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

(www.wsj.com)
370 points sillypuddy | 21 comments | 18 Feb 18 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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twblalock ◴[18 Feb 18 21:03 UTC] No.16408620[source]▶
I don't get it. I grew up in Silicon Valley and I work in tech, and so do many other people I know. They run the gamut from far-left socialists to libertarians to own a bunch of guns. They have all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and religious views.

Some of my most libertarian/pro-gun friends have not been shy about their political views and it hasn't hurt their tech careers at all. They are far more welcome here than liberals are in other parts of the country.

It seems to me, from personal experience, that the people who feel alienated are the ones who bring politics to work in an overbearing contrarian way, seeking to cause offense under the guise of "debate," and then pretend to be shocked when people don't want to put up with their shit. Work is for working; it's not a debating society, and especially not when the debating is done in bad faith.

Peter Thiel has been more politically vocal than most, and he is vocal about things he knows to be unpopular. He can't be surprised that people who disagree with him are also vocal. If he can't take the heat he should stay out of the kitchen.

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1. tomsthumb ◴[18 Feb 18 21:12 UTC] No.16408700[source]▶
On the other hand, I have seen a coworker strongly imply that someone is a white nationalist for suggesting that it’s possible to be a non-racist republican.
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2. Pxtl ◴[18 Feb 18 22:01 UTC] No.16408998[source]▶
You don't have to be racist to support the modern Republicans, but you do have to decide that racism really isn't a deal-breaker for you.
replies(2): >>16409023 #>>16409063 #
3. cgag ◴[18 Feb 18 22:01 UTC] No.16408999[source]▶
Lmao at people acting like people are insane for feeling right wing people are alienated and there being not one but two comments in this thread saying being a republican makes you a racist.
replies(1): >>16409077 #
4. fouric ◴[18 Feb 18 22:03 UTC] No.16409013[source]▶
"undeniably racist"? I'm curious. Do tell more.
5. greglindahl ◴[18 Feb 18 22:06 UTC] No.16409036[source]▶
Thanks for the anecdote. Was a reminder of "let's be respectful, now!" good enough to solve the problem?
replies(2): >>16409820 #>>16410431 #
6. Daishiman ◴[18 Feb 18 22:09 UTC] No.16409063{3}[source]▶
If racism isn't a deal-breaker for you...
replies(1): >>16409165 #
7. samiru ◴[18 Feb 18 22:10 UTC] No.16409068[source]▶
And you sound like a populist. How one can have a meaningful debate when nothing you say is strictly true?
8. sho ◴[18 Feb 18 22:11 UTC] No.16409077[source]▶
You really "LMAO"?

Because you should be "fearing your ass off" when people are afraid to express their legitimate political views. This has all happened before and it wasn't pretty.

update: come on downvoters. At least give me a clue.

replies(1): >>16409928 #
9. berberous ◴[18 Feb 18 22:23 UTC] No.16409165{4}[source]▶
In a multi-party system, I would agree with your implication. But when you have a system with only two realistic choices, it is possible to vote for a candidate because you think the other one is even worse, without endorsing the candidate you voted for.
10. crdoconnor ◴[18 Feb 18 22:26 UTC] No.16409183[source]▶
I noticed a similar view appearing more than once in the UK: "if you voted for Brexit you're probably a racist".

I think people like this were ironically and unwittingly recruiting people to the other side. Which is unfortunate.

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11. dang ◴[18 Feb 18 22:36 UTC] No.16409233[source]▶
Please keep standard political talking points off HN. If you repeat something stock, it will get stock responses. That makes it off-topic on a site dedicated to curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

replies(1): >>16409713 #
12. tessierashpool ◴[19 Feb 18 00:00 UTC] No.16409713{3}[source]▶
how is the entire topic of this discussion not a standard political talking point?
replies(1): >>16409816 #
13. dang ◴[19 Feb 18 00:22 UTC] No.16409816{4}[source]▶
For one thing, many people are talking about their personal experiences, from many angles.

Comments like "blood on the hands of $movement", by contrast, are battle fodder. Irrespective of your politics, that's the sort of thing that provokes worse from others and leads to all-out war, which we're trying to avoid on this site. So if you'd please not post like that here, we'd appreciate it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

replies(1): >>16411887 #
14. ameister14 ◴[19 Feb 18 00:23 UTC] No.16409820[source]▶
nice, pointing out that he used an anecdote to respond to a person also basing their opinion on anecdotes
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15. cgag ◴[19 Feb 18 00:48 UTC] No.16409928{3}[source]▶
It's funny in the fact that it's so obviously absurd but the people doing it don't see it. It's both funny and scary depending on how much I think about it.
16. greglindahl ◴[19 Feb 18 00:54 UTC] No.16409957{3}[source]▶
Oh, I'm fine with anecdotes responding to anecdotes. I was just wondering what happened next.
17. tomsthumb ◴[19 Feb 18 02:54 UTC] No.16410431[source]▶
It took many more words, several days and a lot of listening from both sides for a more reasonable position to emerge.
18. tessierashpool ◴[19 Feb 18 09:57 UTC] No.16411887{5}[source]▶
ok, I'll try again. how is this notion that conservatives are not free to express their opinions not a standard political talking point? there's an entire genre of such articles in the mainstream media. it's a popular argument with white supremacists who are attempting to normalize fascism.

you're permitting a standard political talking point to be an entire topic of discussion, and then screening out some individual replies because they invoke additional standard political talking points.

you're allowing some standard political talking points and disallowing others. if you're doing that, it would be convenient for your users if you were to specify which standard political talking points are valid topics of discussion, and which other standard political talking points will get your comments banned.

replies(1): >>16418213 #
19. Chris2048 ◴[19 Feb 18 12:14 UTC] No.16412400[source]▶
Had a friend who mused (not sure if serious, but tone somewhat suggested it) that'd he'd travel in such a way to "avoid the racist counties" (i.e. majority brexit)...
20. dang ◴[20 Feb 18 06:15 UTC] No.16418213{6}[source]▶
I hear you, but it's more complicated than that. To judge by the reaction of HN users, not everyone expressing this point of view is doing so just as a political weapon. Some are struggling to articulate their experience with the intention of connecting with others. So it's both. From a moderation point of view, the goal is to encourage the one kind of discussion—sincerely articulating experience with the intention of connecting with others—while discouraging the other, i.e. repetition of weaponized rhetoric with the intention of defeating enemies.
21. abusoufiyan ◴[20 Feb 18 06:33 UTC] No.16418266[source]▶
>I think people like this were ironically and unwittingly recruiting people to the other side. Which is unfortunate.

If you're dumb enough to switch how you vote on something that is unquestionably going to change your personal economic, social, and political future because someone went a little overboard in calling people racists, then you deserve to have your country decline.