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At liberal tech companies, those who disagree on politics say they’re isolated
- leecarraher 9y agodoes this differ at all from other organizations that have a strongly biased demographic. I work in tech. and admit there is a bias, but that is one of the many reason i prefer to working in a tech field. Is the difference, that in tech, in particular the silicon valley tech sector, work work and life are so intertwined, that not only is your work-life politically bias, but by virtue of this a la carte lifestyle, everything else is too.
- thedz 9y agoIMO, part of the problem is that some "conservative" viewpoints nowadays are directly attacking or undermining how your coworkers might live. And in many cases, so much so that their views go from "well, that sucks but I can still live my life" to "if your views were enacted, my way of life would be destroyed".
- thescribe 9y agoSo taking away a conservative's guns or forcing them to pay into a social safety net are equally immoral?
- yahna 9y agoPretty much. Economic wise I think the republicans are wrong, but it's not a moral issue (well, it is because of corporate influence but that's a different argument). It's when you start doing things like making it illegal to 2 adults to have sex in the privacy of their home that I start to think "these are just bad people".
- mrtree 9y agoWhat people call conservative to me sounds like common sense. How do you tell your indian/chinese/pakistani/... colleagues that they are very nice but that they are making their country unrecognisable and that globalisation alienates people. What if you are tired of multiculturalism, how do you "revert back" if you live in EU or US?
- chrisabrams 9y agoI grew up in Texas but worked in Silicon Valley for a few years. One of the toughest adjustments was going from a small conservative town to a major liberal populace. It was astonishing the number of people who got angry _at me_ for having a different opinion then they did. At one workplace I saw two coworkers get into a fist fight because the liberal was "offended" that the conservative differed on a viewpoint. Go to Texas and I'm sure you can find the opposite if you are looking for it. It's just a shame that we're letting society create the lens that we want to see, and we push things out that don't fit into our comfy bubble blanket. Edit: To clarify what people got angry at me most: I told them I voted for Bush. It was simply that statement, nothing more.
- brookside 9y agoThat anger could be reasonable or not, depending on your opinions.
- subru 9y agoNo, it's not reasonable. It's a vote, not justification to throw fists or anything in between, even.
- brookside 9y agoThrowing fists is violence, not anger.
- dwringer 9y agoOP edited the original comment to mention an alleged fist fight after getting a slew of responses directed at the "anger" aspect.
- AndrewDucker 9y agoA vote to treat people badly is _absolutely_ a good reason to be angry at someone. If you're voting to take away people's healthcare, or to discriminate against them based on who they love, or their gender, then of course they are angry!
- staticelf 9y agoHonestly, I am not the least surprised. I don't know if anyone is really. Because never before has there been so much hate towards simply holding different opinions. People actively share "if you like x you can remove me as your friend" shit on facebook, companies fire people for expressing their political views and media companies "choose a side" more then ever. And don't tell me Google isn't. Just look at Youtube with their new anti-free speech rules that they enforce in restricted mode and the new demonitazation for content. Look at their search engine. If you swap to DuckDuckGo you will instantly see the bubble you were in and the many results that are not shown. This is not really unique to USA or a single company like Google, it's happening within EU and other companies as well. This is coming from me, who probably would in the US be called a communist by conservatives :)
- bgun 9y ago"Never before" is a very shortsighted statement. I know we in tech like to think that mass/social media is pushing the limits of the human psyche to think and do things our ancestors' primitive brains would never comprehend. But there is no way to objectively say that we're especially worse off these days - just that we're as human as ever.
- staticelf 9y agoWhat I mean is that it's very easy to sent hate to other people and group up due to internet and social media.
- ainiriand 9y agoIf the information channels are polarized, so are the opinions.
- AndrewDucker 9y agoIf someone is "simply holding different opinions" that people should have lesser rights, or be treated differently because of how they were born, then we shouldn't really be surprised that people are upset by that. I'm not seeing hatred towards people for arguing over correct levels of import taxes. I'm seeing it because they're backing politicians who are actively causing harm to real human beings.
- neom 9y agoI think this is all circles of America right now. I'm a typical social leaning west coast tech dude and I cannot be pragmatic in my conversations and points about the state of affairs because I'm immediately a supporter of this that or the next thing. Constructive public discourse is dead?
- vgh 9y agoOne cannot even seem to have 'conservative' stances on one thing and 'liberal' stances on others. And, no, I'm not libertarian either. The US had a great opportunity to elect a third party last time around, yet decided to dig in its heels more on candidates that were unpopular and take out their spite against 'the other side'. So you can't even debate an issue. You have to take a 'side' on an issue.
- neom 9y agoTotally!!! It's wild. I feel like growing up it was normal to identify as say a very social leaning fiscal conservative. These days if I say everyone should be allowed to be married and everyone should be allowed to carry a gun, I'm likely labeled the opposite view of the person I'm talking with (I don't re: guns, to be clear). Very strange times.
