661–670 of 766 posts
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It's disgraceful that you're trying to bully an organization based on the political opinions of one of their partners. You should be ashamed of yourself and of the damage you're doing to your country.
He can dry his tears with the $25 I pay for Pinboard.
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The real tragedy is how easily peoples attention are all about form not substance. For all the crazy things Trump is saying he actually have some points that are far more important to discuss than whatever he said about women or journalists. With Hillary you get a seasoned politician who is going to do what they have always been doing. Absolutely nothing. That's besides of course making a huge mess internationally. A…
Well, you have to move past childish rhetoric before we talk substance. And even if we did, Donald doesn't have any substance. If he did, he would have focused on those. His policy ideas are broad brush strokes which don't hold up under further scrutiny. Hillary is a centrist and pragmatic politician. I for one is pretty happy with where the US is and do not want radical change. Minor tweaks around healthcare, milita…
Something have to change IMO.
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Some would claim you already have that.
Some would claim that Obama is a neo-Nazi? I admit, that's a new one. Haven't heard that before.
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In my simple way of understanding this, then, is that libertarians are un-developed democrats. They think Democrats are "wrong" because of what they are, but when you extend this line of thought for many, many many years, you find yourself a democrat. Democrats can be easily criticized for overthinking bathroom rights, but doesn't that argument boil down to freedoms of the oppressed transgendered person? Freedom for…
All those things you mention violate the Non-Aggression Principle, and are thus incredibly non-libertarian. Libertarianism make few exceptions to that principle in order to allow for such things as limited government policing, courts and defence. Bathroom laws require forcing companies to pay for additional bathrooms, and by extension, pay for the policing required to prevent gender-mixing in the non-approved bathroo…
Not usually.
> Environmental regulations force companies to pay for expensive pollution-limiting equipment. Pollution is already handled by libertarianism as pollution means either damage to people's health, or damage to people's property. Both of which are violations of the non-aggression principle. No environmental "regulations" necessary as the repercussions far outweigh the benefits of pollution.
I'm having some trouble parsing what you mean. Are you saying the government should stop pollution because it causes damage to people/property, but they shouldn't call it 'regulation'?
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One wonders what Nixon's legacy would have been if he just hadn't gotten caught. He wasn't a complete fuckup, and did actually accomplish some worthy things, but Watergate casts a shadow over it all. Meanwhile, look at his opponent in 1960. JFK is practically revered as a saint because he had his brains blown out on national television. We largely forget or excuse his intense sex addiction, or that he very nearly pus…
Nixon proposed universal health care 45 years ago. Although some said he made anti-Semitic statements, he employed a Jewish Secretary of State, Kissinger who basically ran the international part of the presidency when Nixon was in the later states of the Watergate Investigation. Over the advice of Defense and other advisors, he insisted on fully rearming a desperate Israel with a very, very impressive airlift during…
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So in the first part you argue that they acted this way only because other powers tried to subvert them. I'm not going to argue against the fact that others try to subvert them because this is a fact, but the thing is that other Ideologies also face the same issue. Yet we consistently always see the same thing in Socialism. The last one where this happened is Venezuela, which has enacted a forced labour law recently.…
> So in the first part you argue that they acted this way only because other powers tried to subvert them. I'm not going to argue against the fact that others try to subvert them because this is a fact, but the thing is that other Ideologies also face the same issue. Others face it too, true, but there's no denying that the country with the largest military in human history does have much more bullying power and if t…
How do you expect me to have a discussion with you when all you are doing is trying to twist my words? We were discussing if there's a connection between Anti-Semitism and Socialism so I commented on that. (in fact, you were the one who argued that the Nazis were no Socialists because they hated Jews)
Now you turn around and tell me that I do not give due credit to other ethnicities that are successful too.
Sorry, but I don't feel that you are actually trying to reason here. You just put out statements like "they must have stolen the money and you know it" and Socialism actually celebrates and encourages success. Yeah, with enormous tax rates up to 90% or nationalising private propert (= stealing private property)
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I think it's funny that he's supporting the party that is making an issue out of the "who can use which bathroom" deal. Transgender people just want to use the bathroom they align with, it's the GOP that's making up stories about how children are at risk or some shit. Theil is an idiot.
Except that Trump has said that he does not care who uses what bathroom at his hotels and such. So, no, Thiel isn't an idiot.
Peter Thiel is a YCombinator partner, yet YC has steadfastly refused to disavow him. In a Twitter exchange with David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham suggested that to do so would somehow be the equivalent of firing an employee for having a distateful political opinion. YC's silence on a partner's outspoken support of Trump is disgraceful, and sends the most shameful message about our industry.
I have to admit as much as I dislike Trump pg raises a valid point. Another analogy would be YC disavowing Thiel for being gay. An employer has no business in their employees sexual lives or politic preferences.
Graham isn't Thiel's employer. Neither is Altman. Thiel is a business partner of Altman's, and to a lesser extent (Graham's involvement with YC being at present attenuated) to Graham.
