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Time to Take a Stand

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Time to Take a Stand

#861

Post by gizmo »

strken wrote: post #652
gizmo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minorities on average earn less, have less job security and despite this they utterly rejected Trump and his hateful platform. Trump voters also weren't the most economically desperate, those people voted Clinton. Trump did well among solidly middle class white people in rural areas. So no, Trump didn't get elected because people desperate for a job were willing to overlook his hate.

So no, Trump didn't get elected because people desperate for a job were willing to overlook his hate. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e... Check out the swings in the race section. If there hadn't been a massive swing towards him from blacks and hispanics, he might not have won.

Obama was an unusually charismatic candidate who got 93% of the Black vote in 2012 and 96% in 2008. There is no way Hillary or any other democratic candidate could match that. Hispanic turnout did turn out a bit below expectations, but not by much. Note that Hillary got completely crushed in the "White w/o college degree" category, which is a much larger demographic.

And despite that Hillary still won the popular vote by 3 million votes. She did pretty well across the board and in an election as close as this one almost any single thing could have flipped the outcome.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#862

Post by anarazel »

thetruthseeker1 wrote: post #838

I hope I am not downvoted because I have a different view. I think Trump is a show man to some degree. He has said in the past he wanted to be in Hollywood. This is important to understand what drives him. I think what Trump is doing is a part of a show, to tell his voters he is credible. But I think his long term policies will not be this drastic even if they are. I think the tech community should work with him to d…

I do hope that he'll "soften up", but I don't see what consequences that has for now.

Especially his show-man-ship seems to make it more important to show clearly that a significant portion of the public isn't ok with the policy. Some might argue that he's disregarding that side's positions anyway, but he's doing that to some degree anyway.

Also, this is the period in his government which'll shape the rest of his term. There's more freedom/influence initially (government through reconciliation is time limited, no previous deals weighing you down, key personal brought into place). So even if he "softens" later, the consequences will be smaller.

It's also not like just Trump's opinion plays a role - his current alliance of supporters has their own goals which in some cases is only tangentially aligned with Trump's.

(FWIW: I didn't downvote)

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#863

Post by emiliobumachar »

sparkzilla wrote: post #843
DanBC wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be useful for successful for the tech companies start by 1st or 2nd generation immigrants to speak up. I think the list includes (but I could be wrong): Apple Google Facebook Amazon Oracle IBM Uber Yahoo EMC eBay AT&T Tesla Reddit And, of course, ycombinator.

--->Legal immigrants

The executive order we're all talking about directly affects only legal immigrants, doesn't it?

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#864

Post by generic_user »

dgregd wrote: post #533

I live in Central Europe. It is really hard from my perspective to understand all that mass hysteria in US, especially in California. Maybe overdosing leftist propaganda causes that hysteria. Many products of Silicon Valley and Hollywood companies are simply blocked in China. Mainly to protect Chinese young companies. As far I known Google is completely blocked in China. Hollywood movies are also not freely distribut…

> leftist propaganda

The establishment left in the US has been a supporter of Corporate Globalization for many years. And the left in general has replaced class policy with race and gender ideology.

So you have a situation now in the US where liberal millionaires and billionaires protest against the middle and working class and call them racist, etc for voting for populist policy that protect there economic interests by reforming free trade treaties like TPP and NAFTA, immigration limits, lower taxes, repairing infrastructure and so on, (ie much of Trumps campaign platform).

The outrage is from those who have been consumed by this identity politics and the corporate globalism that sustains it. They have forgotten what economic solidarity is and there policy has little or no recognition of class. Identity and Race are placed above all else.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#865

Post by splat »

CalChris wrote: post #595
mindcrime wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7. Join a political party (I'd suggest the Libertarian Party, but whatever floats your boat) 8. Donate money to said party and to candidates in upcoming elections.

The last three Libertarian candidates for President are: 2016 former Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson 2012 former Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson 2008 former GOP House member and Clinton prosecutor Bobb Barr Gary Johnson ran as both a Republican and a Libertarian in 2008. Republican Ron Paul has run as a Libertarian. On the evidence, the Libertarian Party is a flag of convenience for Re…

I think your point here is a little disingenuous. (For reference I'm a longtime LP party member and have recently been getting very involved in the LP at the local level.) While it's true that the recent presidential nominees have all been former Republicans, the reason for this is that the Party has been wanting to put up respectable candidates who have experience. In its early years, the LP was effectively just an outreach organization aimed at spreading the libertarian message. But these days the LP has been wanting to become a real political party that gets candidates elected. And in order to get candidates elected, we need to have respectable candidates.

