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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#541

Post by gdudeman »

blfr wrote: post #103

We need to accept that some of these ideas ... are inherently dangerous. Maybe but somehow we don't focus on dangerous ideas. Communism is by far the most dangerous idea devised in the west. It infected dozens of societies and led them to a century of poverty, slavery, and hundred million deaths. Yet someone who's open about being a communist won't really be ostracised in SF. Communist flags are available on Amazon.…

I'd like to challenge this.

If you go into a startup and say "I'm a communist," many of them are going to be pretty skeptical of your ideas. You will find yourself in a lot of awkward conversations if you make this a thing you want to talk about.

If you pitch a VC and throw in "btw, I'm a communist," or they find your online writings about being a communist, you aren't getting a check.

If you apply for upper management at Google and you say "I want to overthrow capitalism because I'm a communist," you're going to have a really, really hard time.

I don't think it's arguable that communists are actively operating in America and causing capitalists to have longer jail sentences or killing them when they wouldn't kill communists. So, no, I don't think communism is a threat whereas anti-semitism and racism are immediate threats.

I don't think that we need to jail all people who are racist, but I think it's just fine to not talk to them or to yell at them or even to fire if they feel the need to express their beliefs in a way that gets in my business or stops me or my team from doing our work.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#542

Post by leroy_masochist »

btilly wrote: post #510
leroy_masochist wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley is in California because of historical reasons related to a) US defense R&D spending following WWII and b) the 60's counterculture, not because of differences in each respective state's employment law. IANAL, but declining to hire a lawyer out of principle because you think that certain aspects of a given state's employment law "shouldn't be a problem in the first place" is really dumb.

Whatever the history, startups are fragile. Were California law different, it would definitely have a chilling effect on startups. As for hiring a lawyer, most of the people who really need to know this don't know up front that they should negotiate such terms. And most employees, including me, don't really want to start off a new job haggling over the contract. It really doesn't make a good first impression.

> And most employees, including me, don't really want to start off a new job haggling over the contract. It really doesn't make a good first impression.

Important to note that this is not true. If you, say, have a side project and want to ensure that it remains your property after you join the company, and that you can keep working on it and keep having it belong exclusively to you, having a lawyer review the draft contract a potential employer sends with your offer is not going to piss off anyone you would ever want to work for.

Companies that hire quality engineers are used to potential employees having lawyers, and do not get ruffled when those lawyers do their jobs. If they do, it's a major red flag.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#543

Post by Houshalter »

tomtheelder wrote: post #441
Houshalter wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damore did make a scientific case for his claims and referenced a bunch of studies. That's probably why it got so much attention. The original had a bunch of links and graphs and plots. But the version most people read was published by some newspaper that stripped all that stuff out (and titled it an "anti-diversity screed" just to show how unbiased they were.) >they should "respect all points of view" (no matter how…

> Damore did make a scientific case for his claims and referenced a bunch of studies. Ehhh. Among my friends/coworkers one of the biggest objections was how dicey a lot of the referenced research was, and how much he was bending or extending conclusions to fit his narrative. At the very best his essay was awful science, but to me it felt more like a half-hearted attempt to cherrypick studies that sort of reinforced h…

It wasn't the strongest possible argument for his case IMO. There are other better studies and statistics I would have referenced. But it was good enough and the points were solid,. That there are observable personality differences between men and women, and we shouldn't expect perfect gender ratios.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#544

Post by olympus »

kbenson wrote: post #360
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just throw 'probably' in clearly inflammatory statements and expect the reader to pick up the burden of proof.

And yet I don't think it's clearly inflammatory. Again, perhaps what you are interpreting as clearly inflammatory was meant to express something other than that. Of course, this could all be cleared up if you actually explained what you thought was so horrible about the original comment. So far you've called it "absolutist" and "clearly inflammatory" but not actually explained why you think so. Obviously, at least on…

I'm cool with it being considered inflammatory to oversensitive Californians. Their reaction is exactly why people in the other 49 states don't like California. You can't remotely criticize CA at all, it's a wonderful magical land where everything and every person is better than everywhere else. They'll take offense even when they don't meet the profile that the criticism was intended for, just because it might offend someone else in CA.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#545

Post by [deleted] »

dguaraglia wrote: post #489
conanbatt wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Damore case has nothing to do with the validity of the science. If the scientific interpretation had been perfectly reasonable there would still be a flip-out and would have also been fired. Thats what's scary.

Damore was fired not because his science was flawed, but because he made himself essentially impossible to work with. Would you be "scared" if someone refuses to take a shower for months on end and a company decides to fire them?

[deleted]

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#546

Post by Houshalter »

dguaraglia wrote: post #489
conanbatt wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Damore case has nothing to do with the validity of the science. If the scientific interpretation had been perfectly reasonable there would still be a flip-out and would have also been fired. Thats what's scary.

