6 ms·

If you're willing to say, whereabouts are you? My impression is that the rampant illiberalism in tech is mostly confined to California/SV and companies headquar

by mrec 6y ago

If you're willing to say, whereabouts are you? My impression is that the rampant illiberalism in tech is mostly confined to California/SV and companies headquartered there. Which needn't damn the whole sector, but is still worrying considering how influential those places are.

renewiltord 6y ago
I live in San Francisco. To be clear, here are some views I've expressed and had others discuss with me while still treating me kindly after both as a human being and as a coworker: * Universal tracking and rating would allow better standards of living for normative people * It's okay to exclude low-quality people from some parts of cities since they are generally bad for everyone else * It's okay for some army of people to be kept quiescent with heroin since it is societally cheaper than attempting to get them productive * Government employees are mostly rent-seekers. We can create systems far more capable than them. * Most government services should also have auction lanes where you can just bypass the normal line. Essentially, lots of anti-equity stuff, lots of anti-privacy stuff, lots of callous nonsense. People engage with this all in good faith (which is nice, because I'm not trolling them).
- mrec 6y ago
  That's certainly controversial, but seems to avoid the major Hot Buttons Of Doom i.e. anything coded on (or insufficiently coded on) the officially important kinds of identity label.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I don't want to be flagged here, so I avoided mentioning any of those. Rest assured that I didn't hesitate to correlate "low-quality people" or who should be given heroin instead of jobs with the appropriate visible markers.
- Bakary 6y ago
  What you describe just sounds like standard neoliberal ideas that tech people with high salaries are likely to gravitate towards. That said, some of these are not necessarily expressed directly or are cloaked in euphemisms and emerge more as actual behavior than stated opinions. In any case, I'm not sure why you expected ostracism in the tech sector from those opinions alone.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I don't expect ostracism because I don't get ostracised. I expect to be listened to and it happens because people in real life like listening to me. I suspect lots of people are just expressing views no one is eager to debate because they're uninteresting.
    - Bakary 6y ago
      In my experience, people only want to debate views that are familiar but with a twist. The actual depth of the opinion is not the main factor. For instance, among those you have listed there is the bog-standard and comforting "we have to control poor people and keep them away from us" but with the pretend-edgy "using heroin" as a twist. An excellent candidate to invite debate. If you were to express views that were actually alien to them, I sincerely doubt you'd find an audience among your colleagues no matter your personal characteristics.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        I suspect that no matter how abhorrent the view is, I can start an in-person discussion if there is scope for discussion¹. Go ahead, state them here. I will bring the arguments up in person. ¹ The relative merits of coprophagia, for instance, are sort of boring. Some enjoy it, others are disgusted, but there's really nothing interesting about "is coprophagia cool". Likewise, "are evil Jew bankers eating babies?" is sort of boring too.
        Bakary 6y ago
        >I suspect that no matter how abhorrent the view is, I can start an in-person discussion if there is scope for discussion¹. Go ahead, state them here. I will bring the arguments up in person. I don't need to be convinced, I am sure you can come up with arguments for any topic. My point is more along the lines that what stops debates in real life isn't edginess, extreme views in and of themselves, or the lack of arguments. After all, many people enjoy the feeling of camaraderie that comes from sharing purportedly taboo topics with people they don't know all that well yet. It's just that what is actually abhorrent as measured by people's actual rejection of a discussion has more to do with calling into question the status or material wealth of their own class. For example, looking at a typical high-salary liberal in the tech sector, they generally hold a mix of standard pro-equity beliefs, some more discreet randian/ancap beliefs about separating themselves from what they see as lower classes and the meddling government, and a strong taboo surrounding an actual decrease in their social or effective capital. Of course, this is all an intuitive reasoning based on anecdotal experience, so we might just be butting anecdotal realities at each other.

by mrec 6y ago

renewiltord 6y ago

I live in San Francisco. To be clear, here are some views I've expressed and had others discuss with me while still treating me kindly after both as a human being and as a coworker: * Universal tracking and rating would allow better standards of living for normative people * It's okay to exclude low-quality people from some parts of cities since they are generally bad for everyone else * It's okay for some army of people to be kept quiescent with heroin since it is societally cheaper than attempting to get them productive * Government employees are mostly rent-seekers. We can create systems far more capable than them. * Most government services should also have auction lanes where you can just bypass the normal line. Essentially, lots of anti-equity stuff, lots of anti-privacy stuff, lots of callous nonsense. People engage with this all in good faith (which is nice, because I'm not trolling them).

mrec 6y ago
That's certainly controversial, but seems to avoid the major Hot Buttons Of Doom i.e. anything coded on (or insufficiently coded on) the officially important kinds of identity label.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I don't want to be flagged here, so I avoided mentioning any of those. Rest assured that I didn't hesitate to correlate "low-quality people" or who should be given heroin instead of jobs with the appropriate visible markers.
Bakary 6y ago
What you describe just sounds like standard neoliberal ideas that tech people with high salaries are likely to gravitate towards. That said, some of these are not necessarily expressed directly or are cloaked in euphemisms and emerge more as actual behavior than stated opinions. In any case, I'm not sure why you expected ostracism in the tech sector from those opinions alone.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I don't expect ostracism because I don't get ostracised. I expect to be listened to and it happens because people in real life like listening to me. I suspect lots of people are just expressing views no one is eager to debate because they're uninteresting.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    In my experience, people only want to debate views that are familiar but with a twist. The actual depth of the opinion is not the main factor. For instance, among those you have listed there is the bog-standard and comforting "we have to control poor people and keep them away from us" but with the pretend-edgy "using heroin" as a twist. An excellent candidate to invite debate. If you were to express views that were actually alien to them, I sincerely doubt you'd find an audience among your colleagues no matter your personal characteristics.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      I suspect that no matter how abhorrent the view is, I can start an in-person discussion if there is scope for discussion¹. Go ahead, state them here. I will bring the arguments up in person. ¹ The relative merits of coprophagia, for instance, are sort of boring. Some enjoy it, others are disgusted, but there's really nothing interesting about "is coprophagia cool". Likewise, "are evil Jew bankers eating babies?" is sort of boring too.
      - Bakary 6y ago
        >I suspect that no matter how abhorrent the view is, I can start an in-person discussion if there is scope for discussion¹. Go ahead, state them here. I will bring the arguments up in person. I don't need to be convinced, I am sure you can come up with arguments for any topic. My point is more along the lines that what stops debates in real life isn't edginess, extreme views in and of themselves, or the lack of arguments. After all, many people enjoy the feeling of camaraderie that comes from sharing purportedly taboo topics with people they don't know all that well yet. It's just that what is actually abhorrent as measured by people's actual rejection of a discussion has more to do with calling into question the status or material wealth of their own class. For example, looking at a typical high-salary liberal in the tech sector, they generally hold a mix of standard pro-equity beliefs, some more discreet randian/ancap beliefs about separating themselves from what they see as lower classes and the meddling government, and a strong taboo surrounding an actual decrease in their social or effective capital. Of course, this is all an intuitive reasoning based on anecdotal experience, so we might just be butting anecdotal realities at each other.