68 ms·

I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite.

by dlss 10y ago

I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. The level of virtue signaling demanded gradually increases until no one is left in the community. This invariably happens because the question you're asking ("does intolerant belief X threaten society?") has no absolute answer, so there is always a higher level of purity to declare a community standard. When I was younger I used to watch The Daily Show and laugh at how dumb the conservatives where -- they were trying to suppress rock and roll for fear of the devil's influence, etc. As I grew older I came to realize it wasn't conservatives generally who were the awful/dumb ones, it was a particular kind of person in a context where they felt they could dictate to others what was ethically right. Moral fashion police if you will. I've lately seen more and more Moral Fashion Police on the democratic side of the isle, and I find it considerably more awful (it's closer to home). You might even say that I view these people as intolerant to the point that they threaten society. However I wouldn't in a million years fire someone or yell at them, hate them, etc for being fashion police, even though I think they threaten society. Experience is the best teacher, and sometimes a person needs to make mistakes / destroy something beautiful in order to find the next level of understanding. Maybe for you that means destroying YC (though I hope you fail), and maybe for Trump voters that means (in a small way) destroying the US Government. I just wish you both wouldn't.

tptacek 10y ago
If you do not believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, then, while I implore you to reconsider, I am content to agree to disagree. But you might take that disagreement up first with Paul Graham and Sam Altman. They do not agree with you. They aggressively don't agree with you. They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel. I would be doing Sam Altman no favors to pretend otherwise.
- hueving 10y ago
  >They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. 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.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    This is the situation: Identity politics makes gross hyperbole socially acceptable with ~50% of the population and "fightin words" with the other half.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Again, this is an argument you might first take up with Paul Graham and Sam Altman, because they disagree with you.
      - hueving 10y ago
        If you won't defend it, don't parrot it.
        tptacek 10y ago
        Again: I actually appreciate the comments here strenuously suggesting that Trump is no real threat to democracy. This is the sentiment Altman is making room for by continuing to endorse Thiel. Their relationship works to normalize Donald Trump. If Sam Altman is comfortable with that, he should remain affiliated with Thiel.
        fixxer 10y ago
        Lol. "I appreciate this discussion because, just the fact that there is a discussion, proves I'm right"? It proves your beliefs are not universally held by the community. It supports my points, not yours.
        unethical_ban 10y ago
- fixxer 10y ago
  What is next? Perhaps YC should ask applicants for political affiliation? I think you're wrong and I think the reason YC will not drop Theil is very practical: Theil is valuable for the underlying goal of the program (money) and dropping Theil would also alienate a huge (yes, yuuuge) swath of investors.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    People --- more of them on my side of this debate than yours --- say this a lot. But I think more highly of Sam Altman than to believe he's standing by Peter Thiel, despite Thiel's work to elect someone both Altman and I believe to be an American Mussolini, simply out of financial expedience. It's that basic respect for Altman that motivates me to keep pressing this argument: the effort seems hopeful.
    - fixxer 10y ago
      You'd support an affiliation filter?
      - tylersmith 10y ago
        Only if it's to filter out Republicans.
        fixxer 10y ago
        Looking for a little affirmative action? ;)
    - ryanSrich 10y ago
      > Mussolini This is the type of thing that really bothers me. Not only is that a ridiculous comparison, it's completely baseless and anti-intellectual. Trump has made a few off hand fascist remarks, but nothing that could substantiate him establishing legal dictatorship. So why even make that comparison? Just fuel the witch hunt?
      - 10y ago
- surfmike 10y ago
  They can agree with that and still continue working with Thiel. You can be against fascism and but still be against creating a society where everyone must get in line politically or else be shunned.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I don't need people to get in line politically. I would be content with them not bundling millions of dollars for Donald Trump before getting up on stage at the RNC and claiming, as Thiel did, to speak for Silicon Valley in claiming that Trump is the only honest candidate in the race. I'm a simple sort of guy. My needs are not complicated.
    - surfmike 10y ago
      I have never heard him claim to speak for Silicon Valley. The question becomes then, what do you consider your line. Is this about his outsized financial support? What if he gave his RNC speech and only donated $10,000?
