed an egregious comment by replying like this. That breaks the site guidelines as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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

#519

Post by bsbechtel »

ScottBurson wrote: post #499
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…

I agree with you that the numbers are very skewed, but I agree with the parent in that, of the few outspoken conservatives I've worked with, I have not seen anyone's career suffer for their politics.

Brendan Eich, James Damore?

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

#520

Post by cgag »

sho wrote: post #303
cgag wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lmao at people acting like people are insane for feeling right wing people are alienated and there being not one but two comments in this thread saying being a republican makes you a racist.

You really "LMAO"? Because you should be "fearing your ass off" when people are afraid to express their legitimate political views. This has all happened before and it wasn't pretty. update: come on downvoters. At least give me a clue.

It's funny in the fact that it's so obviously absurd but the people doing it don't see it. It's both funny and scary depending on how much I think about it.
Post reply on HN