Peter Thiel Parts Ways with Silicon Valley
wsj.com
wsj.com
> Silicon Valley also has an insidious infection that is spreading -- a peculiar form of McCarthyism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) masquerading as liberal open-mindedness. I'm as socially liberal as you get, and I find it nauseating how many topics or dissenting opinions are simply out-of-bounds in Silicon Valley. These days, people with real jobs (unlike me) are risking their careers to even challenge collective delusions in SF. Isn't this supposed to be where people change the world by challenging the consensus reality? By seeing the hidden realities behind the facades? That's the whole reason I traveled west and started over in the Bay Area. Now, more and more, I feel like it's a Russian nesting doll of facades -- Washington DC with fewer neck ties, where people openly lie to one another out of fear of losing their jobs or being publicly crucified. It's weird, unsettling, and, frankly, really dangerous. There's way too much power here for politeness to be sustainable. If no one feels they can say "Hey, I know it makes everyone uncomfortable, but I think there's a leak in the fuel rods in this nuclear submarine..." we're headed for big trouble.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7erct8/i_am_tim_ferri...
I've witnessed this first hand, and alongside the congestion and housing problems that no one wants to handle, it was a big reason I decided to leave the Bay Area for good.
They're annoying.
On the other hand, that's the dominant mode for the entire right half of the spectrum so take their complaints with a grain of salt. And who gives the above-mentioned annoying liberals their biggest platform? Right wing media. Gotta feed the wurlitzer.
It's not a "differing and diverse political opinion" to think people of color and women are inherently less worthy, it's just racist/sexist.
It actually is both, which neatly answers the "why are you against diverse political opinions": Saying something is 'just' an 'opinion' doesn't absolve it from being racist/sexist.
One more thing to note: you've called the guy "pro-authoritarian/pseudo-monarchist". Is this how he describes himself ( I guess no )? I grew up in a country with strong far-right culture. Nazis are calling themselves nazis.
Yarvin told Yiannopoulos that he had been “coaching Thiel.”
“Peter needs guidance on politics for sure,” Yiannopoulos responded.
“Less than you might think!” Yarvin wrote back. “I watched the election at his house, I think my hangover lasted into Tuesday. He’s fully enlightened, just plays it very carefully.”
and then combine that with the fact that Yarvin calls himself a Jacobite and you've got the monarchy/authoritarian connection.
The Thiel thing goes a whole lot deeper than Damore or some of the other common examples of "SJW" pushback.
The cure is measuring impact and the results of interventions accurately.
If my boss says, "Hey deong, what do you think about black people?", that's not a get-out-of-jail-free card for me to start dropping n-bombs. There's one answer you're allowed to give to that question, and it's not because there's some conspiracy to oppress dissenting opinions. It's because there are extremely reasonable standards for employment that include not shouting racial epithets and white supremacist propaganda. Being asked your opinion doesn't change the rules.
Damore was certainly less inflammatory than that, but the point remains. You can argue that his opinions didn't warrant firing, but there's no reasonable way to argue that because he was responding to requests for comment, it's unethical or otherwise shady to hold him accountable for those comments.
You use racism as an example but what Damore said was not racist, he didn't use any epithets, he isn't a white supremacist. It's really odd that you try to lump him in with them.
Conservatives at Google know this all too well. They've seen eng-misc and memegen and know that there is a very limited spectrum of "acceptable" opinion. The problem wasn't that political content was posted, as that happens all the time, it was that it was political content that was deemed to be "wrong."
Ask conservatives/GOP supporters how they felt after Trump was elected and the TGIF presenter tried to comfort the audience, which they assumed all voted for Clinton...talk about ostracizing your workforce that may hold a different private opinion
Since you missed it, the point was this: it's irrelevant that he posted it on a company board that was asking for opinions, so stop trying to use that as a defense. If you want to defend what he said, go nuts. We can argue the merits and whether Google overreacted. Just don't whine, "but they asked his opinions!" as though that's some sort of shield.
The actual problem, as I stated, is that Google accepts extremely vitriolic commentary from the left (at work!) but even Damore's relatively tame memo caused him to be fired.
