By being bad at her job as CEO through having no idea what redditors wanted of the site and by trying to force particular cultural norms.
Was reddit ruined? About as much as anything so abstract that it can reinvent itself, back peddle, and change direction at a board meetings notice can be ruined.
I have just heard of Project Include right now but they just dis-included themselves. Logical thinking would have them ask themselves if in 10 years doing this has a positive or negative impact. I believe that they just made themselves irrelevant for some notoriety.
I get it and obviously it goes without saying that's their prerogative. But it's a little but like not viewing Cosby any more or not listening to Wagner, or not reading Mein Kampf or Das Capital because of what they represent or forgoing drugs because they were developed by [think of something very reprehensible]. Or someone not being friends with me because I don't believe in religion (and therefore deny their belief system).
As far as I know, while mr Trump has vilified illegal immigrants, and I may be mistaken, I don't think he wants to curtail legal immigration (with exception of immigrants from volatile places) but I constantly hear that he's against (all) immigration --I believe he's against a _kind_ of immigration, but not all. It's not like Germany or Sweden or Russia or South Africa just let everyone in. They also have policies, except they exclude people in nicer language.
To add: I didn't think it would even be necessary for Sam to have to say that Peter would stay with YC. I thought it was overly cautious to do so. But this business is ridiculous. I mean people are seriously wanting to hunt people down over political views...
Look, if Trump were to win (or Hillary) it means that more people than not voted them into office and therefore they have the backing of a large constituency. So, we're not just saying the candidate is objectionable but the people (and there are lots on both sides) who are wholly objectionable and irredeemable. Which means our country has gone to the can.
Well it depends on what version you believe. I think that first he wanted to ban Muslims, then Muslims from certain places, and then just people from certain places.
I really think he actually wants to ban Muslims but he had to walk back a bit from that stance to appease people.
If you were to ask me to divine what he thinks, I think he's areligious and could not care less --but he believes people will kneejerk against a stereotype. I think it's a calculated risk on his part, an unfortunate one. Still, I think he knows enough of them to know many he deals with have more in common with him than he does with Joe the Plummer but Joe and Jill the Plummers are his voters.
No, you may interpret him to mean what you want. You don't have to like him, I don't have to like him. I'm not going to part ways with someone because of who they vote.
My partner and I seldom vote for the same candidate. They are free to vote their conscience. We don't have meet minds over this. Same here. Mr Thiel or Mr. Sanders can vote however they wish. Or you or me. What if I were a capitalist and a friend of mine were a communist and wanted to take everything I own away if her party took power, should I part ways over this? Should I shame her? Make sure no capitalist would hire her?
Not doing business with a billionaire is not remotely comparable with actively preventing your (presumably non-billionaire) friend from getting a job. If you want to engage with people about this in a reasonable way, you need to understand this.
To me it's fundamentally about political freedom and freedom of expression.
I would state, that if I ran a company, ideally, I would run it so that so long as people didn't violate any applicable laws while "on duty" and didn't work to actively affect the company negatively (violate company policies), whatever they did outside the company was their business (be it robbing liquor stores, beating old ladies with batons, etc.) it's up to society, the police, etc., to deal with extra-work activities of such person not me.
I am simply renting their time to do a job --I'm not hiring them to impart my morality on them. I don't "own" them. They don't have to fit in "culturally".
Here's the thing. People are all for these freedoms up until they think it's going to affect them in a way they don't want.
Lots of people supported WikiLeaks ....till it looked like WikiLeaks would do things counter to their cause...
So, people believe in their beliefs and support things based on their belief systems rather than the concepts of freedom of expression and political freedom, unfortunately.
Here you go again. Thiel didn't get fired. Do you not get that power dynamics matter? Firing someone for their politics is different from not doing business with them.
Regardless, your "anyone who disagrees with me must be a hypocrite" approach to things is pretty shitty.
The Wagner analogy is not very good. This is a shunning, or a boycott, that is designed to affect behavior in this lifetime. It is not a post facto judgement about the artistic merit of a dead person's work.
Likewise, the Mein Kampf and Capital analogies are inapt. It's not about refusing to read books.
Mr. Trump has decided to take many polarizing actions. We should not be surprised that they have caused polarization. It's a way to gauge how seriously one takes the issue.
Another analogy is boycotts and shunning during the South African apartheid era. Apparently uninvolved entities, like musicians and writers, were forced to either take a position against the apartheid state, or to tacitly admit the issue was not important to them. Eventually it became all but untenable to support the South African government policy.
Obviously Mr Thiel on balance, agrees with mr Trump or at least one of his platform policies is meaningful enough to override other concerns he may have. Most voters have this same type dilemma.
I'm really concerned that today someone can't openly advocate for their formal candidate from a major party.
It's not all that different from people blackballing bona fide Communists --yes, they were a threat to _our_ society back then, but, it was still wrong to persecute people for their beliefs as repugnant as it may be to us [and communism was repugnant to the majority of contemporary Americans at the time]
There's more to it than that. Thiel gave Trump over a million dollars. That's not just agreeing, it's enabling. It's facilitating. Thiel is actively helping Trump push his neofascism.
Mr. Trump is not just any candidate ("formal candidate from a major party"), as he has been at pains to demonstrate. So, applying these simple norms is not really persuasive.
