A bit childish, considering the slot the candidate is running for is not in a dictatorship. If you think Trump could convert the US to a dictatorship, I would like to see the evidence supporting this.
I'd point to Putin, Erdogan and Victor Orban as current strongmen who were elected democratically and slowly transformed their countries towards authoritarianism.
The parallels are undeniable: a bit of hatred against the "other", a lot of complaining about the media (and calling for laws to stop their "lying"), the hyper-masculine rhetoric and so on.
These things don't happen overnight, and the single most important firewall may be the presidential term limit, and the absence of any similar office (like Russia's "prime minister" that Putin switched to when he was term-limited, installing Medvedev as his puppet in the meantime).
I'd hope that the limit is such a binary line that 8 year's aren't enough to change that perception. But who knows? Maybe he could have created a narrative to legitimize another term. Some sort of crisis... The usual.
But, luckily, the worst now seems unlikely to happen. It still seems important to run up the score, and then we'll see how his party deals with it. Ideologically, at least on economics, there isn't much left of what was called conservatism a year ago.
I don't agree with this 40% thing because it's not sufficient to say that because they support him, they support his worst ideas. Maybe they support his best ideas, and have a high degree of confidence that the worst will not happen. Nobody has foreknowledge of what a President will actually do in office. We can choose to use our best judgment and apply it while voting - that is why everyone gets one vote, to exercise that judgment.
To argue that those who are voting for him are in favor of racism, bigotry, etc. is a generalization. Would you generalize this way about followers of any religion? Many religions advocate some oppressive ideas, but we give followers the benefit of the doubt beforehand by saying that unless proved otherwise, let's first assume that they are peace-loving tolerant people of faith who believe only the "good parts" of this book, and not the violent parts. We don't seem to be doing that in politics, and I think that's wrong.
If Sam Altman is comfortable with that, he should remain affiliated with Thiel.
Your comments are infuriating in another way, because you're not actually debating what many people here are trying to talk about. You are dodging any defense of your assertions that Trump would be like a dictator, while backhandedly repeating it. That's not a conversation. That's preaching, and dodging.
Postscript: Trump can only "act like a dictator" so far as he can abuse the massive expansion of presidential power granted as much by the Democratic party as from Republicans. But I won't defend that here. I'll just tell you that other, smarter people think it too, and you should ask them about it.
tptacek is focusing on the article. He has a very simple argument that Altman is acting shamefully.
This argument depends on Altman believing that Trump is a threat to democracy. It does not depend on anyone else believing that Trump is a threat to democracy.
tptacek wants to settle that, rather than get mired in arguing about Trump.
It's not preaching and dodging. It's focusing.
It proves your beliefs are not universally held by the community. It supports my points, not yours.
Ignoring one just because the other is more obvious isn't any better in my book.
A lot of people are advocating authoritarianism- in fact thats the point of this whole thread- whether we should "excommunicate" Peter Theil.
But they don't seem to realize that leftism is essentially more authoritarian than rightism. Rightists want economic freedom, Leftists don't. (On social freedom neither of them want it- which is why Obama didn't try to legalize gay marriage, and picked Joe Biden the architect of the war on teen pot smokers as a running mate.)
Why don't liberals recognized that Hillary and Obama are authoritarians?
Trump is authoritarian in a different, more overt way. He's proposed extreme authoritarian moves like mass deportation, religious tests for entry to the US, camps, and directing the justice system at political enemies.
Maybe you don't see the difference between their versions of authoritarianism, but I do, and a lot of other people do too. It's an unfair comparison, and I think you should be able to recognize that.
If that doesn't persuade you, what kind of evidence would persuade you?
As for elections not being legitimate, that clam was made repeatedly, with merit, after 2000. The democrats lost, and they lost due to widespread fraud.
Finally, Hillary belongs in jail. Basically all of the allegations have been proven by the wikileaks email releases.
When your opponent is a blatant criminal it's quite fair to say "you'll be in jail" and quite different than saying "I'm going to jail you for disagreeing with me" which is what people seem to want to clam he said (so basically they are lying about him. If he's so obviously reprehensible, why the need to lie about him?)
Hmm. Interesting. What allegations do you think were proven? I was under the (mistaken?) impression that they mostly proved things that seem bad, nothing that was specifically criminal. It's not like we didn't know the details of the whole email situation beforehand.
Also, thought experiment - how would you react if Hillary Clinton were to say that she would appoint a special prosecutor to jail Trump for sexual harassment?
Edit: BTW, afaik, the democrats' allegations in 2000 came after the results of the election. They didn't repeatedly claim ahead of time that the election was rigged. Not sure if this is a huge difference, just putting it out there.
sigh
No, you still can't say that. Presidents cannot tell their attorney general who to prosecute or not to prosecute, even if the President thinks the person is a blatant criminal.
Maybe if you stopped to think about it a little bit, you would understand why allowing this could lead to very bad abuses of power?
I don't see how YC denying Peter Thiel is anything more than political theatre it has no bearing on whether Trump will win or not.
All these distractions when the US has two states CT and IL in near bankruptcy due to pensions being 200%+ over state revenues, and a frightening national debt meaning Feds will likely not be able to bail them out. Wish everybody could panic over that not Thiel being involved with YC.
True, but Trump's rhetoric indicates he has not grasped the distinction.