In local races it's fine to put up someone with no or little experience in government, as long as they are a respected member of the community. But you can't just put up "some dude" for president. So in practice this means we have to take defectors. But heaven knows there has been a lot of consternation in the LP over this. My guess is that the LP is getting tired enough of taking former Republicans that whoever they nominate in 2020 will be homegrown. (Maybe a former Democrat.)

But while the presidential race gets the most press, we've been working hard to get Libertarians elected at lower levels of government. It's just really, really hard to break past the two party mindset (and ballot access laws), and we haven't had a lot of success to date. The difficulties we have getting people elected to the lower levels of translate directly to us nominating former Republicans for president.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#866

Post by tomjen3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #344
mythrwy wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trump is hell bent on destroying America from within" No he isn't. Those kind of ridiculous hyperbolic statements don't help anything. You may disagree with Trump's policies and platform. But "intent on destroying America" is a silly charge. And it is equally silly when (as often happens) it is leveled at the left.

I'm just looking at the evidence of the last two weeks and that's my conclusion. That he thinks he's doing something positive I'll believe but the end result is going to be a very large net-negative, the longer this goes on unchecked the worse it will get. What you think is hyperbole is merely extrapolation from the last two weeks over a period of four years. You'll see a world order remarkably different than the pre…

>It's about May 1914

June 28, 1914 was the day Franz was murdered. Before that day there weren't really any more danger of a war in Europe than there were the year before.

It was a wildcard and nobody predicted what would happen it could have happened 10 years before and it could have happened 10 years later. Had there been a couple decent diplomats left in Europe the war could have been avoided. Had the Moltke plan been followed maybe Germany really would have won early. Too many variables to predict.

In summary, please don't compare this to 1914, it makes no sense.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#867

Post by hedora »

MicroBerto wrote: post #852
methehack wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mr. Altman is largely addressing tech CEOs here and urging them to make public statements. The actions you list are great for you and me, but he's mostly not really talking to us. Supporting quotations from the post (because evidence): "The tech community is powerful. Large tech companies in particular have enormous power and are held in high regard. We need to hear from the CEOs clearly and unequivocally" "A…

What Altman doesn't need to worry about is the blowback and boycotting that occurs when actual CEOs speak out. They know what he refuses to admit: that a non-vocal majority of this country strongly supports the President and will NOT support anyone who publicly smites him. Attacking the President as a normal consumer goods CEO is a losing proposition.

That is what North Carolina thought. Major companies pressuring the government helps shift people's opinions on what is acceptable in modern society.

Even if you don't care about doing the right thing, losing some business from a (shrinking) minority of Americans is probably worth the positive publicity overseas, economic stability, retaining visa-holding employees, etc.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#868

Post by orblivion »

pcwalton wrote: post #303
refurb wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely failed to address the OP's comment about the largest Muslim countries in the world (Indonesian and Pakistan) not being a part of the ban. If Trump was targeting Muslims, wouldn't he have started there?

> If Trump was targeting Muslims, wouldn't he have started there? He campaigned on a Muslim ban. Why try to randomly guess at his intentions, when he stated them over and over again, clear as day?

Not so clear to me:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/politics/donald-trump-muslim-b...

He seemed to backtrack. At this point in May he even called it temporary.

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#869

Post by mozumder »

up_so_floating wrote: post #748
Tulip68 wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very simple: make it socially unacceptable to promote the ethnic cleansing of a religion comprised of nearly a billion people, 99.999% of whom are decent, peaceful people who share the same types of dreams, goals and values as the rest of us. This wouldn't be the first time we've had to confront bigots who want to eliminate entire groups of people because they have a different skin color or pray to a different s…

It is already socially unacceptable to promote ethnic cleansing of any sort. Sure, it's important to continually affirm this, but can you name anyone in the Trump administration who is promoting ethnic cleansing?

> can you name anyone in the Trump administration who is promoting ethnic cleansing?

All of them, since that's the purpose of this administration

Re: Time to Take a Stand

#870

Post by ridgeguy »

_m8fo wrote: post #7

Why is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local electi…

I'll add:

7. Contribute money to organizations filing lawsuits against Trump's actions.

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