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Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

The epidemic problem with bay area companies mixing their leftist politics and business is very disconcerting. They are alienating the majority population of the country, and are acting in the same manner as groups they claim to loathe. It is pure hypocrisy.

Bay area companies enjoy diversity and inclusion, as long as it fits within their narrative.

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From my perspective as a native Southerner, Silicon Valley seems like a groupthink cult/bubble. Just as much or even more so than the most rural areas around here. Add on the insane cost of living and it does lose a lot of appeal for certain outsiders.

Shouldn't this be a situation where the market decides, then?

AirBNB, developed in leftist SF: No white supremacists on our system.

AryanBNB, developed in northern Idaho: White supremacists welcome!

If people are really that turned off by AirBNB banning white supremacists, they'd flock to AryanBNB, wouldn't they?

For my part, I just don't think this slope is that slippery. I'd happily prohibit white supremacists from using any service I ever developed, or if I ever opened a retail shop, I'd happily ask them to leave (reserving the right to refuse service and all that).

But that's just me. Surely the white supremacists can develop short-term rental apps to cater to everyone, can't they? (They wouldn't prohibit any specific groups from using their services, I'm sure, ha ha.)

That reason isn't consistent with popular ideology. If it was valid, you could also make the same argument for AirBNB banning gays and say "well, gays can make their own GayBNB if they want. Let the market decide!" No. That wouldn't be fair for gays to be sidelined to the necessarily inferior minority service. Most customers won't use the GayBNB as a political gesture. Just as most Uber users didn't really switch to Lyft when they were angry at Uber because, well, they kind of liked the cheap and available rides.

The difference is that we've agreed for the most part that sexual orientation should be a protected class, and being a white supremacist should not be.

It's so blindingly obvious that I have no idea why you'd ever make that argument.

Nobody cares about sidelining white supremacists.

They're alienating people like myself who are firmly on the left. The left used to care about socio-economics, but they've abandoned the white working class (and the working class of every minority) in favor of identity politics. The left used to care about everyone getting access to a decent education and healthcare instead of denigrating the poor as racist rednecks. The left used to be in favor of helping their neighbors and not opening borders.

Now people who are on the left and many of those that could be are left with no one to vote for.

Your imagined idea of the left is probably fine with you leaving if you are leaving because a group can't spread a message of death against black people. The high road against disagreeable speech is fine, but aligning yourself with groups that have killed based on race shouldn't allow you to have the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not disillusioned with the left because of this one incident, or any one incident. It's a trend I've noticed over the last few years. If I had to pick some single incidents then Brexit and the Trump election would stand out, the left now has utter contempt for the white working class.

They are not alienating the majority of the population. Conservatives are in the minority and they're also extremely old, so not really part of their audience.

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