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Welcome, ACLU

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Re: Welcome, ACLU

#511

Post by briandear »

warmblood wrote: post #265
jMyles wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization The ACLU is wonderful, no doubt about that. But I think some people do put an asterisk next to the group because of their (obviously somewhat strange) categorization of the protections of the 2nd amendment as outside the scope of American civil liberties.

I see the ACLU as an organization that isn't blind to all constitutional entitlements, and I don't believe they have any responsibility to be that. I see them as particularly interested in civil rights defense for the powerless against the powerful and untouchable, who are particularly antagonistic at the moment. Firearms interests have their own highly influential advocacy already from more than one entity, so it pu…

And the First Amendment is protected by powerful media litigation teams. Civil liberties don't have asterisks.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#512

Post by tlb »

aestetix wrote: post #467

This would be a lot easier for me to digest if YC could ask their companies going forward to pledge to treat all user data as PII.

I'm interested in this idea, but I'm not sure exactly what to suggest that companies do. Can you recommend some guidelines on how to treat user data that will reduce the harm caused by the way startups currently treat user data?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#513

Post by A_Crazy_Idea »

equalarrow wrote: post #52
monochromatic wrote: post #33

The ACLU sometimes supports a worthy cause, but it's basically just a left-leaning political organization. I understand that's particularly trendy right now, and anyone who supports Trump is a pariah in Silicon Valley... but come on. Would YC be donating directly to the Democratic party if that got the same favorable tax treatment?

How are your rights 'trendy'? I tend to stay out of politics, and don't really label people as such, but Trump is a bad guy. I'm happy to donate engineering time to the ACLU.

How is ACLU involved with my rights?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#514

Post by [deleted] »

muninn_ wrote: post #41

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this. Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Wh…

[deleted]

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#515

Post by krylon »

Heads-up: This going to be a long-ish, semi-OT rant:

To be honest, I feel kind of dumb these days. How I hate admitting that.

I read all the outrageous things Trump said during the Primaries and his election campaign, and I did not really take them seriously, or him. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician once said (or at least I've seen the quote attributed to him, but it seems like something he would say): "People never lie as much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt." I was hoping that if he got elected, Trump would turn it down a notch. I mean, damn, for once a politician does as she/he promised to, and it's gotta be this guy.

What makes me feel dumb is that I could have seen it coming. There's enough people that said so. Smart people, smarter than me, certainly. I hate pulling a Godwin, but I fear lots of people in Germany must have felt like this after you-know-who rose to power. It's scary.

And I am a German, living in Germany. Let me point out, as an example, that guy in Hungary, whose name I keep forgetting. Hungary is much closer than any US territory (unless you count the military bases in Germany), and quite frankly, I don't really give a damn who is president of Hungary. Or prime minister or whatever.

With the USA, it is different. They are the most powerful country on earth, for better or worse. The risk of a military confrontation with Russia is going to be a lot lower than with Hillary, I think. But that seems to be about the only glimmer of hope[1]. Besides that, Trump turns out to be even more disgusting than I would have expected.

Y Combinator got quite a bit of flak when Peter Thiel donated more money to Trump's campaign than some people make in a lifetime, and with good reason, IMHO. So at least it's good to read about this. I hope the ACLU makes the best of this and makes life as uncomfortable for Trump and his circle of "advisors" as they are able to within the boundaries laid down in the US constitution.

The world has seen much worse people than Trump come and go, and in the long run it's all water under the bridge. But in the short run, people have suffered and died in quantities that boggle the mind. Let's hope the world gets lucky this time.

