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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’

#591

Post by astura »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #194
friedman23 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you, if you shed tears because Trump won the election you are mentally unstable.

Well no... they were just very devoted to the election but it's also missing the point. Many people who shed tears over Trump's win are not far left, they're just normal centrist or center-left.

Or even center-right. Many of my family, who are definitely right leaning, mildly racist, God fearing, Church attending Christians, we're absolutely devastated at Trump's victory.

I fail to understand how "crying Donald J Trump is the president of the United States" equals being an "insane insufferable far left crazy." Even if you mostly agree with him politically, you may still be very upset about someone who boasted about sexually assaulting women representing you/your political beliefs. That's just one example.

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

#592

Post by ImSkeptical »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #350
manfredo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the Bay Area and I have personally worked with (as in, on the same team with and working directly in cooperation. CEOs, founders, etc. are not included in this count), exactly one person who discussed their conservative views. This is in comparison to hundreds of liberals. Sure, you may be able to identify at least one person on variety of ends of the political spectrum, but I don't think anyone can sanely…

When the topic of underrepresented groups comes up regarding women and minorities, the reason given a lot is that “they’re not interested” or something along those lines. Why would that not be the same reason here?

I think there is probably something to this explanation. One reason I've seen for why women prefer not to go into start ups, for example, is that it's more of a high risk, high reward, gamble - which is typically more interesting to men. Likewise, ideologically conservative people are likely disposed not to make such risks.

The question isn't, or shouldn't be, "Do we have representation of women/conservatives/whatever in proportion to demographics?" Instead, the question should be "Are we treating people unfairly?"

For example, I'd feel quite comfortable wearing a Burnie Sanders shirt or hat to work. I'd expect that wearing a MAGA hat would cause problems.

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

#593

Post by ImSkeptical »

IntronExon wrote: post #496
PeterisP wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about who is dominant, it's about the fundamental right of the non-dominant minority (whatever that is in any particular place and time) to express themselves and not having to hide. Equality of opportunities/rights for the particular individual wherever they may be, not attempting to get equality of outcomes for the aggregate by harming individual rights or justifying local oppression by some wider goal. If…

That’s the excuse I hear a lot from people who, upon closer inspection, simply see spouting their particular brand of extreme intolerance as something which should be utterly free of backlash. People like Peter Thiel, who seem to be some flavor of neo-nazi/white nationalist and don’t like that their noxious opinions have little remaining audience. You have every right to speak, and people have the same right to speak…

Can you explain how Thiel is a neo-Nazi or white nationalist?

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

#594

Post by kelukelugames »

manfredo wrote: post #539
tanilama wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is meritocracy conservative exactly? I worked in a big tech company in Bay Area, and it is empathized in my hiring training session heavily that we are not afraid to miss good people but we are afraid to end up with bad ones. Not agree with far-left opinion != Being conservative. A lot of my colleagues who happily brand themselves as liberal, all think unregulated illegal immigration will cause problem, I don't t…

Interesting that you say that. "Meritocracy" has become a bit of a bad word in Bay Area tech companies. [1] And in case I didn't make this clear, that was just a quick dump of views that I think are generally considered conservative. Real life is much more nuanced than a list of bullet points. I fully agree that there are, for example, people who want tougher immigration laws but otherwise don't consider themselves c…

When you say conservatives support Meritocracy do you mean like how Ivanka and Jared got jobs with the White House? When people criticize the word "Meritocracy" they are not criticizing the concept but the usage.

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

#595

Post by tomsthumb »

greglindahl wrote: post #291
tomsthumb wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I have seen a coworker strongly imply that someone is a white nationalist for suggesting that it’s possible to be a non-racist republican.

Thanks for the anecdote. Was a reminder of "let's be respectful, now!" good enough to solve the problem?

It took many more words, several days and a lot of listening from both sides for a more reasonable position to emerge.