> Another analogy is boycotts and shunning during the South African apartheid era. Apparently uninvolved entities, like musicians and writers, were forced to either take a position against the apartheid state, or to tacitly admit the issue was not important to them. Eventually it became all but untenable to support the South African government policy.
Only a ignorant person can think SA is a success story. It is a horror show from beginning to ending. What a colossal fuck up.
You'll never admit you failed will you? That this 'Rainbow Nation didn't work.
You failed and you failed real hard, I am so sick of the lies the media have told about SA. This was the mother of all failures and it is dressed as some success story. I feel sick in my stomach.
"This is a shunning, or a boycott" ... "It's a way to gauge how seriously one takes the issue"
shunning: persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution [1].
Not inclusive. Hypocrisy is a way to gauge how seriously we take an issue as well. I think we all need some practice empathizing with other viewpoints. They exist, regardless of whether we can understand/agree with them. Finding out what we have in common with one another is an important skill.
[1] as a side note, google shows usage over time for the word. interesting to see that shunning is having a comeback, though we are still a ways away from early 1800's levels of usage :)
I have no clue what "Project Include" is or does, but things like make me want to know even less. It seems like the only hate being advocated is toward people with differing political views.
Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed!
> Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed!
That is how most totalitarian societies punish their dissenters.
Scott Alexander explains it well:
"No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition, Especially Not In 21st Century America
People in ancient societies thought their societies were obviously great. The imperial Chinese thought nothing could beat imperial China, the medieval Spaniards thought medieval Spain was a singularly impressive example of perfection, and Communist Soviets were pretty big on Soviet Communism. Meanwhile, we think 21st-century Western civilization, with its democracy, secularism, and ethnic tolerance is pretty neat. Since the first three examples now seem laughably wrong, we should be suspicious of the hypothesis that we finally live in the one era whose claim to have gotten political philosophy right is totally justified.
But it seems like we have an advantage they don’t. Speak out against the Chinese Empire and you lose your head. Speak out against the King of Spain and you face the Inquisition. Speak out against Comrade Stalin and you get sent to Siberia. The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas. Everybody criticizes some aspect of our society. Noam Chomsky made a career of criticizing our society and became rich and famous and got a cushy professorship. So our advantage is that we admit our society’s imperfections, reward those who point them out, and so keep inching closer and closer to this ideal of perfect government.
Okay, back up. Suppose you went back to Stalinist Russia and you said “You know, people just don’t respect Comrade Stalin enough. There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country! I say we need two Stalins! No, fifty Stalins!”
Congratulations. You have found a way to criticize the government in Stalinist Russia and totally get away with it. Who knows, you might even get that cushy professorship.
If you “criticize” society by telling it to keep doing exactly what it’s doing only much much more so, society recognizes you as an ally and rewards you for being a “bold iconoclast” or “having brave and revolutionary new ideas” or whatever. It’s only when you tell them something they actually don’t want to hear that you get in trouble.
Western society has been moving gradually further to the left for the past several hundred years at least. It went from divine right of kings to constutitional monarchy to libertarian democracy to federal democracy to New Deal democracy through the civil rights movement to social democracy to ???. If you catch up to society as it’s pushing leftward and say “Hey guys, I think we should go leftward even faster! Two times faster! No, fifty times faster!”, society will call you a bold revolutionary iconoclast and give you a professorship.
If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time.
Try it. Mention that you think we should undo something that’s been done over the past century or two. Maybe reverse women’s right to vote. Go back to sterilizing the disabled and feeble-minded. If you really need convincing, suggest re-implementing segregation, or how about slavery? See how far freedom of speech gets you.
In America, it will get you fired from your job and ostracized by nearly everyone. Depending on how loudly you do it, people may picket your house, or throw things at you, or commit violence against you which is then excused by the judiciary because obviously they were provoked. Despite the iconic image of the dissident sent to Siberia, this is how the Soviets dealt with most of their iconoclasts too."
Yes, that's how it is, and I find it completely reasonable that people will hate you for wanting to reimplement segregation or slavery.
I don't know about US law, but the German constitution defines a clear hierarchy of basic rights, starting with:
1. dignity of mankind
2. right to live and and freedom from physical harm
3. equality of every person before the law
4. freedom of religion
5. free speech
So there are a lot of things that our law considers more important than free speech. This setup is a result of the German experiences with a certain kind of demagogues. I will not argue that this is the perfect law system, but I stand by it nonetheless.
I know it misses the point: but Noam Chomsky didn't get his professorship by being a social critic, I think it's more of a hobby for him. I believe MIT thinks him worthy of tenure due to his expertise and innovation in the field of linguistics...
I think you're right initially but then I think also that over time his position as 'provocateur-in-chief' or 'ideas-man' becomes more important to the prestige of the institution.
That is fine but our society does not appear to recognize 'social critic' as a formal job. I'm not sure that says anything positive about society and the power of credentialism. He could leave the university but in some way he kind of can't either.
I think Julian Assange had a similar problem only more dire. He must be called journalist or he loses a protective mantle even though he has long become more important than a mere journalist. Maybe one day we'll recognize 'leaker' as a formal title and a Wikileaks as an institution.
I am asking myself where these people take the authority to write a press release about excluding someone from their team for not shaming someone, who is supporting someone.
