5 ms·

From what I've seen, I don't believe it's universal. The hostility is toward certain kinds of people who encourage and enable centralization or crystallization

From what I've seen, I don't believe it's universal. The hostility is toward certain kinds of people who encourage and enable centralization or crystallization of power. People like Richard Stallman are generally liked, but people like Peter Thiel or Mark Zuckerberg are not. Mind you I don't know what the Tankie side of things really says because I loathe them.

jrs95 9y ago
It's definitely not universal. But in my opinion, it's more like there are people who think they're better than us that are upset that we're as successful as we are. And being predominantly white men doesn't help, even if we do tend to lean left. That shitty documentary Nancy Pelosi's daughter made is probably a good example of that. The premise is basically that tech workers are terrible and are destroying San Francisco. I'm sure there's similar sentiments on the right as well, but theirs seem to be more of "these rich tech liberals want to tell us how to live" or something along those lines.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Do software engineers predominantly lean left? I think the left / right debate is quite outdated, with both sides having equally good (but also bad) ideas about certain subjects. Why can't you lean left on healthcare and LGBT rights, yet more right on certain economic policies and tax issues?
  - jrs95 9y ago
    I think both are true. Software engineers tend to vote Democrat, but they're also much more likely to be libertarians than the average person. Or even "alt-right" to be honest. Outside of a general leftward bias, I think we seem to be more prone to exploring ideological extremes.
    - jhawk28 9y ago
      It depends more on the industry. Software Engineers for Google and Facebook are probably more left leaning. Software engineers for a defense contractor are probably more right leaning.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      Alt-right is white nationalism. So you've gone from libertarian which is not really left or right (depends on issue but revolves mainly around a weak central government except as it relates to protecting civil liberties and national defense), completely skipped moderate conservatives, conservatives, and right wing, and even hard right, and landed on a blatantly racist movement that has no f'n idea how the economy even works which is why they keep thinking tax cuts for people who make over $10 million a year creates jobs, but bank deregulation is good, but the banks f'd them over in 20008, but for sure stop importing brown people, legal and illegal, and especially if they're Muslim. Most alt-right are just deeply ignorant people. But some are malevolent. The base ideology requires people believe vicious things about "the other" who happen to be merely different. They refer to liberals as libtards, and prefer strong leaders like Putin, Kim, Duerte, Erdogan, and even weaker autocrats, as compared to "vile libtards" like say Clinton (who is something like a cross between Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Thatcher). No doubt they'd prefer Putin as president of the United States than a Clinton.
      - yellowapple 9y ago
        "The base ideology requires people believe vicious things about 'the other' who happen to be merely different." The "alt-right" are not the only ones who are guilty of this, unfortunately. This is a characteristic of the extremes of pretty much every political position or ideology. Personally, the whole "if you're not with us you're against us" mentality of both of the mainstream political parties is what drove me to vote Libertarian last election. Johnson's campaign seemed a lot more focused on welcoming folks with differing political views (which is unsurprising, given the rather long range of libertarianism from libertarian socialism to anarcho-capitalism, and given the fact that the Libertarian Party is in no position to be alienating voters), which was very refreshing amid both Clinton and Trump basing their campaigns on how bad the other candidate is (and further on how bad the other candidate's supporters are).
        cmurf 9y ago
        The American political system punishes general election voters for not compromising on one of the two major parties. It lacks runoff elections, as well as range or preferential voting strategies so that voters are not so harshly punished by deviating from consensus candidates. The ensuing dissonance upon understanding this punishment is what encourages our low voter participation rates, as well as hyper-partisan politics, tribalism. In addition, there's a pervasive "government sucks" that contemplating a state by state change in voting law, and it would have to be state by state, seems like dark comedy. It would take a lot of political committment way beyond that of voting 3rd party to fix the problem we have in the American political system. Americans are politically lazy, content to not vote, or vote 3rd party, and suffer the inevitable result, engage in political denialism, than the critical thinking required to fix it. The effect of closed primary elections also enhances this tribalism and discourse problem. It's maybe 8-12% of the total eligible electorate that get a presidential primary candidate the nomination for the two major parties. Both major political parties sabotaged the Electoral College by stacking it with party loyalists rather than, you know, smart people or even contemplative people or even randomly selected citizens. We could hardly do worse choosing dead people for Electors. A case to watch is Gill vs Whitford before the Supreme Court next year.
- fundabulousrIII 9y ago
  Recently run into this in uni. God save me from the highly educated minority who are always right and love to argue (with tenure). Basic fact: You don't know anything except what you are told by what I design.

