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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’

#841

Post by makewavesnotwar »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27
makewavesnotwar wrote: post #9

Likening people to Thiel is ridiculous. He is personally facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump and being a speaker at his rallies. Nobody else in the valley did anything as absurd or unnecessary. And if he thinks he'll fair better in LA, I think he's sorely mistaken once people start recognizing him en masse. But to my point, this article seems to be generalizing an outlier to make its point. Everyone is b…

> He is personally facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump and being a speaker at his rallies Thiel is moving to Los Angeles, not Louisiana. The amount of PR he’s gotten over his branding decision surrounding this move is mind blowing.

Pretty sure the PR is a play to politicize his move and paint SV as a brick wall of intolerant liberalism and give the "conservatives" more fuel for their fire just like his speech at the RNC. Still have no idea why he's trying so hard to burn the community that generated his wealth though. Makes one wonder who he's really in bed with now.

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

#842

Post by wyclif »

salvar wrote: post #712
wyclif wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Damore did not get fired "because he thinks women are inferior" which is a simplistic, uninformed, and cartoonish version of the controversy. Damore was fired by Google for writing about scientifically supported sex differences and the social ramifications of those differences: https://youtu.be/agU-mHFcXdw

Brushing all of this off as "scientifically supported sex differences" is quite simplistic, uninformed, and cartoonish by itself.

Brushing all of what off? The controversy itself? No, that's not what I did at all. I recognise that it's controversial; I simply don't think most people commenting on it have read Damore's memo, especially if "women are inferior to men" is the mangled message they managed to extract from his writings.

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

#843

Post by Chris2048 »

abusoufiyan wrote: post #831
Chris2048 wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the counterpart of the "racist" boogyman. Why is it terrible to dismiss people by calling them SJWs, but not calling them racist.

I guess for a few reasons: 1) SJW isn't a bad thing, like racism. social justice (the literal term) is what all people want in their society. It's preached by nearly every religion (the idea that the poor are equal to the rich, the black people equal to the white, etc). 2) Racist is an adjective but SJW is a group affiliation often attributed to people who don't wish to be affiliated that way. A person can say a raci…

Thanks for responding.

wrt point #1, SJW and Social-Justice Advocate are different terms. Justice is a subjective term, the word itself may have a positive implication, but the implication of "SJW" is that their brand of social justice is neither just nor good.

I disagree with point #2 though: the word "racist" is used to denigrate (label people who do not accept the label) more than otherwise. A person can absolutely say an "SJW thing" - the kind of thing an SJW would say. This may be ambiguous, but so is racist; it depends on a personal definition of what constitutes racism just as mush as SJW does.

In fact, willfully creeping the scope of words such as "racist" to include e.g. microaggressions is partly what differentiates SJWs.

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

#844

Post by Chris2048 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #707
spookthesunset wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SJW Ah the SJW boogyman. A quick way to get anybody with a functioning brain to dismiss everything you say.

It's just the counterpart of the "racist" boogyman. Why is it terrible to dismiss people by calling them SJWs, but not calling them racist.

To clarify:

Why is use of the term 'SJW' to dismiss viewpoints not ok - but use of the word 'racist' for the same purpose is rife.

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

#845

Post by ameister14 »

kelukelugames wrote: post #810
ameister14 wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When people criticize the word "Meritocracy" they are not criticizing the concept but the usage. I don't agree - there is a subset of people that criticize meritocracy as a concept because they believe the idea of 'merit' is inherently racist and classist - if you start at a different level, it becomes more difficult for you to accrue 'merit' and so that needs to be balanced and taken into account. Some people belie…

Do you have any examples where people are criticizing the concept inherently? The people who write about these things always say they don't like when the word meritocracy is being used to hide bias.

Most of mine are from conversations with people, but this is what I immediately thought of (though I know the definition has changed a little since) https://books.google.com/books?id=QelNAQAAQBAJ

Here's another: https://practicaltheorist.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/the-myth-...

Here's a critique stating that the terms aren't defined enough to be said to be 'just'

http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6818.pdf

The last one is the most fascinating, I really recommend you read it if you're interested in these things. Amartya Sen is brilliant.

