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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: 0.217s | 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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sho ◴[18 Feb 18 19:52 UTC] No.16407948[source]▶
> insane, insufferable far left crazies

Definitely this option.

And by the way, I've been increasingly wondering lately whether our blind insistence on labelling absolutely everything "left/right" or "red/blue" isn't doing our society real damage. I've never voted conservative my entire life but I have nothing in common with the far left and indeed fear them a lot more than the far right. We need a new vocabulary.

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walshemj ◴[18 Feb 18 20:44 UTC] No.16408445[source]▶
Yes but there are no far left parties in the USA to vote for.
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manofstick ◴[18 Feb 18 21:32 UTC] No.16408842[source]▶
As non-american, living outside of america (but having lived there for a year and a half starting January 2000), I concur. I still follow american politics quite a bit (too much for me to remain healthy actually) and I'm constantly bamboozled trying to comprehend what people mean by the "far left".

To me it seems like any one is considered "far left" if they believe in:

- treating all people, regardless of race, gender, gender-identity or age equally (*) - believing in the science of climate change - believing that guns are the main reason for mass murders - believing that the more you earn, the more tax you should pay

Which, for the rest of the world, are pretty centralist positions...

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dcow ◴[18 Feb 18 22:18 UTC] No.16409131[source]▶
That's the thing, that's pretty damn central in the US too. The problem is that's not good enough for some people. In the US, legally, we treat everyone equal. However, we're (in theory) a meritocratic society based on survival of the fittest. The modern "far left" ideology is interested in equal outcomes for everyone and defines any statistical dependencies they perceive, and anyone who doesn't support correcting them, as racist, sexist, generally "-ist". So they've moved the goal posts. It's become a battle between equal opportunity and equal outcome and as far as the left is concerned supporting equal opportunity and not equal outcome is deplorable and should be shunned.
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jakelazaroff ◴[18 Feb 18 22:47 UTC] No.16409291[source]▶
> In the US, legally, we treat everyone equal.

Even if you start with the premise that no laws explicitly target any race/gender/etc, it doesn't automatically follow that everyone is treated equally under the law.

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dcow ◴[18 Feb 18 23:44 UTC] No.16409621[source]▶
Agreed.

The parent comment is asking why the idea of equal opportunity is seen as far left. I am trying to explain that everyone pretty much agrees we should have equal opportunities, and explain that the debate has now become about whether we enforce/regulate the distribution of wealth and jobs such that society ends up statistically "equal". And that this is a very controversial and political topic and has nothing to do with racism despite the rhetoric employed at both extremes of the horseshoe.

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1. leereeves ◴[19 Feb 18 15:56 UTC] No.16413594[source]▶
> everyone pretty much agrees we should have equal opportunities

Equal outcomes isn't really compatible with equal opportunities.

Advocates of equal outcomes want fewer opportunities for people from whatever group they label "overrepresented" or "privileged". In the most extreme cases, they want opportunities to be designated for certain groups and forbidden to others.