jrs95 9y ago

It's definitely not universal. But in my opinion, it's more like there are people who think they're better than us that are upset that we're as successful as we are. And being predominantly white men doesn't help, even if we do tend to lean left. That shitty documentary Nancy Pelosi's daughter made is probably a good example of that. The premise is basically that tech workers are terrible and are destroying San Francisco. I'm sure there's similar sentiments on the right as well, but theirs seem to be more of "these rich tech liberals want to tell us how to live" or something along those lines.

charlesdm 9y ago
Do software engineers predominantly lean left? I think the left / right debate is quite outdated, with both sides having equally good (but also bad) ideas about certain subjects. Why can't you lean left on healthcare and LGBT rights, yet more right on certain economic policies and tax issues?
- jrs95 9y ago
  I think both are true. Software engineers tend to vote Democrat, but they're also much more likely to be libertarians than the average person. Or even "alt-right" to be honest. Outside of a general leftward bias, I think we seem to be more prone to exploring ideological extremes.
  - jhawk28 9y ago
    It depends more on the industry. Software Engineers for Google and Facebook are probably more left leaning. Software engineers for a defense contractor are probably more right leaning.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Alt-right is white nationalism. So you've gone from libertarian which is not really left or right (depends on issue but revolves mainly around a weak central government except as it relates to protecting civil liberties and national defense), completely skipped moderate conservatives, conservatives, and right wing, and even hard right, and landed on a blatantly racist movement that has no f'n idea how the economy even works which is why they keep thinking tax cuts for people who make over $10 million a year creates jobs, but bank deregulation is good, but the banks f'd them over in 20008, but for sure stop importing brown people, legal and illegal, and especially if they're Muslim. Most alt-right are just deeply ignorant people. But some are malevolent. The base ideology requires people believe vicious things about "the other" who happen to be merely different. They refer to liberals as libtards, and prefer strong leaders like Putin, Kim, Duerte, Erdogan, and even weaker autocrats, as compared to "vile libtards" like say Clinton (who is something like a cross between Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Thatcher). No doubt they'd prefer Putin as president of the United States than a Clinton.
    - yellowapple 9y ago
      "The base ideology requires people believe vicious things about 'the other' who happen to be merely different." The "alt-right" are not the only ones who are guilty of this, unfortunately. This is a characteristic of the extremes of pretty much every political position or ideology. Personally, the whole "if you're not with us you're against us" mentality of both of the mainstream political parties is what drove me to vote Libertarian last election. Johnson's campaign seemed a lot more focused on welcoming folks with differing political views (which is unsurprising, given the rather long range of libertarianism from libertarian socialism to anarcho-capitalism, and given the fact that the Libertarian Party is in no position to be alienating voters), which was very refreshing amid both Clinton and Trump basing their campaigns on how bad the other candidate is (and further on how bad the other candidate's supporters are).
      - cmurf 9y ago
        The American political system punishes general election voters for not compromising on one of the two major parties. It lacks runoff elections, as well as range or preferential voting strategies so that voters are not so harshly punished by deviating from consensus candidates. The ensuing dissonance upon understanding this punishment is what encourages our low voter participation rates, as well as hyper-partisan politics, tribalism. In addition, there's a pervasive "government sucks" that contemplating a state by state change in voting law, and it would have to be state by state, seems like dark comedy. It would take a lot of political committment way beyond that of voting 3rd party to fix the problem we have in the American political system. Americans are politically lazy, content to not vote, or vote 3rd party, and suffer the inevitable result, engage in political denialism, than the critical thinking required to fix it. The effect of closed primary elections also enhances this tribalism and discourse problem. It's maybe 8-12% of the total eligible electorate that get a presidential primary candidate the nomination for the two major parties. Both major political parties sabotaged the Electoral College by stacking it with party loyalists rather than, you know, smart people or even contemplative people or even randomly selected citizens. We could hardly do worse choosing dead people for Electors. A case to watch is Gill vs Whitford before the Supreme Court next year.
fundabulousrIII 9y ago
Recently run into this in uni. God save me from the highly educated minority who are always right and love to argue (with tenure). Basic fact: You don't know anything except what you are told by what I design.