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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’

#411

Post by door3 »

dang wrote: post #407
door3 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your comment and I think that you make a lot of valid points. Anyway my original account was certainly shadowbanned without warning (logging out and viewing my page made recent comments invisible), I assume bc I had -70 net comment karma. I don’t feel bitter towards the mods about it but am curious what’s up

You're always welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and we can look into it for you. Edit: you're right about account karma. When it gets negative enough, comments get killed by software, which is close enough to shadowbanning that it would look the same externally. That case is rather rare and I forgot about it.

Thanks!

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

#412

Post by andybak »

freyir wrote: post #365
titzer wrote: post #310

I'm 37 and, God, people treat me like I'm a dinosaur. I've been programming C for 25 years and it's hard to relate to young people who don't know what a machine register is. We can argue about it, I can get downvoted, whatever. I moved out of the Bay Area after 5 years, and to be honest, the divide between where I am and where the ideological center of Silicon Valley has drifted just continues to get wider. It has li…

> I'm 37 and, God, people treat me like I'm a dinosaur. I've been programming C for 25 years Exit out of vim, fire up Visual Studio Code, and start writing some Javascript. At this point, the 20-somethings will hoist your chair atop their shoulders and carry you around the office chanting your name.

> Visual Studio Code

Surely Atom would be a better "typical hipster editor"?

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

#413

Post by wpietri »

friedman23 wrote: post #146
wpietri wrote: post #78

> they feel people there are resistant to different social values and political ideologies This is just bizarre to to me. I moved here from the Midwest, which I found stifling. There's a far greater variety of social values and political ideologies (not to mention backgrounds and interests) here than pretty much any place I've lived. The main hostility I see is to intolerance, but that's hardly surprising given SF's…

> This is just bizarre to to me. I moved here from the Midwest, which I found stifling. There's a far greater variety of social values and political ideologies Really? Because the only values I've heard expressed have been standard democratic talking points and once in a while far left ideologies.

Maybe it's who you hang around.

I regularly see a lot of different views and values, both online and in the streets. I agree the most common is what I think of as "moneyed Democrat", meaning pro-status-quo left, what in other countries would be either center-left or center-right. But I hear a lot from socialists, communists, anarchists, libertarians, and what I think of as fundamentalist capitalists. And I know plenty of people who are, like myself, socially liberal, fiscally conservative independents that in another era probably would have been Rockefeller Republicans.

The only thing I really don't see much of here is modern Republicans. Which I get, in that a lot of the modern Republican talking points are anti-tolerance (e.g., anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-nonwhite-immigrant), anti-science (e.g., evolution, climate change), pro-corporate, and/or pro-authoritarian. And given the way the CA Republican Party self-destructed over the last few decades, the lack just seems unsurprising.

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

#414

Post by sg47 »

sebastos wrote: post #266
mnm1 wrote: post #122

Great. He should get the fuck out then if he doesn't feel welcome. While some people might tolerate the kind of scum like Thiel, I think it's good that SV doesn't tolerate. There's plenty of other places Thiel and people who feel like him can move to. The area will be better off with people like him gone, IMO. Most open minded liberal people with half a brain aren't going to move to bumblefuck, usa for the same reaso…

Your vision for the future of America sounds incredible, how can I sign up? Seriously, I had never thought about it before but just dividing everybody up into high-school cliques that openly loathe each other, with no pretense of a common societal fabric... you should give speeches. This is a message people need to hear. Can I find any more of your writing on this topic? I, and I'm sure many others, want to hear more…

Follow @realDonaldTrump on Twitter.

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

#415

Post by manfredo »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #367
dcow wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument here is that people like you label anything you don't agree with as "intolerant" and justify social lynching of the ideas based on your likely angry or frustrated emotional assessment. This didn't start with James, although that's one of the more popular incidents. Disagreeing with operational policies that are based on politically charged ideas that we need to correct for the inequalities in outcomes ra…

Are you not doing the exact same thing?

No, not at all. Being tolerant of political views means accepting political views from a broad spectrum. This is being co-opted by some to reframe tolerance as being actively intolerant towards disliked views. The latter is intolerance attempting to disguise itself as tolerance.

There is no tolerance paradox. For example, people's ability to advocate for the repeal of the 1st Amendment is protected by the 1st Amendment. Allowing people to advocate for the removal of the 1st Amendment, despite being a massively unpopular position (I hope), is an act of tolerance. What is not correct is attempting to claim that it is an act of tolerance to harass or shut down those people advocating for the Amendment's repeal because people believe it would lead to a worse society.

