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> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On

> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On the other side are ignorant and/or dishonest actors out to avoid being embarrassed. It's all on you if you pick the wrong one out of loyalty to a political party.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem There are a hell of a lot of computer scientists and engineers who vote republican, certainty not a majority but definitely a large enough minority you can't discount them. They just don't broadcast it for reasons that should be obvious to anyone reading these comments.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  Yeah, hi from the peanut gallery. I vote R because they support some things I value. I just don't talk about it at work, because I'm not suicidal.
- ribosometronome 5y ago
  They're embarrassed to be seen supporting candidates that are so transparently anti-science, anti-education and anti-reason?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    All three of those labels can easily be applied to both major parties, just with different examples. Conservatives tend to not speak up because the hyperbolic vitriol has gotten out of hand.
    - joe5150 5y ago
      they could easily find a social circle and likely a workplace too where their views are accepted or even celebrated. why don't they?
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        "Run a tech company that employs conservatives" is not a business plan. It isn't easy to know what kind of bubble you are getting into until it is too late. OTOH, tech conservatives tend to be more libertarian than socially conservative, so (massive generalization here) tend to prefer to work at work and do politics elsewhere. "Celebrating" political positions is such a foreign concept to me that I dont even know where to begin with that. Left or right, I would probably avoid it.
- danbmil99 5y ago
  At this point, voting for Republican candidates means supporting an institution that has given up on Democratic norms and is clearly aiming at an authoritarian takeover of the government of the United States. Up until about 5 years ago I would agree that being even-handed on political matters is appropriate. But when one political party has gone completely mad with lust for power and has given up on science and rationality, how you vote is no longer just a political matter. The threat the Republican Party poses to the country and the world is existential. And yes, there are crazies on the left, but no, they are nowhere near the threat posed by the GOP. The difference is several orders of magnitude.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    If you believe Donald Trump gave up on democratic norms and was "aiming [for] an authoritarian takeover," then surely you must recognize that it was Republicans like Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Brad Raffensperger, Stephen Riche, and others who stopped him... right?
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      There's been, for a long time, an intra-party struggle between right-wing populist insurgents and establishment/institutionalists since Newt Gingrich. It was a slow process, but over time it seems the former are winning, the most obvious first sign was the McCain-Palin ticket (Palin being the populist). The scene as increasingly been victorious for the insurgents. Those guys you are pointing out are hanging on by their fingernails.
    - danbmil99 5y ago
      Yes, and the big guy has incessantly gone after each one you mention, hoping to drum them out of the party. I wonder what his motivation is... Even now, the few who voted to impeach over Jan 6 are cowed and quiet. Mitt Romney just voted against the Manchin-approved compromise voting rights bill. These cowards are all afraid of their shadows. It's an incredible, once-per-century show of absolute cowardice and submission to a strongman. The US has a decent shot of going the way of Turkey, Hungary, and Venezuela. The elected GOP senators and congresspeople are 100% to blame. They are sad, sorry, craven and ineffectual people.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  I don’t know how they vote or if they identify with any parties, but there is a disturbing, very patriarchal strain of neo-feudalism I have encountered in some tech circles — basically the idea that we need to return to a time of lords and serfs. Of course I have found that when pressed, those who hold this philosophy seem to picture themselves as the lords in this fantasy utopia. Maybe these are just power fantasies, but some of them seem very serious about it (Curtis Yarvin is probably the most notable of the bunch)
  - fnimick 5y ago
    Techbro libertarians are the worst - the people who think that because some can be successful, anyone who is disadvantaged is so because of personal failings and is underserving of help. Naturally this leads to anti-democratic leanings to protect their wealth. See Peter Thiel: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The freedom he desires is the freedom to use his privilege to oppress others.
  - api 5y ago
    I was really into early hacker and BBS culture in the 90s, and this point of view was rare to nonexistent. There was a lot of teen and young adult angst and egotism but that’s not unusual. It wasn’t ideological and the ideas tended to be either left or libertarian. I would have called myself a libertarian back then but that was back when words meant things, or at least more than they do now. I stopped using the term when the fascists took it over. It’s popular in some left leaning circles and particularly among people who did not live through that era to claim that libertarianism and cyberculture was always like this. It wasn’t. There was a mass conversion event around the early 20-teens that sort of coincided with Gamergate (not sure how important GG was but that was the era). I’d say a large proportion of an entire generation of younger “hacker” types were mass converted to fascism or neoreaction. Racism also made a massive comeback. I still don’t fully understand it. The LessWrong orbit seems to be a major factor. I never found that whole circle particularly interesting, but a lot of people sure did.
pugets 5y ago
It's okay for people to vote D on some issues and R on some other issues. That's pretty much an inevitability for any person with diverse views in a two-party system. Besides, at the end of the day, how different are the two sides? One party wants to prosecute a reporter who found a site vulnerability, and the other party wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA.
- input_sh 5y ago
  > One party wants to prosecute a reporter who found a site vulnerability, and both parties wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA. FTFY, unless you think Rs have any interest in dropping charges against Snowden. So even in your own examples, one party clearly has the upper hand, and it's not R.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Come on. The two situations are entirely different. One side is trying to prosecute a journalist who clicked view source and embarrassed an incompetent IT department. There was never any law broken under any remotely plausible legal theory. The other side is trying to prosecute someone who violated their NDA to not disclose classified info. Now, you might think what he did was a net positive (I certainly do), but on the other hand it is objectively illegal. The DOJ could use their discretion and drop it, but they don't have to.
- sophacles 5y ago
  > and the other party wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA. I'm pretty sure both parties want that. Any successful system will work to perpetuate itself.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    Show me a majority of democratic leaders wanting Ranked Voting, and I have a bridge to sell you, for example. Democrats and Republican leadership *want* the "good v evil" dichotomy of their party versus the other.
lostlogin 5y ago
> On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On the other side are ignorant and/or dishonest actors out to avoid being embarrassed. It's all on you if you pick the wrong one out of loyalty to a political party. A two party system has basically set this up to occur. I can’t see that it could ever be changed, but it’s utterly toxic.
- dexwiz 5y ago
  Both sides could accept intellectualism like they accept capitalism? There is nothing that says each party needs to take an opposing view on literally every topic. Rs and Ds like to fight all day in the media, but there is plenty of things concerning money and control that they will happily pass without public debate.
orangecat 5y ago
On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. Which includes Republicans: https://twitter.com/tonylovasco/status/1448672694065668105 https://twitter.com/tonylovasco/status/1448672694065668105 If you want to make scientific ignorance a political issue, we can discuss nuclear power, GMOs, unreasonable COVID restrictions, and plenty more.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > we can discuss nuclear power, GMOs, unreasonable COVID restrictions If you want to discuss those things, it's worth first pointing out that the US had the worst Covid death toll of the G7 countries[0] and that red states had higher case and death rates than blue states[1]. Also, it's possible to accept the science of nuclear power and GMOs while still not trusting large corporations to exercise sufficient care and restraint when given control over nuclear material and life itself, especially when the government agencies ultimately responsible for regulating those technologies are half the time appointed by a party that doesn't believe in regulations or government. [0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-death-rate-worse-britain-covid-nkkkdcdg2 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-death-rate-worse-brita... [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/covid-cases-deaths-red-blue-states-late-2020/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/covid-cases-deat...
RobRivera 5y ago
sigh Kansas City native here. I vote democratic and agree with the comment you are replying to. there is one data point that this isnt a partisan issue, but a rather non-partisan one involving an elected official. Go Tom Brady, give the Buccs another win and put some dirt in Maholmes' eye.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem There are a hell of a lot of computer scientists and engineers who vote republican, certainty not a majority but definitely a large enough minority you can't discount them. They just don't broadcast it for reasons that should be obvious to anyone reading these comments.