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Then --- respectfully --- you have never heard him speak in favor of Donald Trump, and you should go watch his speech before arguing about it. It's pretty scary. Maybe after seeing it, you'll understand the vehemence of the anti-Thiel sentiment.
        surfmike 10y ago
        I re-read his transcript before I published my comment. He says he's from Silicon Valley (which is true) but not that he speaks for Silicon Valley.
        tptacek 10y ago
        No, that is not all he says about Silicon Valley. Read the whole thing.
- anondon 10y ago
  > I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel. I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. It raises some important questions: -Do you stop endorsing and associating with everyone who supports Trump? Where do you draw the line logically? -Why can't people with opposing views work together and agree to disagree on the elections and let the votes speak? -I imagine Trump haters and Hillary haters have very strong reasons,facts,opinions and speculative thinking to backup their claims that the other candidate is a threat to democracy, will start WW3, corrupt practices etc. This should lead to well informed debate as it seems to be happening here but without calling for distancing from person X for endorsing a different candidate. What will you achieve by distancing people based on differing views? A monoculture? Differing views and discussion on the views is one of the things that makes a democracy work. I believe Sam is right on this. It's Thiel's money, he can support whichever candidate he wants (it's legal). His views differ from Sam's and PG's, and people seem to extend it to YC as an organization and call for distancing Thiel from YC. It achieves nothing, and if anything weakens democracy.
  - genericpseudo 10y ago
    > I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. What exactly else do you propose? Endorsing people based on their actions (all actions are political; no actions are apolitical; that's just how it works, you can't quit the game) is the only ethical position which makes any sense at all. This has gone far enough. The only effective response is to judge by actions and refuse to work with any Y Combinator company until Thiel is fired (and Altman resigns).
    - anondon 10y ago
      > What exactly else do you propose? Let people have differing opinions and continue working with them. If Thiel is doing something illegal, and goes against the spirit of the Constitution, call him out for and push for legal action. > The only effective response is to judge by actions and refuse to work with any Y Combinator company until Thiel is fired (and Altman resigns). Fire Thiel for supporting Trump with a donation? Seriously? What is this, a dictatorship? Everyone who disagrees is silenced? You want Altman to resign? Genuine question : Do you hear yourself?
- dlss 10y ago
  Our disagreement isn't on the question of Trump's existential threat status, it's on the question of what should be done about it (incidentally, the same disagreement you seem to have with Sam Altman and Paul Graham). If you have a different solution than tossing out the heathens, I'm all ears. In Sam's blog post the solution he decides on is continuing dialogue. While this may be an imperfect solution, it seems to me a less imperfect solution than purging, as that generally results in communities being destroyed.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    As long as an ideology is small enough, completely shunning it's adherents is actually the best strategy, because everyone is susceptible to social pressure. But I fear that at 40% of the population, and with the social bubble people have build around them, Trump's neo-fascist movement may be beyond the reach of such tactics. > it's on the question of what should be done about it Everything that is legal. When, in the past, Republicans advocated trickle-down economics you possibly had a chance to convince people with arguments. But I'm equally pessimistic about convincing anybody rationally. Trump and his supporters live in a reality completely divorced from any actually existing facts. It's this world with FEMA death camps and vast conspiracies planning to use the national guard to invade Texas and sell it to Mexico. There is no overlap anymore in what sources, what types of arguments, what axiomatic moral laws the two tribes consider valid. Both strategies seeming comparably useless, I decided at some point that, when my grandchildren ask me in 40 years or so I want to be able to say "I did everything that's legal".
    - dlss 10y ago
      > As long as an ideology is small enough, completely shunning it's adherents is actually the best strategy Until the thousandth time you use this tactic, and the number of people shunned begins to outnumber the ones doing the shunning. > when my grandchildren ask me in 40 years or so I want to be able to say "I did everything that's legal". I'm sorry to hear this. I hope in time you can come to focus on the similarities you have to your fellow humans rather than what sounds like a myopic focus on purely ideological differences. As I said in GGGP to excuse your actions: > sometimes a person needs to make mistakes / destroy something beautiful in order to find the next level of understanding
- digler999 10y ago
