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Like Peter Thiel, Tech Workers Feel Alienated by Silicon Valley ‘Echo Chamber’

(www.wsj.com)
370 points sillypuddy | 5 comments | 18 Feb 18 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.526s | source
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sho ◴[18 Feb 18 19:32 UTC] No.16407784[source]▶
What is crazy about the the situation in SF is that even 5 or so years ago if you asked me what the "echo chamber" there was echoing I would have said libertarianism and some kind of techno-utopianism. The takeover by the proscriptive far-left has been astonishingly rapid, and it is absolutely real. I also know people who have left, and many more who absolutely keep their political and even philosophical views to themselves, especially after Damore.

It's been an extraordinarily fast takeover and I'd really like to know exactly what happened those 5 or so years ago to precipitate this seismic shift.

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gameswithgo ◴[18 Feb 18 19:39 UTC] No.16407829[source]▶
I have no idea what SF is like, so in these discussions I never can tell if there really is an influx of insane, insufferable far left crazies, or if people who insist on remaining racist and keeping gays in the closet are mad that nobody is having that anymore. The latter is what I see in my own circle of humans but I live in Texas.

I can say though that I've moved further to the left as I've gotten older, from a libertarian tech-stereotype when I was younger, and in large part it has been from seeing the conservative half of american slide slowly further into insanity and horribleness, seemingly driven by fox news, at least among family.

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resu_nimda ◴[18 Feb 18 20:09 UTC] No.16408132[source]▶
I never can tell if there really is an influx of insane, insufferable far left crazies, or if people who insist on remaining racist and keeping gays in the closet are mad that nobody is having that anymore.

That's because it's entirely a matter of individual perspective and experience. Everyone takes their own tiny viewport onto a region of millions of diverse people and attempts to claim "oh yeah SF/bay area is like this..." "Oh no I had a different experience so you see it's like this..."

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1. sho ◴[18 Feb 18 20:16 UTC] No.16408201[source]▶
There may be millions of diverse people and opinions but there is definitely a dominant ideology, it is definitely far-left, and it suppresses all other political viewpoints.

This is absolutely blindingly self-evident in SF and if you disagree I wonder if you have actually been there.

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2. adventured ◴[18 Feb 18 21:04 UTC] No.16408628[source]▶
It's also entirely unnecessary to guess at this.

We have voting records and financial contributions to campaigns. Both tell the same exact story. San Francisco is as far left as cities get in the US.

The mistake being made by the top level parent, is thinking that there was ever actually a wide-spread libertarian burst. There was not. That was nothing more than a media meme for a few minutes, mostly thanks to Andreessen, Thiel and a few others. SF overall has been extreme left for the last 40 years plus.

Marc Andreessen for one, has entirely disappeared from the public discussion politically. He's a particularly openly avowed libertarian type in terms of beliefs. There's a reason he shut down like he did, it's the same reason Thiel is being evicted from the inner circles of tech. There is no room for mistakes in the current police state of speech that exists in SV. One mistake, stepping out of line with dogma, and you're done. Andreessen wants to stay in Silicon Valley and wants to maintain his VC firm at the top tier, so he shut his mouth to put it simply. Thiel is unwilling to go along with the political & speech requirements of continuing to exist in SV.

3. dragonwriter ◴[18 Feb 18 21:12 UTC] No.16408694[source]▶
It's relatively left but not far-left, and it hasn't really moved much in decades, though the rapid movement of the right end of the Overton Window over the past couple decades (and particularly the past few years) may make it seemed to have moved left to those whose perceptions are driven by distance from the center of their own identity group, and identify with a right-leaning (either conservative or right-libertarian) faction.
4. s73v3r_ ◴[18 Feb 18 22:56 UTC] No.16409351[source]▶
Sure, but I could say the same with much of the South and conservatism.
5. on_and_off ◴[19 Feb 18 01:58 UTC] No.16410213[source]▶
Judging by the hordes of homeless people I seriously doubt that SF has a far left ideology