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Time to Take a Stand
- Kale_Rogers 10y agohttps://teleport.org/paperclip/ https://teleport.org/paperclip/
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- RodericDay 10y agoA good place to start for someone like Sam Altman is people in his strata, such as Peter Thiel, who notoriously donated money to Trump's campaign, and publicly endorsed him.
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- SamReidHughes 10y agoIs targeting religious groups in refugee admittance actually a bad thing? How would this guy feel about favoring Jewish refugees in the 1930's?
- leesalminen 10y agoI agree. If people are being persecuted for their religious beliefs then there should be a process to accept those refugees in a timely manner.
- facetube 10y agoI don't think the United States is in a supply-limited triage situation right now, though. What's effectively been done is to cut off all non-Christians in certain countries – by issuing a blanket prohibition based upon a highly-religious-correlated country of origin, then an eventual exception for the religion that the president likes. This arrangement isn't prioritization, it's a ban. What's worse: the rationale given for these countries – the September 11th attacks – isn't even supported by fact. The plot did not originate in these countries. That is reckless and dangerous policy.
- SamReidHughes 10y agoGiven a fixed number of refugees to be accepted, prioritization of one group means a near total ban on another. If there's a justifiable reason for that prioritization, then that's what you'll get. For example, if you had a refugee admittance process in the 1930's that was limited to N people (being a time traveler that knows the future), I might kick out a Jewish refugee in exchange for a nuclear physicist, but not some rando Lutheran. So what you'd get is a mix of Jewish people, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, etc, with prioritization towards the young. Obviously, this is not Trump's rationale, and there's the whole other angle of blocking reentry of permanent residents. But for the general concept of religious based refugee admittance? I can't imagine the ACLU going back in time and arguing prioritizing Jewish refugees is unconstitutional.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- woofyman 10y ago>In a highly publicized event in May–June 1939, the United States refused to admit over 900 Jewish refugees who had sailed from Hamburg, Germany, on the St. Louis. The St. Louis appeared off the coast of Florida shortly after Cuban authorities cancelled the refugees' transit visas and denied entry to most of the passengers, who were still waiting to receive visas to enter the United States. Denied permission to land in the United States, the ship was forced to return to Europe. The governments of Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium each agreed to accept some of the passengers as refugees. Of the 908 St. Louis passengers who returned to Europe, 254 (nearly 28 percent) are known to have died in the Holocaust. 288 passengers found refuge in Britain. Of the 620 who returned to the continent, 366 (just over 59 percent) are known to have survived the war. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/mobile/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005139 https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/mobile/en/article.php?ModuleId=100...
- mwfunk 10y agoPresumably you are smart enough to see the difference between those two cases, given that one group was actively fleeing state-sanctioned oppression and eventual genocide. I would hope that no one has to explain that to you.
- SamReidHughes 10y agoI'm not in Syria and thus can only repeat what other people say, but I've heard that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and Shiites. The source of this information is John Kerry.
- refurb 10y agoExactly. Doesn't it make sense to prioritize those people who are under the most persecution in those countries?
- jdoliner 10y ago.
- pcwalton 10y ago> Of course, one plausible explanation is that Democrats don't like Christians That's a conspiracy theory with no evidence, not a plausible explanation. Refugees can't vote for a long time. There are too few to make any substantive electoral difference.
- SamReidHughes 10y agoAnd if they did, they'd probably lean Democrat, like Hispanics for example.
- facetube 10y agoFrom another comment thread: "Refugees are referred to the US by the UNHCR.". You're also comparing the percentage to the total population of the country, rather than those who applied for asylum/refugee status. This is not a meaningful comparison. Finally, you provide no year-over-year data; it's possible that they fled first in previous years, or are residing in areas that are protected by pro-Assad forces.
- tabeth 10y agoWhy is that all of these posts saying to "take a stand" fail to explain the political process? I'll just quote myself here. If you want to help stop trump the most effective ways are to: 1. Call - Local congresspeople (http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/) - Senators (https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/) - Local officials (https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials) 2. Participate - Get involved in local elections (this is a decent start - to become informed locally http://www.npr.org/stations/) - Protest - Attend town hall and city council meetings (see npr) 3. Share - Tell your friends 4. Vote (https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote) 5. Volunteer 6. Stop reading and start doing one of the other things.
- myblake 10y agoHow effective is calling local congress members if you live in an area with a strong progressive majority such as the Bay Area. Not that we shouldn't voice our option to our represented officials but I suspect in some ways it's redundant whereas things like raising money for national organizations may be more impactful.
- huac 10y agoYour congressional representatives voted for Trump's nominees. Remind them who they work for. Edit: misread 'local congress' vs 'US congress' but I think the point still stands.
- djrogers 10y ago> In doing so, we should not demonize Trump voters—most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban. We need their eventual support in resisting actions like these, and we will not get it if we further isolate them. This is very important people - calling everyone who voted for Trump a racist homophobe, a moron, and not deserving of the franchise is not going to help anything. I didn't vote for Trump, but I do identify with some of the beliefs of those who did, and I can tell you that the rhetoric I'm hearing from many of the most vocal left is pushing the middle away.
- beatpanda 10y agoAt what point do we start holding people accountable then? Trump, so far, has done exactly what he said he would do. Are we supposed to believe the people who voted for him simply weren't listening?
- burkaman 10y agoThis is just a practicality argument. The people best placed to stop Trump are members of Congress, they need votes to stay in office, so we need to convince their voters. "Holding people accountable" isn't productive.
- RodericDay 10y agoBoycotts are so effective many places make them illegal.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- a3n 10y agoOne of LL Bean's board members thinks they're Unamerican and bullying.
- icebraining 10y agoHow do you boycott 60 million random people? The statement was about voters, not companies or other organizations.
- rayiner 10y agoThe ACLU is both challenging the order and rounding up attorneys to help legal residents and Visa holders that have been prevented from entering the country. Now would be a good time to donate. https://www.aclu.org https://www.aclu.org.
- bigchewy 10y agothanks for reminding us - I just put in my card on a repeated monthly donation. Easier to keep giving if set on auto-pay vs forgetting
- beatpanda 10y agoYet Peter Thiel is still a YC partner. It's nice that Sam is speaking up but he needs to display some actual backbone here. Words are not enough.
- jowiar 10y agoThis is meaningless grandstanding until: 1) YC voted Thiel off the island 2) YC establishes a policy of "take money from Thiel and you are toxic to us" Anyone in a position of power who took a look at Trump and didn't recoil with disgust needs to be exiled from civil society.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago>Anyone in a position of power who took a look at Trump and didn't recoil with disgust needs to be exiled from civil society. I don't like Trump, but fighting him isn't worth going against the very principles we fight for. People have a right to their beliefs, even if their beliefs are stupid. If not, than what kind of country are we?
- MusaTheRedGuard 10y agoPeople have a right to their beliefs, and those beliefs sometimes have strong social consequences.
- jowiar 10y agoPeople have a right to choose who they (do or don't) associate with. And people have a right to judge those based on who they deem worthy of association. Thiel can believe what he wants. He can say what he wants. Mostly it shows he's a cowardly little narcissistic shit. And it's damn telling when folks still keep him around.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
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- kasey_junk 10y agoI'm not sure of any nominal principle that says we have to do business with, work for or to invite to things people who behave abhorrently. That Thiel can get a table at a restaurant in SV proves all the talk about changing the world tech leaders do is so much nonsense.
- mcenedella 10y ago"The executive order… is tantamount to a Muslim ban" isn't quite true. Islam by country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country 1. Indonesia 2. Pakistan 3. India 4. Bangladesh 5. Nigeria 6. Iran 7. Turkey 8. Egypt 9. Algeria 10. Sudan It's probably not a great tactic to perpetuate the American habit for making sweeping comments about the rest of the world which aren't really grounded in truth. Might be best to be scrupulously fact-based on these matters.
- Gargoyle 10y agoIt's impossible to talk about politics in a non-hyperbolic way right now, so I've mostly just stopped. I'm not going to stop voting, but I'm going to stop trying to discuss anything, which means I will be much harder to persuade.
- nthitz 10y agoThe only people the ban will affect will be Muslim people though.
- mars4rp 10y agoThat is not true! My non muslim, citizen brother can't bring in her fiance from Italy because she is Iranian !
- refurb 10y agoUh.... no? This ban also prevents any Christians living in those countries from coming to the US as well.
- jannotti 10y agoThat's not what Trump says. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-approves-extreme-vetting-of-refugees-promises-priority-for-christians/2017/01/27/007021a2-e4c7-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump...
- giancarlostoro 10y agoI hope you mean "Peacefully Protest" I shut my eyes and ears once protesting becomes violent.
- derrickdirge 10y agoI feel like in this case you should be able to give them the benefit of the doubt. Do you really believe that they were advocating for violent protests in a list of legitimate, peaceful political activities?
- jcoffland 10y agoA little violence never hurt anyone.
- giancarlostoro 10y agoThe victims of violence?
- legodt 10y agoWhat about the victims of fascism?
- jMyles 10y agoI think there's a definition problem. If it doesn't hurt anyone, it isn't violence. It is is violence, it hurts people. Hurting people is the default tactic of the state, but doesn't have to be our way. While violence is occasionally effective in making political change, many of us hope that in the internet age, it won't be.
- mozumder 10y ago"What harm has violence ever done?" - Ali G
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- a3n 10y ago
- burkaman 10y agoIn case anyone is still skeptical that this is really a Muslim ban and not just a blanket ban on refugees and immigrants, note that Trump has said he will give priority to Christian refugees: http://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2017/01/27/brody-file-exclusive-president-trump-says-persecuted-christians-will-be-given-priority-as-refugees http://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2017/01/27/brody-fi...
- facetube 10y agoOn the Christian Broadcasting Network no less. This is morally repugnant.
- patrickg_zill 10y agoYet we never heard from you during the years the Obama administration did the opposite... Syria is over 10% Christian, yet only 56 of the ~10K Syrians let into the country were Christian.
- facetube 10y agoHeard from who? This is a major, major problem with political discourse in America right now. We are acting reflexively. We are engaging in collective punishment. We are making unproven assumptions.
