What I Heard from Trump Supporters • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#841

Post by rabbyte » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #833

rabbyte wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "I'm not going to admit to that" part where the left gets it wrong. Pointing out that a person suffers from ignorance, racism, sexism, and bigotry doesn't need to come with the hostility and animosity or risk to their financial well being. These are states of mind that come from lacking context, from having an incomplete model of the world. If a person is punished for their incomplete model of the world they…

I'm happy with driving ignorance into the shadows. The harder it is to express and the less support bigots have, the less likely they are to pass it on to the next generation. That is the primary mechanism for reducing bigotry. The number of people who will self-correct is small. Big changes mostly come from waiting for bigots to die out, and not replacing them with new ones.

History seems to disagree. The views being expressed openly today couldn't have been expressed openly in the past. The KKK is still a thing. I'm not advocating we parade these ideas around, I'm firmly a believer in refusing to give bigotry a platform, but that's not the bit I'm focusing on.

People are wildly variant in their experiences and cognition but we all decipher meaning from layers in speech. It's possible for a person to fail to comprehend, fail to obtain the necessary context, fail to connect their actions to harm, but succeed in receiving the hostility encoded in speech. Eventually a person walks away with a model of the world that a person disagrees not because they see something but because they just don't like you. You can see this everywhere in that every criticism the left has of the right they turn it around on the left.

> Big changes mostly come from waiting for bigots to die out, and not replacing them with new ones.

Bigotry never dies out. It's a natural facet of our existence and our current methodology for addressing it exacerbates the problem because we live in a world where a person defeated in argument can rally with others. There is no making a minority of bigotry in an endlessly connected world.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#842

Post by mikeash » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:00 PM UTC

rabbyte wrote: post #841

mikeash wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy with driving ignorance into the shadows. The harder it is to express and the less support bigots have, the less likely they are to pass it on to the next generation. That is the primary mechanism for reducing bigotry. The number of people who will self-correct is small. Big changes mostly come from waiting for bigots to die out, and not replacing them with new ones.

History seems to disagree. The views being expressed openly today couldn't have been expressed openly in the past. The KKK is still a thing. I'm not advocating we parade these ideas around, I'm firmly a believer in refusing to give bigotry a platform, but that's not the bit I'm focusing on. People are wildly variant in their experiences and cognition but we all decipher meaning from layers in speech. It's possible fo…

I don't understand the first part. Which views being expressed openly today couldn't have been expressed openly in the past?

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#843

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:05 PM UTC

sedachv wrote: post #736

Dirlewanger wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants rational debate. In the case of UC Berkeley students, it's easier to cause property damage because an alleged Nazi (an entirely slanderous claim, btw) is given a platform to speak. No one wants to wade through the muck and find out what opposing viewpoints are actually saying. Edit: And the people scoffing at my comment and hitting the downvote button are only proving my point.

> In the case of UC Berkeley students, it's easier to cause property damage because an alleged Nazi (an entirely slanderous claim, btw) is given a platform to speak. This is untrue. What actually happened: -------- A partial list of things people did to try to cancel Milo before Wednesday: ~particularly following MY's outing and sexual harassment of a trans student at UW Milwaukee (but also before), we talked with ou…

Why does he have to be cancelled? Maybe you could just, you know, let him speak?

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#844

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

spinlock wrote: post #646

dguaraglia wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to them, it is hard to acknowledge you've fucked up and learn from your mistake if people mock you relentlessly about it. The easiest human reaction is to deny or retreat, not admit failure, ask for forgiveness and move on. That's why extending an olive branch and offering a safe space to discuss the issues they might be facing is the right approach (yeah, I know, it's ironic that we are even having this c…

It doesn't work. Look at Obama's infamous, "cling to guns and religion." Do you know what point he was making? He was trying to explain to those of us with good jobs on the coast that middle america had been passed over and ignored by previous administrations. Why would any politician ever extend an olive branch again when it is just used as a -- very effective -- weapon against them?

That may have been what he was trying to explain, but what he exposed was his condescension to middle America. Of course that got used against him! You want it to be different? Don't be condescending, even about people that you disagree with.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#845

Post by belovedeagle » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:19 PM UTC

QML wrote: post #789

belovedeagle wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence to back up the outrageous claim that the rioters at Berkely weren't primarily its student body? Or is that just what you heard on CNN and chose to believe unquestioningly?

> "Berkely" It would not make sense for students to damage their own campus, considering that comes from their tuition. On the note of media sources, where did you hear that rioters were primarily students? Unless you were there, your source of news is also subjected to suspect.

.It doesn't make sense for people to riot at all, and since it's doubtful that very many of those students have actually earned that tuition money instead of it being granted to them (temporarily) for free, they probably don't value it highly.

You're the one making extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence, not me.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#846

Post by rabbyte » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #842

rabbyte wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History seems to disagree. The views being expressed openly today couldn't have been expressed openly in the past. The KKK is still a thing. I'm not advocating we parade these ideas around, I'm firmly a believer in refusing to give bigotry a platform, but that's not the bit I'm focusing on. People are wildly variant in their experiences and cognition but we all decipher meaning from layers in speech. It's possible fo…

I don't understand the first part. Which views being expressed openly today couldn't have been expressed openly in the past?