  You sound just like the republicans in 2008 when a gasp black president was elected. Oh dear, the world is ending, the end times are coming! What's the world coming to! We are doomed. A socialist Kenyan Muslim is in the whitehouse! What actually happened? Nothing. If you looked at the country for the last 8 years you wouldn't be able to tell whether a republican or democratic was in the whitehouse. Same thing will happen if trump gets in. A lot of talk, but little action.
  - dpark 10y ago
    You really think that opposing Obama because he's black is comparable to opposing Trump because he incites violence and encourages racism and xenophobia and speaks highly of dictators and brags about sexual assault? You want to rethink that?
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      I consider Obama one of the best most rational presidents the US have ever had. But that rationality also gave us execution by drone without trial. Don't take a beautiful and cool facade for anything than that. Behind the scenes its raw power and they are all, everyone of them, in the game for the power.
      - dpark 10y ago
        I'm not asserting that in any way Obama is perfect and have no problem with people criticizing his actions. I do take issue with comparing opposition of Obama based on his race with opposition of Trump based on his positions. It does not follow that because a black president did an acceptable job that any president would do an acceptable job. Nor is opposing a president for being black morally equivalent to opposing a president for the things he says he wants to do.
        digler999 10y ago
        Obama also lied about a lot and yet the world didn't end. Something about "transparent administration" ring a bell? "Closing Guantanamo" perhaps? Doesn't this set the precedent that you can't really believe anything a candidate says before he is elected? To be fair I don't single out Obama for lying. All candidates do it.which is why I don't worry about trump.
- sidlls 10y ago
  HRC is also a fascist dictator wannabe. The difference between them is more kind and less degree. Anybody who opposes Trump and not Hillary on the grounds of fascism is, to be charitable, being inconsistent.
wybiral 10y ago
> I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. Personally I must have missed this. How did the downfall of the Atheist community in the US happen and who was hunting witches?
- dlss 10y ago
  Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett wrote books, participated in debates, and basically reimagined atheism as a political movement. Then the question of social justice's role in atheism split the community in two via progressive purging. Splitting the community resulted in movements with significantly less political capital, and the main thinkers moved off to other projects. It's fairly political, so even though a lot of it happened online you'll still have a hard time of getting a clear picture. "Elevator Gate" is the obvious starting search, http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate seems to be the most complete single page I can find as an introduction.
  - wybiral 10y ago
    conservapedia.com seems mildly biased on this subject, in the sense that it's entirely biased from a creationist perspective. For instance: http://www.conservapedia.com/God http://www.conservapedia.com/God > "Other than creation itself, God is revealed in several ways, including conscience and special revelation (the Bible, and prophets). Most importantly though, God is revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God." I don't expect them to paint a friendly portrait of Richard Dawkins.
    - dlss 10y ago
      Yeah, I wasn't trying to recommend them. They just did the leg work of digging up the quotes and putting them on a single (huge) page for linking, which I thought was what you were asking for.
      - wybiral 10y ago
grandalf 10y ago
> more and more Moral Fashion Police on the democratic side of the isle This hits the nail on the head. It's a moralistic sort of righteous indignation and it's profoundly, dangerously illiberal. In addition, many of these are the same people who are pleased that HRC is not being challenged over the revelations in the email leaks so far. I want whoever takes office to have been vetted as much as possible by journalists. How could anyone want their "side" to win so badly that they'd prefer their own candidate evade accountability (or vindication!) for alleged wrongdoing? There has been very little adversarial press behavior toward either candidate... the press in this election has simply focused on stories that will get lots of clicks, such as those about sex, money, etc.
- tptacek 10y ago
  People keep claiming that this sentiment is "profoundly illiberal". Those people should read more liberal philosophy, because it is not as if this is the first time this issue has come up. You can bring it back to John Stuart Mill if you like, but (very unsurprisingly) it's also one of the major themes of post-World-War-2 liberal philosophy. We are not required to tolerate intolerance when intolerance poses a threat to society. If you don't believe Trump's intolerance poses a real threat, you're on safe ground arguing against appeals agains Trump. But Altman and Graham do not agree with you.