That's just highschool-level bullying to me. If this loose connection would truly hinder them morally to work with YC, they could just stop doing that and be quiet about it.
Even if something is the right thing to do, which I don't think it is in this case, then bragging about it often destroys the whole effort and makes you look like the jerk.
I did a quick search, turn out Include might not just be a fringe organization (ie. this isn't a lame attempt at PR).
> "Project Include is an open community working toward providing meaningful diversity and inclusion solutions for tech companies... focusing our efforts on CEOs and management of early to mid-stage tech startups"
I am 100% in favor of Sam Altman's decision for the following reasons:
1. Trump is offensive, racist, sexist and a terrible human being all around. I am Mexican, and I hate his guts and everything about him. However, I believe in what Voltaire once smartly said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I do not agree at all with Peter Thiel's decision to support Trump in the RNC or with money, but I defend his right to express himself.
2. Sam Altman and Paul Graham have done a lot to defeat Trump and elect Hillary as president. One of their part time partners supports Trump, that is not indicative of YC's political view.
3. Peter Thiel is a business man, and investor therefore that is what I focus on, his book which is fantastic and his work on facebook, can't judge him unfairly on everything, just because he supports Trump. He has a brilliant business mind and that is why he is a part time partner at YC and that is in the arena he should be judged.
I am strongly in favor of free speech. Peter should be scrutinized and debated, not fired. Sam Altman does not deserve any nonsense because of this.
I agree with you, that is the defense Sam Altman ought to have mounted, to the extent he owed anyone an explanation in the first place.
Instead, he is paraphrased as having delivered this head-scratcher:
"Y Combinator president Sam Altman says that he is wary of terminating the group's association with someone merely for supporting one of the two major parties' presidential candidates, and he says that Thiel has endorsed Trump, but has not explicitly endorsed Trump's racist or sexist point of view -- a narrow distinction."
Sam Altman appears to agree with many republican members of congress that you can endorse someone with endorsing their views. Which, I'm sorry, is just a totally bogus and lawyerly excuse whose only function is to explain away bad behavior.
Yeah. Free speech is one thing, but actively supporting ridiculous viewpoints is another thing entirely, and can't be defended in the name of supporting free speech.
Specifically, this is how Trump became a major party candidate. He was a media personality who waded into a made-up political controversy (the whole birther thing). There wasn't a shred of evidence for one side of that discussion, yet people insisted on giving that side a "fair" hearing. Then he became a fringe candidate, and nobody wanted to call him out on his idiocy and fascism, because hey, free speech. Then he became a major party candidate, and you can't break your association with supporters of a major party candidate. Then he says Obama was obviously born in the US but he was happy to have caused the conversation. Of course he was happy to have caused the conversation! It gave him a legitimacy he never should have had in the first place, and he just played that game repeatedly.
Peter Thiel will have plenty of millions to donate to Trump whether or not he's a YC partner. His right to speech (verbal, written, or monetary) is in no danger. But the speech question here is whether YC will continue saying that support of Trump is a reasonable position. And if they continue saying so, it will be hypocritical (although one is free to say as many hypocritical things as one wishes) to regret his presidency.
Yes, this is worth noting. Presidential candidate is essentially a binary choice, not on/off, but A or B; one or both candidates can deeply offend people in certain ways and yet still get their vote or support because of a certain issue on which there is actually agreement.
Cognitive dissonance can be a hell of a thing, and it seems to be at play here. We should recognize this and limit our extreme reactions when it rears its head.
It seems like there's certain difference not just in magnitude but quality between Trump and previous Republicans. I'd have never voted for Romney, for example, but I wouldn't have had a major problem with friends supporting him.
Trump seems to be different. He's different enough to get a significant number of Republicans to defect – not just other candidates, who might just be following public opinion, but also retiring politicians or commentators, where I can't think of a reason besides an honest believe in the danger of a Trump presidency.
His words & actions actions are outside the Overton window, and I'd argue the problem is that he's not just threatening policy positions many hold dear (something like drilling for oil in national parks or supporting the poor<1>), but because he seems to potential affect the machinery of democracy itself (threatening to create laws restricting the press' ability to criticize him or to jail HC).
<1> made-up examples of policies people don't like. I actually couldn't remember any policies he's advocating
Hillary also supports laws restricting the ability to criticize her. She will probably choose a supreme Court justice who will roll back citizens united (which protected the ability of private citizens to make "Hillary: The Movie" which criticized Hillary).
Good point: there are reasons to view Hillary as the unacceptable choice (not that I am saying these reasons are convincing reasons or not). Certainly there is a lot not to like, such as her scary and vague plea for an “intelligence surge”, which sure sounds like a dramatic increase in monitoring of civilians
Endorsing != supporting. But if you cast your vote for somebody who has execrable views then yes, that's on you as well. You can try and tell yourself otherwise, but it's delusion.
The right to free speech is a limitation of Government powers. A private entity like Include can do whatever they want.
And considering Thiel's "speech" was mostly through money, and their "speech" is mostly through "no longer working with them", it seems they're pretty much doing the same thing.
Firing, in this case, would also be an embodiment of speech. (Although I'd argue there should be more stringent anti-discrimination laws to stop people from firing others for their political opinions (but I'd also argue that he's no employee of YC)).
there is a difference between the right to free speech and the philosophy of free speech. free speech as an ideal existed long before the laws protecting it.