- ebola1717 10y agoIt took 2 seconds of googling to fact check you http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/facts-about-the-syrian-refugees/ http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/facts-about-the-syrian-refu...
- patrickg_zill 10y agoHow could a stat from 11/2015 possibly cover anything that only concluded in 2016? Is Newsweek part of the Trump train? http://www.newsweek.com/us-bars-christian-not-muslim-refugees-syria-497494 http://www.newsweek.com/us-bars-christian-not-muslim-refugee... (mid-Sept 2016).
- facetube 10y agoDonald Trump and Steve Bannon's blatant disregard for objective fact is reckless and dangerous. Go too much further and talent will begin to divest from the United States for moral reasons. Your move, America.
- m_fayer 10y agoI'm already seeing this in Berlin. I know multiple engineers and academics who have abandoned career moves to the US because they "don't want to live in such a toxic environment."
- maxnevermind 10y agoI'm thinking about moving to Berlin, but a million of illegal economic migrants from middle east in Germany and Trump policy in the US regarding them make US much more attractive option
- facetube 10y agoAre you referring to the families of refugees fleeing indiscriminate bombing and war?
- maxnevermind 10y agoRefugees are those who fleeing the war to neighbor regions or countries to get to safety. People who pay smugglers to get to rich countries because they can live better there are illegal economic migrants. It's not that we don't need to help but the fact that sponsoring anyone who claims he is a refugee is just plain wrong. Stop the war and spend resources more efficiently by helping rebuild the economy and not wasting it on a bunch of free riders.
- m_fayer 10y agoAs an American living between Berlin and NYC for 7 years now, here's how it feels to me: The migrants in Germany have created some tension and isolated incidents, but the political and interpersonal climate is the US is significantly more toxic. Even though per capita the US is taking way less migrants than Germany is.
- duncan-donuts 10y agoThis isn't the tech community's responsibility. This is everyone-who-disagrees' responsibility. If the GOP doesn't. It starts with holding representative's responsible. I think you're right that big tech has a huge voice, but I can't agree with the idea that it's their job to Be the Guiding Light ™
- myblake 10y agoI think Sam's point about strength in numbers is really critical. The tech community sometimes has a little fear of being first that can rapidly shift into fear of being last, so I wonder what will cause a critical mass of tech leaders to take a stand. I think Sam is right that employees will have to provide some of the push, the New York Times article I read on this earlier mentioned an Iraqi Facebook employee in Seattle who can no longer go to Vancouver BC to visit his family for instance, so this effects us and our colleagues directly, not abstractly. I would suggest we all try and start bottom up pressure within our organizations to denounce the immingration ban, tech has always been pretty pro immigration (not always for noble reasons) so this shouldn't be a difficult sell.
- pfarnsworth 10y agoI am affected personally by this. I have extended family members from Indonesia and Malaysia in the US who are still on Green Card. Although those countries aren't affected by the ban, who knows when Trump will decide to change his mind at his whim. But the time for talk has passed. I don't think very much is going to happen because Trump is empowered by his election victory, and he won't listen to anyone. Has he ever listened to anyone, even during his celebrity-only days? To think that you can actively engage him in a conversation is not the way to do this. What is needed is to prepare for the 2018 and 2020 elections RIGHT NOW. We need an organized social media structure where all of the positive, democracy-pro candidates in every electoral district gets publicized and supported. EDUCATE YOUNG PEOPLE WITH GREAT POLITICAL CANDIDATES AND MOTIVATE THEM TO VOTE. I'm not talking about just voting for the Democrats. Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. We need a new voice that actually cares about progressive, democratic values, and actually believes in what they say. Not the same, tired politicians that play us for fools and leave us with the best of two evils. Organize now, smash the two-party oligarchy and elect REAL POLITICIANS, hopefully young people that care about the US, not people who want to enrich themselves from the teat of government funding. You could argue that Trump was that candidate for half of Americans, as well as Sanders for the other (nearly) half. We need fresh blood, and we need to start now. The only way to stop Trump is to silence him by breaking up the Republican Congress majority, and it's only in 2 years.
- leesalminen 10y ago> I am affected personally by this. > Although those countries aren't affected by the ban... So, you have not yet been personally affected? That's like saying German citizens have been personally affected by this action.
- dwaltrip 10y agoCompared to the post above, a German citizen has an incredibly smaller chance of being affected by any of Trump's future follow-up actions similar to the executive order that was just issued, so your comparison is invalid. If one has to come up with new contingencies based on radical shifts in the likelihood of extreme events, then of course they are directly affected.
- jvehent 10y agoThe time to take a stand was a year ago, before the (albeit flawed) democratic process elected a president you now disagree with.
- jacquesm 10y agoThe time to take stand was 3 months ago. Things will get a lot worse now before they can get better and no amount of blogging is going to change that. Trump is hell bent on destroying America from within and his followers (who we are not supposed to criticize) are A-Ok with that. Soon to be seen in a theater near you in Europe as well.
- rfrank 10y agoCriticize them all you want, but keep in mind your goal. Do you care about changing their minds, political/social polarization in the US, etc? If so, criticizing them would be a very stupid thing to do. Especially considering the GOP is the strongest its been from a local to national level since the 1920s.
- woofyman 10y agoYou can't change a closed mind. Trump can say the sky is green and his followers will agree.
- rfrank 10y agoThen just skip to violence and stop wasting time? You can absolutely change closed minds, and I don't think most of those people's minds are as closed as you perceive them to be.
- woofyman 10y agoI'm not advocating violence. You can't have a rational discussion with people who believe the universe is 6000 years old.
- rfrank 10y agoViolence is usually the outcome when political discussion breaks down. So if your belief that discussion with Trump supporters is impossible is true, it would seem like time to hop to it.
- miklax 10y agoTime to Take - Politics out of Hacker News
- karunk 10y agoWhy? Does this order not affect tech workers? You can't blackout things you don't want to see and pretend they don't exist.
- koolba 10y agoAre there any publicly pro-Trump founders in the current YC batch and, if so, how ostracized do they feel reading things like this? EDIT: If there's no answers from the current batch (either due to sample size or general shyness), I'll pose the same question regarding past YC alumni. I find it hard to believe out of a thousand people there isn't a single Trump supporter.
- jacquesm 10y agoI can very easily believe it. If you're capable of running a start-up you probably have some critical thinking skills and YC is - if anything - an extremely good selector for those skills. On top of that the undercurrent is to want to change the world, now you could take that the cynical way but for the most part that would bring out people with an idealist streak.
- koolba 10y ago> I can very easily believe it. If you're capable of running a start-up you probably have some critical thinking skills and YC is - if anything - an extremely good selector for those skills. On top of that the undercurrent is to want to change the world, now you could take that the cynical way but for the most part that would bring out people with an idealist streak. To suggest that Trump supporters are incapable of critical thinking or being successful start-up founders is pretty insulting. This type of circle jerk in a bubble thinking is a big part of what got him elected in the first place. It's also comments like yours (and Sam's original post) that further prevent anyone from coming forward to express their dissenting views. Most people shy away from situations that start off with a group of thugs referring to them as idiots.
- jacquesm 10y agoWell, sometimes an idiot is just that: an idiot. See, the 'little helpers' (or useful idiots by another term) are exactly the people who empower these assholes, historically, over and over again. And afterwards, when the carnage has finally run its course they are all suddenly short of memory and did not know a thing. If you are able to think for yourself and you dissociate from all things internet related, study history and economics for a bit and then look at what is being done today and you will not come to the conclusion that this is damaging America and the world in general then your critical thinking skills are indeed in short supply. Whatever button a demagogue is able to push they'll push no amount of counterweight is going to convince scared people looking for a 'strong man' that they themselves are part of the problem. But feel free to go soft and easy on anybody that is helping to push the cart over the edge, me, I'll happily give them both barrels and that includes my closest friends and family if I feel that they are going to help destroy my country and our world. In pre-war Germany exactly those same sentiments that you are appealing to were used widely and we all know how that ended. Let's be a bit more forceful this time around, it might not yet be too late. Or would you rather wait with that until the momentum is so large that this disaster is unstoppable?
- benologist 10y agoTrump needs to be focused onto social and humanitarian issues where his penchant for aggressive and disruptive change can be a benevolent force, if that's possible.
- sparkzilla 10y agoIn other news: YC will only accept applications from founders who are not pro Trump.
- lutusp 10y ago> ... the executive order from yesterday titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” is tantamount to a Muslim ban and requires objection. But it's more than that -- it's illegal. Apart from known criminals, the government can't arbitrarily choose which groups to deny entry: NYT Op-Ed: Trump’s Immigration Ban Is Illegal: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigratio...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jsperson 10y agoIt makes me sad that politics has made its way to the top of HN. I'm relatively new here. One of the things I love about the community is that it has been something of an oasis over the past few months. This is in no way intended to denigrate the esteemed author or his thesis. I'm just disappointed that we're at this point.
- jordigh 10y agoYou can only afford to ignore politics for as long as it ignores you. This no longer ignores us, because it's affecting our friends, our companies, the pool of tech workers that make up the intelligence that builds Silicon Valley. This is entirely comparable to when Jewish scientists were first getting barred from getting positions in German universities. We are now seeing the much-publicised case of an Oscar-nominated director being unable to attend to receive his prize. There are many other, less publicised cases of colleagues getting barred from working alongside us. We can no longer ignore these politics.
- jsperson 10y agoI haven't been ignoring it at all. I read the news sections of the NYT almost in its entirety every day. Same with USAT and WashPost. There's a big difference between ignoring it and wishing that wishing that I wasn't immersed in it.
- jordigh 10y agoI understand. It's sad and alarming that this is happening. But it's too late to wish that we could ignore it.
- lucb1e 10y ago> You can only afford to ignore politics for as long as it ignores you. Hey it's totally ignoring me. So sorry for Americans here, but I agree with the person you're responding to: I too liked HN for being quiet about Donald duck.
- disantlor 10y ago
- mjmsmith 10y ago> Almost every member of the GOP I have spoken to knows that these actions are wrong. How about Peter Thiel? What did he say when you spoke to him?
- CydeWeys 10y agoI'd love to hear an answer to this. How is the relationship between Sam Altman and Peter Thiel these days, now that it's becoming clear that Thiel's man is exactly as noxious as the rest of us were saying he was going to be?