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    I do not believe Trump is significantly more intolerant than HRC or any other likely presidential candidate, he simply focuses his rhetoric on populist ire across all of his positions. It's the only trick he knows so he does it again and again. Additionally, HRC has in the past advocated a nearly identical "wall" policy but used softer rhetoric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc GOP candidates for several elections have said much the same stuff Trump is saying only with a rhetorical style more like HRC's. Trump borrows economic populism (and its racist undertones) from the rust belt rhetoric of democrats. > If you don't believe Trump's intolerance poses a real threat This is not my belief. I believe both Trump's and HRC's intolerance both pose a major threat. I also believe that the trend toward unabashed executive power is the biggest threat to stability. HRC and Trump both show a similar chance of abusing this, and fortunately congress would be more vigilant about preventing Trump from abusing it, since he has not spent years aligning interest groups in preparation for his day in power. I could not vote for either of the two major party candidates, my position is not to defend Trump but to apply some of the same criticisms to HRC which seemingly exist in the blind spot of Altman, Graham, and other HRC supporters.
angry_octet 10y ago
Atheist downfall? Since when? And what do you mean by 'downfall'? Like, they all started professing a belief in the hereafter, or like the scene in the movie 'Downfall'?
- dlss 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734808
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    No no, it was a Downfall parody you were referring to! The /r/atheism split, of course! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXnt3jm6UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXnt3jm6UQ
matt4077 10y ago
It's not a moral fashion to believe that jailing political opponents or advocating laws making it illegal for the NYT to criticize him is outside the boundaries of "wrong, but tolerable". And while I'd agree that employees should be protected as long as they do not intentionally harm their employers, Thiel isn't an employee and his "firing" would have far fewer consequences for him.
- dlss 10y ago
  > It's not a moral fashion to believe that jailing political opponents or advocating laws making it illegal for the NYT to criticize him is outside the boundaries of "wrong, but tolerable". Right, I would call those moral truths rather than moral fashions. The issue is that Trump's behavior hasn't been as clear cut as you're pretending it is (for example rather than actually jailing political opponents, he called for a special prosecutor and a jury trial). My fashion police comment was about the behavior in this thread relative to Trump's actual actions. For a hypothetical uber-Trump I'd be on the other side of this discussion. See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
phaus 10y ago
>I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. Did we have a community? Was there a downfall? I'm an atheist and I know more people that are comfortable being openly atheist in 2016 than at any other time in my life.
- chickenfries 10y ago
  I feel like this probably has something to do with Dawkins or Hitchens or something. The history of witch hunts in the USA are reactionary and conservative (Salem, McCarthyism) but for some reason these days the left have been branded as the witch hunters.
  - phaus 10y ago
    Historically, I agree. However, there are witch-hunters to be found at the extremes of both sides. For example, there's nothing wrong with the concept of social justice, but there are people/groups acting in the name of social justice that spend all day every day trying to find someone's life/career to ruin over the slightest perceived transgression.
- saalweachter 10y ago
  As near as I can tell, this is referring to a minor scandal in what I usually think of as the skeptic community. Long story short, Dawkins made some comments regarded as regressive which got him dis-invited from a couple of skeptical conferences. It is a slightly different argument than the one we're having now, although it wouldn't surprise me if the sides people take are similar: given that in any large gathering of people (eg, a skeptical conference, an online forum, a corporation, a political party...) there will be some people whose behavior, actions, or speech is hostile, harming, or threatening to some other people, should we force some people to restrict their behavior or leave, or force other people to either accept it or leave? Unsurprisingly, a majority of the skeptical community opted towards restriction, many skeptical conventions reiterated their policies with the goal of making convention-goers feel safe and welcome, and some individuals who prominently made statements against these changes were dis-invited (as speakers) from some conventions.
j_gu 10y ago
SJWs, in other words.
daveheq 10y ago
I saw (later) how the atheist community broke apart due to activists trying to insist it become justice activist or feel shameful or part of the problem; it rips apart enthusiasts when they feel they have to become involved in someone's actions like if not doing something means you're helping cause the problem. Expecting Y Combinator or its community to fight Trump or sever ties with anyone who supports him is not only discrimination but unnecessary, divisive, and corrosive. All this moral grandstanding like we have to right the world the way someone wants immediately will just drench everyone in someone's mud.
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by dlss 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