rpmisms 5y ago
Yeah, hi from the peanut gallery. I vote R because they support some things I value. I just don't talk about it at work, because I'm not suicidal.
ribosometronome 5y ago
They're embarrassed to be seen supporting candidates that are so transparently anti-science, anti-education and anti-reason?
- zdragnar 5y ago
  All three of those labels can easily be applied to both major parties, just with different examples. Conservatives tend to not speak up because the hyperbolic vitriol has gotten out of hand.
  - joe5150 5y ago
    they could easily find a social circle and likely a workplace too where their views are accepted or even celebrated. why don't they?
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      "Run a tech company that employs conservatives" is not a business plan. It isn't easy to know what kind of bubble you are getting into until it is too late. OTOH, tech conservatives tend to be more libertarian than socially conservative, so (massive generalization here) tend to prefer to work at work and do politics elsewhere. "Celebrating" political positions is such a foreign concept to me that I dont even know where to begin with that. Left or right, I would probably avoid it.
danbmil99 5y ago
At this point, voting for Republican candidates means supporting an institution that has given up on Democratic norms and is clearly aiming at an authoritarian takeover of the government of the United States. Up until about 5 years ago I would agree that being even-handed on political matters is appropriate. But when one political party has gone completely mad with lust for power and has given up on science and rationality, how you vote is no longer just a political matter. The threat the Republican Party poses to the country and the world is existential. And yes, there are crazies on the left, but no, they are nowhere near the threat posed by the GOP. The difference is several orders of magnitude.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  If you believe Donald Trump gave up on democratic norms and was "aiming [for] an authoritarian takeover," then surely you must recognize that it was Republicans like Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Brad Raffensperger, Stephen Riche, and others who stopped him... right?
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    There's been, for a long time, an intra-party struggle between right-wing populist insurgents and establishment/institutionalists since Newt Gingrich. It was a slow process, but over time it seems the former are winning, the most obvious first sign was the McCain-Palin ticket (Palin being the populist). The scene as increasingly been victorious for the insurgents. Those guys you are pointing out are hanging on by their fingernails.
  - danbmil99 5y ago
    Yes, and the big guy has incessantly gone after each one you mention, hoping to drum them out of the party. I wonder what his motivation is... Even now, the few who voted to impeach over Jan 6 are cowed and quiet. Mitt Romney just voted against the Manchin-approved compromise voting rights bill. These cowards are all afraid of their shadows. It's an incredible, once-per-century show of absolute cowardice and submission to a strongman. The US has a decent shot of going the way of Turkey, Hungary, and Venezuela. The elected GOP senators and congresspeople are 100% to blame. They are sad, sorry, craven and ineffectual people.
ModernMech 5y ago
I don’t know how they vote or if they identify with any parties, but there is a disturbing, very patriarchal strain of neo-feudalism I have encountered in some tech circles — basically the idea that we need to return to a time of lords and serfs. Of course I have found that when pressed, those who hold this philosophy seem to picture themselves as the lords in this fantasy utopia. Maybe these are just power fantasies, but some of them seem very serious about it (Curtis Yarvin is probably the most notable of the bunch)
- fnimick 5y ago
  Techbro libertarians are the worst - the people who think that because some can be successful, anyone who is disadvantaged is so because of personal failings and is underserving of help. Naturally this leads to anti-democratic leanings to protect their wealth. See Peter Thiel: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The freedom he desires is the freedom to use his privilege to oppress others.
- api 5y ago
  I was really into early hacker and BBS culture in the 90s, and this point of view was rare to nonexistent. There was a lot of teen and young adult angst and egotism but that’s not unusual. It wasn’t ideological and the ideas tended to be either left or libertarian. I would have called myself a libertarian back then but that was back when words meant things, or at least more than they do now. I stopped using the term when the fascists took it over. It’s popular in some left leaning circles and particularly among people who did not live through that era to claim that libertarianism and cyberculture was always like this. It wasn’t. There was a mass conversion event around the early 20-teens that sort of coincided with Gamergate (not sure how important GG was but that was the era). I’d say a large proportion of an entire generation of younger “hacker” types were mass converted to fascism or neoreaction. Racism also made a massive comeback. I still don’t fully understand it. The LessWrong orbit seems to be a major factor. I never found that whole circle particularly interesting, but a lot of people sure did.

