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Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

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Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#2
Kudos to Project Include for making this decision. This sends a clear signal that there is a growing (or at least increasingly vocalized) segment of the tech community that won't stand for a guy like Thiel to be a "captain" of this industry. I believe in the long run, he's holding us back.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#6
What exactly is their relationship with YC?

The article is a bit murky. They "invited" YC to contribute, but do not actually say whether YC agreed.

Forgive the cynicism, but if it turns out that YC was not contributing in any way to Project Include, this is just empty bluster.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#9
There is clear precedent for YC taking a political stand by uninviting investors.

Only five years ago, Paul Graham was willing to uninvite investors from Demo Day based on their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supportin...

Paul asked, "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?"

The obvious answer to that question would be, "their track record as investors could demonstrate that." But no, in 2011, if you supported SOPA, you're out, regardless of your track record.

I think it's fair to ask whether, if Peter Thiel is so clueless as to donate $1.25 million to Donald Trump today, after so much of his dirty laundry has come to light and after this has been reflected in the polls, how could he be a good investor?

If it was the right decision for SOPA, it's right decision today.

Re: Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

#10
> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe.

Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries where rape is currently legal? Especially since she did this after receiving 25M+ in donations to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, and apparently a 1M dollar check from Qatar for Bill's birthday, so it's hard to even argue that it was out of any sort of realpolitik.

Similarly, is Trump making overtly racist statements really worse (with respect to race issues) than Hillary voting to invade Iraq even after Scott Ritter and Hans Blix said that they had no weapons of mass destruction?

There's no question that Trump's overt sexism and racism is extraordinary problematic. But, as someone who isn't even a Trump supporter/voter, I'm struggling to understand how people find it so much more objectionable than all of the systemic human rights abuses that have already occurred under Hillary. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Trump, but the idea that he's so much worse for women and minorities seems to be more of a media creation than based in reality.

Even if you assume that something imminently bad is going to happen to minorities if Trump is elected, from an ethical and social justice perspective, if bad things are going to happen that are of our own making, it seems like those bad things should be happening to people within the U.S. rather than abroad.

I don't mean to in any way make light of what are extremely serious issues, but in my humble opinion the idea that Trump is automatically more racist because he says racist things is complete bullshit. Maybe he is worse, but I think the situation is far more nuanced than the media would have you believe.

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