If you do not believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, then, while I implore you to reconsider, I am content to agree to disagree. But you might take that disagreement up first with Paul Graham and Sam Altman. They do not agree with you. They aggressively don't agree with you. They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel. I would be doing Sam Altman no favors to pretend otherwise.

hueving 10y ago
>They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. 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.
- fixxer 10y ago
  This is the situation: Identity politics makes gross hyperbole socially acceptable with ~50% of the population and "fightin words" with the other half.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Again, this is an argument you might first take up with Paul Graham and Sam Altman, because they disagree with you.
    - hueving 10y ago
      If you won't defend it, don't parrot it.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Again: I actually appreciate the comments here strenuously suggesting that Trump is no real threat to democracy. This is the sentiment Altman is making room for by continuing to endorse Thiel. Their relationship works to normalize Donald Trump. If Sam Altman is comfortable with that, he should remain affiliated with Thiel.
        fixxer 10y ago
        Lol. "I appreciate this discussion because, just the fact that there is a discussion, proves I'm right"? It proves your beliefs are not universally held by the community. It supports my points, not yours.
        unethical_ban 10y ago
fixxer 10y ago
What is next? Perhaps YC should ask applicants for political affiliation? I think you're wrong and I think the reason YC will not drop Theil is very practical: Theil is valuable for the underlying goal of the program (money) and dropping Theil would also alienate a huge (yes, yuuuge) swath of investors.
- tptacek 10y ago
  People --- more of them on my side of this debate than yours --- say this a lot. But I think more highly of Sam Altman than to believe he's standing by Peter Thiel, despite Thiel's work to elect someone both Altman and I believe to be an American Mussolini, simply out of financial expedience. It's that basic respect for Altman that motivates me to keep pressing this argument: the effort seems hopeful.
  - fixxer 10y ago
    You'd support an affiliation filter?
    - tylersmith 10y ago
      Only if it's to filter out Republicans.
      - fixxer 10y ago
        Looking for a little affirmative action? ;)
  - ryanSrich 10y ago
    > Mussolini This is the type of thing that really bothers me. Not only is that a ridiculous comparison, it's completely baseless and anti-intellectual. Trump has made a few off hand fascist remarks, but nothing that could substantiate him establishing legal dictatorship. So why even make that comparison? Just fuel the witch hunt?
    - 10y ago
surfmike 10y ago
They can agree with that and still continue working with Thiel. You can be against fascism and but still be against creating a society where everyone must get in line politically or else be shunned.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I don't need people to get in line politically. I would be content with them not bundling millions of dollars for Donald Trump before getting up on stage at the RNC and claiming, as Thiel did, to speak for Silicon Valley in claiming that Trump is the only honest candidate in the race. I'm a simple sort of guy. My needs are not complicated.
  - surfmike 10y ago
    I have never heard him claim to speak for Silicon Valley. The question becomes then, what do you consider your line. Is this about his outsized financial support? What if he gave his RNC speech and only donated $10,000?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Then --- respectfully --- you have never heard him speak in favor of Donald Trump, and you should go watch his speech before arguing about it. It's pretty scary. Maybe after seeing it, you'll understand the vehemence of the anti-Thiel sentiment.
      - surfmike 10y ago
        I re-read his transcript before I published my comment. He says he's from Silicon Valley (which is true) but not that he speaks for Silicon Valley.
        tptacek 10y ago
        No, that is not all he says about Silicon Valley. Read the whole thing.
anondon 10y ago
> I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel. I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. It raises some important questions: -Do you stop endorsing and associating with everyone who supports Trump? Where do you draw the line logically? -Why can't people with opposing views work together and agree to disagree on the elections and let the votes speak? -I imagine Trump haters and Hillary haters have very strong reasons,facts,opinions and speculative thinking to backup their claims that the other candidate is a threat to democracy, will start WW3, corrupt practices etc. This should lead to well informed debate as it seems to be happening here but without calling for distancing from person X for endorsing a different candidate. What will you achieve by distancing people based on differing views? A monoculture? Differing views and discussion on the views is one of the things that makes a democracy work. I believe Sam is right on this. It's Thiel's money, he can support whichever candidate he wants (it's legal). His views differ from Sam's and PG's, and people seem to extend it to YC as an organization and call for distancing Thiel from YC. It achieves nothing, and if anything weakens democracy.