Refer to Damore's lawsuit for many examples of the the extreme rhetoric that is allowed within Google corporate.
As long as you are not yelling at your Hispanic co-workers about building a wall, you'll be fine.
Again, this seems to be a made-up narrative.
A lot of right wing political opinion would probably be in the same boat. Being pro life or against gay marriage both come to mind as opinions one may have that would immediately change others opinions about them.
I'm not defending these opinions rather the belief that just because someone believes something different than me doesn't mean we are destined to vilify each other.
I'm pretty sure I have seen comments on HN which pretty strongly hint that the commenters feel Trump supporters should have no place in SV tech companies, because they are, by virtue of supporting him, bigots. These were not greyed out comments, either.
Oh, and comments like these:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16384641
(Really hard to tell if it is just bait, though).
Liberals will not even allow the word "illegal" in discourse and any solution short of total unconditional amnesty will earn you the label of "bigot".
Did you mean to say "Being poor is now almost assured due to astronomic rent"?
With all the wealth going around many people feel ashamed of the obvious disparity of their success and the truly destitute. This could lead to a competition of virtue signaling among the SF wealthy to "give back" to the poor. Kind of like how you see the rich always donating to needy charities or celebrities at canned food drives.
Of course, helping the poor will just be social lip service but it will lead to tangible resources for the destitute.
But then I read this "Ask A Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo" (http://blog.ycombinator.com/ask-a-female-engineer-thoughts-o...) and the one point most of them seems to agree with the memo is that there is this lack of tolerance to conservative thinking.
I still believe there is a lot of good being done by people labeled "social justice warriors" and the so-called "political correctness" is undoubtedly a net good to the world. But I now also think that this lack of tolerance is a real danger that must be fought by the people that are in the same side of the political spectrum that is perpetuating this intolerance (i.e. the more left-wing socially liberal).
As I consider to be part of this group, in this particular dimension, I think we should be listening carefully with open minds and hearts to these accusations from people at the more conservative side.
And maybe the comment would have been upvoted on its own. Maybe not. It's hard to draw a conclusion either way after the fact. I just did what seemed to be the right thing at the time. Anonymously upvoting and shaking my head didn't seem enough.
The proper separation between men and women is a major American conservative need. Can we say this out loud?
Also, when we say liberal views, do we mean secular views? Religiously agnostic views? Views which are based upon religiously agnostic shared facts? Which of these views experience the most tension with conservative views?
Note that I bring specifically Christianity into this, because it's hard to imagine (perhaps even an abstraction terribly departed from reality) what American conservatism means without Christianity. If Christians voted one way or another, the very meaning of American conservatism would change overnight.
It's way off topic for this thread, but I've never heard a conservative talk about needing to separate men and women.
> But what conservative viewpoints do you think are most under stress?
Well, minority religious viewpoints now that you bring it up. Religious people certainly feel feel like they have to be closeted. They don't use the terms "microaggressions", "soft bigotry", and "privilege", but orthodox religious people (of all stripes) talk about being at a disadvantage in professional settings all the time. Pastors routinely give sermons basically encouraging them (again, using different terms) to "come out of the closet", "celebrate their identity", and "engage in healthy dialogue".
Some think (including in this thread), "Good! It's their turn now anyway! They had their chance, now they can be the minorities!" not realizing that the imagined Mad Men suit is actually unlikely to be religious. Church membership is over-represented by women, the poor, the disabled, and so on. African Americans and Latinos are much more likely to attend church than Caucasians.
Some think, "Hey, they chose to be this way. They can be like the rest of us if they want respect." Again, I find this attitude ironic given the obvious parallels to other social justice issues. The religious do not feel like they have any say in who God is or what he wants. No more than atheists feel like they have a say in whether God exists. And, perhaps more than (most) athiests, a religious faith is a core part of someone's identity.
Basically, I find the fear of religious diversity is a glaring (and intentional) gap in the prevailing postmodern take on diversity. The usual response is usually some form of "they have it coming", which is frankly unrealistic, unhelpful, and combative.
