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

(www.wsj.com)
370 points sillypuddy | 1 comments | 18 Feb 18 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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merpnderp ◴[18 Feb 18 21:42 UTC] No.16408894[source]▶
I’ve had a colleague straight up say everyone who isn’t standing up to Trump or agrees with any of his policies is a Nazi apologist.
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tessierashpool[dead post] ◴[19 Feb 18 00:18 UTC] No.16409786[source]▶
But this is probably true. Trump is very very different from a mainstream Republican. In 2016, mainstream Republicans were all calling him an insane criminal. Today, psychologists are endorsing the "insane" part, his long record of legal problems arguably endorses the "criminal" part, and the Mueller investigation looks extremely likely to endorse the "criminal" part as well.

Trump's father was arrested at a KKK rally. Trump brought fringe white supremacists into the White House, and the only serious mainstream politician he brought into the White House was named after multiple Civil War generals who all fought for the Confederacy. After Charlottesville, Trump defended the white supremacists who marched.

I think you could argue that failing to stand up to Trump only makes you an apologist for a Nazi apologist. Beyond that, though, your co-worker is basically just objectively correct. Many mainstream Republicans have voiced the same opinion, although many of them recanted once he took office. (And many of them continued voicing this opinion regardless.)

1. bzbarsky ◴[19 Feb 18 04:52 UTC] No.16410836{3}[source]▶
> Trump is very very different from a mainstream Republican.

The key part of merpnderp's quote is "or agrees with any of his policies". There are tons things that are perceived as "Trump's policies" (and some are in fact his policies) that are just mainstream Republican policies. Just don't confuse "policies" with rhetoric, because in the case of Trump he says one thing and does another all the time. Of course it's a bit odd to me that people who think he's a pathological liar (a viewpoint I can totally understand!) always act surprised when his words don't match his actions...