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  > I think it's a very slippery slope to base endorsement on a person's political actions. What exactly else do you propose? Endorsing people based on their actions (all actions are political; no actions are apolitical; that's just how it works, you can't quit the game) is the only ethical position which makes any sense at all. This has gone far enough. The only effective response is to judge by actions and refuse to work with any Y Combinator company until Thiel is fired (and Altman resigns).
  - anondon 10y ago
    > What exactly else do you propose? Let people have differing opinions and continue working with them. If Thiel is doing something illegal, and goes against the spirit of the Constitution, call him out for and push for legal action. > The only effective response is to judge by actions and refuse to work with any Y Combinator company until Thiel is fired (and Altman resigns). Fire Thiel for supporting Trump with a donation? Seriously? What is this, a dictatorship? Everyone who disagrees is silenced? You want Altman to resign? Genuine question : Do you hear yourself?
dlss 10y ago
Our disagreement isn't on the question of Trump's existential threat status, it's on the question of what should be done about it (incidentally, the same disagreement you seem to have with Sam Altman and Paul Graham). If you have a different solution than tossing out the heathens, I'm all ears. In Sam's blog post the solution he decides on is continuing dialogue. While this may be an imperfect solution, it seems to me a less imperfect solution than purging, as that generally results in communities being destroyed.
- matt4077 10y ago
  As long as an ideology is small enough, completely shunning it's adherents is actually the best strategy, because everyone is susceptible to social pressure. But I fear that at 40% of the population, and with the social bubble people have build around them, Trump's neo-fascist movement may be beyond the reach of such tactics. > it's on the question of what should be done about it Everything that is legal. When, in the past, Republicans advocated trickle-down economics you possibly had a chance to convince people with arguments. But I'm equally pessimistic about convincing anybody rationally. Trump and his supporters live in a reality completely divorced from any actually existing facts. It's this world with FEMA death camps and vast conspiracies planning to use the national guard to invade Texas and sell it to Mexico. There is no overlap anymore in what sources, what types of arguments, what axiomatic moral laws the two tribes consider valid. Both strategies seeming comparably useless, I decided at some point that, when my grandchildren ask me in 40 years or so I want to be able to say "I did everything that's legal".
  - dlss 10y ago
    > As long as an ideology is small enough, completely shunning it's adherents is actually the best strategy Until the thousandth time you use this tactic, and the number of people shunned begins to outnumber the ones doing the shunning. > when my grandchildren ask me in 40 years or so I want to be able to say "I did everything that's legal". I'm sorry to hear this. I hope in time you can come to focus on the similarities you have to your fellow humans rather than what sounds like a myopic focus on purely ideological differences. As I said in GGGP to excuse your actions: > sometimes a person needs to make mistakes / destroy something beautiful in order to find the next level of understanding
digler999 10y ago
You sound just like the republicans in 2008 when a gasp black president was elected. Oh dear, the world is ending, the end times are coming! What's the world coming to! We are doomed. A socialist Kenyan Muslim is in the whitehouse! What actually happened? Nothing. If you looked at the country for the last 8 years you wouldn't be able to tell whether a republican or democratic was in the whitehouse. Same thing will happen if trump gets in. A lot of talk, but little action.
- dpark 10y ago
  You really think that opposing Obama because he's black is comparable to opposing Trump because he incites violence and encourages racism and xenophobia and speaks highly of dictators and brags about sexual assault? You want to rethink that?
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    I consider Obama one of the best most rational presidents the US have ever had. But that rationality also gave us execution by drone without trial. Don't take a beautiful and cool facade for anything than that. Behind the scenes its raw power and they are all, everyone of them, in the game for the power.
    - dpark 10y ago
      I'm not asserting that in any way Obama is perfect and have no problem with people criticizing his actions. I do take issue with comparing opposition of Obama based on his race with opposition of Trump based on his positions. It does not follow that because a black president did an acceptable job that any president would do an acceptable job. Nor is opposing a president for being black morally equivalent to opposing a president for the things he says he wants to do.
      - digler999 10y ago
        Obama also lied about a lot and yet the world didn't end. Something about "transparent administration" ring a bell? "Closing Guantanamo" perhaps? Doesn't this set the precedent that you can't really believe anything a candidate says before he is elected? To be fair I don't single out Obama for lying. All candidates do it.which is why I don't worry about trump.
sidlls 10y ago
HRC is also a fascist dictator wannabe. The difference between them is more kind and less degree. Anybody who opposes Trump and not Hillary on the grounds of fascism is, to be charitable, being inconsistent.