What is the difference? Shouldn't we strive for the most free speech possible. The first amendment of the constitution of the United States of America states as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The government protects free speech in all its forms, including the horrible vile that comes out of Trump. Why can't us informed citizens respect other people's point of view and defeat it with facts, reasoning and logic. When we shut off members of a society because we disagree with them, we are pushing them to the extreme, leaving them isolated and creating more horrible monsters. A democratic and free society must tolerate all opinions to actually be free and not be run by a certain group that prohibits certain types of speech.
youre asking me what the difference between a right and theory are? the right is the philosophy put into practice, the philosophy is a more abstract thought experiment and ideal.
in america, the right to free speech gives prevents the government from suppressing your speech. it doesnt protect you from private companies refusing to propagate your message or others talking louder than you, or people refusing to do business with you because they dont like what you said. freedom of speech isnt freedom from consequence. companies however can choose, by their own accord, to value and prioritize the philosophy of free speech.
Would it were universally applied sir. PG himself banned reps from companies in support of SOPA from Demo Days five years ago.
I'm not saying that was a bad decision (SOPA, ugh ...), but sometimes who you don't invite says as much about your org as who you do invite. In this case, keeping Thiel involved at all means they don't give a shit about his support for a fear-mongering demagogue who appears to be punking the nation into electing a dictator.
> However, I believe in what Voltaire once smartly said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
For what it's worth, Voltaire never said that. It was a description, written by Tallentyre, of Voltaire's attitude towards De l’esprit after the book became a resouding success and everyone who hated Helvétius for writing it suddenly wanted to be his friend once he was a popular success.
> but I defend his right to express himself.
Sure, and he's expressing himself by giving millions of dollars to a man who, by his own account, thinks the president can and should behave as a fascist dictator.
Altman deserves attention for that reason: does Peter Thiel truly reflect the will and opinions of Trump supporters? That seems implausible at best. More likely Thiel is their opposite in many ways, but he sees an opportunity that he can get by aligning with Trump.
In other words, I don't believe that Thiel speaks on behalf of Trump supporters, or that his input really helps to target them at all, but rather his recent history has shown he is more likely behaving in his own selfish self-interest.
"Project Include" is evocative of "Ministry of Truth": a name crafted to narrate reality. I'm consistently amused by how little self-awareness identity politicians exhibit.
Yeah, I found that blog post really thought provoking.
I think the core idea was that "it is a virtue to tolerate the outgroup" often means, in American middle-class culture, "if you are on Team Republican, do not stop associating with members of Team Democrat, no matter how much your friends and media tell you all those people are evil idiots" and vice versa.
This is an interesting normative take on what you might call the "filter bubble moral panic" of the 2000s, a growing fear that people who don't agree with each other are experiencing totally separate and disconnected realities.
The thing everyone's afraid of seems to be that in this new world, democracy will effectively become impossible because the ruling majority party will always be ignorant of (or totally unsympathetic to) the interests of the minority. Is the risk overblown? I dunno; how actually bad is a government shutdown, a half-year delay in Zika containment funding, etc.? Hard to say if these times are really worse and if "ignoring the other team" is really to blame.
Some other content in this vein that was interesting reading:
* The Shadow University -- a 1999 nonfiction book of essays about how, at American universities, concepts like "academic freedom" and "the marketplace of ideas" have entered a tension with other concepts (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728)
* The Five Geek Social Fallacies -- a 2003 essay influential among some software-as-a-lifestyle people I know, which argues most memorably that is is a popular fallacy to believe "ostracizers are evil", http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
I don't understand this culture. So people hate Trump, that's not a shocker. But many would have taken Thiel's advice without a problem a few weeks / months ago. Now, because he wants to donate to a candidate many find reprehensible, it's time to throw away the person Peter Thiel? Can he no longer give good startup advice because he supports Trump today? Is he no longer "redeem-able" to the point where we need to ruin him and whatever he's a part of?
Hate Trump all you want. But if you're going to pretend you're inclusive don't go around throwing people away because you don't like their views. That makes you an exclusive organization. Learn from those who do not share the same opinions.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that" - Martin Luther King Jr
Nothing about a general commitment to being inclusive requires one to be uncritically inclusive, or to treat tolerance as some kind of macho posturing where you demonstrate that you're welcoming of the most obnoxious other you can find.
But the make sure that the hidden premise is fleshed out: groups promoting inclusivity are promoting inclusivity for groups considered less powerful, less included, less accepted than is the norm. It's about elevating those who need it. Peter Thiel isn't powerless and doesn't need help getting what he wants.
Thiel has enough money that people will politely make excuses for him because they need his money.
Left, right or Trump, it's all about the money folks. The money people pick people with the right ideology to run things and it all trickles down though the company culture. Everyone would change what they believed in 5 minutes if it came down from on high and their job was on the line.
Heck, most people are living paycheck to paycheck and very close to living out of their car. They'll jump and down like a chicken to keep their job if need be.
If Thiel was a direct supporter of David Duke for instance, then I think (hope?) most commentators here would be calling for him to be dissociated from ycombinator and "ruined" or marginalised to whatever degree was legal I'm sure.
Many people think Trump crossed a line at some point a while ago that points him in the same camp as extremist groups like white-nationalists, and outside of legitimate political discourse.