- ainiriand 9y agoIt is head or tails now. The grey area is a myth.
- prizewinnah 9y agoIt's almost like voting for the end of the nation as we knew it has consequences.
- StavrosK 9y agoI don't think it's even just conservatives, anyone who has an even slightly different opinion than the golden calves US libertarian society has set up is shunned. It's closer to religion at this point. I consider myself liberal, but (and?) I disagree on various topics, mostly on affirmative action. However, if you think that introducing more bias is a bad way to solve existing bias, you're a racist. It's not "I disagree with you", it's "your opinion is different from what I adhere to so I won't even consider it" on very specific topics, and my opinions aren't even that far from the rest of the ideology. I can certainly see how it'd make people with wildly different opinions feel isolated.
- oh_sigh 9y ago> However, if you think that introducing more bias is a bad way to solve existing bias, you're a racist. You can always refer to the UK(a country that ended slavery before the USA and didn't need a civil war to do it) decided that affirmative action is illegal exactly because it is a racist policy.
- sp332 9y agoIt's already illegal in 1/3 of the USA right? California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Washington already banned it.
- dragonwriter 9y agoNo, they didn't ban “affrimative action”; they banned a very small subset of the mechanisms that have been used for affirmative action in certain contexts.
- sp332 9y agoOk, yeah. But as a barometer of attitude, that's a lot of people who agree that affirmative action is a bad idea. It's not an unassailable tenet of American politics.
- classybull 9y agoAren't these the same sort that will moan ceaselessly about the ludicrousness of "safe spaces" and "snowflakes"? I don't particularly care. You're free to speak your mind. You're not free to force people around you agree. Either get over it, or move on. I hear welding is an in-demand industry and I bet they'll find more receptivity to their viewpoints there.
- gumby 9y ago> I hear welding is an in-demand industry and I bet they'll find more receptivity to their viewpoints there. I know what point you're trying to make here, and it's true that there may be more receptivity, but welders are more likely to be, say, pro union than your run of the mill SV bro. Your point about the "safe spaces" is hilarious!
- classybull 9y agoYes, I was mostly being flippant there. I've known several welders and iron workers and they tend to mostly be apolitical and when they have opinions they're a fair mix of both left and right. But welders is what came to mind first when I was thinking of "stereotypically right wing jobs". Whoops.
- 52-6F-62 9y agolol. While I get your point, I would say it's not quite true. At least in Canada. Source: father's a 2nd-generation pipe fitter at a large refinery. The guys that work those kinds of rough jobs tend to be a bit more rough around the edges, but tend to support more left-wing policies. They just feel the tax bite more than people like us who can take a "work from home" day, because they have to put a lot of themselves into their work every day. But most union-member tradespersons tend to support our public healthcare, public works, view the company's motives with skepticism, and have an arguably higher degree of respect for human life than a 3rd-generation white collar worker. (They need to, because their coworkers can die if they don't) But like I said, that's in Canada. I can't speak for the US.
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- ainiriand 9y agoIf they are isolated maybe this is not so bad taking into account how they see immigration, isn't it? Jokes apart, sometimes is very hard to left aside those differences that might be hiding an interesting person. I am in the same situation with a coworker which is very conservative, sometimes is hard to get along with it.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoCan't we just keep politics out of the workplace? Who really wants to sit next to the guy who's going to spend a half an hour telling me about my company's “social justice agenda”?
- fhood 9y agoI don't know. It is kind of hard. I feel that if someone supports Trump, it is my moral obligation to change their mind. I wouldn't shame or degrade them, but I would argue my point fairly strongly.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoI'd say that makes my case for me. Politics has a draw, a tribalistic compulsion that draws everyone in. That's why it shouldn't exist in the workplace.
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- TeMPOraL 9y agoOr frankly, anywhere else for that matter. We should strive to be above those "tribalistic compulsions".
- MBCook 9y agoWhile I generally agree with the sentiment, if I were a manager that seems like something I wouldn't be able to allow because t would be too disruptive for no company benefit. That's assuming it's done during work hours. If done outside it may still be an issue if it starts to effect the working relationship.
- fhood 9y agoI agree, and I don't actually engage in political arguments at work, but the compulsion is there for the reason I specified.
- reader5000 9y agoConstant digital stimulation is cognitively infantilizing, rendering adult conversation dead.
- tboyd47 9y agoMy question is, why do all of a person's co-workers need to know their political affiliation? You can choose what aspects of yourself you want to reveal and conceal from people at work. For example, I don't reveal my religious beliefs to people at work unless someone asks me, which rarely happens. Politics is much the same. > He showed coworkers emails he exchanged with Ivanka Trump after he mailed her photos he took at the Republican convention, and on election night, he texted colleagues snapshots from the floor of Trump’s victory party in New York City. This person sounds like they're trying to rub their political views in everyone else's face.