wybiral 10y ago

> I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. Personally I must have missed this. How did the downfall of the Atheist community in the US happen and who was hunting witches?

dlss 10y ago
Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett wrote books, participated in debates, and basically reimagined atheism as a political movement. Then the question of social justice's role in atheism split the community in two via progressive purging. Splitting the community resulted in movements with significantly less political capital, and the main thinkers moved off to other projects. It's fairly political, so even though a lot of it happened online you'll still have a hard time of getting a clear picture. "Elevator Gate" is the obvious starting search, http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate http://www.conservapedia.com/Elevatorgate seems to be the most complete single page I can find as an introduction.
- wybiral 10y ago
  conservapedia.com seems mildly biased on this subject, in the sense that it's entirely biased from a creationist perspective. For instance: http://www.conservapedia.com/God http://www.conservapedia.com/God > "Other than creation itself, God is revealed in several ways, including conscience and special revelation (the Bible, and prophets). Most importantly though, God is revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God." I don't expect them to paint a friendly portrait of Richard Dawkins.
  - dlss 10y ago
    Yeah, I wasn't trying to recommend them. They just did the leg work of digging up the quotes and putting them on a single (huge) page for linking, which I thought was what you were asking for.
    - wybiral 10y ago

grandalf 10y ago

> more and more Moral Fashion Police on the democratic side of the isle This hits the nail on the head. It's a moralistic sort of righteous indignation and it's profoundly, dangerously illiberal. In addition, many of these are the same people who are pleased that HRC is not being challenged over the revelations in the email leaks so far. I want whoever takes office to have been vetted as much as possible by journalists. How could anyone want their "side" to win so badly that they'd prefer their own candidate evade accountability (or vindication!) for alleged wrongdoing? There has been very little adversarial press behavior toward either candidate... the press in this election has simply focused on stories that will get lots of clicks, such as those about sex, money, etc.

tptacek 10y ago
People keep claiming that this sentiment is "profoundly illiberal". Those people should read more liberal philosophy, because it is not as if this is the first time this issue has come up. You can bring it back to John Stuart Mill if you like, but (very unsurprisingly) it's also one of the major themes of post-World-War-2 liberal philosophy. We are not required to tolerate intolerance when intolerance poses a threat to society. If you don't believe Trump's intolerance poses a real threat, you're on safe ground arguing against appeals agains Trump. But Altman and Graham do not agree with you.
- grandalf 10y ago
  I do not believe Trump is significantly more intolerant than HRC or any other likely presidential candidate, he simply focuses his rhetoric on populist ire across all of his positions. It's the only trick he knows so he does it again and again. Additionally, HRC has in the past advocated a nearly identical "wall" policy but used softer rhetoric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc GOP candidates for several elections have said much the same stuff Trump is saying only with a rhetorical style more like HRC's. Trump borrows economic populism (and its racist undertones) from the rust belt rhetoric of democrats. > If you don't believe Trump's intolerance poses a real threat This is not my belief. I believe both Trump's and HRC's intolerance both pose a major threat. I also believe that the trend toward unabashed executive power is the biggest threat to stability. HRC and Trump both show a similar chance of abusing this, and fortunately congress would be more vigilant about preventing Trump from abusing it, since he has not spent years aligning interest groups in preparation for his day in power. I could not vote for either of the two major party candidates, my position is not to defend Trump but to apply some of the same criticisms to HRC which seemingly exist in the blind spot of Altman, Graham, and other HRC supporters.