Meanwhile, Paul Graham is literally the dean of the movement to recognize tech-style startups as singular among modes of human endeavor. To my chagrin, he's managed to redefine a mainstream business term ("startup") through sheer force of will. And among the things that make his "startups" unique, so important that it got a callout in Graham's most famous essay about them, is that affiliation with partners and founders isn't subject to discrimination law.
I refuse to accept that Paul Graham simultaneously believes that it's right to refuse to start a company with a mother of small children, but wrong to refuse to maintain a partnership with someone who campaigns stridently for intolerance --- worse, someone who donates sum so large it makes the front page of CNN to the campaign for intolerance even as that campaign rallies to attack the vote itself.
A core understanding of justice and equal citizenship exists, even between libertarians and supports of teachers unions. We should be able to agree on these principles even if we agree on nothing else. By campaigning for intolerance, giving speeches in favor of intolerance, and funding intolerance, Thiel places himself outside that understanding. Our disagreements aren't merely political, but about the urgency of preserving equal citizenship.
Paul Graham knows this. He has obligated himself, in his own words, to oppose Trump. Were Trump to win, Graham says, he'd "join the resistance". We cross no lines of civility or fairness by pointing out what it takes for Graham to live up to his own words.
Justice does not require that Paul Graham stand idly by while Thiel works to destroy the society that makes Graham's life's work possible.
Peter Thiel is a YCombinator partner, yet YC has steadfastly refused to disavow him. In a Twitter exchange with David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham suggested that to do so would somehow be the equivalent of firing an employee for having a distateful political opinion. YC's silence on a partner's outspoken support of Trump is disgraceful, and sends the most shameful message about our industry.
He's not out to make some policy changes; he's openly arguing for throwing out the regime of this country. Now, I don't think he'd be able to do that but at best, he's so callous and lacking of judgement that he'd be utterly manipulated by people, inside and outside US, to do so.
Trump and Hillary are not on any sort of comparable level; Trump is utterly out of what's acceptable political behavior.
And I haven't even come to his personality; which I would argue in a civilized society would be enough to distance yourself with.
So Thiel's actions must be considered in this regard. He's not some poor, misinformed person. He's not someone who is so ravaged by the economy that he's judgement compromised. He should not be prone to demagogues putting the blame on immigrants.
The only explanation I can come up with is that he's arguing for Trump because he's arguing the current political system must be fully debased and must be replaced with something else. That could be an argument but if you are supporting Trump, the only thing that can replace it with is a form of authoritarianism tinged with racism, bigotry and outright hatred.
It's just disingenuous for me to see PG, who while I rarely agree with his views on most things outside of tech, ignore this. He's said that Thiel's actions are a blind spot and it would be a slippery slope to "punish" Thiel for his political stance.
Firstly; calling this a "blind spot" is being naive at best; misleading at worst. Thiel has contributed millions, spoke at a keynote. And he's obviously smart and thoughtful. This is not just some guy being tricked.
And no one is calling for a punishment. YC, by way of taking Thiel's money, is now supporting financially (I assume Thiel invested in YC to make money), this person. This isn't firing someone, which is a different kind of relationship where you involve someone's livelihood.
What idlewords (and others like me) are asking for is just a statement of disapproval of Thiel's actions. Just like Zuckerberg did when Marc A. spoke about the wonders of colonization for Indians (and even then he had the decency of apologizing for his callousness) or when Musk withdrew from FWD.US when he realized there were fossil fuel companies on board as well.
This isn't hard.
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There isn't a big dial labelled "regulations" that when you turn it up, the "economy" needle goes down. Business requires trust. Just as more and better deals happen when both parties believe that contracts will be enforced, when consumers can trust that the meat they're buying has been inspected, that there's no toxic materials in their mattresses, and that their bank deposits are insured, the whole engine of commer…
Some good points. I liked Obama 4 years ago when I was old enough to vote for president the first time. Now 4 years later, I'm liking Trump. But I still think social issues and even things like basic income, and using technology to do work sounds interesting. Trump says he'll tax goods made out of the US 30% more on import, he never said they had to be made by humans. I feel regulations increase the cost of business…
But I don't think any one on the left or right would argue that regulations couldn't be improved almost everywhere. What I think the left worries about is that the only regulations that ever seem to be removed are the ones that stop powerful organizations from causing negative externalities.
To put it another way: would football be better with less or more rules? The answer can't be anything but "it depends". Every one of those rules is there for some reason, sometimes a very non-obvious reason, and sometimes to stop some rare but serious injury from happening. The "more or less" question isn't one that someone with a shallow understanding of the sport can have a reasonable opinion on.
It takes a wise and historically-informed team of people to remove regulatory clutter without allowing the problem that the regulations were originally meant to address to re-occur (if, of course, it actually addressed it). My point is that it shouldn't be a left vs. right thing, it should be a question of who has the wisdom to fix problems thing. And just as importantly, it should be made from an empirical basis, not an ideological one. Trump strikes me as an ideologue, but I have to admit I haven't paid much attention to this US election.