- hkmurakami 10y agoGoogle's Pichai had sent an internal note regarding this which got leaked to the press and was covered by the WSJ. What will it take for him/others to make public, target than private, statements?
- kcorbitt 10y agoI think that the only way to fix this long-term is by winning the hearts and minds of those who think this ban is a good idea, or who are ambivalent about it. Unfortunately, those of us who have been shrilly opposing every move Trump has ever made are perhaps the most poorly positioned to do that. Trump has successfully demonized the voice of the mainstream media and costal cultural elites, and if you're perceived as being in that group, your objections are likely to fall on deaf ears. We need to find a way to rebuild bridges between different tribes in America, so that we can have a reasonable dialog. I don't pretend to know how to do this, but I'd love to have a discussion about how to get it done. I think that is the only way to keep Trump or someone else like him from capturing the voice of the people long term. "How to Culture Jam a Populist in Four Easy Steps" https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/ https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/
- rfrank 10y agoNot thinking of dialogue as 'culture jamming' would probably be a good start.
- kcorbitt 10y agoYeah, the title isn't great and is a bit click-baity, but if you read the article I think you'll find the content much less objectionable.
- rfrank 10y agoThe article comes off to me as though it assumes there was no inherent flaw in the message coming from the other side. That there weren't enough legitimate reasons to support Trump over Clinton in the election, and that Trump supporters all think the way they do because they were sold some great lie. Which I think is untrue, condescending, and a terrible starting position if the goal is to understand the opposition and try and change their minds. > Find a wound common to many, someone to blame for it and a good story to tell. Mix it all together. Tell the wounded you know how they feel. That you found the bad guys. Label them: the minorities, the politicians, the businessmen. Cartoon them. As vermin, evil masterminds, flavourless hipsters, you name it. Then paint yourself as the saviour. Capture their imagination. Forget about policies and plans, just enrapture them with a good story. One that starts in anger and ends in vengeance. A vengeance they can participate in. > In their mind it’s very simple: if you’re not among the victims, you’re among the culprits. In your case, you’re that modern bogeyman called the liberal urbanite hipster who thinks all cultures and religions are valid and equally worthy, who thinks of the working-class disparagingly. You are, in short, ‘a citizen of nowhere’ whose utopia is a massive, world-wide kumbaya with carrot chips, no church, and no soul either. > Because, again, the problem is not the message but the messenger. The article is horrible.
- 2skep 10y agoI think as a non-US person, I think it may also be time to pay attention to executive powers in the US political system. It is one thing to have a system that will only rarely elect a nutjob but not having any safeguards once a nutjob is elected is too dangerous at a systems level.
- mozumder 10y agoYou really do need to demonize Trump voters. Most of them are in favor of his horrible policies, and are malicious themselves. You're never going to get anywhere without recognizing the source of the problem.
- iaw 10y ago> You're never going to get anywhere without recognizing the source of the problem. So... Demonize the voters that naively thought Trump would help them more than Hillary? What comes next after they're alienated? Pragmatically: where are we going to get with you proposed tactic?
- mozumder 10y agoYou could actually do things to punish them, like boycott their states. Being punitive towards these criminals is perfectly valid. Liberals have the wealth in the country that the Trump voters want. You don't have to give it to them.
- jpttsn 10y agoIf liberals want to keep the wealth for themselves and not share it, are they still liberals? Sounds like a koan.
- fowlerpower 10y agoThis is absolutely nuts. Green card holders (legal permanent residents of the United States) are being turned back from the US as soon as they get to the airport. They are being forced to file waivers which can be denied. How can legal permanent residents be denied entry? I mean this has to be breaking So many laws, how can this be ok?
- smacktoward 10y agoLaws do not enforce themselves. They only have power when there are people with authority willing to stand up and enforce them. Without that, they are just words on paper. Right now all three branches of the Federal government are in the hands of the Republican Party. Trump has one branch; the other two have no interest in opposing him, so long as he lets them do what they want as well. So for the moment, at least, those laws that all three of them disagree with can be assumed to have gone by the boards.
- oblio 10y agoThe problem with this line of short term thinking is that it can backfire badly. Yes, they get 1 term or 2, but then the backlash can bury them for decades. Especially in the context of America's changing demographics.
- smacktoward 10y agoIt's not short term thinking at all. This is the GOP's big chance to roll back the modern American system, which was erected by liberals like Roosevelt and Johnson, and replace it with something more to their ideological liking. Doing so has been their #1 political objective since the 1930s. Why on earth would they fail to seize such an opportunity? Especially when, as you note, changing demographics mean that another one is unlikely to ever come again?
- pavlov 10y agoThe judicial branch is not in Trump's pocket (at least yet), but it moves much more slowly than the two others.
- Scirra_Tom 10y agoI think it's shameful to have an open Trump supporter as part of the upper echelons of YCombinator (Thiel). Everyone is entitled to their opinions. But when you openly support a candidate who likes to "grab [women] by the pussy", and now is making headway into some sort of Muslim ban which was a campaign headline, how will female and muslim applicants feel if they know part of their process might be controlled by someone who finds this acceptable? Might it discourage them?
- cornholeconnie 10y agoSo only opinions that you deem acceptable are ok. So people are not entitled to their own opinions...
- 467568985476 10y agoIt's perfectly reasonable to kick a toxic person out of your community. Free speech means the government won't put you in prison. It doesn't mean that other people are required to entertain your opinions.
- Koshkin 10y ago> reasonable to kick a toxic person out I agree - as long as being "toxic" means hurting the business. But as far as the "community" is concerned, it would be interesting to know what percentage of it might be, if not in favor of, but rather tolerant to Trump being president, regardless of whether he is seen as a "presidential material" (whatever that means) or not.
- Senji 10y agoOr you could get kicked out yourself by the toxic people in your community.
- stale2002 10y agoSure, but don't be surprised when the other half of the country fights back, and starts kicking YOU out of their community because they believe that you are the toxic one.
- rcpt 10y agoI know it's an extremely antisocial position but I can't help but feel like most of Trump's immigration policies and outrageous tweets are just bait to keep our attention away from big money legislation that the 1% wants to get through. For example, the Keystone XL and Dakota access pipelines were heavily debated, protested, and ultimately rejected under Obama but Trump just signed orders to have them built and Sam's post doesn't even mention it. Seeing Sam write about the accusations of voter fraud instead brings this quote to mind: > The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.... - Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
- oh_sigh 10y ago> are just bait to keep our attention away from big money legislation that the 1% wants to get through. I really doubt that, considering a vast majority of the 1% supported Hillary.
- rcpt 10y agoI'm not sure that Hillary "public and private positions" Clinton is much better in this regard. Don't get me wrong I'd much rather she won. But even with her in power I think I'd still be concerned that wealth inequality and climate change would continue to get sidelined in favor of never ending battles about racism, lgbt issues, and misogyny.
- jack9 10y agoI don't think that's true. I don't think you hear from the "vast majority" of the 1%
- burkaman 10y agoI've heard the exact opposite, people saying Trump's orders on highly controversial but minor-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things pipelines are cover for his less tangible but much more damaging moves on immigration and refugees. As to your last point, it is not unreasonable to ask the president for evidence when he challenges a core pillar of our society. It is good that hugely significant yet baseless opinions are not considered acceptable, especially for people in power.
- kyrre 10y agoaren't the majority of Americans in favor of this ban? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/18/fox-news-poll-views-on-trumps-proposed-ban-on-non-u-s-muslims.html http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/18/fox-news-poll-vie... https://theintercept.com/2016/07/07/donald-trump-backs-off-muslim-ban-but-its-already-way-more-popular-than-he-is/ https://theintercept.com/2016/07/07/donald-trump-backs-off-m...
- Tulip68 10y agoAppeals to majority do not make sense when it comes to fundamental human rights; we have a Constition for a reason. More concretely: majorities of Americans once believed that African-Americans could be someone else's property or that a trans-woman is somehow not a woman. Thus this would not be the first time large numbers of (mostly old, white and privileged) Americans placed themselves on the wrong side of history by opposing logic, facts and basic human decency.
- mavdi 10y agoThis order directly affects me. But frankly I've lost hope in any political process. I know this is a grim message, but perhaps standing idle is exactly what needs to be done. I fear people now vote out of frasutration, and leave it to someone else to make the right choice and cancel out their vote. Perhaps it's time for everyone to realise the full force of their voting power, and perhaps it's time to trust the powers to be. That breaking social contracts will be detrimental to The society in the long run and hope that voters will realise this. My pessimistic two cents.
- general_ai 10y agoFirst, it's not a "ban". It's a temporary suspension until new vetting procedures are put in place. Second, it's not "Muslim". Muslims from all other countries (some of them pretty large, e.g. Indonesia and Pakistan), will experience no change in their ability to enter the US. Other than Iran (which imo shouldn't be on the list) we're bombing and droning all of those countries at the moment. It's insane to accept military age males from there for entry into the country, particularly if information about them is very sparse (which in war torn countries it typically is). But there's another aspect of this that baffles me. Somehow Sam has no issues with democrats totally destabilizing the Middle East, and funding/arming ISIS to depose Assad. Yet the moment Trump attempts to mitigate the negative side effects of that to this country, "it's time to take a stand". The time to take a stand was back when Obama and Clinton armed extremists in Iraq and Syria -- years before Trump.
- Scirra_Tom 10y ago> First, it's not a "ban". It's a temporary suspension until new vetting procedures are put in place. He's got his foot in the door. That's all he needs right now. > But there's another aspect of this that baffles me. Somehow Sam has no issues with democrats totally destabilizing the Middle East, and funding/arming ISIS to depose Assad. Yet the moment Trump attempts to mitigate the negative side effects of that to this country, "it's time to take a stand". Taking who started it out of the equation, I find it morally repugnant for the USA to destabilise a region then find it acceptable to callously turn away those who were victims of that away.
- general_ai 10y agoTrump stated his intention to stabilize the region. So far he has demonstrated very clearly that he intends to keep his promises. All that needs to happen there is we need to stop arming ISIS, and join forces with Russia and Assad's government to destroy ISIS. It'll be over in a year or two. And if you find the US interventionism repugnant, congratulations, we now have a president who is against it, too.
