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

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.

I work in the Bay Area and I have personally worked with (as in, on the same team with and working directly in cooperation. CEOs, founders, etc. are not included in this count), exactly one person who discussed their conservative views. This is in comparison to hundreds of liberals. Sure, you may be able to identify at least one person on variety of ends of the political spectrum, but I don't think anyone can sanely deny a vast under representation of conservatives in Silicon Valley. Granted, Silicon Valley itself is politically imbalanced. But even in San Francisco 9% [1] of voters voted Republican in 2016.Despite that, I haven't witnessed anything close to that share of conservatives in my tech jobs - even in my jobs lower in the Peninsula and in South Bay.

Adding this as an edit: Also, do you work in the Bay Area currently (you mentioned you grew up there)? There is a pretty substantial discrepancy between voicing political views in high school and college vs. when people actually start working. I have met more than an order of magnitude more conservatives and non-liberals in 4 years of university in the Bay Area as compared working in tech there - 25 to 30 in unviersity vs. exactly 1 in industry. Also edited in the fact that I work in the Bay Area in the first sentence, so I realized I didn't mention it until the last.

Just to counter this anecdata, the startup I used to work at was founded by 4 conservatives, 2 of whom met working in the George W Bush White House. We used to discuss and debate all sorts of politic topics, and in fact I was quite often in the minority (a position that didn't bother me... it was a good way to learn different perspective on some key issues). They were then and I'm sure still now are quite openly conservative and happy to debate politics (in appropriate settings). They didn't hide it publicly either, for example in the early days of the 2016 presidential election they had Jeb Bush come over and give a talk. Jeb was made fun of quite a bit for the manner in which he put on the company swag [1].

The company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and has hundreds of employees. In my experience I didn't notice a single situation in which their conservative views had negative impacts on the company. In fact I think their conservative background helped the company raise money from VCs, who I'd wager are more conservative than average.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBg6hU5zXDA

There are different types of people that call themselves conservative. The Bush's were both pro-business conservatives, but never really expoused the type of populism that Trump does. You could admit in polite company that you supported the Bushes, or Romney. You really can't admit that you support Trump in polite company without being judged harshly.

Maybe it’s worth reflecting on just why that might be.

I agree, it's worth reflecting on.

I see Trump's rise as a response to people on the left who celebrate "the end of men", expel men without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves, unapologetically depict men and white people (and white men most of all) as evil, demand white people "absent themselves", and offer jobs for which white people need not apply. Not "far-left crazies", but major media outlets and universities.

When the media and academic culture is so toxic to any white men who speak up for their own interests, only someone who has no filter, like Trump, dares to speak at all.

Citation needed. Also, you are being downvoted because you are making baseless claims and accusations; you are not being "silenced" or "censored".

> The End of Men ... What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end...

> the rules intended to protect victims of sexual assault mean students have lost their right to due process

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-un...

> professor Bret Weinstein refused to comply with students interested in 'social justice' that demanded a day without white people on campus

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/30/evergreen...

> The ad said the [University of Louisville] Department of Physics and Astronomy “announces a tenure-track assistant professor position that will be filled by an African-American, Hispanic American or a Native American Indian.”

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/12/16/u-l-ripped-h...

Those are only examples to prove these claims aren't "baseless". If you're interested, I'm sure you can find more such incidents yourself.

Also, while it sounds like you downvoted me, I'm not being downvoted (net). Perhaps there are more people out there who are aware of these things than you think.

> The End of Men ... What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?

TheCoelocanth already beat me to it, but this article doesn't do any celebrating about the "end of men". It's very sympathetic about how the changing US economy has gutted many traditionally-male fields. And in so far as support for Trump is driven by the economic uncertainty of men, it does a lot to explain that component. But your original claim is ridiculous. I don't have a lot of free time right now, do any of your links honestly support your argument?

It's a shame you don't have any free time. If you did, I'd recommend searching for "the future is female" and seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes.

But since you don't, what exactly do you expect me to say here that will convince you in 30 seconds?

If you search for any loaded term on Google it will lead to confirmation bias.

Can you find any stats showing that a White male has a harder time in America getting a job, getting a loan, getting a mortgage or lease, getting into college, etc than an equally qualified non White male?

Confirmation bias?

Hillary Clinton said that after the election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-future-is-female-hillary-clin...

If we agree that's a loaded term, perhaps we can also agree that in terms of dividing people by race and gender, Trump isn't so different from many leaders on the left. He's merely the first Republican who plays the game of identity politics that the left has played for so long.

I think it's a terrible shame that the dream of a race-blind, gender-blind society was abandoned...but the left, not Trump, is to blame for that.

“the first republican that plays identity politics”? Have you ever heard of the “Southern Strategy”?