What's normal view of people about Brendan_Eich? Should he have been removed?
1. If you believe, he should have been. Then Peter Thiel should also be removed.
2. If you believe he shouldn't have been, then Peter Thiel can stay.
I have included this test to just weed out hypocritical thinking.
I'd say yes and yes. But it's less obvious with Eich. You need to balance two ideas: everyone's (legal) speech should not just be protected from government intrusion but also from certain threads by private institutions/people.
The "certain" above is the problem, because it's hard to define: you cannot and must not isolate people from all consequences of their speech. Sometimes those consequences even come in the form of speech themselves (or something the Supremes would consider "speech"). I must have the right not to invite my mother-in-law to christmas when I just don't want to listen to her racist rants again all night.
On the other hand, there are some disproportional reaction that could create a problem for democracy. Lets say the top three mobile provides colluded to deny doing business with anyone donating to the green party. That's dangerous because those donations are probably not important enough for the individuals to stop using a phone, yet collectively they're enormously important for that democracy-thing we have going.
Similarly with employment: it cannot be right to fire a regular employee for their private opinions, as long as the employee does everything reasonable to keep them from interfering with life at the office.
Eich and Thiel are different in that their employment isn't quite as "regular". Firstly, "firing" is a lesser threat to them, because they have above-average chances of getting a different job (Eich), or the financial impact would be insignificant (Thiel). Secondly, their position in leadership makes their private actions more relevant to their businesses.
I don't get why people are up in arms in here. It's YC prerogative to keep working with Thiel, it's project Include prerogative to cut them off because of it. I always believe in voting with your dollar. If something bothers you bad enough, don't attend, purchase, or anything else that you feel will support the company/person.
Trump is my personal line in the sand. Not the Republican party but Trump in particular. But I will only pull back my dollars if a company is actively publicly supporting him.
As long as you are voting with your dollar and not trying to get someone banned by the government or put in jail then I say have it. Why be uncomfortable in what your dollars are being used to support?
As I get older, I care less about arguing on the Internet or organizing boycotts or pressure groups. I feel like the only meaningful act I can make is to vote with my feet or my wallet. So, Project Include: go for it. Don't want to have associations with Thiel and Trump? Walk away from YC. You're in charge of what you do. If others whine about how your exit somehow threatens their freedom of speech, then they clearly don't understand freedom of speech.
They are not voting against Thiel but against YC, which itself is not voting against Thiel. So in your analogy you would have to ban the whole Republican party, because Trump is its candidate.
I don't understand Pao's thinking here; she trusted Thiel until he reached a different conclusion from her? If she pointed out a flaw in his methodology, or found a heretofore hidden inconsistency in his personal philosophy, I would understand, but she just doesn't like what he's doing.
If you believe in or rely on someone, it shouldn't only be when you happen to agree with them on the issues of the day; this is not how you behave if you trust someone.
That argument seems to prove too much, namely that you could never stop listening to an advisor after having listened to them once.
I've also found a "hidden" inconsistency in his "philosophy": he claims to be a moral actor, and yet he founded Paypal. And – you know – gives millions to Trump.
Your philosophy does not consist of a few case-specific conclusions; for example, deciding that you want to spend your evening watching a movie alone tells me very little about how much you value interpersonal relationships.
I did not say that examining patterns of behavior was useless, but that you shouldn't dismiss people just because you disagree with them. For example, you shouldn't get a divorce just because your significant other gave you a piece of unwanted advice or criticism.
While I undersatnd the obvious debate of "free speech" or "tolerance towards intolerance" and such things, why would do this, and why do this now?
I can see the appeal of a publicity stunt, but is this some sort of play we cannot see? Why would Include actually care about this at all. Why wouldnt investors in the INclude group be any happy with this decision.
Reading the article and the comments in this thread makes you realize that Trump is the logical conclusion for a society so divided that people refuse to work even with their theoretical team mates if they refuse to renounce themselves strongly enough from the other team.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadIt was posted to HN 167 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=projectinclude.org
How?
Was reddit ruined? About as much as anything so abstract that it can reinvent itself, back peddle, and change direction at a board meetings notice can be ruined.
As far as I know, while mr Trump has vilified illegal immigrants, and I may be mistaken, I don't think he wants to curtail legal immigration (with exception of immigrants from volatile places) but I constantly hear that he's against (all) immigration --I believe he's against a _kind_ of immigration, but not all. It's not like Germany or Sweden or Russia or South Africa just let everyone in. They also have policies, except they exclude people in nicer language.
To add: I didn't think it would even be necessary for Sam to have to say that Peter would stay with YC. I thought it was overly cautious to do so. But this business is ridiculous. I mean people are seriously wanting to hunt people down over political views...
Look, if Trump were to win (or Hillary) it means that more people than not voted them into office and therefore they have the backing of a large constituency. So, we're not just saying the candidate is objectionable but the people (and there are lots on both sides) who are wholly objectionable and irredeemable. Which means our country has gone to the can.
I really think he actually wants to ban Muslims but he had to walk back a bit from that stance to appease people.
My partner and I seldom vote for the same candidate. They are free to vote their conscience. We don't have meet minds over this. Same here. Mr Thiel or Mr. Sanders can vote however they wish. Or you or me. What if I were a capitalist and a friend of mine were a communist and wanted to take everything I own away if her party took power, should I part ways over this? Should I shame her? Make sure no capitalist would hire her?