The views our political system is currently normalizing. The ones that enable white supremacists to occupy the highest levels of government office. The ones that claim Michelle Obama is anti-american for saying she hasn't always been proud of her country while Trump can be elected on a platform that America is not great and defend Putin as a "killer" by claiming we're not so innocent.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#847

Post by thehardsphere » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 8:36 PM UTC

y4mi wrote: post #819

thehardsphere wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are all famous for saying controversial things. It's part of their brand. They get effectively get passes because: 1. They're famous and very successful 2. They hold enough "appropriate" beliefs that minor deviations are tolerated 3. They’re all used to death threats. Many ordinary people don't enjoy those benefits. Like the teacher who was mentioned earlier who wanted "rule of law" and got fired for "ra…

i'm kinda stumped what exactly you take issue with here... voicing your opinion in a public manner has consequences. that will hopefully never change, as otherwise the words you're saying become meaningless. don't take a public stance on an issue laden with ideals unless you're fine being attacked by the other side. on second though: considering trumps habit of simply telling lies on air with absolutely no consequenc…

I personally am taking issue with parent's claim that the four liberal individuals mentioned are proof that it is "safe" to express potentially controversial opinions, especially when they run afowl of the domininant left wing viewpoint in America. Grandparent was clearly talking about ordinary people when describing the negative effects of "moral sanctimony" on public discourse in America.

I would agree with you that public speech should have consequences. I probably don't agree with you what those consequences ought to be -- what sort of "attacks" are appropriate given what is being said in what context. I don't think either of the two ordinary people I used as counter examples deserved the treatment they got for what they said.

I think it's bad for society if every difference of opinion is reacted to as being completely intolerable to the point of ending a career. In addition to creating resentment that men like Trump (and also people who are far worse) can exploit, it makes it impossible to discuss other controversial issues in the future. If we care about being good people living the best lives we can, we need to be able to discuss unpopular ideas, because we don't know which ideas that are considered unpopular today will be ones we will later find to be practically useful or morally virtuous tomorrow.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#848

Post by iak8god » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 9:34 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #838

iak8god wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the policy "don't discuss voting in threads" outlined? My personal policy is never to downvote just for simple disagreement. I upvote comments that I disagree with if I think they're making a quality contribution to the conversation. Downvotes are reserved for comments that are trivial, combative, insulting, or intentionally offensive. For some reason I'd been assuming HN guidelines prescribed this approach…

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Near the bottom, "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." My personal voting philosophy matches yours, I tend to take downvotes more seriously, but it is not site policy, and it is acceptable here and lots of people do drive-by downvote, as you put it, for simple disagreement as well as other legitimate reas…

> Near the bottom, "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

I have always read that as meaning that a commenter should resist commenting about having one's own comment downvoted. The comment you responded to above was making an interesting point (I thought) about someone else being downvoted, which seemed to me to be more in line with the spirit of the guidelines.

The site's approach of not giving users the power to downvote until they basically prove they're interacting in good faith (by reaching the karma threshold) reinforces the seriousness of downvotes for me. Here I'm much more conservative with them than on reddit, for instance, official reddiquette notwithstanding.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#849

Post by dahart » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

iak8god wrote: post #848

dahart wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Near the bottom, "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." My personal voting philosophy matches yours, I tend to take downvotes more seriously, but it is not site policy, and it is acceptable here and lots of people do drive-by downvote, as you put it, for simple disagreement as well as other legitimate reas…

> Near the bottom, "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." I have always read that as meaning that a commenter should resist commenting about having one's own comment downvoted . The comment you responded to above was making an interesting point (I thought) about someone else being downvoted, which seemed to me to be more in line with the spirit of the gu…

I agree, and I read it the same way, but it is widely interpreted as resist commenting about downvotes at all. Furthermore, it seems to be widely interpreted as a strict rule rather than a suggested guideline.

Since the guideline isn't specific, there's certainly room for varied interpretation. And since many people exercise their downvotes based on their own interpretation, I find I'm happier if I avoid the issue by generally not discussing downvotes unless, like here, people are genuinely curious and I feel like trying to help.

Btw, note I didn't reply directly to the downvote comments, I only jumped in late to reply to your question. My take is @mozumder made a blanket generalization about white engineers that people were reacting to, @Neutralid jumped to conclusions about why the downvotes were occurring and suggested that @mozumder's views were being suppressed ideologically, which isn't the simplest explanation, and @JoeAltmaier demonstrated one of the common interpretations of HN guidelines.

The takeaway from this is that downvotes happen, so don't worry too much, and that there's just a whole lot that can go wrong when communicating, whether it's average people talking politics, or above average engineers on HN, so use a wide berth, give benefit of the doubt, be charitable in your interpretations, and you'll have more fun. :)

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#850

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #410

rdl wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't always like this. Silicon Valley was a lot more diverse/tolerant in the first dotcom boom and until ~2006 or so than since. It really went off the deep end circa the Brendan Eich incident (2014), and then the most recent Presidential election cycle. The "Ex-communicate Peter Thiel" movement was the point of no return, and when I decided to flee permanently. It doesn't seem to be as bad even in other equally…

Both the Eich and Thiel situations were downright appalling in how they mirrored the exact kind of Witch hunt and ostracizing that liberalism historically and morally should be against. The fact that people didn't seem to grasp the hypocrisy and danger of their actions made it even more chilling.

There is no hypocrisy or intolerance in fighting intolerance. You're trying to make the argument that one is not tolerant unless they tolerate intolerance, which doesn't make any sense.

Eich used his capital to deny rights to our friends. They did nothing to his rights.