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“A lot of the ideas here will not actually get you ostracized from Silicon Valley society.” Oh dude you have just not been paying attention. Can you show me a
by evangelista 9y ago
“A lot of the ideas here will not actually get you ostracized from Silicon Valley society.”
Oh dude you have just not been paying attention.
Can you show me a single example of someone in tech who publicly expresses, at any point, any of the beliefs which are “not allowed?”
I’m looking for one.
Find me one person on Twitter in tech aside from John McAfee or Peter Theil who would dare. Sam Altman was good enough to step forward, I hope he won’t be the last. The complete and total castigation of the dude by every tech media outlet showed exactly what happens to anyone who isn’t rich enough not to care.
While Sam Altman can take a beating, a standard employee like James Damore can’t. Did we forget about him? Apparently we did!
Show me a single tech luminary staying that diversity is overrated and has numerous downsides (such as the degradation of communal trust which had swept the valley), that we don’t actually need additional codes of conduct to add protections that are already covered in the US legal code at every Meetup, that all gender bathrooms are lunacy or that most of the Millenials coming into the job market have an incredibly broken and fearful view of the world that is unwarranted by the available evidence.
Show me a single tech luminary willing to say that women should realize they have advantages and disadvantages and should take responsibility for guarding themselves st off-site social events to avoid being approached by men.
One! Show me one!
I can find these opinions on conservative podcasts but I have never seen anyone express them in tech. Ever!
I see a non-stop avalanche of one set of these opinions on every social media feed, internal company meeting and industry conference.
I have NEVER seen ANYONE notable in tech aside from Peter Thiel, who has been made untouchable st this point.
Why is that? It’s because they know it’s not good business and they will get to join Peter Theil in the excommunicated pile.
A great example is Scott Adams. Scott used to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year giving paid speeches.
When he began writing about Trump, he was excommunicated and all of his speaking gigs were cancelled.
Another great example is the systematic and deliberate demonetization of conservative YouTube videos. People who are very balanced and fair like Dave Rubin have had their videos defunded for having conservative speakers as interview guests.
Twitter has been notorious for slowing down or “never getting around to” giving Blue Check Marks to conservative speakers - If I remember correctly, Scott Adams had to reach a simply insane number of followers before being given the check.
The hatred of conservatives and direct, persecutory and economic attacks on them is real, ongoing and getting worse.
Seriously - if you believe most of these opinions won’t harm your career if expressed publicly, you have really not been paying attention.
If you don’t believe me - Try it. Go on Twitter right now and say: “all gender bathrooms are stupid.”
Watch what happens.
- tstactplsignore 9y agoI don't think I could convince you of anything. But can I ask: if the other side were right, and some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell? There are definitely some political views that should be socially discouraged and attacked and there should be social repercussions for the people who express them. You disagree on whether some particular views fit in this category. You must admit that from your position, it can be very difficult to distinguish between unfair persecution and genuine persecution. For the record, if a company I work for invited someone as purely evil / anti-intellectual and vapid as Scott Adams to give a speech, I would absolutely resign in protest.
- yzhou 9y agowhy do you say Scott Adams is purely evil?
- blfr 9y agoI can maybe see how Scott Adams is anti-intellectual, although people claiming to be rational should definitely consider his view, but how is he "purely evil"?
- Cookingboy 9y agoIf you really think Scott Adams is "purely evil", as in Hitler level, I have some strong suspicion that you are a troll that is trying to make liberals look ridiculous. If not, then I have a feeling that you mistakenly equate many opposing ideas to "pure evil ideologies".
- tstactplsignore 9y agoI could list off how he treats his purposeful ignorance and anti-intellectualism as a virtue, how he pushed a strange cult-like "persuation" pseudoscience that also celebrates a kind of selfish creepiness as a virtue, his endorsement of Trump, his purposefully disengenious gas lighting of his critics, and arguably most impotant, his advocating for climate denial- But I don't think we can reconcile our viewpoints in the comments here, and I think you missed my entire point. My point was it is very difficult to tell right from wrong when those wrongs are widely accepted by society. A majority of Germans in the 1930s either believed in Nazism or believed it was just an "opposing idea". An even larger majority of Americans in the 60s disapproved of MLK, and either believed in racist laws or believed that they were just "opposing ideas". My point is that once again, you are now in a position where a minority of people believe that some ideas are truly evil and not worthy of any merit. You are sympathetic towards these ideas, or unsympathetic to their opponents (just as many who disapproved of Jim Crow laws but thought MLK was too radical)- so I hope you can at least realize that statistically speaking, you're in a position where it has traditionally been very difficult for people to determine right from wrong.