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Shame on Y Combinator

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Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#81

Post by jarcane »

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 think TechCrunch's breakdown[1] rather does a good job of summing up all the times Thiel has made it plain that he and Trump have a lot more in common that the SV technolibertarian set here seems willing to admit.

Thiel is providing material aid and support for a man whose policies are as close to fascism as makes no difference, and he himself has been openly critical of immigration, women's suffrage, freedom of the press, and even the very concept of democracy itself, not even to mention his past association with cryptofascists like Moldbug.

YC's idiotic line in the sand about "well, as long as it technically wasn't Thiel who said it" isn't even true. Thiel has sad plenty of ugly shit himself, even besides providing active material support to others who have.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/trump-silicon-valley-surro...

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#82

Post by jmolinaso »

dkopi wrote: post #70
altern8tif wrote: post #61

Thought experiment: Would it be any different if we replaced Donald Trump with Hitler? Should a company dissociate with a business partner/board member/investor because he supported an extremist's political campaign?

Comparing political candidates to Hitler is a rather lazy thought experiment.

Is quite a good one, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March...

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#85

Post by thght »

Shame on you for blaming Y Combinator. If it was 1.25 million for Clinton you would probably praise Y Combinator, no? This feels more like a clash between your personal political preferences and Mr Thiels's. You are just blaming Y Combinator to inflate this story, trying to get more people on the Clinton side. Shame on you!

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#86

Post by smt88 »

dkopi wrote: post #70
altern8tif wrote: post #61

Thought experiment: Would it be any different if we replaced Donald Trump with Hitler? Should a company dissociate with a business partner/board member/investor because he supported an extremist's political campaign?

Comparing political candidates to Hitler is a rather lazy thought experiment.

It's not lazy. It's showing the extreme (clearly unacceptable) end of the spectrum to ask someone how they decide where to draw the line. What would Trump have to do before supporting him is unacceptable to YC?

But if you really don't want to use Hitler, try Rodrigo Duterte or Silvio Berlusconi instead. They actually share a lot of similarities to Trump.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#87

Post by IMTDb »

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…

In France there is a two step election : during the first round, people choose between multiple candidates (around 10). The two candidates with the most votes are selected to go to the second round, where people choose the next president.

There is a saying that during the first round you vote for your favourite candidates, while during the second you vote against the one you don't want to see in office.

This seems to be what is happening now in the US

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#88

Post by fwn »

elias12 wrote: post #50
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.

I am not sure if it is ridiculous. It depends. It's about a line that everyone has to draw and to set. And this also what Marco is trying to mention in his post I guess. Let's take a more extreme example from history, just for pointing out that there is a line: I hope we could agree that supporting the NSDAP is as far over such a line as imaginable. Not comparing anyone in this context with the NSDAP, just pointing o…

It's good that you aren't comparing this current context with our modern view on the NSDAP.

Mainly because pressuring others into supporting a certain candidate through non-political means really is ridiculous and a deeply concerning attitude in democratic societies.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#89

Post by smt88 »

projectileboy wrote: post #84

Replace "Thiel" with "communism" and much of this article (and many of these comments) could be taken from the 1950s. McCarthyism is unacceptable from the right or the left.

McCarthyism was not about firing rich people for donating massive amounts of money to public political candidates. There is no similarity here.

Re: Shame on Y Combinator

#90

Post by quantumhobbit »

I don't know what the right thing for YC to do here is. But whatever it is can wait until after the election.

The last thing you want is to enable Trump to concoct a narrative that "crooked Hillary" is forcing businesses to discriminate against Trump supporters.

Trump is an existential threat to democracy and Thiel is disgusting for supporting him, but it looks like he will lose. However he is claiming that the election will be rigged against him. This is incredibly dangerous and YC firing Thiel could be like pouring gasoline onto a fire.

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