I would state, that if I ran a company, ideally, I would run it so that so long as people didn't violate any applicable laws while "on duty" and didn't work to actively affect the company negatively (violate company policies), whatever they did outside the company was their business (be it robbing liquor stores, beating old ladies with batons, etc.) it's up to society, the police, etc., to deal with extra-work activities of such person not me.
I am simply renting their time to do a job --I'm not hiring them to impart my morality on them. I don't "own" them. They don't have to fit in "culturally".
Here's the thing. People are all for these freedoms up until they think it's going to affect them in a way they don't want.
Lots of people supported WikiLeaks ....till it looked like WikiLeaks would do things counter to their cause...
So, people believe in their beliefs and support things based on their belief systems rather than the concepts of freedom of expression and political freedom, unfortunately.
Regardless, your "anyone who disagrees with me must be a hypocrite" approach to things is pretty shitty.
Likewise, the Mein Kampf and Capital analogies are inapt. It's not about refusing to read books.
Mr. Trump has decided to take many polarizing actions. We should not be surprised that they have caused polarization. It's a way to gauge how seriously one takes the issue.
Another analogy is boycotts and shunning during the South African apartheid era. Apparently uninvolved entities, like musicians and writers, were forced to either take a position against the apartheid state, or to tacitly admit the issue was not important to them. Eventually it became all but untenable to support the South African government policy.
Obviously Mr Thiel on balance, agrees with mr Trump or at least one of his platform policies is meaningful enough to override other concerns he may have. Most voters have this same type dilemma.
I'm really concerned that today someone can't openly advocate for their formal candidate from a major party.
It's not all that different from people blackballing bona fide Communists --yes, they were a threat to _our_ society back then, but, it was still wrong to persecute people for their beliefs as repugnant as it may be to us [and communism was repugnant to the majority of contemporary Americans at the time]
Only a ignorant person can think SA is a success story. It is a horror show from beginning to ending. What a colossal fuck up.
You'll never admit you failed will you? That this 'Rainbow Nation didn't work.
You failed and you failed real hard, I am so sick of the lies the media have told about SA. This was the mother of all failures and it is dressed as some success story. I feel sick in my stomach.
shunning: persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution [1].
Not inclusive. Hypocrisy is a way to gauge how seriously we take an issue as well. I think we all need some practice empathizing with other viewpoints. They exist, regardless of whether we can understand/agree with them. Finding out what we have in common with one another is an important skill.
[1] as a side note, google shows usage over time for the word. interesting to see that shunning is having a comeback, though we are still a ways away from early 1800's levels of usage :)
Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed!
That is how most totalitarian societies punish their dissenters.
Scott Alexander explains it well:
"No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition, Especially Not In 21st Century America
People in ancient societies thought their societies were obviously great. The imperial Chinese thought nothing could beat imperial China, the medieval Spaniards thought medieval Spain was a singularly impressive example of perfection, and Communist Soviets were pretty big on Soviet Communism. Meanwhile, we think 21st-century Western civilization, with its democracy, secularism, and ethnic tolerance is pretty neat. Since the first three examples now seem laughably wrong, we should be suspicious of the hypothesis that we finally live in the one era whose claim to have gotten political philosophy right is totally justified.
But it seems like we have an advantage they don’t. Speak out against the Chinese Empire and you lose your head. Speak out against the King of Spain and you face the Inquisition. Speak out against Comrade Stalin and you get sent to Siberia. The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas. Everybody criticizes some aspect of our society. Noam Chomsky made a career of criticizing our society and became rich and famous and got a cushy professorship. So our advantage is that we admit our society’s imperfections, reward those who point them out, and so keep inching closer and closer to this ideal of perfect government.
Okay, back up. Suppose you went back to Stalinist Russia and you said “You know, people just don’t respect Comrade Stalin enough. There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country! I say we need two Stalins! No, fifty Stalins!”
Congratulations. You have found a way to criticize the government in Stalinist Russia and totally get away with it. Who knows, you might even get that cushy professorship.
If you “criticize” society by telling it to keep doing exactly what it’s doing only much much more so, society recognizes you as an ally and rewards you for being a “bold iconoclast” or “having brave and revolutionary new ideas” or whatever. It’s only when you tell them something they actually don’t want to hear that you get in trouble.
Western society has been moving gradually further to the left for the past several hundred years at least. It went from divine right of kings to constutitional monarchy to libertarian democracy to federal democracy to New Deal democracy through the civil rights movement to social democracy to ???. If you catch up to society as it’s pushing leftward and say “Hey guys, I think we should go leftward even faster! Two times faster! No, fifty times faster!”, society will call you a bold revolutionary iconoclast and give you a professorship.
If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time.
Try it. Mention that you think we should undo something that’s been done over the past century or two. Maybe reverse women’s right to vote. Go back to sterilizing the disabled and feeble-minded. If you really need convincing, suggest re-implementing segregation, or how about slavery? See how far freedom of speech gets you.
In America, it will get you fired from your job and ostracized by nearly everyone. Depending on how loudly you do it, people may picket your house, or throw things at you, or commit violence against you which is then excused by the judiciary because obviously they were provoked. Despite the iconic image of the dissident sent to Siberia, this is how the Soviets dealt with most of their iconoclasts too."
