3 ms·

Part of me wonders if the whole deal with Brendan Eich is a problem with tech or a problem with California. Would the same thing have happened if Mozilla opera

by cderwin 10y ago

Part of me wonders if the whole deal with Brendan Eich is a problem with tech or a problem with California. Would the same thing have happened if Mozilla operated out of New York or Seattle (let alone Denver or Austin)? And if not, at what point do the particular nuances of SV (such as political intolerance) become a burden not worth tolerating within the tech community?

guildwriter 10y ago
I can't speak to other states in the nation, but I don't think this is a problem that is isolated to tech specifically within CA. One of the things I learned from my time in an ultra-liberal high school in the Bay Area was to keep my mouth shut and my head down if I had a differing opinion. To set the background, my high school invited prominent speakers from time to time to speak about various issues. Not a single conservative voice ever came to talk to us. When the case for the Iraq War was being debated in public, the school invited a panel of speakers to debate the topic in front of us. They didn't invite a single person in favor of the War. When they invited Daniel Ellsberg to speak, he went into a long profanity punctuated rant about GWB which ended with the entire auditorium (including all the teachers and administrators) standing on their feet to applaud him for minutes. This is just a small sampling. It was around that time that I began to realize how bad the indoctrination was and started reading other points of view. When I began expressing those views to share what I had learned, I started getting a lot of funny looks or outright hostility. I remember as a member of student government, I was part of a meeting to discuss changing or adding anything to the student handbook. I mentioned that rather than a focus on racial diversity, that perhaps we should readjust the focus to include a diversity of views as well. The dismissive reaction from everyone including the chairman of the school cemented in my mind where everyone truly stood. It is hard to express how frustrating it is to be surrounded by people who claim to be inclusive and open minded, yet are utterly unwilling to seriously entertain any point of view that comes in conflict with theirs. The totality of their certainty and the violence with which they express it is right on par with the kind of fanaticism you see in deeply Christian communities.
- yks 10y ago
  I was not living in the US during the Iraq War debates but wasn't that the situation that the mainstream media projected pro-war views? In that sense the debate panels were arguing with the state propaganda basically, weren't they?
  - guildwriter 10y ago
    My opinion on that time was that it was a mixed bag as far as the mainstream media was concerned. I definitely do not recall coverage being one sided at all.
- Inconel 10y ago
  As an immigrant to the US who's childhood path went from poor rural Texas, to poor urban Houston, to poor Oakland and then to SF, I share many of your sentiments. As an atheist in Texas, I often felt at odds with my peers and subsequently learned from an early age to not voice my opinions too loudly. While this isn't exactly the best way to grow up, I more or less accepted it as the price to pay for having very different world views. Interestingly enough, while I actually shared many of the same political views as my SF peers, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the open hostility that anyone challenging those views would face. In many ways, I found it harder to be an open minded left leaning atheist in SF than a left leaning atheist in Texas. The hypocrisy I saw on display was very disillusioning. For all the talk about SF being progressive and tolerant, I found it among the most provincial and closed minded places I've ever lived.

by cderwin 10y ago

guildwriter 10y ago

I can't speak to other states in the nation, but I don't think this is a problem that is isolated to tech specifically within CA. One of the things I learned from my time in an ultra-liberal high school in the Bay Area was to keep my mouth shut and my head down if I had a differing opinion. To set the background, my high school invited prominent speakers from time to time to speak about various issues. Not a single conservative voice ever came to talk to us. When the case for the Iraq War was being debated in public, the school invited a panel of speakers to debate the topic in front of us. They didn't invite a single person in favor of the War. When they invited Daniel Ellsberg to speak, he went into a long profanity punctuated rant about GWB which ended with the entire auditorium (including all the teachers and administrators) standing on their feet to applaud him for minutes. This is just a small sampling. It was around that time that I began to realize how bad the indoctrination was and started reading other points of view. When I began expressing those views to share what I had learned, I started getting a lot of funny looks or outright hostility. I remember as a member of student government, I was part of a meeting to discuss changing or adding anything to the student handbook. I mentioned that rather than a focus on racial diversity, that perhaps we should readjust the focus to include a diversity of views as well. The dismissive reaction from everyone including the chairman of the school cemented in my mind where everyone truly stood. It is hard to express how frustrating it is to be surrounded by people who claim to be inclusive and open minded, yet are utterly unwilling to seriously entertain any point of view that comes in conflict with theirs. The totality of their certainty and the violence with which they express it is right on par with the kind of fanaticism you see in deeply Christian communities.

yks 10y ago
I was not living in the US during the Iraq War debates but wasn't that the situation that the mainstream media projected pro-war views? In that sense the debate panels were arguing with the state propaganda basically, weren't they?
- guildwriter 10y ago
  My opinion on that time was that it was a mixed bag as far as the mainstream media was concerned. I definitely do not recall coverage being one sided at all.
Inconel 10y ago
As an immigrant to the US who's childhood path went from poor rural Texas, to poor urban Houston, to poor Oakland and then to SF, I share many of your sentiments. As an atheist in Texas, I often felt at odds with my peers and subsequently learned from an early age to not voice my opinions too loudly. While this isn't exactly the best way to grow up, I more or less accepted it as the price to pay for having very different world views. Interestingly enough, while I actually shared many of the same political views as my SF peers, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the open hostility that anyone challenging those views would face. In many ways, I found it harder to be an open minded left leaning atheist in SF than a left leaning atheist in Texas. The hypocrisy I saw on display was very disillusioning. For all the talk about SF being progressive and tolerant, I found it among the most provincial and closed minded places I've ever lived.