- feedjoelpie 9y ago"At conservative oil companies, those who disagree on politics say they're isolated" Okay, see how utterly useless this "controversy" is now?
- diego_moita 9y agoI believe you're 200% right. But, unfortunately, the irony is that the same mechanism that isolates conservatives on SV and liberals on oil companies is working here to isolate your good sense in Hacker News.
- feedjoelpie 9y agoI can't believe we're suddenly having a moral crisis about business cultural politics... over the fact that a guy was fired for arguing in part that historically discriminated-against groups are underrepresented because of biological unfitness. Political business monocultures have been a thing since forever. Dial the clock back a little and you have bosses pressuring you to campaign for Nixon. Dial it forward again and you have CEOs starting meetings with prayer. Dial it forward to today where one dude gets fired for arguing Nazi race science, and suddenly we all have to chat.
- diego_moita 9y agoI see it more like instinct vs. reason. When reason fights instinct, the later usually wins. We get surprised when groups that we expect to be sophisticated behave exactly like Polynesian/Amazonian tribes or chimpanzees in the Congo. But, many times, civilization is just a varnish over bestiality, a make-up on a pig. Deep down we react like tribes that repress behavior that looks threatening to our group cohesion.
- twoquestions 9y agoCan confirm, I'm on the Left in an oil company and luckily I don't have to talk to many people in informal situations day-to-day. It doesn't help that the company is Authoritarian, so I made a mistake talking about the sad state of the 4th Amendment here.
- nxsynonym 9y ago>>“Work is work, and not everything needs to be about politics,” he said. While he sees liberal colleagues who sit nearby don’t seemingly need to filter their comments, he’s decided it’s not worth engaging, adding “I don’t want to be known as that guy who wants to argue with everybody.” As someone who falls on the Liberal side of the spectrum, this bothers me more than almost anything else regarding modern day politics. If you fall in line with the "right" (left) side, you are allowed to say any number of disparaging, mean, hateful, or ignorant comments without fear of consequence - as long as it's aimed at the political right-wing. If you mention you are a conservative or hold conservative views, you are aligned with the worst of the worst and anything you say is inherently wrong. The liberal echo chamber is just as bad, if not worse, than the conservative's version of the same thing. I don't think work is ever the correct place to discuss political views in depth, but I can't imagine feeling like I can't express any view without fear of being downright hated.
- zimpenfish 9y ago> If you mention you are a conservative or hold conservative views, [many of which involve punitive action against the least well off / most marginalised in society] > you are aligned with the worst of the worst and anything you say is inherently wrong. Amazing, really, that people think less of you when you specifically say you think less of others (which is the core conservative stance.)
- jimbokun 9y ago"Amazing, really, that people think less of you when you specifically say you think less of others (which is the core conservative stance.)" And here you are, thinking "less of others" in the very same sentence in which you decry it.
- zimpenfish 9y agoI didn't decry thinking less of others - that would be hypocritical because I publically and loudly think less of anyone who supports the GOP and/or Tories (check my comment history). I do decry people who bleat about being thought less of when their own stance is thinking less of people - it's your petard, your lookout.
- archagon 9y agoIf your politics, or the beliefs of those who share your politics, make your coworkers feel hurt, scared, and angry, then I see absolutely no reason to bring them to your workplace. It's basic human interaction 101. And sorry, but insisting that people grow a thicker skin won't work, because that's not how people operate. I discuss controversial topics in person with my close friends, and I don't feel any poorer for it.
- Banthum 9y agoLet's imagine we work together. I say your politics, whatever they are, make me feel hurt, scared, and angry. Obviously you can't argue with this; my feelings are my feelings and are thus inarguable. Therefore, by your basic rule, you are no longer allowed to even state any of your political beliefs, because such would make me feel hurt, scared, and angry. And it doesn't matter what your beliefs are or how you arrived at them or what reasoning is behind them. Because according to you, maintaining my feelings, no matter how fragile or hypersensitive or unreasonable they may be, is an absolute imperative and all other values must be sacrificed to achieve that goal. Now I've got total control over the speech of anyone around me. I can shut down anyone, making any statement on any topic. I need only declare that I feel hurt, scared, or angered by that statement - and such inarguable declarations have absolute unappealable power to silence. See the problem here? It's obvious you can't run a society this way. It just becomes a race to the bottom of people being more and more hypersensitive to gain power. At a certain point, people do need to be told to grow a thicker skin.
- archagon 9y ago> Now I've got total control over the speech of anyone around me. I can shut down anyone, making any statement on any topic. Not really. This only works if your opinions are part of the current zeitgeist. If not, then nobody will really care what some loner is hurt by, and will probably just avoid talking to you, period. > At a certain point, people do need to be told to grow a thicker skin. OK, but that doesn't work. It only makes people angrier and even more determined to exclude you.