However, just as some conservative ideals used to be unquestionable, now some liberal ideas are becoming sacred cows as well. One of these is indeed diversity hiring as mentioned by the parent. I have politely asked numerous people to make the business case to me for explicit diversity hiring. I have yet to hear a very compelling one outside of making sure that your dev demographics at least partially represent your user base demographics which is only really relevant for certain products. I have frequently been met with surprise and scorn for daring to even investigate the usefulness of these programs. I think this is what the parent poster is referring to.
People are no longer as religious as they once were. Gender and race equality are accepted more than dissented. These ideals are the cornerstones of conservative beliefs, as well as the whole Fake News era. It's not surprising to me that people are choosing not to share their space with ideas that are so obviously discriminatory and outdated.
All that said, I'll defend, against the country and every other government apparatus, any conservative's right to say such things. I will not be sad when a company or a person doesn't want those views affiliated with them or their brand though.
You have zero idea what you're talking about. It's as if you derived your concept of conservatism from The Daily Show.
> hate speech as free speech
Speech is speech. It's free (to be spoken) or it's not, regardless of its content. Anything else is a path to censorship.
Free speech is only protected by and from the government. It's not protected by and from any other repercussions. I don't have to like you or accept you because I support or defend your ability to exercise your freedom of speech to the government. I do not have to allow that in my home, my business, or my friendship circles.
The rest of what you said isn't worth a response.
Is it cool if I fire all democrats from my company because I don't like their speech?
Only if they bring it to work or make it affiliated with your company/brand outside of work and then only individually, not as a whole. Ultimately though, you can fire whomever you wish for whatever you wish outside of a narrowly defined set of restrictions in most states.
>Employees, as well as many employers, commonly but mistakenly believe that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees "freedom of speech" at work. In fact, the First Amendment applies only to government action and neither limits the rights of private employers to regulate employees' communications nor provides any constitutional right for those workers to express thoughts or opinions at work. As a result, there is no constitutionally protected right of "free speech" in the offices and factories of private employers. Although employees may be entitled to express their views freely on their own time or on a soapbox in the park, they have no such wide-ranging constitutional rights at work. Absent rights provided by one of the limited exceptions discussed below, there are no legal protections for political activities in the workplace, so private employers generally may refuse to hire, adjust pay/benefits and even discharge "at will" employees because of their political views.2 In short, "political discrimination" often is not unlawful discrimination.
https://www.hklaw.com/publications/politics-in-the-workplace...
You say that religion and (it seems) discrimination are cornerstones of conservativism but I would categorically disagree with that notion. I hold many of the classical conservative values (limited gov, thoughtful regulations, primacy of the constitution, belief in public investment in education, health care, defense, and research to support the public good etc) and would consider myself to be at least an economic conservative in the classical sense, yet I am an atheist, am socially liberal, and do not support racism, sexism, or xenophobia in any way. I would say some of these negative ideas are represented by the Republican party in its current incantation, but the ideals of the Republican party and conservative ideals are not necessarily one in the same, in the same way that the ideals of the Democratic party are not equivalent to classical liberalism.
That's largely fair, but I'll point out that Trump didn't get a majority of the Republican primary vote. I think it's largely because there are plenty of Republicans who dislike Trump and weren't looking forward to all the blowback we're discussing in this thread even though Trump was in their bottom two choices for who would make a good President.
Painting entire people groups as bigoted due to election results they didn't necessarily even want is... well it's a conclusion based on an incomplete view of reality. With some charity, I can say there's an opportunity to share and learn what people actually think, but at some point the ignorance seems more willful than accidental.
Frankly, with the proclivity of all sites to either push these conversations into bubbles (Twitter, Facebook) or suppress them (professional settings, Hacker News), I'm not sure there's any suitable public space for actual understanding to happen. The problem is that all the spaces I listed seem (to me) to be controlled by the same social forces that conservatives are concerned about with respect to free speech and actual dialogue.
Whenever I hear conservatives talk about free speech and dialog I think about Fox News and Breibart and think that I'll pass on whatever amounts to the conservative version of free speech and dialogue.