I don't know about US law, but the German constitution defines a clear hierarchy of basic rights, starting with:
1. dignity of mankind
2. right to live and and freedom from physical harm
3. equality of every person before the law
4. freedom of religion
5. free speech
So there are a lot of things that our law considers more important than free speech. This setup is a result of the German experiences with a certain kind of demagogues. I will not argue that this is the perfect law system, but I stand by it nonetheless.
Read the essay, it is not mine, I was partially quoting it. Then if you want to comment or have thoughts we can talk about it.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...
That is fine but our society does not appear to recognize 'social critic' as a formal job. I'm not sure that says anything positive about society and the power of credentialism. He could leave the university but in some way he kind of can't either.
I think Julian Assange had a similar problem only more dire. He must be called journalist or he loses a protective mantle even though he has long become more important than a mere journalist. Maybe one day we'll recognize 'leaker' as a formal title and a Wikileaks as an institution.
That's just highschool-level bullying to me. If this loose connection would truly hinder them morally to work with YC, they could just stop doing that and be quiet about it.
Even if something is the right thing to do, which I don't think it is in this case, then bragging about it often destroys the whole effort and makes you look like the jerk.
> "Project Include is an open community working toward providing meaningful diversity and inclusion solutions for tech companies... focusing our efforts on CEOs and management of early to mid-stage tech startups"
Post by one of the founder Ellen Pao (of Reddit fame): https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-de...
As a side note: I chuckled when going through the team list here: http://projectinclude.org/team .
I'm not making a judgement, but it does feel a slight sense of irony seeing the listing on that page.
I am strongly in favor of free speech. Peter should be scrutinized and debated, not fired. Sam Altman does not deserve any nonsense because of this.
Instead, he is paraphrased as having delivered this head-scratcher:
"Y Combinator president Sam Altman says that he is wary of terminating the group's association with someone merely for supporting one of the two major parties' presidential candidates, and he says that Thiel has endorsed Trump, but has not explicitly endorsed Trump's racist or sexist point of view -- a narrow distinction."
Sam Altman appears to agree with many republican members of congress that you can endorse someone with endorsing their views. Which, I'm sorry, is just a totally bogus and lawyerly excuse whose only function is to explain away bad behavior.
Specifically, this is how Trump became a major party candidate. He was a media personality who waded into a made-up political controversy (the whole birther thing). There wasn't a shred of evidence for one side of that discussion, yet people insisted on giving that side a "fair" hearing. Then he became a fringe candidate, and nobody wanted to call him out on his idiocy and fascism, because hey, free speech. Then he became a major party candidate, and you can't break your association with supporters of a major party candidate. Then he says Obama was obviously born in the US but he was happy to have caused the conversation. Of course he was happy to have caused the conversation! It gave him a legitimacy he never should have had in the first place, and he just played that game repeatedly.
Peter Thiel will have plenty of millions to donate to Trump whether or not he's a YC partner. His right to speech (verbal, written, or monetary) is in no danger. But the speech question here is whether YC will continue saying that support of Trump is a reasonable position. And if they continue saying so, it will be hypocritical (although one is free to say as many hypocritical things as one wishes) to regret his presidency.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2006/10/tort-o28.html
All Obama supporters in 2008 and 2012 endorse his anti-gay marriage views?
Cognitive dissonance can be a hell of a thing, and it seems to be at play here. We should recognize this and limit our extreme reactions when it rears its head.
Trump seems to be different. He's different enough to get a significant number of Republicans to defect – not just other candidates, who might just be following public opinion, but also retiring politicians or commentators, where I can't think of a reason besides an honest believe in the danger of a Trump presidency.
His words & actions actions are outside the Overton window, and I'd argue the problem is that he's not just threatening policy positions many hold dear (something like drilling for oil in national parks or supporting the poor<1>), but because he seems to potential affect the machinery of democracy itself (threatening to create laws restricting the press' ability to criticize him or to jail HC).
<1> made-up examples of policies people don't like. I actually couldn't remember any policies he's advocating
That isn't outside the Overtones window at all.
And considering Thiel's "speech" was mostly through money, and their "speech" is mostly through "no longer working with them", it seems they're pretty much doing the same thing.
Firing, in this case, would also be an embodiment of speech. (Although I'd argue there should be more stringent anti-discrimination laws to stop people from firing others for their political opinions (but I'd also argue that he's no employee of YC)).
The government protects free speech in all its forms, including the horrible vile that comes out of Trump. Why can't us informed citizens respect other people's point of view and defeat it with facts, reasoning and logic. When we shut off members of a society because we disagree with them, we are pushing them to the extreme, leaving them isolated and creating more horrible monsters. A democratic and free society must tolerate all opinions to actually be free and not be run by a certain group that prohibits certain types of speech.
in america, the right to free speech gives prevents the government from suppressing your speech. it doesnt protect you from private companies refusing to propagate your message or others talking louder than you, or people refusing to do business with you because they dont like what you said. freedom of speech isnt freedom from consequence. companies however can choose, by their own accord, to value and prioritize the philosophy of free speech.
I'm not saying that was a bad decision (SOPA, ugh ...), but sometimes who you don't invite says as much about your org as who you do invite. In this case, keeping Thiel involved at all means they don't give a shit about his support for a fear-mongering demagogue who appears to be punking the nation into electing a dictator.
