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'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

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Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#241

Post by shiroiuma »

dylanhassinger wrote: post #117
cj wrote: post #44

As a YC alum who worked with Gary Tan directly, this is… odd. Anyone who knows Gary knows he’s a (relatively) gentle human being. I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. His tweets seem totally out of character compared to the Gary Tan I personally knew. Maybe he has changed? I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I followed Garry since the old days of Posterous. Seems like 5 years ago he took a turn and got obsessed with edge lordy SF politics. Finally I had to unfollow. Too much money has corrupted all the original startup role models

It's not just SF; America in general is a miserable place to socialize because nearly everyone has gotten obsessed with toxic politics there.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#242

Post by romwell »

renewiltord wrote: post #80
badrequest wrote: post #47

> Tan, for his part, apologized over the weekend, noting that his post was a reference to a Tupac Shakur lyric Ah, so if it's a quote, it doesn't matter, because even though you've decided when to use them, they're not "your words" Thanks, going to publish press releases with Cannibal Corpse lyrics going forward.

You know, like a Che T-shirt doesn't mean you're endorsing the killing of political prisoners and stuff. Or that a George Washington statue endorses slavery. It's like a "you came at me but I'm going to beat you" lyric, not literally as Tupac meant it. Whatever, it's not intended to mean killing someone. But you have to be a colossal dumbfuck to say it like that to a bunch of people wise in the ways of the street pol…

>You know, like a Che T-shirt doesn't mean you're endorsing the killing of political prisoners and stuff. Or that a George Washington statue endorses slavery.

What a load of bullshit. He put names of specific people in his tweet who have subsequently received threatening letters in paper mail.

The intended audience heard the message loud and clear.

I wonder if you took that message the same way if Tran said "Die slow, Rene Wiltord" and you received personal paper mail afterwards that said "Tran was right. Die, Rene."

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#245

Post by lawgimenez »

explaininjs wrote: post #214
TeMPOraL wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, it's extremely disturbing that someone would consider this whole thing as extremely disturbing in the first place. Whether people in the US are extremely oversenstive to tweets and words, or that the tweets and words have the power to suddenly make regular people hateful and violent - neither of those states are normal . Either that, or the country really is a few Twitter sparks away from civil war, which agai…

While on one hand I agree that getting this worked up over speech is weird, Gary is a (not so) unique case in that when he is able to incite the Twitter activist mob mentality on his side , against other people’s speech, he will happily do so with no hesitation whatsoever. A while back somebody put up some stickers with his face on an octopus and the tentacles holding his various assets. The Twitter mafia went all ou…

As an Asian person, I don't see any racism on your part. If that were rice instead of octopus, then there might be some issues.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#246

Post by telotortium »

riffraff wrote: post #188
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody’s buying at $1000/month but “giving them half off” makes them think they’re getting a deal. What they don’t know is they could just have a file on their computer named “is this offensive (open when drunk).txt” with contents that read “yes”.

I have fond memories of Gmail's "no emailing drunk" feature and I swear it saved me a couple times. I think it no longer works, or, well, I grew up.

Mail Goggles - apparently released in 2008[0]. I can't find it, so I don't think it exists anymore.

[0] https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sendin...

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#247

Post by swiftcoder »

casercaramel144 wrote: post #244

Surely this is fine yes? I haven't met a single person that hasn't ever wished death upon someone. Emotionality is fine, we just have some ridiculous high standards for Garry since he's YC CEO.

Given that this sort of public outburst would be grounds for firing an employee at pretty much every tech firm, it only seems right to hold the CEO to the same standard of behaviour

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#248

Post by romwell »

gadders wrote: post #239
romwell wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either that, or the country really is a few Twitter sparks away from civil war, which again would... not be a normal state of things. We're pretty much there, yup. But stochastic terrosism[1] isn't a new or unique thing. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated after similar remarks were said by Netanyahu[2], which was arguably a pivoting point towards the war in Gaza we have today. Public figures talking about specific peopl…

"Stochastic Terrorism" sounds like a great way for politicians to prevent criticism.

There's criticism, and there's saying " should die".

If you can't tell the difference, you don't belong in public spaces or forums.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#249

Post by gadders »

romwell wrote: post #248
gadders wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stochastic Terrorism" sounds like a great way for politicians to prevent criticism.

There's criticism, and there's saying " should die". If you can't tell the difference, you don't belong in public spaces or forums.

If that's the dividing line, I'm OK with it.

If "XXX of party YYY is a disgusting piece of human garbage" than I don't think that should be called terrorism.

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