angry_octet 10y ago

Atheist downfall? Since when? And what do you mean by 'downfall'? Like, they all started professing a belief in the hereafter, or like the scene in the movie 'Downfall'?

dlss 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734808
- angry_octet 10y ago
  No no, it was a Downfall parody you were referring to! The /r/atheism split, of course! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXnt3jm6UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXnt3jm6UQ

matt4077 10y ago

It's not a moral fashion to believe that jailing political opponents or advocating laws making it illegal for the NYT to criticize him is outside the boundaries of "wrong, but tolerable". And while I'd agree that employees should be protected as long as they do not intentionally harm their employers, Thiel isn't an employee and his "firing" would have far fewer consequences for him.

dlss 10y ago
> It's not a moral fashion to believe that jailing political opponents or advocating laws making it illegal for the NYT to criticize him is outside the boundaries of "wrong, but tolerable". Right, I would call those moral truths rather than moral fashions. The issue is that Trump's behavior hasn't been as clear cut as you're pretending it is (for example rather than actually jailing political opponents, he called for a special prosecutor and a jury trial). My fashion police comment was about the behavior in this thread relative to Trump's actual actions. For a hypothetical uber-Trump I'd be on the other side of this discussion. See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...

phaus 10y ago

>I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. Did we have a community? Was there a downfall? I'm an atheist and I know more people that are comfortable being openly atheist in 2016 than at any other time in my life.

chickenfries 10y ago
I feel like this probably has something to do with Dawkins or Hitchens or something. The history of witch hunts in the USA are reactionary and conservative (Salem, McCarthyism) but for some reason these days the left have been branded as the witch hunters.
- phaus 10y ago
  Historically, I agree. However, there are witch-hunters to be found at the extremes of both sides. For example, there's nothing wrong with the concept of social justice, but there are people/groups acting in the name of social justice that spend all day every day trying to find someone's life/career to ruin over the slightest perceived transgression.
saalweachter 10y ago
As near as I can tell, this is referring to a minor scandal in what I usually think of as the skeptic community. Long story short, Dawkins made some comments regarded as regressive which got him dis-invited from a couple of skeptical conferences. It is a slightly different argument than the one we're having now, although it wouldn't surprise me if the sides people take are similar: given that in any large gathering of people (eg, a skeptical conference, an online forum, a corporation, a political party...) there will be some people whose behavior, actions, or speech is hostile, harming, or threatening to some other people, should we force some people to restrict their behavior or leave, or force other people to either accept it or leave? Unsurprisingly, a majority of the skeptical community opted towards restriction, many skeptical conventions reiterated their policies with the goal of making convention-goers feel safe and welcome, and some individuals who prominently made statements against these changes were dis-invited (as speakers) from some conventions.

j_gu 10y ago

SJWs, in other words.

daveheq 10y ago

I saw (later) how the atheist community broke apart due to activists trying to insist it become justice activist or feel shameful or part of the problem; it rips apart enthusiasts when they feel they have to become involved in someone's actions like if not doing something means you're helping cause the problem. Expecting Y Combinator or its community to fight Trump or sever ties with anyone who supports him is not only discrimination but unnecessary, divisive, and corrosive. All this moral grandstanding like we have to right the world the way someone wants immediately will just drench everyone in someone's mud.

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