- thedz 9y ago
- gerbilly 9y agoI think the problem is that when someone hears your opinion on one of the big issues that divide liberals from conservatives, they often make the leap and assume that they also know your opinions on all the other issues as well.
- diego_moita 9y agoI don't understand why is this surprising. Has there ever been any group of primates/hominids where deviating behavior isn't frowned upon? Every group prizes social cohesion. When a behavior looks threatening to that cohesion it is a natural defense for the group to isolate such threat. It is a necessary part of its survival, like an organism reacting to parasites, infections or offending threats. This reaction even has respectable philosophical ethical justifications, see Karl Popper's discussion on the limits of tolerance. I do not condone with intolerance, but we should understand that, at a very primary instinctive level, there are evolutionary and biological reasons for this. These are even some of the reasons for the downvotes I will get.
- romanovcode 9y agoThe problem might be the hypocrisy of the situation a.k.a. Free speech until you say something I don't like.
- diego_moita 9y agoI agree. My point is that when reason and instinct collide, instinct wins most of time.
- didgeoridoo 9y agoI think the real issue is that we're sliding toward excessive emotionalism in our politics, and the side with the simplest and most poingnant argument is the one that tends to dominate on any particular issue. Sometimes liberals are better at riling people up, but conservatives certainly have managed some "victories" as well. This is precisely the wrong way to make political decisions, but it pushes all of our lizard-brain buttons and I'm not sure how we pull out of it.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago"where free thinking is prized yet the workforce is predominantly liberal." I wonder if liberals who work for libertarian company cultures also feel isolated. Union organisers certainly do - until they're fired. Or, in some notable historical cases, murdered.
- billsmithaustin 9y agoWell sure, but this isn't just a tech thing. At conservative petroleum companies, those who disagree on politics say they're isolated too.
- peoplewindow 9y agoIs that correct? Can you cite that? I can imagine they may feel isolated in the sense that their views are not very common. But isolated in the sense of, if I let on I voted for Obama I will get fired? I am very skeptical of that. My experience of these issues is that one part of society has become exceptionally intolerant far beyond other parts. I do not hear stories of conservative companies engaging in mini civil wars and retribution firings over liberal memos.
- jenkstom 9y agoYou should try being liberal in a red state. I've had people try to run me off of the road for an Obama sticker before. It's not social isolation here, it's straight up aggression.
- JSONwebtoken 9y agoYou are aware of what you're doing and the reactions it will incite. What do you think happens to parked cars with MAGA stickers in California? Well you don't have to wonder, there are more than enough "social experiments" on youtube documenting this subject matter.
- jimbokun 9y ago"You are aware of what you're doing and the reactions it will incite." Kind of like the girl who wears a mini-skirt and gets raped?
- ams6110 9y agoWhy do you jump to that when we're talking about reactions to bumper stickers expressing a political point of view?
- plandis 9y agoYou're effectively arguing that you know (and possibly deserve) any reaction you get out of having a certain opinion. Justifying that with "well, it happens to others" is not great. You political opinions should never be justification for harm. As the person whose post that was deleted mentioned, this is effectively the same type of argument as saying: "well, you know what will happen if you wear a sexy short skirt alone late at night". In either case you don't deserve violence.
- holtalanm 9y agoI was going to say. Living as a Red in a Blue state isn't much different than living as a Blue in a Red state. And I'm sitting here without any official party to call my own because I think both are idiotic with their identity politics. Which can be worse half the time because the Republicans think I'm a liberal, and the Democrats think I'm a conservative. (this coming from someone living in a red state).
- phkahler 9y ago>> Politics often don’t mix easily at work, but it’s particularly fraught in tech, where free thinking is prized yet the workforce is predominantly liberal. It used to be free thinking. They would embrace "inclusiveness" under that banner. The problem is they've gone all-in with the notion that being a Social Justice Warrior is a morally superior ideological position and anyone else is a bad person. They really have become a distinct hate group even though in some places they are a majority. I no longer associate with people who throw around the terms misogyny, patriarchy, and rape culture. I'm a pretty simple guy but I'm tired of hearing how bad I am just because I have a Y chromosome. The war on masculinity is very real.
- zimpenfish 9y ago> The war on masculinity is very real. It is not.
- yahna 9y ago> I'm a pretty simple guy but I'm tired of hearing how bad I am just because I have a Y chromosome. The war on masculinity is very real. Really, cause never once have I felt that way.
- gumby 9y agoOh boo hoo. For every supposedly "pro liberal" tech company there are plenty of "conservative" ones you can work for (EMC and Lockheed have huge presences in the Valley). Or you could just, you know, enjoy your technical work and not worry about the politics within a private sector organization. If you really think there's a change that needs to happen you could drive for it, but no, it's not inherently going to make you popular. The same issues faced by people who struggle/have struggled for more diversity in the private sector over the decades.
