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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’

#31

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…

Why was supporting Trump absurd?

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

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

And possibly treason...

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

#33

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.

See, and I left NYC for Nashville in 2015, and I’m moving back to NYC next week. Nashville itself is pretty purple, but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF, and I find it much, much more offensive (Roy Moore).

There is not a (net) mass exodus from the Bay Area, hence the ridiculous prices. I moved to SF in 2006 and there were always people claiming it was on the verge of collapse because everyone was fed up with the high prices and crowding and was fleeing. Funny to see that nothing has changed.

“No one goes to that bar anymore, it’s too crowded!”

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

#34

What is it that Peter Thiel said previously about women voting? What did he do to Gawker?

Just a friendly reminder, Gawker did not out Thiel. He had a public profile on Friendster that clearly described him as interested in men. Gawker's editor at the time remarked that people like him thought the web was this super ultra secret bat cave, and that if you posted something there it wasn't really public.

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

#35

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.

Unable to edit my comment so adding this: http://www.machinedesign.com/news/politics-engineers

"Engineers tend to view themselves as much less liberal and slightly more conservative than the general public, according to a recent survey of over 1,200 readers of MACHINE DESIGN and Electronic Design magazines. The same survey also found that engineers say they are more likely to be Republican (42.1%) or Independent (33.7%) voters, as opposed to Democrats (14.5%)."

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

#36
post #31

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…

Why was supporting Trump absurd?

Good question, dick head.

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

#37

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’s a shame this even has to be said here.

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

#38

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.

SV liberalism is kind of hypocritical and surface. Here we have an apparently super-liberal place whose main industry is mass surveillance and that does everything in its power via local zoning policy to price out the poor and minorities. The local echo chamber is all about 'diversity' yet the local tech industry is among the least diverse industries in the world. A lot of the echo chambering is in the "methinks you doth protest too much" category IMHO.

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

#39

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.

See, and I left NYC for Nashville in 2015, and I’m moving back to NYC next week. Nashville itself is pretty purple, but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF, and I find it much, much more offensive (Roy Moore). There is not a (net) mass exodus from the Bay Area, hence the ridiculous prices. I moved to SF in 2006 and there were always people claiming it was on the verge of collapse because everyone w…

>but the ideology of the south is just as homogeneous as SF

this is an interesting asymmetry I've noticed too. There are countless of places where salt of the earth Americana is the de facto monoculture.

If I'd go there and try to create a liberal-hippie space for myself they'd probably flip me the finger and tell me that's not the local way of life, and somehow everybody seems to agree that this is perfectly fine.

Yet when people in the valley or in a big city share a common culture they somehow have to defend themselves and painstakingly carve out a space for Peter Thiel et al. Why is that? If he doesn't like California's culture Thiel can move, end of story. Why do we have to treat him like a wounded deer?

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

#40

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.

Engineers are usually conservative because they mostly come from stable, conservative households. A lot of them became engineers because aside from their interest in how things work, it was a safe career choice that would allow them to perpetuate the lifestyles they had come to enjoy while living with their parents.

The people in SV are largely more willing to challenge orthodoxy and take risks.

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