- 10y ago
- jonathankoren 10y agoAnd yet HC killed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13506412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13506412 earlier today.
- jbhatab 10y agoHe clearly stated he would make strong policies regarding immigration. The American people voted for him knowing this and he's following through on it. I'd say “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” is a fitting name given everything he has said up to this point. Whether or not you agree, this looks like the democratic process to me. Taking action against his policies after election is obviously fine, but if you cared so deeply then why didn't you do this rallying call before he got elected? He is doing exactly what he said he would do and what the people voted him in for. * PS: I'm not endorsing Donald Trump's decisions at all.
- lebanon_tn 10y agoSam did take action before the election. This is not a sudden realization on his part. He publicly endorsed Clinton and has given time and money to stop Trump.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The American people voted for him No, most of those voting did not.
- jdoliner 10y agoThis is the unfortunate reality that no one wants to face. Trump ran on an anti-immigration platform and won. Contrary to what Sam says I don't think that most people voted for Trump for different reasons. Some did, but for many the anti-immigrant message was what resonated with them. Are these people racist? Probably. Is a Muslim ban repugnant? Yup. But that's how our Democracy works isn't it? Politicians campaign on their platform and if they win they enact as much of that platform as they can. If you're taking a stand against this you should at least acknowledge that you are taking a stand against Democracy. If you don't believe The President should be allowed to ban Muslim immigrants after being elected on a platform of doing so then you might as well be honest about it and say that you don't believe people who want to ban immigrants should be allowed to vote. These people are a part of our country and thanks to our Democratic system they do have a voice, that's the root cause of the problem here. I agree with OP that there's nothing wrong with taking action after an election has already happened. Although I do think it's pretty futile, Trump has been granted all the power he needs to enact such a ban by our Democratic process. * PS: I'm also not endorsing Trump's decision.
- macmac 10y agoSo what will you be doing Sam?
- oh_sigh 10y agoWhy do people call this a "Muslim ban", when most Muslims are unaffected by it? There are 200M Muslims in Indonesia who are unaffected, 180M Pakistani Muslims, 172M Indian Muslims, 150M Bangladeshi Muslims, 75M Nigerian Muslims, 75M Turkish Muslims, 73M Egyptian Muslims...all of these people are unaffected by this "Muslim ban"
- Cyph0n 10y agoOK, but they explicitly mentioned that non-Muslims from the target countries are exempt from the ban. What do you call that?
- dragonwriter 10y agoNo, they (well, Trump specifically) announced that Christians (not "non-Muslims") would be given priority consideration ahead of other refugees.
- lukasm 10y agoCan you provide the source please? BBC says that the minority will have a priority e.g. Shia in Yemen.
- Cyph0n 10y agohttp://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2017/01/27/brody-file-exclusive-president-trump-says-persecuted-christians-will-be-given-priority-as-refugees http://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2017/01/27/brody-fi...
- googlryas 10y agoPerhaps it is because religious minorities are heavily persecuted in those countries. If Trump wanted a Muslim ban, why wouldn't he ban Indonesians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, etc?
- Cyph0n 10y agoAs a Muslim, I'm quite appalled by the nonchalant reaction on HN, so I'm just going to downvote and continue following the news.
- jsonmez 10y agoThe only thing worse than mixing religion with politics is mixing business with politics.
- vonklaus 10y agoWe need to take a stand, but I encourage everyone to look at what is happening with depth. The immigration actions are terrible, misguided and anti-Anerican BUT much like abortion or taxation this is the most distracting and highlighted issue in the media. Surely, we should stand against such a law, and I will. But let us not do so at the expense of more dangerous and less publicized attempts to curtail freedom. This will be fought on many fronts and is much bigger than immigration. We stand to have surveillance bolstered, restriction in our movements, loss of input in our governments behavior & worse. We are entering into a world war-- which is already being fought publicly; and we need to work as a country & the global community for diplomacy and freedom.
- 65827 10y agoHe's not a legitimate president any more. This is illegal. Anyone enforcing these illegal orders will be considered criminal as well.
- nolepointer 10y agoJust because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal. The Immigration and Nationality Act gives him this power.
- canadian_voter 10y agoNonetheless, Mr. Trump asserts that he still has the power to discriminate, pointing to a 1952 law that allows the president the ability to “suspend the entry” of “any class of aliens” that he finds are detrimental to the interest of the United States. But the president ignores the fact that Congress then restricted this power in 1965, stating plainly that no person could be “discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence.” The only exceptions are those provided for by Congress (such as the preference for Cuban asylum seekers). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigratio...
- 65827 10y agoLook how fucking wrong you were, it WAS 100% illegal the whole time. Doesn't really matter whether you like that fact or not, it's still illegal. Sorry kiddo.
- _pius 10y agoOK, so take one! Your partner is complicit in this and you still haven't done anything about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926843
- docdeek 10y agoIf this is a Muslim ban it's a weak one - the vast majority of Muslims in the world live in countries not affected by the new rules.
- manish_gill 10y agoA majority of his voters did vote for Trump because they support his views on immigration. It's why they voted for him. To deny that is to simply deny reality just like Trump does on a daily basis. Honest question - What will statements by tech CEOs do? Trump has a mandate given to him by the people of your country against the very elites this post is appealing to. The politicians are with him because they want to keep their power. And am I misremembering all these powerful tech CEOs went grovelling to meet Trump and hoping to have a foot in the door with the new administration with Thiel? These are turbulent times.
- disantlor 10y agomandate is a strong word when you lose by almost 3 million votes and when only half the country votes at all
- maxerickson 10y agoHe has power, he doesn't have a mandate. That's why he keeps whining about illegal voters, because he doesn't have much of a mandate when he lost the popular election and won the Electoral College by winning 3 states with margins of tens of thousands of votes.
- intrasight 10y agoTrump is not really a "Republican" and the real Republicans don't know how to handle him. What is sad is that it would only take two Republican senators taking a stand to block his legislative agenda. How more outrageous does he have to be before we get two such senators.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lebanon_tn 10y agoI strongly encourage people who consider Donald Trump to be a threat to consider arming themselves in accordance with the 2nd Amendment. While my hope for the future does not involve needing to use them, if the situation one day comes to that, I would prefer that people who are indifferent to the actions of this administration NOT be the only ones with guns.
- refurb 10y agoWow. Suddenly the left supports the 2nd amendment? I never thought I'd see the day.
- lebanon_tn 10y agoYour assumption about me being "the left" is wildly incorrect.
- Senji 10y agoBut lebanon_tn, guns are scary and you're likely to get hurt if you have one in your house. It's much better to rely on the police to protect you. Why would you ever want to own a gun.
- generic_user 10y agoMake sure you also donate to the NRA and support Republican politicians who work tirelessly to protect your second amendment rights...
- lebanon_tn 10y agoI generally do. We are a long way from an actual civil war. I am hoping the left is able to view the 2nd Amendment in a more positive light post-election, and hopefully moderate some of the more asinine manifestations of gun control put into place here in California. If there is one thing about modern liberalism that boggles my mind, it is the simultaneous mistrust of police departments and the government in general, but also believing that ordinary citizens should not be allowed to own semi-automatic rifles. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
- endswapper 10y agoBalderdash and blather! This type of empty outrage and chatter serves little purpose. Well articulated facts and solutions along with the leverage to put them in to practice or enforce them is productive. Tabeth's comments are appropriate and on point. Sam has clearly proven he is a bright guy, but this is nothing more than a chant for a march, or a pointless drum circle. I know it feels good, and that's not a bad thing, but a call to action should have more direction. Disappointing.
- stonogo 10y ago> This is very important people It's also complete bullshit. I actually live in a Trump-supporting area, and everyone I know who voted for him is ecstatic about this disgusting, offensive action. Trump is a bad person, and the people who voted for him are bad people, and I hope to God I 'push them away' as far as they'll get from me.
- mynameishere 10y agoWell, you simply have to explain to people all the benefits that come from importing Muslims (especially refugees) into one's country. Perhaps use real-life examples like France and Germany to illustrate your point. People are more willing to be rational than you think--they aren't necessarily acting from some "disgusting" core impulse.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mythrwy 10y ago"Trump is a bad person, and the people who voted for him are bad people" I voted for Trump. I support many (not all) of his policies. I don't appreciate being called a bad person. Certainly you have a right to think this but I disagree. I won't go into what I think of people who voted for Hillary because I try not be mindlessly nasty but I don't think they are all "bad people".
- llamataboot 10y agoThen you voted for an autocratic, racist, dangerous man that is implementing policies antithetical to a free and democratic society after he openly said he would do so. I'm not interested in evaluating whether you are evil or not. I am interested in opposing everything you voted for. I don't want to change your mind. I want to keep you far away from any sort of power. Whether or not you voted for Trump because of his racism, you voted for him DESPITE his racism.
- 10y ago
- zeteo 10y ago>1. Call 2. Participate 3. Share 4. Vote This is the same kind of bullshit that's lost Hillary the election and got us here in the first place. It might have worked in the '90s to get a gold medal for Rosa Parks. It will not work in 2017 to make Trump back off his core message. The problem here is not that your side isn't loud enough and can't get political attention for an issue. The problem is that the opposing side is too organized and too strong and already has a decided stance about your issue. Being more strident won't help. Ostracizing people who have links to the opposing side will positively hurt. Instead of doing all this "yell out louder" crap, any serious opposition should rather do some serious soul searching to figure out how to win back key constituencies. The only people who need to be ostracized are the idiots who got us here in the first place.
- tlarkworthy 10y agoYes. Instead of another round of finger wagging, maybe the left should figure out what they can concretely offer the local population left out from the globalization boom.
- bjourne 10y agoHealth insurance? If all those who previously didn't have it and got it thanks to Obama had voted for Clinton, Trump wouldn't have been the president. Too many of them didn't and instead didn't vote, or voted for Trump.
- prodigal_erik 10y agoCostly private health insurance is meaningless to the unemployed.
- RA_Fisher 10y agoThe goal as MLK Jr. states here is: "You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue." - [1] http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...
- 467568985476 10y agoSama, I appreciate your taking a stand on this, but how do you reconcile YCombinator's ties with Peter Thiel? Actions speak loud than words, and so far we've only seen words from you guys. Be the change you want to see in the world.
