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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’

#531

Post by jdavis703 »

bsbechtel wrote: post #519
ScottBurson wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

OP is clearly talking about people he personally knows. I have to say I concur with OP, but that’s just anecdote.

Looking at 2016 voting habits in the Bay Area, Donald Trump got double digit election returns in every county. That’s not even factoring "never Trump" conservatives who voted 3rd party or stayed home. So there are a fair amount of conservatives here. For comparison there are more Trump voters in San Francisco than African Americans.

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

#532

Post by utopcell »

bsbechtel wrote: post #519
ScottBurson wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Damore wasn't fired because he is a conservative. He was fired because he thinks women are inferior wrt tech and was very vocal about it.

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

#533

Post by toomanybeersies »

Nokinside wrote: post #369
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…

I don't live in the US but I visit sometimes in Bay Area for business. The most amazing cultural thing in SF that blew my mind was the existence of startup scene as a cultural phenomenon, subculture and lifestyle. I'm not completely sure if this is cultural misunderstanding and I am missing something, but it seemed like for every real young entrepreneur there was ten dreamers who were just hanging in the scene for vi…

It's not exclusive to Silicon Valley. Just go to any coworking space anywhere in the world, and you'll find a group of "serial entrepreneurs".

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

#534

Post by puppetmaster40 »

kelukelugames wrote: post #455
puppetmaster40 wrote: post #388

I agree with people that say that SV is an echo chamber. I'm software eng., and found it very hard for a year before election to work there. Happy to explain if someone cares to know. It is a bit hard when people on left were told: 'you are smart to vote left' - they just talk down to me. I'll give you one example, on TV, they had a right wing person getting egged - I'm sure most here saw the news/video. And I had fr…

You don't think conservatives treat liberals poorly? Go on r/atheism and see all the complaints about living in a red state.

On the web everyone is treated bad. I was referring to away from keyboard, more real life.

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

#535

Post by refurb »

adventured wrote: post #239
heurist wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been to San Francisco in 10ish years or NYC in 5 so I can't compare directly, but Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston all have tons of homeless people as well and they seem to get very little attention.

The point is that supposedly San Francisco's ideology would be extremely favorable to taking superior care of the homeless vs more conservative cities. The actual results, are that SF does an extraordinarily mediocre job at it. SF is an affluent city, with a homeless problem consisting of 5,000 people, and they're unwilling to fix it financially. They can afford to, and they refuse to. It's disgusting.

That's what gets me. In SF you have a huge liberal majority and is a wealthy city. This is in a state with a liberal majority.

Yet the social problems in SF are probably some of the worst in the US.

It's pretty shocking.

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

#536

Post by WaxProlix »

manfredo wrote: post #508
WaxProlix wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're directly comparable, necessarily. But people are talking in this thread as though finding a 'political view' disgusting and not worthy of public discussion is somehow inherently wrong, and I don't think that's the case. Giving airtime or lending legitimacy to holocaust deniers, ethnostate-supporting white nationalists, anti-science FUD types, etc. is detrimental to society as a whole as well as…

> Giving airtime or lending legitimacy to holocaust deniers, ethnostate-supporting white nationalists Pointing to the most extreme end of political spectrum as justification for silencing or ostracizing the people everywhere on that half of the spectrum is both disingenuous and terrible for the political atmosphere. Imagine the reversed situation, someone stated "our company should tolerate liberal views" and I respo…

I totally agree, Black Book of Communism numbers aside. I think that having someone who's aligned themselves (again, tacitly) with those who explicitly make calls for and white supremacy makes it hard for people to distinguish.

> Arguably, this could just as easily be applied to mainstream liberal views on the danger (or lack thereof) of nuclear power, GMOs, etc.

Yeah, it's obnoxious and dangerous there, too.

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

#537

Post by telchar »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #429
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.

As a geographical outsider, it seems to me that this is more indicative that Silicon Valley runs on a deep amoral cynicism that uses hypocritical marketing messages to appeal to a segment of left-leaning youthful technological tastemakers.

I feel this is more of an indictment of the cynicism and hypocrisy of the gargantuan power players in SV than of the alleged political beliefs (techno-utopianism, liberalism) being discussed. The line of discussion that this thread represents, which seems common on HN these days, seems to disparage liberalism as if it is to blame for being used as cover by powerful corporations that seem to me to be more anarcho-capitalist than anything else.

Are there really very many techno-utopians in SV, or are they mostly people and companies who use the language of making the world a better place as a cover for consuming it economically?

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

#538

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

PeterisP wrote: post #466
rmrm wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both pretty openly xenophobic, no? I didnt think that was in any debate. If your point is that racism isnt the sole province of white people - yes, thats worth remembering. White American liberals (which I am) seem to struggle with allowing their world view to incorporate things like this.

No, I feel that the point is rather different, pointing towards a difference between xenophobia and racism. In USA, the nation is mixed, heterogenous, and thus being anti-diversity unavoidably involves some discrimination of your fellow citizens, being an asshole to some groups of them; and justifying this discrimination tends to require some racist arguments. In homogenous countries like Japan, the issue is differen…

> In USA, the nation is mixed, heterogenous, and thus being anti-diversity unavoidably involves some discrimination of your fellow citizens, being an asshole to some groups of them; and justifying this discrimination tends to require some racist arguments.

I'm anti-diversity not because I don't believe races exist, I'm anti-diversity because I think hiring people for the color of the skin is itself racist. Affirmative action has made me skeptical of every woman or "diverse" person in high places, because when I see their authority, all I think about is how they had an edge just because of their biology.

I really don't care about natural racial diversity, it's inevitable in our country. However, I'm not really a fan of cultural diversity. A culture defines what is expected from one another socially, and without any set norms, people have no predictable way to interact, which is no good IMO. I understand that multinational corporations are required to allow for multiculturalism so they can behave globally, but I don't see why local areas can't have their own cultures.

I have reasoning behind my opinions, but because they are currently taboo, the only way I can discuss my opinions are on anonymous forums like this. That's sad to me. I may be wrong, there may be a flaw in my reasoning, but because I can't discuss them in public, the discovery of those flaws becomes delayed.

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

#539

Post by manfredo »

tanilama wrote: post #511
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…

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 t…

Interesting that you say that. "Meritocracy" has become a bit of a bad word in Bay Area tech companies. [1]

And in case I didn't make this clear, that was just a quick dump of views that I think are generally considered conservative. Real life is much more nuanced than a list of bullet points. I fully agree that there are, for example, people who want tougher immigration laws but otherwise don't consider themselves conservative.

[1] https://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug/ I realize this is just one example, but people on my own company's forums have caught flak for using the word "meritocracy".

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

#540

Post by rmrm »

shard972 wrote: post #470
rmrm wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are both pretty openly xenophobic, no? I didnt think that was in any debate. If your point is that racism isnt the sole province of white people - yes, thats worth remembering. White American liberals (which I am) seem to struggle with allowing their world view to incorporate things like this.

> They are both pretty openly xenophobic, no? I mean if xenophobic is defined as preferring your own race compared to others then I guess pretty much the entire world is xenophobic except white liberals in western countries. China or Japan doesn't (in recent decades at least) put nearly the same amount of effort into destabilizing other countries that they have no cultural affinity with compared to countries like the…

To me you conflate culture and religion with race. Which is often or at least usually the basis of racism. I dont think race is foundational, in really any way that matters.
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