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

#596

Post by dcow »

cmurf wrote: post #541
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…

Meritocracy is incompetent. It is trust destroying because it's inherently corrupt. The privileged, the elite, control the metric by which merit is defined and judged. They create a system of self-preservation that excludes others who would dilute their control. There is no such thing as privilege, elitism, without exclusion and inferiority. Meritocracy always leads to the very thing it purports to try and avoid: inc…

I don't necessarily disagree, but I think we need a pretty big overhaul of the way we govern ourselves if we're going to escape it. And the only civil way I can think to do that is to rewrite our constitutions and laws using the guidelines that have been laid out describing how something of that nature is to be done. I don't think it's paralegal corporate enforcement of popular ideologies.

I'm willing to entertain a social structure that protects human agency in a world where our traditional means of measuring human value are quickly becoming obsolete, but I think we need a lot more agreement that's the direction we need to head...

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

#597

Post by s73v3r_ »

dreit1 wrote: post #484
tessierashpool wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the conservative claim to being "silenced" is a reflection of privilege. for instance, the icon here is Peter Thiel, a billionaire who complains about being victimized because people tell him he's in the wrong. you will and should face ostracism and other consequences for saying, believing, and doing things that people find abhorrent or evil. free speech means you're free to believe those things, and everybody else i…

This is the exact type of commentary the article is talking. This conservative strawman you’ve built is far from average. In this absurd, inflammatory commentary replace the conservative boogeyman with a Muslim boogeyman or a gay boogeyman and realize you’re using the exact same type of rhetoric as the people you despise

Can you really call it a “boogeyman” when conservatives have supported and enacted things into law that have been actively harmful to the other groups? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a majority gay government try to deny straight couples fundamental rights, for instance.

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

#598

Post by s73v3r_ »

manfredo wrote: post #567
s73v3r_ wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor have I. I think it’s similar to the “War on Christmas,” it’s not something that is actually happening, but people like to pretend it is.

I have never seen a woman being harassed or otherwise mistreated in the workplace. Should I conclude that women do not experience harassment or mistreatment in tech?

This is a very bad faith argument, which is quite disappointing considering the other good points you’ve brought up in this thread.

The treatment of women in tech is a very well documented issue, to the point where one would have to be willfully ignorant of the issue. The biggest “evidence” of the War on Christmas is a coffee cup, and companies simply acknowledging the fact that many other faiths and cultures have celebrations during that time of year.

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

#599

Post by s73v3r_ »

manfredo wrote: post #577
s73v3r_ wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t hear the tech companies saying it, but go into the comment section here on any story related to those things, and it will definitely come up as a very popular opinion. And not too long ago, hell, even currently in some places, it was considered a mainstream conservative view that gays should not have the same rights to marry. If a person holding that view were to work at, say, Grindr, I would absolutely expec…

This isn't contradicting anything I claimed. If anything, it's reinforcing it. Pointing out the disparity between the prevalence of conservative views (or at least, views that go against the majority in big Bay Area tech companies) on HN vs. in real life reinforces the notion that many tech workers are having to censor themselves and lie to their co-workers to fit in at work. Marc Andressen said something similar in…

My point is, if your political stance is that certain groups should be denied fundamental rights, for instance, then yes, you will feel awkward around those people, and with good reason.

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

#600

Post by owyn »

eadmund wrote: post #213
jstewartmobile wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the averages are, but reviewing my comment history, seems to be more upvotes than downvotes. I don't post comments on HN to stir the pot. I post comments on HN in the hope of getting other perspectives. A comment with a downvote and a reply is more valuable than a comment with upvotes and no replies. It's not like I can redeem HN points for cash and prizes. I think I can do an OK job of not being an…

> I think I can do an OK job of not being an asshole, but I honestly have no idea what is or isn't going to piss people off or classify as flamebait here. I wish that there were some sort of metamoderation system. I downvote the mods whenever they post about abusing their power, but I don't know if that even has an effect, or if moderators' posts are immune from downvotes.

slashdot had that years (decades?) ago. For such a wild west porto-reddit type of site, it really did have some good tools to manage trolling. Moderation flags have a "type" (funny, troll, redundant, offtopic, etc). There's also a meta-moderation system where random users got picked to see some random posts and judge whether the first level of moderation is fair.

It's been around a long time, but I guess it's a bit fiddly? I'm not sure why other sites haven't adopted similar processes.

https://slashdot.org/faq#meta1

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