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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’

#621
post #356
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).

I don't realize or agree with any of this. As a black person, I can tell you that it's been untrue for our community so I don't think it different for the trans community.

What is Trump doing against blacks?

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

#622
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The point is the dominant opinion on Hackernews is "James Damore was right!" or at least "James Damore made some good points", Uh, that's not my impression. My impression is that the pro-Damore posters say he should not have been fired for the views he expressed. And they're not the dominant opinion; rather it seems neither the pro- or anti-Damore opinions are dominant.

I recall several articles defending the “women are biologically inferior at tech, it’s science” position on the front page.

Were they actually saying "inferior" or "less interested"?Those are completely different things. One is supported by evidence and the other isn't, as far as I know. Even if it isn't, what's wrong with discussing an article about it? Not everything on HN is textbook-level confirmed facts.

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

#623
post #479

To understand what is going on here please read Rand's article "Anatomy of Comprise" in her anthology "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" and her article "The Establishing of an Establishment" in her anthology "Philosophy: Who Needs It." Rand wrote; "It is precisely those ends ([sacrifice]-collectivism-statism) that ought to be rejected. But if neither party chooses to do it, the logic of events created by their common b…

Should be "Anatomy of Compromise", sorry for the error.

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

#624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But this is probably true. Trump is very very different from a mainstream Republican. In 2016, mainstream Republicans were all calling him an insane criminal. Today, psychologists are endorsing the "insane" part, his long record of legal problems arguably endorses the "criminal" part, and the Mueller investigation looks extremely likely to endorse the "criminal" part as well. Trump's father was arrested at a KKK rall…

> Trump is very very different from a mainstream Republican.

The key part of merpnderp's quote is "or agrees with any of his policies". There are tons things that are perceived as "Trump's policies" (and some are in fact his policies) that are just mainstream Republican policies. Just don't confuse "policies" with rhetoric, because in the case of Trump he says one thing and does another all the time. Of course it's a bit odd to me that people who think he's a pathological liar (a viewpoint I can totally understand!) always act surprised when his words don't match his actions...

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

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well I'm western too and from my personal experience I don't think they are racist.

People in China are in fact racist by Western definitions. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745355 for details. As I said in that comment, it's not because they're _bad_ people; it's a natural outcome of the way humans stereotype.

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

#626

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.

Nor have I. I think it’s similar to the “War on Christmas,” it’s not something that is actually happening, but people like to pretend it is.

I should have been clearer. I actually don't doubt that conservatives are sometimes ostracized; I just don't think, based on my limited experience (and not being one of them), that it happens routinely.

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

#627

None of the three people profiled in this article are tech workers. They are investors, or whatever it is that Tim Ferriss is. To the extent tech workers are leaving Silicon Valley, I'm willing to bet the dominant factor is the cost of housing.

This should be the top comment. You can tell from the article that the WSJ is trying really, really hard to push the 'intolerant liberals' angle. From what I can tell, the only person cited who really left due to politics was Thiel.

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

#628

This last election was not normal. (Or it was more normal than we want to admit.) In my first-hand experience, I saw Republicans in the Bay Area spending money and time trying to stop Trump from being elected. These are not Republicans in name only, these are people who serve in the local GOP, people who worked in the George W Bush White House, people who believe in free markets with all their soul, people who want t…

This is what so many people just refuse to see. The GOP did EVERYTHING they could to try and stop Trump. We know Hillary asked the media to cover Trump as a pied-piper she “knew” she could beat. The GOP never wanted Trump, not for one second.

So the irony is that because of people’s GOP hate they feel need to hate Trump because he ran as a Republican without actually looking to see what’s happening here.

If someone truly hated the Republican Party, they should at least recognize that Trump is their enemy’s enemy.

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

#630

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.

Yea... sorry, I don’t think a bunch of sheltered evenagelical-atheist kids should really be your go to metric. I can only think of a few worse online communities.
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