>That's largely fair, but I'll point out that Trump didn't get a majority of the Republican primary vote.
True, but he got enough to get the nomination. It also shows a lot about conservatives that more than not thought he was the best option and also how bad the other options had to be to get to this point.
> I'll pass on whatever amounts to the conservative version of free speech and dialogue...
Conservatives love Lincoln-Douglas, Adams-Jefferson, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, etc. Asking people to reach for (philosophically) liberal ideals from the enlightenment about civic mindedness and rational debate are a conservative version of free speech and dialogue.
> It also shows a lot about conservatives...
"GOP voter" and "conservative" aren't synonymous. Conservatives generally dislike pettiness, identity politics, and strong-man tactics and those qualities defined Trump's candidacy more than any given policy issue.
Actual conservatives mostly split their vote between Rubio and Cruz at the end, though, it might have been too late. Trump doesn't have to be the "best" option to get a plurality and win out based on first-past-the-post rules.
That should be your response versus asking questions and engaging in actual thoughtful discussion?
Does that promote tolerance and diversity of thought? Or does it reinforce the notion that we should stick our fingers in our ears and balkanize ourselves in the face of ideas we don't like? And, worse actively work to prevent others from seeing those ideas?
Imagine working your way up from the middle class to fabulous riches. Cars, houses, 5 star travel. You have the american dream, things are good. Now people are coming in and challenging you. The culture of "challenge everything" is a huge risk to your empire, your comfortable life is at risk. Quick! Consume the challengers or burn them at the stake!
That's why DC is like this; they have power over an entire country (arguably the world, too). Everyone there needs to be incredibly careful, there's 1000 people waiting to eat them alive and take their job/power.
If you want an environment where people challenge things, go where nobody is looking. Go somewhere that the MBAs and C-levels have given up. Those are the places where nothing matters, so you are free to make mistakes and break as much as possible; you can't do any worse than what's already there.
In LA, I mean entertainment is a fairly liberal industry, but it's not the only game in town. Plus Orange County is nearby and that's the last bastion of Republicans in the state.
http://www.ppic.org/content/images/PoliticalGeogFigure-4_web...
If you're interested, you can see 5 key findings here:
http://joinlincoln.org/viewpoint-diversity
We have a comprehensive report coming out in a month.
What was once considered neutral or even progressive is now considered racist/sexist/etc. Watch 'Dumbo', 'Animal House', 'Blazing Saddles', etc. None of those would be filmed today. Yet we still have not cured many of the ills that plagued society in both times.
The left must relent and let conservative voices be heard. In the long run, it will be destructive to the left if they do not.
If you are on the left side of the aisle and are not disturbed by this modern day McCarthyism because you are absolutely certain you are 'right', you need to review what was 'right' in past days and realize it is all relative and will change. Persist in smothering free speech and you'll end up as tomorrow's Nazi.
1. I have the feeling that this is not limited to the silicon valley. It feels very similar in my industry (banking) and I assume some other industries too.
2. I think there is more than one force at hand. A more militant liberalism may be one force but I can think of another major one: social medias. Basically an army of "anonymous" twitter / facebook / other accounts (they may not be individually anonymous but together they are), waiting for any pretext to shout their indignation, always looking for new ways to be offended. I don't think the population and opinions behind is a new evolution, but it just has a very powerful way to express itself now, by inundating social medias with angry comments, memes, effectively running virtual mob-lynchings.
This is combined with a traditional bias in medias to give some legitimacy to "the street", i.e. if enough people are demonstrating, vociferating slogans, they are deemed to somehow be representative of the opinion of the population when in reality they only represent the opinion of this limited group. Combine that bias with social medias, and medias tend to report these outrages as a mainstream opinion, even if it is only that of a vocal minority, adding their own weight to the lynching. I don't think we should give much credit to these social media storms, no more than an angry mob should be a party to a civilized debate.
You don't even have to wait for that. The economy of California today rivals economy of certain continents and large countries like Russia. And people are some of the most awesome kind assembled in there, in the entire history of human race.