[1] 'bout the only other positive aspect I can make out right now is that reading the news is not going to get boring anytime soon.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#516

Post by beaconstudios »

ajamesm wrote: post #499
beaconstudios wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one opinion: there's nothing wrong with YC supporting the ACLU or even openly opposing Trump, but consider any Trump supporters (either public or private) that they currently work with. How can they be sure that they won't be discriminated against if YC has taken a stance against their political beliefs? And for those supporters who were planning on applying to YC, how can they know that YC will treat them neutrally?…

I don't think there's any neutrality in the process and we shouldn't pretend there is. Participating in YC is assenting to American capitalism and working to enrich YC investors, which is a political act. Cooperating with Peter Thiel is a political act. Expanding the labor supply in markets with unions is a political act. Disrupting healthcare is a political act. Employment under H1B visas is political. YC can admit…

> Participating in YC is assenting to American capitalism and working to enrich YC investors, which is a political act.

With a number of layers of indirection, maybe. Capitalism is a system of economic organisation and is not inherently political. The wide variety of both left-leaning and right-leaning capitalist countries speaks to that.

what I mean when I say political is overt politics. You can argue that "the personal is political" or "everything is political" but there's a considerable difference in granularity between agreeing to work with a libertarian or trying to improve the healthcare industry, and donating money to an anti-Trump cause. Donating to the ACLU is an act of political affiliation given their recent spotlight, whereas simply agreeing to work with Thiel or employing a H1B worker is an economic act in the frame of capitalism.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#517

Post by projectileboy »

muninn_ wrote: post #41

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this. Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Wh…

While every issue you mentioned is important, the very discussion we're having starts with a base assumption that we live in a society governed by the rule of law. Coupled with the reality that YCombinator is not the Gates Foundation and has a finite amount of money and resources with which to attack problems, helping the ACLU seems to me a brilliant move by YC, to make the largest positive difference possible.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#518

Post by ansible »

Illniyar wrote: post #501

What will they present at Demo Day? Not that I'm against helping the ACLU (or any non-profit for that matter), but they don't seem like a good fit, as an organization, to an accelerator of tech startups - it's not entrepreneurial, not technology oriented, far older then YC and doesn't seek (and can't really accept) VC funding.

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. They're not a startup... they've been around way longer that YC.

I'm fine with YC supporting the ACLU in some way (financially or whatever), but... are they going to release an app or service? What's the angle here?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#519

Post by SapphireSun »

muninn_ wrote: post #135
CydeWeys wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm too cynical and look at these moves (AirBnB, Uber, Google, etc...) as marketing moves. I strongly disagree that this is purely for marketing. As someone working for one of the aforementioned companies, we are all aghast at how quickly this administration has jumped to eroding everything we believe in. These companies' moves are motivated by very real horror at the US going down a dark path. The worst you…

"This temporary hold on people entering the country from one of 7 countries for 90 days affects a lot of my coworkers" And then "I don't care about the dozens of black people gunned down every day" Seems a little selfish no? This is exactly the same mentality that Trump supporters had, just exchange Americans with coworkers and refugees with black people. Maybe they aren't purely marketing moves, but I just have a ha…

The difference isn't entirely rational, it's that one is a sudden shock and one is (a horrifying) normal.

When something is new and shocking, immediate extensive resistance can blunt the impact of new policies. That would work in the case of horrifying normal situations too, but there's no universal focal point, and focal points around which people can gather matter a lot. Given the existence of a focal point, it becomes rational to protest since others will join you.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#520

Post by vedranm »

rqebmm wrote: post #282
beaconstudios wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's so true any more. See: calls to sever ties with Peter Thiel on every political thread on HN right now.

Well that's because he's publicly backed Trump, who is as un-libertarian as you can get.

That is being thrown around a lot and actually isn't true. Thiel did not accidentally back Trump and backing Trump isn't contradictory with being a libertarian. (However, claiming that Trump is perfectly adheres to libertarian principles would be.)

Compare Donald Trump to Ron and Rand Paul, which are the prime examples of what libertarianism is (unlike Gary Johnson), there is a lot of overlap: free market healthcare, strong borders, deportation of illegal aliens, deregulations, tax cuts and tax code simplifications. There are disagreements on free trade (and please note that TPP is "free trade", not free trade) and NSA spying.

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