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

(www.wsj.com)
370 points sillypuddy | 3 comments | 18 Feb 18 16:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.644s | 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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guelo ◴[18 Feb 18 22:15 UTC] No.16409106[source]▶
Conservative propaganda has learned from the left how powerful victimology, feeling persecuted, is. White resentment is through the roof when I talk politics with a lot of my white friends.
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astura ◴[19 Feb 18 01:40 UTC] No.16410146[source]▶
I find this new conservative victimhood mentality absolutely fascinating. I know someone who is a self described conservative who thinks he's being persecuted by society because of, of all things, having children. Not a ton of children, mind you, and not ones he can't afford, and not out of wedlock.

Having children is literally the most socially acceptable thing you can do amongst almost all political ideologies. Its incredibly common and parents are held up on a pedestal just for existing.

But he thinks the liberal elites are somehow out to get him for being a parent and he's a persecuted minority. He's said "liking being a parent is such an unpopular opinion."

He has a million other benign things he thinks he's being persecuted for but the kids thing is just the most bizarre and totally detached from reality.

It's like, you'd have to totally ignore reality to have this viewpoint... At the same time it seems like a really sad life.

I wonder if they actually believe this shit or it's just a means to an end.

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1. peoplewindow ◴[19 Feb 18 10:03 UTC] No.16411910[source]▶
Why don't you ask him why he thinks that, instead of writing it off?

I agree it seems odd to believe that anyone could be against having children. But the world is full of large groups of people who hold odd and unsubstantiated opinions. Perhaps he's met people who really do look down on him for having kids. Perhaps he's stumbled across a group of old fashioned Malthusians who think children = population growth = destroying the environment and he's extrapolated that belief out incorrectly onto a much wider group.

To your wider point, conservatives are absolutely victimised in some parts of society. That's what the entire article in the WSJ is about. That's what happened to Damore. Note that Damore filed a complaint with the NLRB: they wrote a memo that put the word "scientific" in scare quotes, and stated that bringing up scientific studies of gender differences was sexual harassment. So literally attempting to argue conservative viewpoints by reference to scientific studies is now considered sexual harassment and the government will not defend it: if that isn't going to create a feeling of victimisation, what is?

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2. tetromino_ ◴[19 Feb 18 14:32 UTC] No.16413058[source]▶
There do exist some activists fighting against "natal" policies; for example, these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_for_Optional...

However, such a position is very much unusual and marginal in the US or (IMHO) the Anglosphere in general. By contrast, I had encountered some rather aggressive childfree activists on the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.

3. astura ◴[19 Feb 18 19:23 UTC] No.16415026[source]▶
I'm not automatically dismissing him, none of that reflects the reality of his existence, he's seeing things that aren't there, presumably because he wants to feel like a victim. Not only that but he doesn't ever stop talking about it, literally every conversation ends up being how the liberal elites are out to get him for some really stupid reason.