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Comment by spencerflem | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley is not "far left" by any stretch, which implies socialism, redistribution of wealth, etc. This is obvious by inspection.

I assume by far left, you mean progressive on social issues, which is not really a leftist thing but the groups are related enough that I'll give you a pass.

Silicon valley techies are also not socially progressive. Read this thread or anything published by Paul Graham or any of the AI leaders for proof of that.

However most normal city people are. A large enough percent of the country that big companies that want to make money feel the need to appeal to them.

Funnily enough, what is a uniquely Silicon Valley political opinion is valuing the progress of AI over everything else

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when i think of "far left" i think of an authoritative regime disguised as serving the common good and ready to punish and excommunicate any thought or action deemed contrary to the common good. However, the regime defines "common good" themselves and remains in power indefinitely. In that regard, SV is very "far left". At the extremes far-left and far-right are very similar when you empathize as a regular person on the street.

Well, you're wrong.

That's just not what that term means.

It’s not right wing unless they sit on the right side of the National Assembly and support Louis XVI.

Like it or not, this is how center-right over are using it. We've just created huge silos post trump schism, that even our language is drifting.

Techies are socially progressive as a whole. Yes there are some outliers, and tech leaders probably aren't as far left socially as the ground level workers.

I wish :/, I really do

I find them in general to not be Republican and all the baggage that entails but the typical techie I meet is less concerned with social issues than the typical city Democrat.

If I can speculate wildly, I think it is because tech has this veneer of being an alternative solution to the worlds problems, so a lot of techies believe that advancing of tech is both the most important goal and also politically neutral. And also, now that tech is a uniquely profitable career, the types of people that would be in business majors are now CS majors. Ie. those that are mainly interested in getting as much money as possible for themselves.

> typical city Democrat

I mean, if you compare them to people who live in bigger cities and only the people who belong to the left-er party, then yeah maybe. It's like saying a group isn't socially conservative because they're not as socially conservative as rural Republicans.

I think we're just talking about two different things.

The implication I got was that techies are more left than normal, and it's the opposite. If I meet someone in my city and they're in tech they tend to be less progressive than the people I meet who are not. The people in this thread are fairly representative of what I see in real life and its not particularly inspiring.

I disagree techies are socially progressive as a whole; there is very minimal, almost no push for labor rights or labor protection even though our group is disproportionately hit with abusing employees under the visa program.

Labor protections are generally seen as a fiscal issue, rather than a social one. E.g. libertarians would usually be fine with gay rights but against greater labor regulation.

indeed they are not really left but neoliberals with a leftist aesthetic, just like most republicans are neoliberals with a conservative aesthetic.

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