Damore was fired not because his science was flawed, but because he made himself essentially impossible to work with. Would you be "scared" if someone refuses to take a shower for months on end and a company decides to fire them?

What does it say about your industry, if even people with average, moderate positions are "impossible to work with"?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#547

Post by Houshalter »

edmccard wrote: post #493
Houshalter wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If genetic engineering and life extension become common place, especially if controlled by private companies which naturally seek profit above all else, who will benefit from them most? (hint: probably not people living on welfare) Why not? People on welfare have access to better healthcare than the richest person on Earth did 50 years ago. They have access to pocket computers and communication systems far more powe…

>People on welfare have access to better healthcare than the richest person on Earth did 50 years ago. They have access to pocket computers and communication systems far more powerful than the military could have afforded 50 years ago. Which doesn't really matter unless you have a time machine that can send them back 50 years. At least, none of the poor people I've known (including myself) have ever said "I can't aff…

Sorry, I just don't see the world in terms of "anything that makes one person better off, necessarily makes someone worse off." That kind of world view is toxic to progress. It completely flies in the face of everything we've achieved in the last 2 centuries.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#548

Post by sudosteph »

SwellJoe wrote: post #397
angersock wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One follow-on to your final paragraph: the thing is that small-town Texas (depending on the area) does look a lot different from Georgia. It's probably got a good deal more Latinos (Angleton, or any town as you head west), it's probably got more Vietnamese and folks of Vietnamese descent (coastal towns, Port Arthur), it's probably got a more functioning economy (notable exceptions like Rockport). In some ways (if you…

I agree with you; rural Texas is more like western rural cities than the deep south, including California. I pretty much always argue that Texas is not part of "the south", and often get ranted at because Texas is so far south...it's as southern as you can get in the US, but I think its character is just so different from SC, NC, GA, AL, etc. that it doesn't make sense to group them in most conversations.

Honestly, as a native of (urban) NC, I felt like TX was very similar when I visited. And the few Texans I went to school with didn't seem to feel too out of place in NC either. We've both got nice people, growing and diverse cities, a solid college education system, and super religious people everywhere just to keep you on your toes... Really the biggest differences I could tell was that TX got hotter and you have crazy long stretches of road with nothing at all on them (which is indeed a uniquely western thing).

But I think the whole concept of "deep south" vs the "new south" is where you see the differences come into play. Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Asheville, and many other NC areas, are great, diverse places that have far more in common with Dallas/Austin/Houston than with whatever the stereotypical image of "the south" is that most folks have in their heads. So in other words, I think TX is just as southern as NC is, and that isn't necessarily anything to be ashamed of.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#549

Post by gdudeman »

nine_k wrote: post #306
dmode wrote: post #274

I have no idea what this article was about. As someone who grew up in India, lived extensively in Europe and Arizona before settling down in the Bay Area, and travel to China 2-3 times a year, I find Bay Area by far to be the most open, tolerant, accepting places I have ever lived. And it is not even comparable. And it is borne out by simple stats. People vote with their feet. Bay Area is almost a majority minority a…

While in SF / SV, can you feel the general air of the ideas acceptable here? A small experiment: take an idea which obviously contradicts that air, and imagine rationally discussing it with people who you typically meet in SF. Will it be more than slightly uncomfortable? Scott Alexander wrote this great piece, I leave a link to it here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything... For instant enlig…

I have in fact had many rational discussions with people I disagree with in SF. Around guns, libertarianism, and unlimited freedom on the right and huge taxes on the rich, free healthcare for all, and socialism on the left.

This isn't that hard! The trick is you have to start with an open mind and try to understand where they're coming from. That's true in every place in the US - you aren't going to convince people of your "truth" 99.5% of the time, you're only going to understand their truth.

However! Expecting everyone to want an open discussion or even to hear about your pet controversial topic will make your life hard no matter where you go unless people are pretty close to you politically.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#550

Post by olympus »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #256
olympus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good point. People complain about Californian culture being too sensitive but choose to stay there. If your startup can't survive unless it's right next to Silicon Valley then it probably deserves to die anyway. NYC has plenty of tech talent to work with. Altman is not staying in SV because he can't afford to move. He's staying in the area because he actually prefers working with the people he's comp…

Well that, and he runs a company whose value proposition is very explicitly tied to SV being the best place to start a startup, so it would be kind of awkward if he moved.

From the YC FAQ:

"Can we do it without moving to where you are? Sorry, no. We tried this once, and by Demo Day that startup was way behind the rest. What we do, we have to do in person. We would not be doing a startup a favor by not making them come to YC events in person."

Their stated reason is more about dealing with people face to face, and less about SV. It also sounds like they only tried it once, which probably isn't a big enough sample size considering that most startups aren't successful in the first place. It sounds like they never gave places other than SV a fair shake.

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