- Frondo 9y agoMy heart goes out to those lonely people. I think, though, the reality is that politics (and concomitant voting choices) has consequences on the lives of others, and this pattern of some social isolation is in turn a consequence of that. It isn't Star Wars vs Star Trek, it's whether Jim the SRE can marry his long-term boyfriend Mike, or whatever. It's not just politics. It never is. Votes make a difference in people's lives. What do conservatives expect, when society is moving away from the social views their party has aligned itself with? And, to remain solution-focused, how should the rest of us befriend them when the conservative party in this country has such views? What's the common ground we can look for? To go with gay issues (I have a lot more gay friends than people of color friends, so I'm more sympathetic to their issues day-to-day), to you folks out there who oppose gay marriage now, or supported Reagan when AIDS was decimating the gay community in the 80s, or any number of examples... How may I find common ground with you when your politics and votes have hurt so badly the community so many of my friends are a part of?
- vgh 9y agoI think this is still a false dichotomy. Some of us just don't want the government subsidizing marriage at all. Why should any dual-income pair get tax benefits? I say this as a married person. The thought I'm guessing at the time was to encourage new families to build up society, but not even all straight, married couples are doing that. Why not just take the government out of the equation and let anyone declare any kind of relationship status they want. It's not like I have to take part in it.
- Frondo 9y agoPersonally, I agree! I'd get the government out of marriage entirely, except to recognize whatever union you wanted. Because again there are real-world consequences, like being considered a family member if your loved one's in a hospital, or getting access to death benefits if your loved one dies in the line of duty, or whatever. But that's not what one of the two mainstream parties is saying: they're saying, "traditional marriage, and the rest of you can go sit on a fence." This stuff gets personal for so many people so quickly because, in effect, one political party is telling a lot of folks that their humanity is lesser or less deserving of access to government than the rest of us. How do you not take that personally (and make social choices based on), if you're in that group that's being told they should have less access to government?
- tchaffee 9y agoI think employees could use some training on how liberals and conservatives think very differently. When I became familiar with Jonathan Haidt and his moral foundations theory, I was able to better understand where conservatives are coming from, and even became a lot better at persuading. For example, when talking about confederate statues coming down, a conservative will respond to arguments around why it's traditional and patriotic to remove those statues (along with why it's fair) whereas a liberal will concentrate only on why it's fair. Make an argument that focuses only on the fairness aspect and the conservative will remain unconvinced and the liberal will think the conservative is a horrible person, because the liberal heavily values fairness. Liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness moral foundations and conservatives are equally sensitive to all the first five foundations. I think the sixth foundation was added for libertarians. - Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm. - Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating. - Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal. - Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion. - Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation. A sixth foundation, Liberty or oppression, was theorized by Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind chapter 8. Once you understand that the other person is thinking about the problem in a very different way than you, you can stop talking past each other and start getting to a sort of understanding. Haidt's TED talk is a fun introduction to the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc As a final note, I wonder if conservatives could use their own experiences to develop some much needed empathy for minorities and women in STEM? These groups seem to be at odds right now, but they actually have a lot in common when it comes to feeling like an outsider who will never fully be accepted. Likewise, minorities and women might be missing an opportunity for diversity allies because they are writing off conservatives as being against their cause without ever trying to look for common ground.
- ebfd 9y ago>I wonder if conservatives could use their own experiences to develop some much needed empathy for minorities and women in STEM How so? All the things cited as barriers to minorities/women in tech (underrepresentation, lack of depiction in the media, etc.) are doubly true for conservatives, yet conservatives don't consider them to be barriers. Not seeing conservative programmers depicted in movies seems like a hilariously trivial non-issue to me, so to hear minorities/women describe the same as "systemic violence" comes across as hysteria at best, and deceptive self-promotion at worst.
- jimbokun 9y ago"(That’s in a sector where 76 percent of technical jobs are held by men, and blacks and Latinos make up only 5 percent of the workforce.)" I think this is part of the problem. Leadership at Silicon Valley companies want to think of themselves as enlightened and egalitarian when it comes to issues of race and gender. However, in reality, they have created an environment made up mostly of white, Indian, and Asian men. So they are super sensitive and want to signal their virtue by cracking down on workers lower on the totem pole who seem insensitive to these diversity issues, because it's easier than making actual changes to improve diversity.
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- jzymbaluk 9y ago> an employee who describes himself as libertarian [...] believes the now infamous memo was relatively well-reasoned and that Silicon Valley's diversity initiatives ignore data that conflict with their ideology. He’s regularly reminded of what he refers to as the company’s “social justice agenda,” like when he gets corporate email touting a donation to a non-profit that supports minorities, or hears an executive talk about hoping to have half of his leadership team be female,which he believes shows the company prioritizes some groups over others. This makes zero sense to me. A private company having a corporate agenda and goals and using its power in the industry to enact social change sounds like something even Ayn Rand would be okay with. Libertarianism is supposed to champion the values of private property, political liberty and free association. This guy should realize he's working for a company with owners, and that under his own ideology, owners have every right to push whatever political agenda they want, and that if he has a problem with his company taking a stand on social justice, then that's fine, he should work somewhere else.