For what it's worth, Voltaire never said that. It was a description, written by Tallentyre, of Voltaire's attitude towards De l’esprit after the book became a resouding success and everyone who hated Helvétius for writing it suddenly wanted to be his friend once he was a popular success.
> but I defend his right to express himself.
Sure, and he's expressing himself by giving millions of dollars to a man who, by his own account, thinks the president can and should behave as a fascist dictator.
Altman deserves attention for that reason: does Peter Thiel truly reflect the will and opinions of Trump supporters? That seems implausible at best. More likely Thiel is their opposite in many ways, but he sees an opportunity that he can get by aligning with Trump.
In other words, I don't believe that Thiel speaks on behalf of Trump supporters, or that his input really helps to target them at all, but rather his recent history has shown he is more likely behaving in his own selfish self-interest.
"Project Include" is evocative of "Ministry of Truth": a name crafted to narrate reality. I'm consistently amused by how little self-awareness identity politicians exhibit.
I think the core idea was that "it is a virtue to tolerate the outgroup" often means, in American middle-class culture, "if you are on Team Republican, do not stop associating with members of Team Democrat, no matter how much your friends and media tell you all those people are evil idiots" and vice versa.
This is an interesting normative take on what you might call the "filter bubble moral panic" of the 2000s, a growing fear that people who don't agree with each other are experiencing totally separate and disconnected realities.
The thing everyone's afraid of seems to be that in this new world, democracy will effectively become impossible because the ruling majority party will always be ignorant of (or totally unsympathetic to) the interests of the minority. Is the risk overblown? I dunno; how actually bad is a government shutdown, a half-year delay in Zika containment funding, etc.? Hard to say if these times are really worse and if "ignoring the other team" is really to blame.
Some other content in this vein that was interesting reading:
* The Shadow University -- a 1999 nonfiction book of essays about how, at American universities, concepts like "academic freedom" and "the marketplace of ideas" have entered a tension with other concepts (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728)
* The Five Geek Social Fallacies -- a 2003 essay influential among some software-as-a-lifestyle people I know, which argues most memorably that is is a popular fallacy to believe "ostracizers are evil", http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
Hate Trump all you want. But if you're going to pretend you're inclusive don't go around throwing people away because you don't like their views. That makes you an exclusive organization. Learn from those who do not share the same opinions.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that" - Martin Luther King Jr
But the make sure that the hidden premise is fleshed out: groups promoting inclusivity are promoting inclusivity for groups considered less powerful, less included, less accepted than is the norm. It's about elevating those who need it. Peter Thiel isn't powerless and doesn't need help getting what he wants.
The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.
Left, right or Trump, it's all about the money folks. The money people pick people with the right ideology to run things and it all trickles down though the company culture. Everyone would change what they believed in 5 minutes if it came down from on high and their job was on the line.
Heck, most people are living paycheck to paycheck and very close to living out of their car. They'll jump and down like a chicken to keep their job if need be.
That's truly "fuck you money". It's not about not having to work, it is about not having to care and still be socially accepted.
Many people think Trump crossed a line at some point a while ago that points him in the same camp as extremist groups like white-nationalists, and outside of legitimate political discourse.
I have included this test to just weed out hypocritical thinking.
The "certain" above is the problem, because it's hard to define: you cannot and must not isolate people from all consequences of their speech. Sometimes those consequences even come in the form of speech themselves (or something the Supremes would consider "speech"). I must have the right not to invite my mother-in-law to christmas when I just don't want to listen to her racist rants again all night.
On the other hand, there are some disproportional reaction that could create a problem for democracy. Lets say the top three mobile provides colluded to deny doing business with anyone donating to the green party. That's dangerous because those donations are probably not important enough for the individuals to stop using a phone, yet collectively they're enormously important for that democracy-thing we have going.
Similarly with employment: it cannot be right to fire a regular employee for their private opinions, as long as the employee does everything reasonable to keep them from interfering with life at the office.
Eich and Thiel are different in that their employment isn't quite as "regular". Firstly, "firing" is a lesser threat to them, because they have above-average chances of getting a different job (Eich), or the financial impact would be insignificant (Thiel). Secondly, their position in leadership makes their private actions more relevant to their businesses.
Trump is my personal line in the sand. Not the Republican party but Trump in particular. But I will only pull back my dollars if a company is actively publicly supporting him.
As long as you are voting with your dollar and not trying to get someone banned by the government or put in jail then I say have it. Why be uncomfortable in what your dollars are being used to support?
So, "Project Include": You're not my friend.
If you believe in or rely on someone, it shouldn't only be when you happen to agree with them on the issues of the day; this is not how you behave if you trust someone.
I've also found a "hidden" inconsistency in his "philosophy": he claims to be a moral actor, and yet he founded Paypal. And – you know – gives millions to Trump.
I did not say that examining patterns of behavior was useless, but that you shouldn't dismiss people just because you disagree with them. For example, you shouldn't get a divorce just because your significant other gave you a piece of unwanted advice or criticism.
I can see the appeal of a publicity stunt, but is this some sort of play we cannot see? Why would Include actually care about this at all. Why wouldnt investors in the INclude group be any happy with this decision.