61–70 of 138 posts
The ultimate irony is that many conservatives will hesitate before commenting on this here, because people don't want to be on the receiving end of a torrent of downvotes.
Anyone who cares about downvotes is a shallow idiot. I can think of more serious consequences, but caring about getting greyed out on HN is not one of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you don't have the hat but don't favor liberal immigration policies? Would expressing this political stance be taken as a personal attack? If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue ag…
It's not like I have much of respect for out conservatives but I have even less for closeted conservatives when I eventually find out. Got the hat? Wear it and defend your ideas. I am open minded and rational, or at least I think I am. But if you think I'm stamping out heresy because I don't tolerate bigotry, tough. BTW, my paternal grandfather was an illegal. Paid his taxes. Stayed out of jail. The grand kids, at le…
How you want to react is your business, but again, you should be aware that it's going to impact how effective your fight against those views is.
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Laissez-faire capitalists are a dime a dozen in technology. You cannot swing a cat without hitting a libertarian (so, you know, put the cat down). To the extent that a conservative is claiming to be discriminated against, they're not suffering for the fiscal dimension of their beliefs.
Libertarians aren't conservatives. Libertarianism is a different branch of the same tree as other forms of liberalism. The goal is maximization of individual human well being and potential. The disagreement is over how best to achieve that.
Ron Paul. Gary Johnson. Bob Barr. Et cetera.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you don't have the hat but don't favor liberal immigration policies? Would expressing this political stance be taken as a personal attack? If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue ag…
The problem, of course, is that there's no way to tell from outward appearances what someone believes. A good example of this is the appropriation of Satanic imagery in rock music: few of these bands are theistic or LaVeyan Satanists, most of them are just doing it to send a message. The connotation of pentagrams and upside down crosses is "watch out, I'm evil, I like evil things, etc". Conservative Christians, howev…
If that would hurt someone's feelings so much to be a "hostile work environment" then that's the same problem shown by right-wingers getting incensed over Colin Kaepernick. There are a lot of publications out there, left and right, that try to fan flames more than they try to inform, and we need to get past that.
But, in the short term, I'd take it as a kindness if we could just stop talking politics at work. I don't want to hear you whining twenty minutes every day about Trump, and that's coming from someone mostly in the "the democrats are too conservative and centrist" camp.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-fran... - very long, but a very interesting look at some potential perils
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False equivalence. (There's a lot of that in the Trump age.) Obama never explicitly ran on a platform of implementing a policy which would immediately destroy the livelihood of upstanding individuals based on their identity or associations. (See: Muslim ban, immigration policy, transgender ban.)
>Obama never explicitly ran on a platform of implementing a policy which would immediately destroy the livelihood of upstanding individuals based on their identity or associations. He did, however, run on a platform that was about escalating a conflict in another part of the world, and did implement it, and many people did end up being killed, which is a lot more than what Trump did.
I've worked places (not in tech) where I was not allowed to talk about my support for Barack Obama for fear of being shouted down, mocked, or forced to listen to racist diatribes about his history. I have been on the other side of this kind of bullshit. I moved from the small, Midwestern town that harbored these people and their insane beliefs to a liberal, coastal city that "gets" me a little more. I'm happier for i…
People don't really change their minds when you call them a racist, fire them, etc. When I am talking to a liberal who I know wont try to cause problems for me (like getting me fired), I will ask lots of questions.
Why do you believe X? What facts support that opinion? I believe Y because ..., where do you think the flaw in my logic is? Why do you think value A is more important that counter-value B?
It's really depressing that someone such as yourself, who has known what it is to be descriminated against for what you think are reasonable beliefs, would perpetuate the same against others.
If you think someone's views are wrong, then ask them why they think that. At worst, you'll get a better insight into how to point out why they are wrong. At best, you'll have a chance of convincing them that your position is better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like I have much of respect for out conservatives but I have even less for closeted conservatives when I eventually find out. Got the hat? Wear it and defend your ideas. I am open minded and rational, or at least I think I am. But if you think I'm stamping out heresy because I don't tolerate bigotry, tough. BTW, my paternal grandfather was an illegal. Paid his taxes. Stayed out of jail. The grand kids, at le…
I don't have the hat or the beliefs, but way to illustrate that you can't even imagine someone being able to understand opposing positions. You certainly don't sound open minded or rational, since you're assuming bigotry could be the only possible root belief for similar policy goals. How you want to react is your business, but again, you should be aware that it's going to impact how effective your fight against thos…
As someone who is in no way a part of Silicon Valley: does anyone really care how fiscally conservative or liberal you are? I always thought it was the social issues that caused the problem. Whether it's misrepresenting statistics to justify sexism or saying that some people deserve less rights because of their sexual orientation.
MAGA has nothing to do with fiscal conservatism. As in Zero. Nada. Zilch. President Obama was quite fiscally conservative.
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After you reach a certain number of upvotes yes. (I believe 500)
Heh. Given the parent's question, your response, and your username, I thought you were an FAQ bot written by Paul Graham.
It could auto-reply to the super common things:
- Didn't read the article
- Why can't I downvote
- Title doesn't match the article
- No asking for upvotes
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laissez-faire capitalists are a dime a dozen in technology. You cannot swing a cat without hitting a libertarian (so, you know, put the cat down). To the extent that a conservative is claiming to be discriminated against, they're not suffering for the fiscal dimension of their beliefs.
Libertarians aren't conservatives. Libertarianism is a different branch of the same tree as other forms of liberalism. The goal is maximization of individual human well being and potential. The disagreement is over how best to achieve that.