- burger_moon 9y agoWow This slid off the front page fast. It went from #1 to #33 in the time it took me to brush my teeth while I get ready for work. You can tell an article hits home when people are flagging it to death to hide it.
- qrpike 9y agoNow it's 215+.... Very strange
- Jtsummers 9y agoFlame war detection. I don't know how advanced it is, but it's partly based on the number of comments and depth of comment threads, and their rate of growth. If you have a handful of very deep threads that have grown in just a short period of time, it's often a sign of negative, hostile discussions. When detected, those posts get their score (for how they should be ordered) severely reduced.
- sctb 9y agoYes, this thread tripped the overheated-discussion detector. We've turned it off for now, but it's not exactly a false positive.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> You can tell an article hits home when people are flagging it to death to hide it. Where "hits home" means "outrage-inducing" and "divisive". It's perfectly understandable to flag such things, in order to prevent the place from degenerating into a typical discussion board, where people are up each others' throats over trivia instead of trying to create something useful together.
- calebgilbert 9y agoSaid 'flame war detection' services are amazing on how consistently they skew toward silencing any right of Chairman Mao posts.
- te_chris 9y agoWhy do these over-educated conspiracy theorists keep getting all this media space to pretend they're marginalised? Seriously, complaining about a "social justice agenda" and political oppression while your side controls all 3 branches of US federal govt., a bunch of the state govt. and, as an added bonus, faces weak political opposition seems to be the high point of self-indulgence or, perhaps, 'snowflakeness'. Seriously, if your whole cause is just a protest movement to complain about how other people don't agree with you or respect you, even once you hold power, what's the point of your politics?
- kbart 9y agoWhat I find strange and what keeps getting repeated in this thread is that if you don't agree on certain points of currently popular liberal trends, you are automatically being called "conservative" or even worse (bigot, racist, sexist etc. - you name it). I call myself liberal (I agree that all people are equal and nobody should tell how anybody lives, as long as it doesn't harm others), but I don't agree with some (maybe even most) of methods of current liberal-left trends. For example, just starting a discussion that artificial minorities/sex quotas in workplace does next to nothing solving a root cause of the problems is enough to start being called racist/sexist in some circles.
- Chaebixi 9y ago> What I find strange and what keeps getting repeated in this thread is that if you don't agree on certain points of currently popular liberal trends, you are automatically being called "conservative" or even worse (bigot, racist, sexist etc. - you name it). I think the adherents of those views are currently enthralled by the power they gain from shunning and social ostracism.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoA recent Joe Rogan Podcast had a really interesting discussion about this [1]. Basically one of the key points, especially in light of people being called Nazis (accurately or spuriously), is that one of the major social aspects of pre-war Germany was that there was radical polarization between fascist and anti-fascist groups similar to what we see now. However because the psychological makeup of someone who would support fascism is more drawn toward structuralism, law and order etc... they are much more organized and lethal as a group. You see echoes here with the Alt-Right and Antifa. Alt-Right is structured, highly armed, biologically motivated (aka racist) and generally support law enforcement. Antifa is a loose consolidation of many groups (LGBT, Socialists, Radfem etc...) that is under armed and would likely not be as cohesive in the long run. So by banning these hate groups from being searchable and driving them away, it just makes both sides echo each other more and gives strength to each extreme of the movements. Even worse, it gives people like the ones in this article no real option to be moderate - they basically feel like they need to join a radical ideology because they feel the only alternative is anathema. This is by the way what happens all over the world with terrorist recruiting etc... so the pattern is pretty well understood. If you create extremes, organizations will form around them and then the majority of people get drug along for the ride and do morally dubious things along the way. [1] https://youtu.be/6G59zsjM2UI?t=10m55s https://youtu.be/6G59zsjM2UI?t=10m55s
- notfromhere 9y agoGiven how many communist revolutions we've had in the past, it's not an issue of innate structure between the two groups
- saosebastiao 9y agoI've voted for GWB twice, Obama once and opted out for his reelection. I consider myself an overall conservative, albeit fairly liberal on some issues. I too have faced condescension and derision for some viewpoints I've expressed, and that is annoying and I think it is a general problem with US politics. But Trump is different. He's incompetent. He's hotheaded. He's terrible for diplomacy, and has alienated many of our allies. He's an advocate of sexual assault. He's an advocate of physical assault on immigrants. He's an implicit advocate of white supremacy. He can't keep his house in order. He colluded with Russia to manipulate the election in his favor. He has used his office for personal gain. He's the most evil president we've had since Andrew Jackson. If you can't understand why people are treating you so badly for political opinions, maybe it has less to do with you being a conservative and far more to do with being a supporter of a vile, reprehensible, defective human on the world's biggest power trip.