- jonstewart 10y agoIndeed, a lot of words from pg and sama, and no observable actions.
- grzm 10y agoIf this is a high priority for you, have you personally dissociated yourself from people who hold views similar to Thiel's? Friends? Family? Coworkers? Employees? Employers? Business partners? Customers? Sam Altman and Paul Graham have spoken out. Sam has also posted specifically about Thiel (http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election). They've donated to campaigns. They've likely done other things as well. If this one issue is this important to you, indeed, actions do speak louder than words, and I'd expect you to take similar actions in your own lives.
- 467568985476 10y agoFor what it's worth, I certainly have. I'm not being hypocritical here.
- jonstewart 10y agoYes, I have. As luck would have it, I also ran for a non-partisan local public office for my neighborhood in Washington, DC, and won. I have about a gnat's worth of power, but I'm trying to use it as best I can... and I don't have representation in Congress. What are you doing?
- grzm 10y agoI'm actively trying to figure out how people can have constructive discussions with each other. The US is effectively split and I strongly believe that further isolating ourselves from one another only increases the polarization that resulted in the kind of election we had—across the board. I'm glad to hear you're sticking to your convictions and getting involved. Unfortunately those two things alone, coupled with dissociation, can equally describe a lot of hateful groups as well. It can also lead to the "tyranny of democracy", when those in power aren't listening to those who they may disagree with yet still represent. I think all three (conviction, involvement, engagement) need to be blended for a truly fair and good end.
- brightball 10y agoEasiest way to take a stand is to be logically consistent about federal power - which means be against it always and not just when the opposition party is in charge. If 2/3 of the country can't agree that it needs to apply to the whole country then it's a state policy and not a federal one. Embrace the 10th amendment and make nullification a common act and not some rare that people scorn. It's the agree to disagree amendment. Push it's use and you can unite this country again because half the country won't be able to impose themselves on the other half every 4 years.
- Retra 10y agoYou want to unite the country by making divide and conquer a stronger and more effective political strategy?
- brightball 10y agoNope. I want to reduce the things that can divide people. Otherwise feel free to have the same polarizing debate topics for the next 50 years.
- artursapek 10y agoTrump has an anti-Muslim position because the recent bombings, shootings, stabbings, and semi-truck attacks in Europe have all been committed by Muslims. And it's not a coincidence - their ideology says that they are rewarded in the afterlife for killing "infidels" (us). Christians don't live by this kind of ideology.
- gizmo 10y agoNone of this justifies discrimination against Muslims. I'm flagging this because this kind of incendiary racism has no place on HN.
- artursapek 10y ago- Islam is not a race, it's an ideology - Go live in one of these European cities that have been turned into a refugee ghetto by their government, and come back and tell me that
- gizmo 10y ago- Islamophobia is an ideology, Islam is a religion. Persecution of Muslims is no different than persecution of Jews, which we also -- rightly -- call racist. - There are no such cities. You're just spouting racist paranoia, nothing more.
- Cyph0n 10y agoHave you actually lived in such a city? This is pathetic.
- googlryas 10y agoThe whole point is that it isn't discrimination against Muslims. It's discrimination against nations that happen to be majority Muslim. But there are a ton of nations with even more Muslims than the nations on the list, and they aren't banned.
- gizmo 10y ago
- ftrflyr 10y agoSam...I hate to say it, but you're out of touch with reality. Your posts are becoming progressively more annoying. I suggest you stick to what you know best. Otherwise, get involved in politics.
- grzm 10y agoIf you'd like to address Sam directly, his post accepts responses.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago> But the executive order from yesterday titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” is tantamount to a Muslim ban and requires objection. I am obviously in favor of safety and rules, but broad-strokes actions targeted at a specific religious group is the wrong solution, and a first step toward a further reduction in rights. I see this mistake a lot. "Muslim" isn't intended to target a certain religion here; it refers to citizenship status with problematic countries that happen to be predominantly Muslim. I support the "Muslim ban", but would be surprised if Trump tried to target Muslim US citizens(especially 3rd-generation US citizens, to avoid all doubt). You might oppose the immigration controls, but it's nothing more than a rhetorical trick to say they violate religious freedom, so that you can bring up the first amendment. I don't believe the first amendment offers any protection with regards to citizenship status.
- anonmous 10y agoIs there a hn version without politics?
- priam 10y agoplease lmk if you find it
- thilmo 10y agoIt used to be called HN, back when pg was in charge...
- _callcc 10y agoWhy is it acceptable to be so downright anti-political?
- grzm 10y agoThat's not necessarily the issue. There are places where people want to discuss politics, and places where those politics can be discussed constructively. A lot of HN members don't want HN to be a place where politics is a focus of a lot of discussion. It's also not necessarily a place where it can be discussed constructively. There are other places to be more actively political. HN doesn't need to be one of them.
- adamrezich 10y agoIs there a place where you can get video game news without politics? Is there a social media hub without politics? Is there a subreddit for atheism without politics? Because of everyone having an Internet connection in their pocket, emotional meme battles ("politics") have infected every corner of modern society. You cannot escape. The people who benefit from the emotional meme battling have made sure that you can't think logically about just about anything these days without hitting on a learned emotional trigger. Once you hit this trigger, you cannot reason about it any further, because your emotions override your powerful logical processing ability.
- generic_user 10y ago
- anon987 10y agoNot interested in politics - even if it's from Sam. Flagged.
- grzm 10y agoThe guidelines ask us to flag and move on without comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- adamdonahue 10y agoYeah, Altman is a hypocrite. Zero respect for this guy. "Let's ban certain types of speech unless it's from me, of course."
- grzm 10y agoThe guidelines say don't comment on flagging. It's just not constructive. You're free to express other thoughts as long as they're civil and substantive. Why is this unreasonable?
- nkurz 10y agoHere's a link to the full text of the executive order: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States (January 27, 2017) https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3431228/Extreme-Vetting-EO.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3431228/Extreme-V...
- GCA10 10y agoBravo to Sam Altman for focusing on a way to talk about immigration that will resonate outside Silicon Valley. The full-strength SV mindset plays very well in the 650 area code ... but it's less effective and sometimes downright counter-productive in a national context. Here's the lead story on Breitbart today, demonizing Mark Zuckerberg for his position on immigration. http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/01/28/sheriff-clarke-im-tired-one-percenters-like-mark-zuckerberg-lecturing-us/ http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/01/28/sheriff-clarke-im-... I'm sharing it, not because I agree with a single word of it, but because it's in the mix. To convince the current Congress (or the emerging Supreme Court) of the merits of the pro-immigration case, the argument needs to be made in a way that polarizes less and enlightens more.
- braindead_in 10y agoI question how effective this policy is going to be in stopping the actual terrorists. Just as a determined hacker will always find a way to break into your server/network, the terrorists will find a way to illegally enter.
- thilmo 10y agoThey'll enter somewhere and kill infidels, it just won't be the United States. It will probably be Europe, or Australia, at least until those places start imposing similar bans. I reluctantly support this policy. Islamic terrorism has become sufficiently decentralised that we can no longer fight it with the means we've been using. Either we turn our own countries into police states where everybody is constantly monitored and searched, or we just do it at the border, where we're not actually impinging upon anyone's rights (note: nobody has a right to enter a different country as a guest). Treat Islamic terrorism like a disease. Either we all walk around in full protective gear all the time, or we simply quarantine the disease in the areas where it exists. That sucks for the uninfected people who live in the area, but... I dunno, being born in most places at most points in history has kinda sucked anyway.
- braindead_in 10y agoOr maybe treat the disease? No? If history has taught us anything, it is that the we survive. Wars, disease, plague has not killed us off. We will survive this as well. The question is at what cost. I am not ready to give up my humanity. That is the only thing separating me from a monkey. And US is not the only country affected by Islamic terrorism. A visa ban is hardly the magic panacea for terrorism.
- dragonwriter 10y agoNo 9/11 or later terrorists have come to the US as refugees or from the nations targeted for specific bans, so the idea that this is about protecting against terrorists is pretty amusing. Its almost as if it is a set of policies designed to avoid preventing terrorism.
- ftrflyr 10y agoI'm sorry, but you fail to understand exactly what the ACLU stands for - the first word says it all. American. Green Card holders, refugees, and illegal immigrants are not Americans. We need to and should protect Americans first. Period. For all of you who don't understand not agree with this, perhaps you are unamerican?
- freshyill 10y agoJesus, your back must be sore from contorting yourself into such a position.
- 467568985476 10y agoThere's nothing more American than voicing your dissent. You are way off base here. You're also wrong about what the ACLU does.
- ftrflyr 10y agoNo.Downvote away. I don't care at this point. This community is so liberal it's nauseating. Give it a few years and the scales will tip. When you down vote comments you don't like, it's no different than reddit or discourse or yahoo news.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- RangerScience 10y agoNo. And when you find yourself calling people unamerican, you're doing horribly. Historical example? McCarthyism. Does the ACLU stand for American as in persons, American as in culture, American as in country...? Unless you work there, not up to you. ACLU getting in on this implies America as a lot of things. America as a dream. America as a land of laws. America as a corporate entity honoring agreements. And more. Your attitude is the #1 difference I see between "democrats" and "republicans": Is America an exclusive club, or an inclusive one?
- tobltobs 10y agoLots of hypocrisy here today. There are 11 million refuges from Syria all over the world currently. The US gave shelter to about 0.1%. Fucking ridiculous 0.1%. There wasn't any uproar to hear about that shaming fact in the US until now. But when Trump makes it harder to recruit some IT workers from the middle East the HN bubble starts screaming.
- TuringNYC 10y agoI think the more shocking news event has been keeping out US permanent residents (i.e. Green Card holders) -- people we've legally lived here for years, own homes, have children in schools, contributed to social security, paid income taxes, etc.
- rboyd 10y agoYes, let us shed our puppet democracy for a corporatocracy.
- aidanrocke 10y agoA lot of people in the comments below are fussing over whether there is a Muslim ban. Well, think about it for two seconds. 1. This doesn't set a good precedent. 2. Donald Trump is aiming for a Muslim ban. He said so during the elections. He said it during the elections: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-president-election-muslim-ban-immigrants-website-statement-removed-a7408466.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum... At this point I'm surprised by how many people are bickering over this. Why don't you guys just say that you voted for Donald Trump? That would simplify the discussion.
