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Yes, we can demand our leaders signal their virtue to us. They'll all turn their backs on Trump. Maybe we can even get Peter Thiel to do so. I'm sure we disagr

Yes, we can demand our leaders signal their virtue to us. They'll all turn their backs on Trump. Maybe we can even get Peter Thiel to do so. I'm sure we disagree on a Thiel presidency. But I'm pretty sure we're 90% in agreement on a Bannon presidency. I'm the epitome of what Bannon opposes - the American who feels more connected to the geek in Bangalore than the trucker in Nebraska. As Thiel and Bannon try to push Trump to prioritize their own agendas, I really don't want Bannon to get his way. Trump has one fewer person in the Thiel camp talking to him. If we push harder, we can shrink the Thiel camp down to just Thiel. Trump will see the tech people moving away from him and the nationalists rallying around him. What positive result do you think will come from this?

tptacek 10y ago
I refuse for a moment to entertain the notion that you, of all possible personalities on Hacker News, find it ethically indefensible for a group of people to use their market power to influence policy. Pull all the rhetorical tricks you have in your bag --- "virtue signaling" is so stale it's begun to stink --- and I still won't dignify this argument from you.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I didn't say it's ethically indefensible. I said it's counterproductive.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    You seem to believe Thiel is an important mover in the Trump administration. But there's very little evidence that's the case; it's the sort of thing it seems to me one could only come to believe if their only source of political news was places like Hacker News. Reality's Trump administration is governed by Priebus and the GOP establishment on the one hand, and Bannon's clownshow on the other. I haven't read a story about Thiel's influence other than the fact that Trump made a fool out of him by enacting exactly the policy on immigration restriction that Thiel said wouldn't happen when he said people should Trump "seriously but not literally". It seems to turn out that Thiel wasn't anywhere nearly as influential as he thought he was.
hackuser 10y ago
They are doing far more than "signaling", whatever that is, they are depriving Trump of an essential good in a democracy, political influence and credibility, and giving it to his opposition. If Trump looks acceptable to high-profile business leaders, many in the business community will assume Trump and what he is doing is acceptable.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  If serving on the Strategic and Policy Forum demonstrates a view that "Trump looks acceptable", then Trump looks acceptable to Jamie Dimond, Jack Welch, Bob Iger, and a pile of others who are much more "high-profile business leaders". I am not sure depriving him of Kalanick's portion of that is meaningful if that's all that happens.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Jamie Dimon, of course. Typo.

tptacek 10y ago

I refuse for a moment to entertain the notion that you, of all possible personalities on Hacker News, find it ethically indefensible for a group of people to use their market power to influence policy. Pull all the rhetorical tricks you have in your bag --- "virtue signaling" is so stale it's begun to stink --- and I still won't dignify this argument from you.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I didn't say it's ethically indefensible. I said it's counterproductive.
- tptacek 10y ago
  You seem to believe Thiel is an important mover in the Trump administration. But there's very little evidence that's the case; it's the sort of thing it seems to me one could only come to believe if their only source of political news was places like Hacker News. Reality's Trump administration is governed by Priebus and the GOP establishment on the one hand, and Bannon's clownshow on the other. I haven't read a story about Thiel's influence other than the fact that Trump made a fool out of him by enacting exactly the policy on immigration restriction that Thiel said wouldn't happen when he said people should Trump "seriously but not literally". It seems to turn out that Thiel wasn't anywhere nearly as influential as he thought he was.

hackuser 10y ago

They are doing far more than "signaling", whatever that is, they are depriving Trump of an essential good in a democracy, political influence and credibility, and giving it to his opposition. If Trump looks acceptable to high-profile business leaders, many in the business community will assume Trump and what he is doing is acceptable.

dllthomas 10y ago
If serving on the Strategic and Policy Forum demonstrates a view that "Trump looks acceptable", then Trump looks acceptable to Jamie Dimond, Jack Welch, Bob Iger, and a pile of others who are much more "high-profile business leaders". I am not sure depriving him of Kalanick's portion of that is meaningful if that's all that happens.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  Jamie Dimon, of course. Typo.