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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#71

Post by smt88 »

fareesh wrote: post #58

I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. It is entirely possibly that some people support Trump because of his crass and divisive rhetoric, and it's also entirely possible that some people support Trump because of his stance on trade. Is it really anyone's place to demand that another voter change the list of prio…

> I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate.

Endorsement is one thing. Donating a massive amount of money is something entirely different. Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support.

And either way, that's not the point. The point is that, while most candidates have deep flaws, Trump has flaws that cannot be overlooked or explained away by political differences.

These include: racism (for which he has lost lawsuits), advocating sexual assault, and suggesting that Hillary Clinton be assassinated.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#72

Post by FussyZeus »

While I agree with a lot of what Marco says in spirit, there is a HUGE point that Altman makes as well:

> The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. […]

This one sentence I think fully encapsulates why the Republican base has gone to the extremes it has. They don't give a damn about who Trump is or the awful things he does because he is listening to them, something the coastal intellectuals haven't done for decades.

Speaking as someone from one of the flyover states, I'd probably be supporting Trump too had I not come around to a lot more progressive viewpoints. The fact is yes a lot of what these people believe is wrong and backward, but just ignoring them and pretending that having the middle of the country doing nothing but hard labor and drugs is ok is exactly what got us here. Nobody gives a damn about the middle states outside of election year. Every year rural economies tank harder and harder but because it isn't a sexy problem like Shale Oil nobody gives a shit.

These people have been marginalized, ignored, and abandoned during some of the hardest economic transitional periods, and they're tired of it. You'd be voting for any candidate who at least gave the passing appearance of giving a damn about you were you left in that situation.

Edit: Misattributed the quote.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#73

Post by jrs235 »

stewartUK wrote: post #26

Please, do the right thing, and don't take it down again. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/582t9v/y_combinat...

If the community flags it, the community flags it. I haven't flagged any of these Thiel stories until now. I've seen enough the past few days. I get what people feel, think, and [don't] support. I don't care to keep reading this over and over again.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#74

Post by smt88 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #66
mping wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some particular beliefs are critical. If a candidate is perfect and a genius, but for example is against (for example) women voting, this is critical for endorsement, even though he may be perfect in every other sense. Likewise, if your friend is from a different party than you, you may still be friends, but if he is a member of the KKK I guess that draws the line. Tolerance is not supposed to be infinite. What peopl…

Why? Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general. There is a good reason why we have separation of power and why we have a complex political system in which even the president needs political capital to do things. That said i think it's highly unlikely that there will be such hypothetical candidate that i can agree with on 99% 90% or even 50% of th…

> Unless the candidate will have the power to prevent women from voting he can hold any beliefs he wants in general.

We don't know what powers the Executive Branch has now or will have. It evolves. FDR drastically expanded the power of the President, and he almost took over the Judicial Branch by appointing a bunch of new Supreme Court justices.

The next POTUS will appoint at least one Supreme Court justice and possibly more, which would give him/her enormous power over many decades of US law.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#75

Post by pron »

fareesh wrote: post #58

I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate. It is entirely possibly that some people support Trump because of his crass and divisive rhetoric, and it's also entirely possible that some people support Trump because of his stance on trade. Is it really anyone's place to demand that another voter change the list of prio…

You mean why are we giving a hard time to all those people who join the KKK just because they look good in white?

But seriously, I don't think the demand to "sever ties" with Thiel is the right (it does have the slight scent of a purge), or the smart one to make (it plays too much into the hands of those who are glad to jump on the "silencing opposing views" bandwagon). In fact, it pretty much ensures that the debate be diverted to that, especially when many in the crowd are, for one reason or another, fixated on their ideas of free speech. It isn't a hypothesis, either, but precisely what happened time and again in the relevant "community". But YC is influential in SV, where various racist and misogynistic ideas, for one reason or another, take hold on some from time to time, and yet YC has often stayed silent (or faint) on such issues, even when they claim to disagree with them, while being quite vocal about political issues like SOPA and visas that affect the powerful SV players.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#76

Post by tscs37 »

DasIch wrote: post #54
kybernetyk wrote: post #34

Why do people need to drag their personal opinions into business matters? Demanding someone gets fire/removed just because they have a different political opinion than you is ridiculous.

Thiel's support of Trump shows that Thiel is a sexist and a racist. If YC wants to attract startups with founders who aren't white men, this is a problem. If startups in YC want to attract employees who aren't white men, this is a problem.

Or Thiel might think that Hillary is a worse option than Trump?

Maybe. Who knows. You should ask him. Pretending to know why he votes for Trump is just wrong.

You assume what he thinks, his state of mind, etc.

Idunno, maybe you should consider accepting that supporting a person does not equate to being that person nor does it imply that both hold the exact same beliefs.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#77

Post by epaga »

ww520 wrote: post #47
epaga wrote: post #43

HN admins - if you're going to shut this one down as well, could I appeal to you to at least give a reasoning why? Killing posts like these without for example dang providing at least a quick reasoning why leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

People flag it. I just did. Not sure whether the HN admins have anything to do with it.

Flagged is one thing, a previous discussion was additionally set as "dead". As far as I know that can only be done by an admin, no? If it was all an automatic thing done by the system, then I have no issue with it.

BTW, it looks like they turned off the flagged state of this post and are giving the discussion a chance. Well done. Let's hope the comments here don't devolve into silly political bashing...

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#78

Post by smt88 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #34

Why do people need to drag their personal opinions into business matters? Demanding someone gets fire/removed just because they have a different political opinion than you is ridiculous.

Murder and sexual assault aren't just matters of politics. Peter Thiel has endorsed someone who has advocated both crimes in public.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#79

Post by nabla9 »

Trump support is not free-speech, tolerance issue or diversity issue, it's political issue.

As I understand it, Thiel is one of the 10 or so part time partners in Ycombinator. He is also board member of Facebook, so shame on Facebook.

I don't think Thiel's involvement puts large shame on Y Combinator, but at the same time I don't condone political activism that tries to isolate Thiel and his money by shaming his partners. Business is not politically neutral zone.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#80

Post by smt88 »

gondo wrote: post #65

It puzzles me how come in USA people are considering only 2 candidates to chose from. At this stage it looks like people are not voting for the candidate they agree with, they are choosing the candidate they disagree with the most and then voting for the other one. This is only 1 step better than how it used to be in USSR where people had an option to chose essentially only 1 party. (sure officially there were more p…

Your characterization of this election is wrong.

43% of Americans approve of Clinton[1].

33% approve of Trump[2].

That means the vast majority of Americans are not choosing the lesser of two evils. They actively like one candidate or the other (or both).

1. http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton... 2. https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald-trump-f...

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