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

#416

Post by andybak »

jerkstate wrote: post #383
manofstick wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As non-american, living outside of america (but having lived there for a year and a half starting January 2000), I concur. I still follow american politics quite a bit (too much for me to remain healthy actually) and I'm constantly bamboozled trying to comprehend what people mean by the "far left". To me it seems like any one is considered "far left" if they believe in: - treating all people, regardless of race, gend…

I don't think those beliefs are far-left, I believe what makes beliefs far-left is the conclusions that are drawn from them are typically to reduce the freedom of the governed to achieve those objectives: - Treat all people equally, and legislate that outcomes are the same for all groups of people - Believe in the science of climate change and legislate reductions programs which incentivize offshoring manufacturing (…

"Far-left" used to mean "Revolutionary Marxist" - and still does in most parts of the world. You're talking about left-liberal here by my understanding.

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

#417

Post by rmrm »

shard972 wrote: post #401
andybak wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being against racial diversity is racist That made me stop and think. I'm trying to imagine a picture of someone who is against racial diversity but isn't remotely racist and whilst I agree there's no logical contradiction inherent in that position I do struggle to think of a realistic portrait of such an individual. I might be missing something here but can you spell out this position for me in a bit more detail?…

Consider that this is the majority consensus in Japan and China. Imagine going to japan and saying "guys, this workplace is far too asian, what we really need here is some more indians, africans and arabs to get this workplace into the 21st century". I think most people here could see that not going over well. Would we then think of china and japan as mostly racist? I don't really want to get into racist/racial debat…

They are both pretty openly xenophobic, no? I didnt think that was in any debate. If your point is that racism isnt the sole province of white people - yes, thats worth remembering. White American liberals (which I am) seem to struggle with allowing their world view to incorporate things like this.

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

#418

Post by WaxProlix »

andybak wrote: post #398
WaxProlix wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of what makes it so pernicious - they feel persecuted, but everyone else can see that they're firmly in control of everything. So it gets pointed out that they're not actually persecuted, which makes the White Moderate feel more persecuted and ignored, pushing them further right. Frustrating, but I don't know what you can do about it.

"They" is a very dangerous word in this concept because despite the genuine advantages of being white - there are many white people who are powerless and have had shitty lives. Inter-group vs intra-group differences. Someone from a minority might well have had an better life with more opportunities than someone from a privileged class. Comparing groups does not translate into comparing individuals (interestingly this…

> genuine advantages of being white

The folks I'm mostly talking about don't actually believe in that, so obviously my "they" was too broad, indeed.

> Someone from a minority might well have had an better life with more opportunities than someone from a privileged class.

I don't think this has anything to do with what I'm talking about, except maybe as an intentional deflection? We're talking about white resentment as a phenomenon, not Bill the blue collar veteran who was tricked into plundering loot for Halliburton in 2004 or something.

> Comparing groups does not translate into comparing individuals (interestingly this is the same intellectual shortcut that leads to racism)

Discussing race as a phenomenon doesn't make you racist, and this talking point is often used by alt-righters to make some sort of "actually, anti-racists are the REAL racists" narrative. I don't buy it.

edit: My views are failing in the marketplace of ideas! Feel free to leave a comment if you want to engage.

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

#419

Post by sterlind »

tomp wrote: post #330
mlloyd wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely aside from this, how can you support Trump while knowing that he doesn't support you and his VP actively fights against LGBT rights?

You do realize that (1) politics is multi-dimensional, (2) trans-issues are far too unimportant for Trump to actually care about and (3) US has good enough legal system that there's approximately 0 chance that Trump can actually do anything agains trans people (I mean he can't even manage to ban foreign Muslims).

Have you been following Trump's DoJ, and the military ban? You're simply uninformed, he can and has been doing things to harm us.

Our legal system is fragile and it's not at all clear that trans rights will win the day.

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

#420

Post by dictum »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #133
nodesocket wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you can't see that it's in the media's best interest (manily to stay in business) to push outrage and sensational headlines and enable constant outrage is surprising. Facebook also further reinforces the outrage (on both sides) again for huge profits. Outrage sells, and business is a booming.

You're making it zero sum but it's not. It's possible to have a media that profits off outrage but to simultaneously have outrageous things happening to our the most important institutions. The media did not create deported children, paid off porn stars, and collusion with foreign governments. So let's not pretend this is on them entirely.

The media did not create the situations you listed, but it did create a lot of "get a load of this guy" pieces about him exactly when he wanted them most: when he was the kooky loudmouth unlikely to be nominated.
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