- gred 10y agoMaybe under a Trump administration Silicon Valley will also object more strongly to the NSL regime, now that it's "someone I dislike doing something I dislike", rather than "someone I like doing something I dislike."
- _callcc 10y agoPeople like Sam Altman are alarmed now that Trump has shown he is willing to meddle in labor markets and potentially impose protectionist labor policies. As Sam says, "This is not just a Muslim ban." Indeed not!
- tlogan 10y agoSo Trump is a racist homophobe but he also won the elections: straight and fair. At last 45% of American population is like that - if their "economic anxiety" causes them to ignore rights of LGBT people, immigrants, latinos, blacks, and other minorities, then just imagine what they will do when there is no food on the table. I cannot blame these people: that is how it is. But we need to accept that fact: we live in a very diverse country where there are people who do not share the same moral values as SV, NY, LA, etc.
- skyfaller 10y agoDid he win straight and fair? According to Trump there was massive voting fraud. If massive fraud against him is possible, as he asserts, then massive fraud in his favor is also possible. Perhaps we should run the election again, just to make sure.
- adamnemecek 10y agoI think that one of the main issues of politics is the lack of real time data. There should be a website where people can vote every day (I'm not sure what exactly I mean by vote, I guess the bare minimum would be "i'm content with current political situation" and "i'm not content with current political situation"). Idk if this could take off but i feel like it could become a tool for voicing discontent and seeing some of these numbers of how many other people are voting could lead to something more. One of the fundamental instruments of dictatorships is deceiving the public about how many other people are dissatisfied with the regime. If you know for a fact that 9/10 of the population is extremely dissatisfied with the regime, you can topple these regimes.
- adamrezich 10y agoThis only works in a system where every citizen has perfect, unbiased information on what is happening in our government. Unfortunately, this is impossible, and humans are emotionally-driven creatures, so whatever memes get the most emotional traction in both traditional media and social media spread the quickest, regardless of logic or reason.
- protomikron 10y agoI just want to say that I appreciate Sam Altman for speaking up - I know that just speaking doesn't change things, but tech/business guys are often very cautious when discussing politics, as they fear that making their political stand public may have negative consequences to their business (which might be true), but in times like these one has to take position. So kudos, Sam, and please America don't go the route of politics that mimic politics of Europe's 1930s (sadly there are also suboptimal developments in Europe).
- eruditely 10y agoSikh here, thanks for supporting our eternal enemy without any acknowledgement on their problems, anglo-saxons will always be our post-classical enemy, we could have won the Anglo-Sikh wars if we weren't betrayed, and my grandmother didn't learn how to read because the literacy rate collapsed under colonial rule(From Ranjit Singhs empire), if Hari Singh was not betrayed by our last emperor we could have won. Duly noted. Excessive english sentimentalism, not realizing that peoples that evolved a morality that didn't make it necessary to hold land(AS) but evolved in a coastal city where administrating a navy is much cheaper(less cost to holding land) && having the slavic peoples pay the high cost of holding land for you made you guys excessively cosmopolitan, compare Leftist elite(Anglo-Saxons/Some-Hebrew) Hebrews evolved as a diaspora peoples, so they evolved a morality that allowed them to justify "Open-Borders/Open-Arms" immigration policies. * Morality is an excuse to justify the propagation of your genes. * You evolve the morality that suits your polity Right-Wing people = Landed peoples {Germans, Southerners, Sikhs, Broad Indo-Iranian Diaspora(Persians/Iranians etc} Left-Wing elite = Anglo+(Some) Jewish, The Asymmetry of Risk FAVORS US (It is always less risk * damage to favor less risk than it is to favor excessive risk taking, too much risk is irreversible, but too little isn't) Very importantly the way you guys evolved makes it so that your moral sentiments will literally not allow you to get the right answer as it's mal-adjusted. So it times where the lifeline of the empire requires judicious decision making trust the side that knows that the cost of holding land is very high and sometimes WE CANNOT allow more people in, due to the effects of assimilating a polity to high trust anglo/germanic ethics, and various other things. God, this is so annoying, it's like PG who won't read let all of us evolve and enjoy the massive surplus of benefits that evolving in medieval europe had, they hung the bottom .5%-1% of their population for centuries and got massive eugenic bonus for that, so know they are happily virtue signal being against the death penalty, but they will NOT allow us to get there! (By speeding up the death penalty). Naive social policies but excellence in the organization of production is the signature anglo-saxon trait, and people mistake English brilliance for the fact that they evolved to be successful at commercial life, it has very little to do with their intelligence, it's like a woodpecker thinking it's excellent at pecking wood because he's so smart, no Mr.Woodpecker your clout is from your massive eugenic evolutionary advantage and not from your brilliance, and it's a very severe mistake to take their advice thinking that you personally could succeed if only you listened to them. Heuristic evidence to prove my point: Warren Buffet(English/Leftist/Coastal evolution) : Charlie Munger(German/Right-Wing/Landed/Wiser) Compare{Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman} to {Marc Andreesan} but because in a market economy status is decided by "Extremes not means" that status continuum of those at top will always be decided by the people who evolved for industry, Anglo-Saxon whites and NW Europeans have higher variance in their genetic distribution than asiatics, and AS are the most successful polity, so their elite will always float to the top, outperform everyone except our dutch friends(Thiel/Musk) and then because of their highly specific evolutionary history rally people at discount(high status provides discount in rallying fans, see PG's follower count) because of said commercial success and then doom the republic with poor social policies BUT NOT being bad at organizing industry. Anglo-Capitalism tends to fail because of said elucidated mechanism, this is why Karl Marx said capitalism always collapses, not because capitalism itself, but because he observed Anglo-Capitalism when he did all his work in the "British-Museum" or so the story goes. Capitalism doesn't collapse, but English Capitalism does! It's just hard to tell they're the ones causing the collapse because in complex systems its difficult to perceive the consequences of actions cause of the time-lag. Because their social policies outweigh the advantage that their "black-swan farming" manages to benefit. The issue is both Sam/PG are undereducated. I definitely love them, but they need to stop advocating policies/politics. tl;dr naive politics of new england is destroying our country, but it's hard to tell because a) their success b) they're lovely people c) time lag between consequences d)they somewhat make up their bad social policies w/ excellence in industry
- stonogo 10y agoYou have directly caused my wife's parents to miss the birth of their first grandchild, and worse things I won't name because they would personally identify me, by electing an idiot who is terrified of fictional terrorists. You are a bad person, and I don't care whether you appreciate knowing it or not. I don't really give a shit what you think of Hillary, because she did not needlessly block my family from coming to me. Your guy did that. And he is capable of doing it because of you. There is nothing 'mindlessly nasty' here. The central theme of the Trump campaign, and now the Trump administration, is right-wing virtue signaling with no consideration for the effects those actions would have on real actual human beings. This shitty situation is exactly what everyone said would happen if he got elected, and you elected him anyway. There is no room for interpretation here. Hillary is a straw man. You elected a man who is causing American citizens active trauma and the best I can hope for you and those like you is that one day you at least realize what you have done, and take responsibility for it, instead of this weak-kneed "well I only support SOME of his policies" apologetics. You won. The least you can do is develop a fucking spine.
- mythrwy 10y agoI didn't vote for the rights of your wife's parents to enter the country. Sorry. I had other issues in mind.
- jimmywanger 10y ago> I don't really give a shit what you think of Hillary, because she did not needlessly block my family from coming to me. I don't really give a shit what you think about Trump, because he didn't call 25% of the american electorate deplorables and widened the gender gap in the United States by running an awful campaign? People like you who gloss over the marginalization of large swathes of American citizens because you think they are 'bad people' sicken me. You're the ones that stoop to personal attacks and you claim the moral high ground? Pathetic.
- ihsw 10y agoIt's this kind of language that hardens people's positions, myself included. I fully support his policies despite your family being affected, gotta break eggs to make an omelet. The campaign was about targeting and isolating the harmful effects of globalization as well as terrorism. The message of his campaign is loud and clear -- America is for Americans. No more siphoning off of resources and no more half-measures.
- artursapek 10y agoWhile you're at it, Sam, you should disassociate HN from Marky Mark for building his racist wall in Hawaii. He should be building bridges, not walls.
- jrcii 10y agoYou liberals took a stand -- it's called the election. The people who agree with these actions including me took a stand as well and our stand was larger. You lost. Get over it.
- oh_look 10y agoOh look, this is suddenly highly important to HN because Sam Altman said it. You're all such sheep suckling on the VC propaganda teat. That said, Trump is an embarrassment to your country, why on earth did you vote this clown into power?
- ftrflyr 10y agoHow do you expect us to take Ycombinator and the tech community seriously when you have a large number of persons within the tech community organizing grassroots initiatives for the purpose of having California succeed the from United States. It's a bit hypocritical to lump the tech community into your narrative to fit your narrative of how you believe America should operate and which values it should uphold.
- fhkatari 10y agoThis strikes a personal chord. Shortly after 9/11, I had taken a short trip back to India. I was transitioning from a student to work visa, and got held up indefinitely by the US consulate. It was a grueling experience, but what I remember most is how my employer stood by me. They contacted our local congressman, kept me employed, and even paid me for the time I could not work (two months), at a time when they were a struggling start-up. I know I am not the only immigrant who has experienced the incredible generosity of this country. For beneficiaries like us, it is all the more important to speak up, and take actions to welcome and support the next generation that wants a shot at the American Dream.
- 234dd57d2c8db 10y agoThis guy is really dramatic and acts like this is the end of the world. The USA is at war with Muslim terrorists. If Muslim terrorists come from certain countries, it makes sense to have strict checking on people from those countries. If I have a webapp, I'm going to be rejecting and sanitizing user input from things I know to be dangerous, such as single quotes and HTML tags. If you can't prove you're safe inputs to my country, you're not getting in, sorry.
- panic 10y agoTo Republican voters: I agree Hillary wasn't the greatest candidate, but there are bigger things at stake now. You have more power than most of us here to stop this Muslim ban. Call your representatives in Congress before your party allows America to be destroyed by white nationalists.