Only nice things seem to be coming out of this experiment.
The Liberal / Conservative culture wars need to stop and we need to have debate. There is too much passive aggressive behavior on both sides. If debates have to be moderated than so be it but the moderators need to do their jobs and people need to respect them.
It's not a loss to the sector to lose somebody who thinks the path to doing that is intolerance, dominance, lack of accountability and an insistence on some Ayn Rand-ian gibberish philosophy of the World.
He was intolerant of Gawker. He dominated them by suing them to the hilt via the Hogan case. He is anti-regulation which in this case is a synonym for anti-accountability. Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand. So, yeah, good riddance.
If software is eating the World, it's important the people building and operating it are as diverse as possible, otherwise there is a risk it unconsciously or consciously becomes biased in its actions and consequences towards a single social group at the expense of others.
Of course a one-party political philosophy is a problem in the long term, but so is Trump's stance on equality - one Thiel endorses - and for now at least it's important the voices of diversity and accountability win out for the long run.
TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out! Come back when you've got a little more mature and empathic towards others if you want!
Given what Gawker did to him, I can hardly shed a tear.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the man, but that ain't one.
I'm intolerant of Nazis.
The commentor is intolerant of Peter Thiel.
It's better to discuss the actual merits of a position, rather than just saying "They're intolerant".
Completely agree -- I think most people hold it against Thiel that he supported Trump getting the presidency.
-You seem to say diversity is good, but not diversity of political thought?
-What are Thiels stances on equality that you see as so abhorrent?
-He was involved (as a financier) of a lawsuit... I struggle to see the huge moral deal here. He didn't decide the outcome - six jurors did, abiding by the laws, in a court![1]
-Is being a strong supporter of Ayn Rand a good reason that someone shouldn't be involved in Silicon Valley?
[1]http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/gawker-trial-jurors-made...
And diversity of thought is for new interesting ideas, not discredited old ones.
The second point is just bad – judge a thought on its own merits and implications, not fashionability or novelty.
Peter Thiel - "People here don't accept conservative ideas"
Commentor - "I love diversity, but get the hell out with those opinions!"
...
Obviously there are some opinions I find abhorrent and wouldn't want to be associated with (Nazis, etc). However, I think both that I'm more tolerant of offensive opinions than the commentor, and that I also find really nothing very offensive about what I've read about Thiel.
Thiel doesn't seem that far right to me, and has been ostracized. But is any thought too far-left to be accepted in SV? You can support Venezuelan policies, Cuban policies, taxing rich people 90%, racism against whites and asians... and no one's trying to kick them out of civil society.
I do not think it's socially ok in SV to be more than a little conservative. After all, companies Thiel was associated with were pressured to kick him out just for the fact that he supported a candidate that was voted for by ~50% of the country! Maybe that's because of Trump's other non-political characteristics, but I'm not so sure.
The marketplace of ideas is against you: deal with it, or turn to 'liberal' solutions :p
Sometimes is feels like we're in a neopuritan age, complete with analogs to The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, but the new sins are sins of thought and speech, not the occult or sex.
Is he a dramatic diva, or a pragmatic type?
Is he moving to LA for lifestyle reasons or business reasons?
What is his “next big thing”
Encouraging diversity is a means of letting those who have been marginalized from positions of power for centuries have a seat at the table. Are there similarly marginalized political opinions? I don't think Thiel or others who think like him are in short supply of power. The idea that conservative political opinions are suppressed is so ridiculous, especially as Thiel's party is in control of all branches of the federal US government and in most states. It is perfectly reasonable to have a local imbalance of opinion as long as in general power is not withheld for one side.
> Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand. So, yeah, good riddance.
> TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out! Come back when you've got a little more mature and empathic towards others if you want!
LOL... I really don’t understand where he got the idea that there's an intolerance of conservatism in SV... /s
These diversity preachers are just a bunch pathetic weasels who haven't learned to work with/accept people with differing opinions
Worse, your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do this, for reasons I've explained at length at the links listed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402816. If you'd please look through some of those, reread the guidelines, and use HN only as intended from now on, we'd appreciate it.
