Supporting a political candidate is a personal choice, one that is given to every eligible individual in a democratic state. Calling for someone to be fired or sever ties with them over political choice is retarded and counter-productive.
[1] Not all of them! But enough to cause harm to society
Its quite possible OP doesn't believe anything in the linked to article
First, I'm not out for attention, but thanks for that unprompted attack (dick). I submitted this as it seemed wrong that it kept being censored/flagged off HN. Honestly I expected it to be flagged off again, but hoped at least a few more people would get to see it.
For me the real issue isn't so much that Thiel is Trump supporter, but that Sam Altman and PG have both been very vocal in their denouncement of Trump, so keeping Thiel as a partner (not employee, let's be clear about that) seems incongruous at best, and down right spineless at worst.
Don't get me wrong, Donald Trump is huge cunt in my view, but even if I were indifferent to Trump, I'd still feel Thiel and Ycombinator should not be doing business together with such drastically conflicting values.
It's also probably worth mentioning I'm English and live in the UK, and this whole election reminds me of Brexit. Pretty much everyone I spoke to thought it would be a landslide for remain. Hell, even the politicians advocating leave didn't seem to think they'd win. Yet here we are, £GBP in free fall, and no one on either side seems to have any idea what to do next.
Even if it seems unlikely now, Trump could end up as president, and that's scary for a lot of people.
You may have to clarify this for me, because it sounds as if you believe people with different political ideals can never work together, even on something non-political.
I don't think Thiel should be ostracized but it would be nice if he was asked to explain his thinking a little more instead of just yelling at him. He is a smart guy, maybe there is something to learn.
When people you know to be both intelligent and courageous seem to be doing something crazy and/or spineless, you should ask yourself what presuppositions you differ on.
You seem to hold the presupposition that people cannot work professionally together if they hold divergent political views. Think carefully about the implications of that viewpoint, and whether it's one that others can be assumed to hold.
Since I can't think of a response better than restating it myself, I think I'll leave it right there? I mean there's really nothing else to say. To paraphrase Newton what doesn't work will continue not to work unless a force is applied.
That used to be mostly confined to the conservative side of the political spectrum. Now it's spread to the liberal side as well.
It used to be the monopoly of the right in US, now it's interesting to see that the left engages in the exact same rhetoric, techniques and tactics. Or maybe they always did, it's just more blatant today how both sides are extreme and if you don't fall in line you're either Satan or worse than Hitler.
Both candidates' slogans are deeply ironic (Stronger Together and Make America Great Again) in light of the division and alienation the election is fostering. The US media are radicalizing the people for the sake of votes.
I hope Thiel doesn't stress himself over such outrage. I wish him well.
Unfortunately, even with this mental separation I try to maintain it falls into shades of gray when there isn't a clear separation between the business and the individual.
I'm not implying that applies in this case.
Interesting political affiliation isn't seen as ancestry although in practice it most certainly is. We like to LARP that elections are fair because people decide, when the reality is most of the population is born into party affiliation and boundaries are gerrymandered such that almost none of the public gets to actually decide anything ever. What I'm getting at is we LARP that the people have a voice and a crucial part of the LARPing is we must pretend political affiliation is NOT dominated almost entirely by ancestry. If for example "all black people vote for party X" that would imply black people are not part of a representative democracy where leaders are selected by voting etc, which is totally badthink thoughtcrime to even consider as a physics style thought experiment or mathematical inductive reasoning. So obviously politics can't be a protected class in a "democracy" like the USA.
You look at a map of the "red states" and they are very much what is remaining of the Confederate States of America. The red states in the west are where these racist losers fled to after the war to get away from all the freed blacks.
The fact that Trump is calling the election "rigged" and essentially egging on an armed rebellion after election day - well that just might happen because it already did a very long time ago.
Ask a simple question, get a simple answer.
Incidentally? Elimination of the anonymous vote? That's something Peter Thiel probably actually believes in. He believes democracy is a failed experiment, and the extension of the franchise to women harmed society. He believes, in general, that more voting worsens outcomes.
And even that doesn't account for recent massive scale (191M people) leaks [1].
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3yinij/entire_us_v...
In fact this being so is a primary driver of Trump's anti-PC appeal.
Meanwhile, all sorts of misconceptions are behind the appeal of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a monster. I do not think reasonable people are required to change their behavior to assuage the misconceptions of his deluded followers.
Such thoughtful discussion backed by so many supporting arguments.
The reason I'm not taking the bait is that the debate on this thread isn't about Donald Trump, and I'm not going to help you muddy the waters.
No, I mean what I've said repeatedly. If you support Donald Trump, or even just think he's no worse than Hillary Clinton, I'll agree to disagree with you and move on. But Sam Altman does not agree with you. Sam Altman compares Donald Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin.
The debate is about whether Altman can continue to endorse an important member of Trump's campaign while still believing that Trump is an existential threat to democracy. If Altman is sanguine about a Trump presidency, his support for Thiel is understandable. I don't think that he is.
Your willingness to stoke the red-vs-blue fires is why the US has ended up where we are. In other words, you're part of the problem.
A theme going on here is a binary state regarding how we should treat individuals and consider their positions. This idea of "endorsing" Thiel means you are supporting all of his political views and not just his business views. That if one supports Trump one is all-in on all of his positions.
For example, many of Trump's supporters are identifying with his economic message. They may find his immigration stance to be distasteful but the overriding concern is the economy, so they are willing to suck it up. Trump's bloc isn't a monolithic group with shared priorities.
Altman's position on this is exactly correct- expressing his disagreement with Thiel but with the maturity to quash the urge to run away from or "punish" Thiel. We would be better off as a society if we all adopted this mindset.
If we extend this into the realm of the individual and political speech, it is a totally different animal with clear dangers for freedom of expression.
I am not myself sure if I would consider it a moral failing to "boycott" an individual as a pressure tactic in these circumstances (or more like misguided social engineering) but it is definitely laudable to take a more nuanced view as Altman and YC have done.
A counterexample would be a situation where someone went and figured out that most of Nestle's employees were supporting Trump and then boycotted the business as a way to pressure those employees into altering their positions. That is much closer to being morally objectionable.
Outside of that, Altman _has_ criticized Thiel's views, directly. The disagreement seems to be about what to do afterwards. He is simply not willing to cut him off for this disagreement. If this way of thinking was a social norm, you would eliminate "anti-PC" griping which is important to a good chunk of Trump supporters, and you would likely see positive social change happen more rapidly (e.g. if this was the norm 50 years ago you might have seen more movement on gay marriage, etc. if people could pipe up without fear of being fired (or "boycotted")).