pugets 5y ago

It's okay for people to vote D on some issues and R on some other issues. That's pretty much an inevitability for any person with diverse views in a two-party system. Besides, at the end of the day, how different are the two sides? One party wants to prosecute a reporter who found a site vulnerability, and the other party wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA.

input_sh 5y ago
> One party wants to prosecute a reporter who found a site vulnerability, and both parties wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA. FTFY, unless you think Rs have any interest in dropping charges against Snowden. So even in your own examples, one party clearly has the upper hand, and it's not R.
xxpor 5y ago
Come on. The two situations are entirely different. One side is trying to prosecute a journalist who clicked view source and embarrassed an incompetent IT department. There was never any law broken under any remotely plausible legal theory. The other side is trying to prosecute someone who violated their NDA to not disclose classified info. Now, you might think what he did was a net positive (I certainly do), but on the other hand it is objectively illegal. The DOJ could use their discretion and drop it, but they don't have to.
sophacles 5y ago
> and the other party wants to prosecute the man who exposed the world to the dragnet surveillance being conducted by the NSA. I'm pretty sure both parties want that. Any successful system will work to perpetuate itself.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  Show me a majority of democratic leaders wanting Ranked Voting, and I have a bridge to sell you, for example. Democrats and Republican leadership *want* the "good v evil" dichotomy of their party versus the other.

lostlogin 5y ago

> On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. On the other side are ignorant and/or dishonest actors out to avoid being embarrassed. It's all on you if you pick the wrong one out of loyalty to a political party. A two party system has basically set this up to occur. I can’t see that it could ever be changed, but it’s utterly toxic.

dexwiz 5y ago
Both sides could accept intellectualism like they accept capitalism? There is nothing that says each party needs to take an opposing view on literally every topic. Rs and Ds like to fight all day in the media, but there is plenty of things concerning money and control that they will happily pass without public debate.

orangecat 5y ago

On one side are the computer scientists and engineers who understand the nature of the problem. Which includes Republicans: https://twitter.com/tonylovasco/status/1448672694065668105 https://twitter.com/tonylovasco/status/1448672694065668105 If you want to make scientific ignorance a political issue, we can discuss nuclear power, GMOs, unreasonable COVID restrictions, and plenty more.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> we can discuss nuclear power, GMOs, unreasonable COVID restrictions If you want to discuss those things, it's worth first pointing out that the US had the worst Covid death toll of the G7 countries[0] and that red states had higher case and death rates than blue states[1]. Also, it's possible to accept the science of nuclear power and GMOs while still not trusting large corporations to exercise sufficient care and restraint when given control over nuclear material and life itself, especially when the government agencies ultimately responsible for regulating those technologies are half the time appointed by a party that doesn't believe in regulations or government. [0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-death-rate-worse-britain-covid-nkkkdcdg2 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-death-rate-worse-brita... [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/covid-cases-deaths-red-blue-states-late-2020/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/covid-cases-deat...

RobRivera 5y ago

sigh Kansas City native here. I vote democratic and agree with the comment you are replying to. there is one data point that this isnt a partisan issue, but a rather non-partisan one involving an elected official. Go Tom Brady, give the Buccs another win and put some dirt in Maholmes' eye.