- djsumdog 9y agoI really don't think this is helpful or very HN like. You may hold all those opinions about him, and you may be right, but 60 million+ people voted for him, just like 60+ million people voted for the other puppet. It doesn't mean either of those groups is stupid. And it's important to note much of our perception is based off the particular news media we watch and they way they cut up content. If you go back to the Bush days and watch The Daily Show/Colbert make fun of him, and then watch the actual video the clips are taken from, you'd be surprised at how much the narrative changes in order to get a joke. Obama predator droned people for eight years and spent every day of his presidency at war (while winning a nobel peace prize). The rush to demonize trump often ignores that the last president didn't do anything better. He just spoke more elegantly.
- saosebastiao 9y agoI suspect you and I agree far more than we disagree on politics. There was a clear reason I opted against voting for Obama a second time, and you've already articulated half of it. I'm not worried about domestic policy...it should be pretty clear by now that Trump (like most presidents) has no real control over domestic policy. And I'm well aware of how media shapes our opinions, often intentionally. But at the expense of Godwin's law, Hitler was democratically elected, and that was still bad for the human race. At some point, popularity has to stop being an excuse for acceptability. I'm worried about the fact that we elected a bewilderingly incompetent and hotheaded abusive tyrant and put him in charge of the executive branch and the world's most overfunded military. I'm worried that he can choose judges, sign executive orders, pardon felons, control our borders. He's so so bad for our country and for our world that I've participated in a practice I regularly decry: I voted against him, for someone I would otherwise never vote for. At some point we have to say that that he is not okay, and that point should not be defined by his popularity but by simple moral reflection. I regularly laugh with pity at the imagined moral superiority of side-pickers, and yet I will choose a side here. I don't condemn people who vote party lines, and I don't condemn people that have ideological differences from me, but I also don't regret shaming and condemning people who vote for destructive evil, whether that evil comes in the form of Andrew Jackson, Adolf Hitler, Recep Erdogan, or Donald Trump. It needs to happen.
- astebbin 9y agoDespite the many upvotes, numerous comments, and recent post time, this submission no longer appears on the front page. I don't see a "submission flagged" or "removed" indicator. Would a moderator be able to tell us what's up?
- qrpike 9y agoAgreed. It went from #2 on front page, to #215 in half an hour.
- phkahler 9y ago>> Despite the many upvotes, numerous comments, and recent post time, this submission no longer appears on the front page. What you're witnessing is an example of the very thing the article is about. Calling out the SJWs on their bad behavior is not acceptable.
- sudoscript 9y ago133 points in 2 hours and it's not anywhere on the front page. Meanwhile, the current top post has 97 points in 3 hours. What is going on?
- sctb 9y agoFlags affect a story's ranking before the title says [flagged]. The flamewar detector software also kicked in (which accounted for the initial dramatic drop in rank), but we turned that off, despite the actual flamewars.
- oblib 9y agoGood. I hope they stay isolated until they see some light or fade away. I moved right into the thick of them, 77% of my neighbors voted for Trump the "pussy grabber" who's had over 3000 lawsuits from small businesses trying to collect money on work they delivered, all just to spite "libtards" and after just a few years ago when they were yelling about how immoral "Gay Marriage" is and even voted for a State Constitutional amendment to deny LGBTs that right because it would "Dilute the sanctity of their marriage". I've endured their calls to "Put prayer back in school" and scream "Run those protesters over with your car". In fact, just yesterday on FB one said "I really want to shoot those protesters." and I know for sure this person hasn't ever been near any of those protests, hasn't spent a second being inconvenienced by a protest. The idea that I should sit silent in the hurricane of hate they constantly blow is silly, and whiny, and disgusting.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoThat's an interesting choice of metaphor. What is the point of yelling at a hurricane? In more concrete terms, do you expect that isolating them will make them see the light? Isn't engaging them and talking to them respectfully more likely to make them change their mind? I grant that hating and being angry is easier. But don't fool yourself and think that you are virtuous for doing so and that you should be emulated.
- oblib 9y agoI never said I hated anyone and that is an interesting leap for you to make. In real life terms I have been engaging them for more than 2 decades now. In fact, in no small part here, where I live, my pointing out to my neighbors that Jesus said "There is no marriage in heaven" was precisely what quieted them down after the Supreme Court made their decision on that case. They went to their bibles and asked their Baptist ministers to explain that and the only thing they could do was quiet down, but I was loudly called a "liar" one even accused me of being in cahoots with the Devil for pointing that out. I've heard them yelling about their right to own guns for decades, and yelling about how "liberals" want to take them away from them, but they've had no problem with wanting to make laws against protesters and laws that require prayer in schools and laws about who can be married. It takes a whole lot of talking to them and engaging them, but sitting silent isn't part of that unless you listen to them too. And I listen constantly because they seldom stop talking about what's pissing them off.
