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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’

#21

Post by nodesocket »

exogeny wrote: post #18
nodesocket wrote: post #15

I recently moved (fled) from downtown San Francisco to Nashville TN and couldn't be happier. I lived in SF for over 5 years, and there is absolutely a mass exodus of people and engineers leaving the bay area because of extreme ideology, hypocrisy, constant outrage, and the echo chamber that engulfs everything. Downtown San Francisco is a great place to visit for a few days but no place to start and raise a family.

So, because you and a couple of people who share similar viewpoints left, that constitutes a "exodius" (sic)? I'd like for you to read up on confirmation biases, and then post again.

A couple people. :-) Go do a quick Google search.

https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/02/12/m...

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

#22

Post by Myrmornis »

superquest wrote: post #11
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…

"openly supporting" the winning presidential candidate isn't "absurd".

Have you not heard Trump speak?

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

#23

Post by Sniffnoy »

jacques_chester wrote: post #16

The thing is, if you like private property and private contract, this is what can happen to you. If you think any company is within its rights to police speech, then you agree that it's fine for Google to exclude conservative or libertarian speech. Nobody owes you space for your views. Your place, your rules. Their place, their rules. That's the deal.

I think you're drawing a false binary choice here. There is such a thing as "thick libertarianism", for instance. There's nothing inconsistent with the view that sure one is within one's rights to do such a thing but that it is still bad, and that one might, to the extent that one can within one's own rights, take measures to discourage such a thing rather than just accepting it as "Well it's within their rights so it must be OK".

Edit: Or, to put it another way, if one wants to take the philosophy of enforcing norms primarily through private action, let us not forget that that applies not just to the company that owns the building, but also to everyone that company might deal with! And complaining doesn't seem like a bad start.

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

#24

Post by muninn_ »

didibus wrote: post #19
johnsea wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in Germany. You voice that the many refugees (with often very conservative religious and patriarchal views) pose problems and, päng, you are a nazi. A balanced discourse is (was) no longer possible. (It's getting a bit better again after some ramnifications became plain to see in some every-day situations).

Aren't there prerequisite to a discourse? Like all parties coming together with open minds. Having the intent to seek the truth, not an agenda to win. Using reason and rational thinking over your emotions. I think lately we're not meeting those qualifications, so maybe it is best not to engage, since discourse would not be productive.

Which could be a fine solution, except one or more groups still are making rules which affect the lives of all of the other groups. So disengaging means letting other groups you may disagree with dictate parts of your life.

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

#25

Post by davidf18 »

nodesocket wrote: post #15

I recently moved (fled) from downtown San Francisco to Nashville TN and couldn't be happier. I lived in SF for over 5 years, and there is absolutely a mass exodus of people and engineers leaving the bay area because of extreme ideology, hypocrisy, constant outrage, and the echo chamber that engulfs everything. Downtown San Francisco is a great place to visit for a few days but no place to start and raise a family.

SV is very liberal, yet typically engineers (eg. EE, Mechanical, Civil, Aero, Industrial, Chemical, ...) are conservative. I wonder how many people with real engineering degrees (disclosure my BS is EE with CS minor from top school) are SV liberal.

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

#26

Post by tensor »

superquest wrote: post #11
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…

"openly supporting" the winning presidential candidate isn't "absurd".

It is when it implies openly supporting racism and sexism, which is why the reaction is rightly extreme.

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

#27

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

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

#29

Post by godzillabrennus »

breakyerself wrote: post #17
dontcare25 wrote: post #7

Most silicon valley employees don't really care about any of this. If anything most have extremely conservative opinions, they'll be all for Trump if they could vote on H1

Anti-net neutrality, anti-legal pot, draconian immigration policies, erosion of the social safety net, deregulation of the environment, kneecapping solar, climate denial. Are these really things most educated people in silicon valley are on board with? I have no connection to silicon valley, but most tech workers I know wouldn't support Trump at the very least because his climate denial is anti scientific and destruc…

I think most folks in SF and SV are against Trump on these issues. There are however many people who see the homeless situation on the streets of SF and think that the Democratic government is broken on at least that issue.

Not to mention that there are folks who support the contrarian standpoint on every one of those issues but are anti gun control.

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

#30

Post by axau »

breakyerself wrote: post #17
dontcare25 wrote: post #7

Most silicon valley employees don't really care about any of this. If anything most have extremely conservative opinions, they'll be all for Trump if they could vote on H1

Anti-net neutrality, anti-legal pot, draconian immigration policies, erosion of the social safety net, deregulation of the environment, kneecapping solar, climate denial. Are these really things most educated people in silicon valley are on board with? I have no connection to silicon valley, but most tech workers I know wouldn't support Trump at the very least because his climate denial is anti scientific and destruc…

The H1Bs I know that support Trump do so mostly because of economic reasons, and because of the immigration policies, like fixing H1B abuse, and making legal immigrants take priority over illegal ones (Democrats are perceived to do the opposite).
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