A bomb was just dropped! This is a badass stand that sends a strong and direct message to anyone tied to a SOPA supporter. It will be interesting to see if venture funds start to cut ties w/ SOPA supporters.
Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
61–70 of 286 posts
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they lose money to counterfeit knock offs. There are people who would sell their country's freedom for a handful of cash. I consider them un-American traitors.
Because they lose money to counterfeit knock offs. Your assumption is that if someone doesn't buy knock offs, they'll buy the real thing. Until that can be proven true, I think a better reformulation which more accurately translates the greed of these corporations is Because they feel they're not making more money due to counterfeit knock offs . The companies themselves aren't actually losing anything.
I agree that is more accurate. I thought about writing that but didn't want to slice the language so thin that it distracted from the main point.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I glanced at that list quickly even before I was aware of the boycott. Many of those names are just random non-tech related companies, but I couldn't help but think that GoDaddy sticks out like a sore thumb on it. Almost as if they were tricked into joining.
GoDaddy's official Twitter account is currently robo-replying with "We encourage you to visit our blog to view the details of our position on SOPA: http://x.co/c0q4 , so I doubt they were "tricked".
Of course not. I know enough of their business practice to know they were willing participants, but one has to wonder what they thought they would gain by enlisting. It looks kinda naive to me.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#64PG, if you're reading this, I don't know which list you saw, but here's one with SOPA supporters that is probably the most comprehensive: http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/the-439-organizations-s...
I glanced at that list quickly even before I was aware of the boycott. Many of those names are just random non-tech related companies, but I couldn't help but think that GoDaddy sticks out like a sore thumb on it. Almost as if they were tricked into joining.
SOPA is also against counterfeit products and drugs. But if they really care about that, they should separate it from copyright infringement.
They probably lumped them together just so they can show off with a long list of companies supporting it from different markets.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#65" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.
I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. So I'm not convinced by the argument here. It makes too many unstated assumptions. I support this boycott, and this argument might make good rhetoric, but I wouldn't use it directly to evaluate investors.
But we're not talking about just any odd collection of investors. As I understand it, Y Combinator specifically relates to Internet-centric business models.
SOPA seems wholly destructive to this sector of the economy.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious: Aren't ISPs and payment processing companies also private organizations? Are DNS "name servers"? I don't disagree with PG's stance here and I don't think it is censorship, but you must admit that these are "just business decisions" for these parties as well (possibly even Congress)
The term for large ISPs and DNS systems is "common carriers". They are qualitatively different than a Y Combinator.
I think you might be wrong.
According to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
Internet Service Providers have argued against being
classified as a "common carrier" and, so far, have
managed to do so [...] Because ISPs are no longer
prohibited from discriminating among different types of
content under common carrier law [...]Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. So I'm not convinced by the argument here. It makes too many unstated assumptions. I support this boycott, and this argument might make good rhetoric, but I wouldn't use it directly to evaluate investors.
> I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. And there exists Catholic priests who are pedophiles, that doesn't make Catholicism and pedophilia compatible. Nor are science and religion compatible. Those people just have an ability to tolerate or ignore…
> Those people just have an ability to tolerate or ignore their own cognitive dissonance because their religious beliefs are so strong.
In other words, one possible answer to the original question is "cognitive dissonance". The point is that it doesn't matter what the answer is; there clearly is an answer.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#68" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.
I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. So I'm not convinced by the argument here. It makes too many unstated assumptions. I support this boycott, and this argument might make good rhetoric, but I wouldn't use it directly to evaluate investors.
The more straightforward argument is the moral one: SOPA is wrong, because it privileges the few over the many. But that's not quite as snappy.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#69" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.
I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. So I'm not convinced by the argument here. It makes too many unstated assumptions. I support this boycott, and this argument might make good rhetoric, but I wouldn't use it directly to evaluate investors.
There are, by definition, no good scientists who allow their religious beliefs to dictate their science. Some religious people are able to separate their personal irrationality from their professional rationality, and that's just fine.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
YC demo day is a private event hosted by a private organization. As such, YC has the right to determine the kind of entities that are allowed to be present at the event. And YC / pg have determined that the kind of companies that would support SOPA are unlikely to make good investors in YC portfolio companies. No censorship, just a business decision.
Curious: Aren't ISPs and payment processing companies also private organizations? Are DNS "name servers"? I don't disagree with PG's stance here and I don't think it is censorship, but you must admit that these are "just business decisions" for these parties as well (possibly even Congress)
Sure, the difference is that if Congress mandates it, it IS censorship. Until then, it's just a bunch of different people advocating censorship and a bunch of other people opposing it. For "business" reasons.
I could use emotional terms like "freedom" and "tyranny", but in the end my opposition to censorship and advocacy for freedom come down to personal interest. I like to think it would be better for everyone else too, but yeah, I advocate for freedom because I WANT freedom. It's just business.