- rajacombinator 10y agoBillionaire Silicon Valley tech CEOs are NOT sympathetic characters with the general public. (Or pretty much anyone outside the VC echo chamber.) Might as well ask the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JPM to "take a stand." The only option SV has is to continue introducing bias and propaganda into their already heavily biased products.
- jonstewart 10y agoSama doesn't need to "remind anyone involved in this administration" about how they'll regret the actions of this administration. He simply needs to remind Congress--who can undo an executive order--and he can easily get their attention with lobbying and donations.
- throwawawaway 10y agoI realize this may seem alarmist, but I have to say it, nonetheless. Judging by the pace and effectiveness of policies being implemented, it seems possible that voting might not matter a few months from now. Whatever your action, it must be one of immediate consequences, however small. Call, write, donate, protest, support and spread statements such as sama's today.
- Tulip68 10y agoWhat Trumpf has done here is so far beyond the pale I think you have to look toward tinpot dictatorships to find a comparison. This is not a disagreement about tax policy, trade, healthcare, etc. Rather, this is an illegitimate, unqualified con-man who due to our anachronistic electoral system wound up as president despite the majority of Americans opposing him. It's now clear that Trump wasn't kidding and actually intends to follow through on his promises to ethnically cleanse America of Muslims, latinos and various other scapegoats. Therefore, the solution is extremely simple. Trump cannot continue to be President and we need every institution of our society -- our courts, congress, businesses, media, schools, etc -- to put aside petty partisan differences and unite on this point. Now that we have full knowledge that Trump is every bit the white-supremacist fascist he campaigned as, it cannot remain socially acceptable to continue to support him. The people who have supported him are complicit in ethnic cleansing and their beliefs are absolutely incompatible with the our core American ideals of multiculturalism, freedom-of-religion, equality and diversity. Trump needs to be removed from power and in our personal, familial and professional lives we need to make it our mission to stamp out the hatred and intolerance which fuelled the rise of this white-supremascist cancer which we if turns out we never fully excised.
- rdtsc 10y agoShouldn't we have been taking a stand against Obama who destabilized the region, was dropping bombs there and arming the "rebels" who had a revolving door relationship with ISIS and other such groups there. Refugees didn't come from a vacuum and it wasn't some natural disaster. They started streaming in because the West including US has been meddling and destabilizing that part of the world. Unfortunately it seems profiling to prevent terrorism has worked ok for Israel recently. It is not something pleasant and nice, but so far it seems there have been deadlier and more frequent terror act committed by radical Muslims in Europe than in Israel. People see the news from Europe and they don't want that here. A closer vetting of refugees from that region seems reasonable and letting them in unchecked seem irresponsible.
- RangerScience 10y agoHoswabout profiling on "radical" rather than "muslim"? You'd also catch many mass shooters, who (AFAIK) tend to still be radical, but usually aren't muslim. > letting them in unchecked seem irresponsible Why do you think they were being let in unchecked? Betcha TENBUX there's plenty of checks.
- rdtsc 10y ago> Hoswabout profiling on "radical" rather than "muslim"? You're right probably it should be based on "radicals". From those countries "radicals" would probably be "muslim radicals". From US it would probably be KKK-type militia like the ones from Oregon. I am not even sure how they would check mulsim vs christian. Wouldn't muslims just say "nope, totally not a muslim, I got to church every Sunday" and they name some church address they memorized? Then the whole "extreme vetting bit". How would they check? Does US have access to such detailed and exact intelligence about individuals from Yemen to know who did what when there?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- GrumpyNl 10y agoYou the people voted for him, so support him. Its a democracy. You dont always get what you want.
- t_20170128 10y agoDemocracy does not give anyone carte blanche to do whatever they want.
- stephancoral 10y agoAnd in a democracy such as the US, there are certain inalienable rights to peacefully assemble and protest against perceived injustices. Blindly supporting a president isn't what a democracy is all about. That's called a dictatorship.
- pauljaworski 10y agoIt would be a pretty powerful move if the big tech companies all participated in a blackout of their sites/services in protest.
- ebfd 10y agoI voted for Trump, and am very happy with the ban- I don't see the benefit of bringing in Muslim refugees.
- lucb1e 10y agoI like to see this opposing voice here. Discussion is good. Please though, don't use a throwaway: it makes me think you're a government person or bot.
- ebfd 10y agoNot a throwaway, just a coincidental new account. Your suspicion is obviously justified- I'll be on the lookout for posts about symbolic execution research to build credibility on.
- stale2002 10y agoUhhhh, bad things happen to people who publicly support trump in liberal bastions. A throwaway account is perfectly reasonable. I cannot count the number of times I hear supposedly tolerant people yell "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences." Where the consequences is usually violence. But thats OK, because it is not the government doing the violence. Being coy about being a Trump supporter is a necessary precaution.
- Retra 10y agoThat's because they are tolerant towards personal choices, not political ones. There's a big difference, and sticking them in the same bucket so you can shout 'hypocrisy' doesn't constitute a useful analysis.
- grzm 10y agoThere are plenty of voices of all different political persuasions here on HN (and some in each group feels they're in the persecuted minority). I don't think your parent is suggesting that they need to connect their HN account with their true identity. It is useful, however, to maintain a relatively consistent, if pseudonymous, account as that benefits the HN community as a whole.
- delegate 10y agoTech companies must use their advertising networks to influence public opinion on these issues. Instead of ads for products/services, they should allocate space for ethical and moral issues. Staying 'politically' neutral is no longer an option when we're dealing with issues which affect a great part of Earth's population, like climate change, globalised economy, aggression and war and so on. Tech companies must get political - in fact, they must reinvent politics like they reinvented so many other fields. We have to do this now or these people will slowly shut everyone down, like they did in China, Russia, Turkey, etc..
- earthly100x 10y agoYou nailed it.
- Animats 10y agoThings companies in tech can do: - Demand to see the detailed plan for TrumpCare. What's it going to cost us? What will it do to our employees? Where are the details? That's what lobbyists are paid to find out. Employers have a big stake in this. - Demand to see the tariff plan. So far, it's all talk, but soon it will be legislation. This has huge impacts for many businesses. Business planning and investment will stall until the details are settled. Already, you don't want to build a factory in China or Mexico. On the other side, will there be efforts to make it easier to sell into China? - About that infrastructure thing. What kinds of projects will be supported? Roads? Internet access? Pothole repair? - How serious is the administration about not employing illegal aliens? Will employer sanctions be increased or more stringently enforced? Will employers be going to jail? On the other side, will the enforcement be effective enough to force growers to use robotic picking? Is it time to get behind ag startups like Abundant Robotics? Get into robotic floor cleaning for commercial buildings? - Will there be tax incentives for investing in communities in rural America? If so, how much, and when will they become available? - Will Glass-Stegall come back? That was a Trump campaign promise, and it's in the Republican platform. Every one of those is a real business issue, and business needs to know what's going to happen.
- baytrailcat 10y agoI think this is a Chess vs Checkers issue. It doesn't matter if you lay out a plan based on reason if the other side is playing a different game altogether. Check out this simple strategy from the Republican playbook. They pour money into State elections (through Super PACs) during a census year and take control over legislature and the redistricting process and execute a horrendous gerrymandering which drives urban areas out of voting power. This leads them to hold on to a majority in the House at national level which forms the bedrock of their agenda execution at national level. When have you seen Democrats executing such long-term ruthless strategy? There is nothing stopping from Tech Billionaires doing the exact same thing Koch brothers did for the past 15 years.
- Animats 10y agoThere is that, but Republican politicians will listen to business about business issues.
- Mendenhall 10y agoI stopped reading as soon as I got to "Muslim ban". Muslims did not get banned. A Muslim ban would mean any Muslim coming from any country is banned. Sad that this is the level of discourse and understanding these days. I care more about correct terms than if you are for or against it. Stoking fears over something that does not exist is childish at best.
- andy_ppp 10y agoThose people implementing these orders need to also take responsibility for their actions. The concentration camp guards take just as much responsibility as dictators.
- dgregd 10y agoI live in Central Europe. It is really hard from my perspective to understand all that mass hysteria in US, especially in California. Maybe overdosing leftist propaganda causes that hysteria. Many products of Silicon Valley and Hollywood companies are simply blocked in China. Mainly to protect Chinese young companies. As far I known Google is completely blocked in China. Hollywood movies are also not freely distributed in China. And for some reason it is Trump accused of acting against free trade. What should be the right reaction for Chinese protectionism? More know-how transfer to the land of democracy? And if you really care about Muslim countries then explain to me: why the PhD brain drain is so good for these countries?
- t_20170128 10y ago>Many products of Silicon Valley and Hollywood companies are simply blocked in China. Mainly to protect Chinese young companies. As far I known Google is completely blocked in China. Hollywood movies are also not freely distributed in China. And for some reason it is Trump accused of acting against free trade. This is whataboutism at its finest. We are not talking about China because this has nothing to do with China.
- generic_user 10y ago> leftist propaganda The establishment left in the US has been a supporter of Corporate Globalization for many years. And the left in general has replaced class policy with race and gender ideology. So you have a situation now in the US where liberal millionaires and billionaires protest against the middle and working class and call them racist, etc for voting for populist policy that protect there economic interests by reforming free trade treaties like TPP and NAFTA, immigration limits, lower taxes, repairing infrastructure and so on, (ie much of Trumps campaign platform). The outrage is from those who have been consumed by this identity politics and the corporate globalism that sustains it. They have forgotten what economic solidarity is and there policy has little or no recognition of class. Identity and Race are placed above all else.
- 551199 10y agoSam is just worried where it leads to as many have pointed out. No more cheap labor for tech companies. They actually have to hire americans and pay market rates.
- dang 10y agoPlease don't make things up and slur people with them. Unless you have a mind reader (which you don't in this case; the claim is false), you'd have no way of knowing this. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13508809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13508809 and marked it off-topic.
- anagor 10y agoWhen did yc became a shill for Democratic party?
- therealdrag0 10y agoWhy would having opinions make someone a shill?