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

#846

Post by peoplewindow »

utopcell wrote: post #742
peoplewindow wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. As the sibling comment points out, what you are saying is not true . It is contradicted by the text of the memo itself. Moreover he wasn't "very vocal about it", he wrote a memo that was then deliberately leaked by his ideological opponents in order to destroy his career: successfully so. Five years ago I felt my political views were pretty mainstream for the tech industry, for the Valley (although I did not li…

It is not a political view to support that women are inferior, wrt tech, at Google. Whether he may be a conservative or liberal is irrelevant to me and to the discussion.

But he didn't argue that, did he? Can you give a quote from the memo that makes you think Damore argued or believes that?

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

#847

Post by peoplewindow »

abusoufiyan wrote: post #823
leereeves wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's worth reflecting on. I see Trump's rise as a response to people on the left who celebrate "the end of men", expel men without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves, unapologetically depict men and white people (and white men most of all) as evil, demand white people "absent themselves", and offer jobs for which white people need not apply. Not "far-left crazies", but major media outlets and un…

>When the media and academic culture is so toxic to any white men who speak up for their own interests, only someone who has no filter, like Trump, dares to speak at all. Do you live anywhere near a University? Get your butt there and count how many white men there are in Professor's chairs. Then count how many of the tenured Professors are white men. Then count how many of the head administrators are white men. Abso…

And how many of them are in those positions because their professorship was advertised as being exclusively for white men only?

How many of them were unqualified, but given the job over a more qualified woman, just because they were a man?

I'm sure there are cases of that happening, somewhere. But I can point to multiple examples in the past year alone of jobs being advertised explicitly and in writing as not being open to white men. I do not recall ever seeing jobs being advertised as not open to women.

As it is, you're pointing at a disparity and implying - but not even outright stating - that it must be due to bias, or that white men can't possibly be being attacked or can't possibly fear for their careers, merely because there are a lot of them.

Would you have made the same sorts of arguments about black slaves, on the grounds that there were loads of non-enslaved blacks in Africa at the time of the slave ships, so clearly they couldn't be that oppressed. I mean just look at the quantities. Clearly you would not have made that argument because it'd be bogus. Merely having a common attribute doesn't imply you can't be oppressed.

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

#848

Post by peoplewindow »

salvar wrote: post #751
peoplewindow wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you posted elsewhere in the thread, but do you have any substantial criticism? I mean, beyond "that's a cartoonish view", which isn't really helpful to informed debate?

I'm very sorry for not being helpful enough for you when I quoted the argument of another comment.

Right - that's a no, then.

I described the argument as a straw man because it is one. Damore verifiably did not say he thought women at Google were inferior. I'm not surprised you're tired of people saying "straw man!" in discussions about Damore: as I note, nobody seems to be able to argue that he's wrong, so they just attack things he didn't say, and then other people have to point that out. If you dislike that, then point out strawmen yourself. Perhaps eventually people who dislike Damore's perspective will then stop strawmanning him.

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

#849

Post by scarface74 »

leereeves wrote: post #840
abusoufiyan wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When the media and academic culture is so toxic to any white men who speak up for their own interests, only someone who has no filter, like Trump, dares to speak at all. Do you live anywhere near a University? Get your butt there and count how many white men there are in Professor's chairs. Then count how many of the tenured Professors are white men. Then count how many of the head administrators are white men. Abso…

Now count how many are willing to speak up in favor of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US or in favor of race-blind admissions. Count how many have done so and kept their jobs. If all you care about is skin color you're missing my point.

Are they also willing to speak up against "legacy admissions"?

I doubt very seriously that people are opposed to bringing back jobs to America. What politician has a platform of "we want to send jobs overseas"?

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

#850

Post by scarface74 »

peoplewindow wrote: post #847
abusoufiyan wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When the media and academic culture is so toxic to any white men who speak up for their own interests, only someone who has no filter, like Trump, dares to speak at all. Do you live anywhere near a University? Get your butt there and count how many white men there are in Professor's chairs. Then count how many of the tenured Professors are white men. Then count how many of the head administrators are white men. Abso…

And how many of them are in those positions because their professorship was advertised as being exclusively for white men only? How many of them were unqualified, but given the job over a more qualified woman, just because they were a man? I'm sure there are cases of that happening, somewhere. But I can point to multiple examples in the past year alone of jobs being advertised explicitly and in writing as not being o…

You can speak anecdotally all day long. But can you show studies where controlling for all other variables, white men are less likely to get jobs, promotions, raises, leases mortgages, accepted into college, etc.?
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