- drivingmenuts 9y agoYou'd think people would know by now that two things you never, ever, ever discuss at the office are religion and politics, unless one of those happens to be the purpose of your work. Even then, not a good idea.
- Overtonwindow 9y ago“Before it was, ‘I don’t agree with you,’ but now it has evolved into this new thing that is much more aggressive, ‘don’t even say something that is counter to what I believe,’” This sums up rather well what I believe is a new era of righteous indignation in America. This is not isolated to just America, or Americans, but it's not something we've really had to deal with before. That righteous indignation manifests itself in how we react to people we disagree with, whether it's over a parking space, or something someone else does somewhere in the world that we don't like. The new belief is not "I disagree with you, go away" it's now "I disagree with you, and I'm going to do everything in my power to hurt you, destroy your reputation, get you fired from your job, and cause you as much pain as I can, likely from a distance." It borders on a collective superiority complex. As someone who has worked in Congress, now as a lobbyist, I think this began with the leadership of both parties. No longer do our elected officials find way to reach common ground on public issues. Instead, both parties, their leadership, and through their public relations and voter base, have turned to a tactic of "attack, defame, and destroy." Washington has become dysfunctional because of this righteous indignation, and it has permeated down to everyone else, made exponentially possible by the internet. I wish there was an easy solution, but I don't see one.
- ikeyany 9y agoThe phrase you're looking for is "cultural hegemony"[1]: 'The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist of eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor [and] organizer, as "permanent persuader", not just simple orator.' [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
- bb88 9y agoWhy is this news? If you have an unpopular opinion, you're going to be ostracized. If you oppose Obamacare in SF, you're gonna be ostracized. If you support gun control in Odessa, you're gonna be ostracized. You're hired to work. Not to share your opinion with your co-workers. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
- didibus 9y agoI agree with you, but I also feel some opinions sometime reflect into your own personality, and you're identity can be constructed around it. Humour can easily be racist or sexist for example. Now all of a sudden, you're just being yourself, making a joke you think people will laugh at and like you cause you're funny, but suddenly that backfires. Now, it's not just your opinions, even if you changed your opinions, the parts ingrained in your personality aren't easy to change at all. So you can start feeling isolated, or like you can't be yourself without offending or pushing people away.
- bb88 9y agoThat very reason is why no one talks about trying to change personalities. Instead we talk about changing behaviors.
- didibus 9y agoI'd guess this is only true if you're in favor of policies that are against other, targeted, groups or people. And that sounds okay to me. That's pretty equivalent to being an asshole. It's normal for people not to like you if you sound mean, unpleasant, and appear to be threatening. If you're being isolated and marginalised for opinions that aren't themselves marginalising, then there's a real problem.
- yahna 9y agoIf you are willing to support those who push those opinions then you deserve to be treated as a supporter of those opinions.
- sctb 9y agoCould you please slow down and stop doing battle in this thread? We're trying our best to learn something here, and that means comments need to be civil and substantive—they need to say something meaningful instead of just stoking the flames. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- neo4sure 9y agoAll I can is get used to it. Red states are in decline and the trend will continue into the future. There is a reason tech companies are liberal.
- yahna 9y ago> “We are here to do a job not expound political values.” and yet this guy still doesn't get why Damore was fired. I just don't bother talking politics at work mostly.
- justforFranz 9y agoHey, ya know what? There are some people who very strongly believe that the only place in America they can live safely is in the SF Bay Area. And we're going to see more and more stories in the news about why that's the case as time goes on.
- tempthoughtsss 9y agoDuh, It bills itself as that. SF is the liberal strong hold on the other side of the conservative strong hold. I think if you want moderate that or of small middle town middle America. It seems as if because the liberal cities do financially so much better than the small town America many of those conservative Americans want to move here and feel comfortable expressing and acting on their view. The problem is I don't want to welcome those ideas, and I don't want people comfortable saying those things around me. I have a good feeling there a reason why liberal places do better, and there no such thing as a conservative mega city in America. Those ideas don't work, they don't promote growth, and I think expressing those ideas would hamper the places where these liberal companies reside
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago>I don't want to welcome those ideas, and I don't want people comfortable saying those things around me. Would you support legislation to prevent people from expressing views that disagree with?
- tempthoughtsss 9y agoNo, the government shouldn't punish you for your views. But personally I sure as hell don't want it near me. I don't care why you think minimum wages should be low because everywhere it is trash. I don't care what social issue you believe should dominate because every conservative city has trash culture. I can think of a single conservative idea I'd want implement and I think it's a weird cognitive dissonance that you believe that B.S. but would move all the way to the most liberal city in the world instead of one with those stupid ideas.
- synicalx 9y agoThere's wisdom in what my grandma always says: Don't talk about politics, it's rude. And guess what, 25 years of being related to her and she hasn't once hit me with a bit of wood over a difference of opinion.