- downandout 10y agoI think that most Americans, even many Trump voters, disagree with this specific action. The problem we have now is that the left and the press have declared every single thing Trump has done both before and after the election as the worst thing that has ever befallen our nation. The press has left both Trump and the country tone-deaf. Donald Trump is a man extremely concerned with his popularity and public image. If the media were to present a balanced and fair portrayal of the positive (or non-negative) things he does, he would be able to gauge how unpopular actions like this ban are and would probably listen to the message. But the press simply cannot contain itself - CNN, for example, has turned into HuffPo with a cable channel. In short, the universally negative coverage of every breath Trump takes has actually empowered him. Trump will do some good things, such as making it less punitive for large corporations like Apple to repatriate foreign cash and invest it here, and he will do some bad things, like this temporary travel ban. The media will treat it all negatively, which gives him carte blanche to ignore all forms of criticism and defeats the entire purpose of the free press.
- Malician 10y agoI'm actively looking for things to praise. If he implements an effective carbon tax like Musk hopes, I'll be on the front lines cheering him. Oh, I just heard that the Director of National Intelligence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were removed from regular National Security Council meetings to be replaced by.. Steve Bannon. I really, really want Trump to start doing (some) good things so that I can cheer him, but it seems like every day is a new horror.
- smallgovt 10y agoI'm not sure if this will get any response, but figured I'd pose the question since I'm giving it serious thought. Has anyone considered renunciating their US citizenship? Do you have practical advice on how to go about doing so and handle the ramifications? Half my earnings going to government through taxes has been a hard to swallow fact, but funding an administration making decisions like this, just seems like something I want to be no part of.
- willstrafach 10y agoFYI, even if you renounce, you'll need to continue paying the US gov taxes on all worldwide income for awhile (I believe 10 years).
- vivekd 10y agoDoes this mean foreign students and foreign workers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen will have to leave America? That's really troubling. I wonder if Canada could step up and take the valuable human resource that America seems to be willing to throw away.
- pcmaffey 10y agoMaybe time to start OpenGov?
- 010a 10y ago> Guys, Donald Trump might be President. We need to speak out in our support for Clinton. Donald Trump becomes our democratically elected President. > Guys, _now_ is the time to take a stand against Donald Trump. No, the time was 6 months ago. You failed. It is astounding to me how little respect Silicon Valley elites have for the democratic process. This article is another instance of the continued marginalization of the massive voter base who voted for Trump, and, if it were read by them, would do nothing but convince them that Trump was the right choice. How about, instead of saying "Trump is really bad", we encourage those in power to work with him and find solutions to the problems he has highlighted that work across the isle? Sam is just perpetrating class and party politics with this article, and its infuriating.
- chvid 10y agoSilicon Valley should let go of politics and look inward; only supporting one party leaves you without influence when the other party wins.
- enitihas 10y agoReading this thread, I see people saying he is implementing his campaign promises. However, going through the thread on his victory (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752), most people seemed to be of the opinion that he will implement none of his election promises (eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12911551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12911551). It is fascinating to see how people perceive things and how they might turn out to be. I wonder what more is in store.
- arturmakly 10y agoperhaps we can use fake / fact based trump tweets to offset his #altfacts? it's asking a lot from the public - but it may help en masse. ~ http://TrumpTweets.io http://TrumpTweets.io
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- t14 10y agoTech companies standing up is slightly hypocritical when they themselves do not act or make socially just decisions e.g paying less tax than they should be I agree with the post but tech companies also need to claen up their own backyard before they can be a voice for good rather than just a voice for themselves
- fastflo 10y agoin the end only US citizens can decide. as a devotee for freedom and a world in peace i am very worried about those citizens' last decision concerning POTUS. i am not a US citizen. and i never felt the need to be one - just because i was lucky to be born in a country where in my opinion there is at least hope left for a better future. i hope more US citizens "take a stand" like the OP and show how they want their part of the world to be like. just my two cents - euro cents (a currency used in another union of only 28 states...)
- wundering 10y ago"Almost every member of the GOP I have spoken to knows that these actions are wrong. Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Kevin McCarthy and James Mattis said so themselves when Trump first proposed his Muslim ban" NY Times says about Paul Ryan today [1]: "House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said it was right on target." Which one is it? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/trumps-immigration-ban-disapproval-applause.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/trumps-immigration-ban...
- MylesHiIdebrand 10y agoMake America Great Again! Suck it Sam Altman.
- yongjik 10y agoWell, at least I hope this puts rest to one particularly galling argument made by some Trump supporters: "If you take Trump literally, you don't understand him." (...Well, one can hope, can't one?) Never vote for a politician if you can't take him literally. He might mean it literally.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- SSLy 10y agois there an option like "i don't really give a fuck about politics, US especially" anywhere on this site?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- babesh 10y agoYou should boycott every company that kisses the ring: Uber, Tesla, IBM, Exxon.
- hackuser 10y agoI strongly agree and I believe what Sam is doing is essential: People are hard wired to follow social norms, as I once heard a social scientist describe it. If we say nothing, we allow passivity or tacit acceptance of Trump to become a norm. That especially applies to leaders in every community, who have a special responsibility. Thanks Sam for making your voice heard.
- mavelikara 10y agoAmusing how Silicon Valley leadership is now bleeding their hearts out when legal immigrants from some countries are discriminated against. This same crowd had stood by silently when many of their workers - legal immigrants from India and China - had been discriminated against for many years in the name of per-country-green-card-quotas. How is "we chose to discriminate against Muslim majority countries" any different from "we chose to discriminate against populous countries"? Both look arbitrary to me.
- exit 10y agonationality is segregation
- koliber 10y agoI have a little private wish that Facebook would identify anti-immigration comments by people who themselves are immigrants and post a big red "hypocrite" banner above their posts. It's so infuriating how quickly people forget their own past and become entitled oppressors themselves.
- spir 10y agoWhy did this disappear off the front page so quickly? It has 934 points and is 4 hours old. Do stories have a customizable weight? Did this one start at the top, like the YC recruiting posts?
- grzm 10y agoIt's not a YC post, so it wouldn't have started at the top. It's a submission from an HN member on a blog post by a YC member. It's likely moved off of the front page for a couple of reasons: it's generated a heated discussion and likely tripped the "overheated discussion detector" algorithm (over 800 comments in 4 hours is quite a few), which will downweight the post. It's likely also attracted a number of HN member flags (though not enough to display the '[flagged]' tag) as there's been a lot of political discussion recently, and from what I've seen in the comments there's a lot of people who are growing exhausted of the politics on HN. The flags will also push it down the page.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- t_20170128 10y agoObama isn't president anymore. If Obama's foreign policy truly has failed the Middle East, isn't this just a continuation?
- thetruthseeker1 10y agoI hope I am not downvoted because I have a different view. I think Trump is a show man to some degree. He has said in the past he wanted to be in Hollywood. This is important to understand what drives him. I think what Trump is doing is a part of a show, to tell his voters he is credible. But I think his long term policies will not be this drastic even if they are. I think the tech community should work with him to do the right thing, dissenting with him is not the right way at this point in time. It is too early to decide that you are against Trump ( as a Tech community).
- anarazel 10y agoI do hope that he'll "soften up", but I don't see what consequences that has for now. Especially his show-man-ship seems to make it more important to show clearly that a significant portion of the public isn't ok with the policy. Some might argue that he's disregarding that side's positions anyway, but he's doing that to some degree anyway. Also, this is the period in his government which'll shape the rest of his term. There's more freedom/influence initially (government through reconciliation is time limited, no previous deals weighing you down, key personal brought into place). So even if he "softens" later, the consequences will be smaller. It's also not like just Trump's opinion plays a role - his current alliance of supporters has their own goals which in some cases is only tangentially aligned with Trump's. (FWIW: I didn't downvote)
- MicroBerto 10y agoCan't wait to see what Altman writes when the voter fraud is investigated and it's over 3 million fraudulent votes. We already know of 800,000 (http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinton-received-800000-votes-from-nonciti/ http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinto...). Detroit was apparent. The rest will come easily. What else is Altman wrong about??
- therealdrag0 10y ago> We already know of 800,000 Well no. The article you posted, which doesn't provide any data or source to any actual study, just says some researchers EXTRAPOLATED polling data, and they themselves say it is NOT plausible for non-citizen votes to account for all of Clinton's margin. So not only is this hardly anything to base a conclusion off of, the conclusion that is arrived at is that Clinton still won the popular vote. Focusing on voter fraud after winning is a weird tack to take, especially when the president has a 36% approval rating, so many people would enjoy a revote.
- MicroBerto 10y agoFocusing on voter fraud is critical to sovereignty, especially with future elections coming up. A nation needs strict voting laws or it is not a nation. Besides non-citizens voting, there were also multiple votes across county and state lines as well as dead people voting. So I'm not just blaming illegal aliens. Ultimately, this argument is not going to go anywhere, so how about this: How much money would you like to bet, that IF there is a voter fraud investigation, there were over 2,868,520 fraudulent votes cast across the nation? Approval ratings are far greater than 36% already BTW.
- therealdrag0 10y agoI agree that strict voting is important. I'm just waiting for evidence of widespread fraud before passing judgment. Most recounts end up with different numbers just due to human error. This is "expected", and that should be fixed.I just read the book "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" and he mentions that there was an election in Washington State that was recounted 4 times with different outcomes each time. That's crazy. And as far as we know nothing to do with malicious intent. > How much money would you like to bet... I wouldn't bet any money because I have no idea. I assume there is some baseline level of fraud in most elections. It wouldn't surprise me if there is SOME fraud, but as most of the hullabaloo around fraud seems much more ideological than evidence based, I have no idea what to actually expect.
- dgudkov 10y agoUS immigration policy became broken long time ago. Why the rage only now? I'm not a US citizen and entering the US used to be a major headache every time. Every freaking time. Nobody cared during Obama's time but now all of a sudden it's "time to take a stand". I suspect it's way more about the despise of Trump than real concern about the current state of US immigration policy.
- wallace_f 10y agoIt's interesting Trump's administration has brought political threads to HN -- in fact they're becoing the most-upvoted threads
- amai 10y agoRelevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dGPo9XBIPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dGPo9XBIPA
- jinushaun 10y agoTech can also do a lot by stopping moving everyone to California. Winning the popular votes doesn't mean much when those votes only come from states that Hilary already won.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]