I am not sure if this even should be dignified with a reply.
Leftist talking points about "access to healthcare" only work on those who have no idea or first-hand experience with healthcare in countries that attempted to build that workers' paradise.
What other type of diversity is there? Any other kind is simply superficial and irrelevant.
> Not all opinions are equally informed, or equally valid
A trite point used to justify intolerance. No opinions should be censored.
Diversity of thought, REGARDLESS of age,sex, skin color etc should be the goal, not ideological purity.
To use "diversity" in this sense seems to just be an attempted to co-opt the other side's label.
Gawker outed him, and leaked a sex tape of Hulk Hogan (and did a bunch of other really terrible things). He was lucky enough to have the money to bring them justice.
I've honestly never heard of anyone taking Gawker's side in this.
This is an argument where people who feel differently about "money as free speech" tend to have wildly divergent opinions. I find it quite alarming that billionaires have the power to squelch the free press.
How they feel about that is going to closely track partisan allegiance.
And what constitutes "justice", in the context of a sex tape or other journalistic malpractice? Tens of millions of dollars? Uncountable millions? Any number of millions so long as it's enough to put the company out of business?
I don't agree that shutting down Gawker was the appropriate remedy. Damages yes, annihilation no.
Couldn't disagree more.
As a result, in your world and mine, the press now has to fear secret reprisals should they offend the wrong billionaire. It is now more dangerous to report on the powerful. You can't fight them with your free speech, because you can't even know who's financing the campaign against you, or even that it's happening.
Like I said, I wish you didn’t need billions to keep them honest but at least someone can do it.
There's no constraint on billionaires as to what might motivate them to spend their money secretly financing lawsuits. Reporting on say, their bribery of a government official, could also persuade a billionaire to adopt Thiel's tactics.
It is always somewhat amusing to see that for "voices of diversity" to win, diverse woices need to be silenced.
> TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!
The cognitive dissonance in this comment is astounding.
This bizarre drive to purge different points of view is really grating. Not everybody has to share the same values as you. Respecting that is exactly what diversity means.
>thinks the path to doing that is intolerance, dominance, lack of accountability and an insistence on some Ayn Rand-ian gibberish philosophy of the World. He was intolerant of Gawker. He is anti-regulation which in this case is a synonym for anti-accountability. Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand.
I have trouble figuring how you reconcile these two views. What about Thiel makes you say he "wants to improve the world"? Is it because he says so? Because anybody can say, like, they are "committed to improving the world through technology"; what actually matters is actions. And all his actions seem to indicate he his passionate about accumulating wealth and accumulating power to himself, very little else.
These guys get their ideas published, and linked to and shared left, right and center, so is it possible, that maybe their political ideas suck?
Lack of exposure is not the issue, so what is? Maybe their ideas are just.. stay with me here... bad?
Besides which, you can move wherever you want. It's not like you have to turn in your Silicon Valley membership card and secret key. And there's a big world out there. Especially if you're rich. Just move, don't try to make a "statement."
Silicon Valley companies are very much subjected to the NSA and other governmental agencies. Have you seen all the projects funded by DARPA? http://www.alphr.com/features/373546/10-brilliant-darpa-inve...
Ha!
With all due respect to @alva, can we let this post wither on the vine? Not today. Not after yesterday.
In the past month there have been two, at least , posts that became so political that they were flagged. Ironically one was on free speech. I just don't have the stomach for it today. In general I'm not sure there is any good to be had with this kind of material on HN.
There's nothing wrong with the article, either. I think reasonable discussion can be had about it.
If you're for free speech, you'll know you can simply not participate in discussions you "don't have the stomach for today" instead of asking moderators to close the post.
Owning a firearm is not some prerequisite for being a member of a political party. There are large numbers of conservatives that do not own firearms and do not care about firearms ownership. It may surprise you that there are also large numbers of people who are socially liberal who own firearms, such as myself. None of us are ok with school shootings. I am perfectly willing to have rational conversations about the merits of responsible gun ownership with people who are capable of having that conversation, but that has nothing to do with the issue at hand here.